Baka-Tsuki - User contributions [en]

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter1

2026-01-14T07:46:22Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 1 */

==Chapter 1: Fleeing Time Bomb – DEVIL_in_Science_World.==

===Part 1===

Midnight.

The world was meant to be tumbling toward destruction at this time, but Academy City remained intact. But that wouldn’t last if Great Demon Coronzon was allowed to get away. Then the overtime they had earned would only delay that doom until tomorrow.

The red snow had absorbed the explosive soot, dust, and other impurities produced by a warlike situation, but it had ceased.

“Sitra Achra… I knew the theory, but I never imagined I would see it for myself,” said Index in a daze.

Othinus emerged from the white hood and moved to Kamijou’s shoulder.

Wasn’t that the thing Coronzon had used to blow away the thick clouds overhead?

The only one here who seemed sleepy was the calico cat in the girl’s arms.

“That doesn’t help us,” whispered mourning clothes Mikoto, her voice low. “A clear night sky will only allow the temperature to drop thanks to radiative cooling. The red snow has stopped, but there’s enough on the ground to keep traffic a mess. All it did is make this city even more deadly.”

Snow plowing, distributing food, distributing warm clothing – there was a lot that had to be done. But Coronzon was the greatest threat and, until she had been dealt with, everyone had to focus on her. They couldn’t afford to dedicate sufficient manpower to those other tasks.

They had to end this before someone died.

…And Kamijou was also worried about Human Aleister, who remained inside the great demon.

“Teacher!”

“Fool, explain the situation.”

A few more people approached at a run.

Alice Anotherbible, Anna Sprengel, and some more.

Coronzon had mentioned some spatial trickery preventing them from approaching this place…but that must have stopped functioning after she chose to run.

Kamijou intended to give a succinct explanation, but Index and Mikoto joined the conversation too. Even Othinus tugged on his ear from his shoulder. A lot more people than he thought had questions.

He looked up to see the friendly(?) flying pair of the Bologna Succubus and Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. The term “air support” sounded so reassuring at the moment.

He saw another winged girl too.

That one was the artificial demon Qliphah Puzzle 545.

“Wh-what about my master? Has the Board Chairman come to yet?”

“Dammit, I don’t think we can expect any support from him. We’ll just have to do this ourselves.”

“~ ~ ~!!!”

With some noisy flapping, Qliphah Puzzle 545 rapidly took flight.

“Where is she going?” asked Alice Anotherbible, tilting her head up toward the night sky.

She may have been on her way to Accelerator’s secret base. Kamijou didn’t bother stopping her. He didn’t know what she intended to do, but if Accelerator was unconscious, he would need someone’s support.

A loud voice reached him from elsewhere.

It belonged to Kanzaki Kaori.

The Anglicans had to have tens of thousands of people in Academy City.

“We must set up a surveillance network centered on District 7. With her wings damaged, Coronzon will be limited to travel on foot. If you do spot her, do not attempt to face her on your own. Make sure to share the information you receive with your own eyes and ears. Losing that information will only give her a chance to escape!”

She was one of the world’s fewer than twenty Saints.

Kamijou had heard she could run at supersonic speed if she wanted to, but she was matching the others’ speed now.

“I can’t push my body too hard.” Looking composed, Kanzaki answered Kamijou’s gaze. “I will of course remove that limitation once Coronzon has been sighted, but I want to avoid breaking the sound barrier without a solid lead. Because I don’t want to be too worn out to fight by the time I do reach her.”

He doubted that was her only reason.

In the end, Kanzaki was afraid. They were up against Great Demon Coronzon. What if she moved out ahead, leaving her allies behind, and Coronzon snuck in from behind? Then the allies she had left behind in supposed safety would be killed one after another. She most feared a situation like that where only she and her Saintly luck managed to survive.

The red snow crunched below several feet.

More and more magic side pursuers were arriving: Tatemiya Saiji and Itsuwa of the Amakusas, Agnese and Lucia of the former Catholics, and the standard Anglicans.

They needed as much help as they could get.

Academy City covered around a third of Tokyo and contained a population of 2.3 million. They had to find and apprehend a single individual fleeing through that city. Kamijou had no idea if they could actually do it, but the world would be destroyed if they failed tonight.

His entire body ached.

He even felt like something was wrong with the connections between his bones.

But he clenched his teeth and spoke as if directing a challenge toward Kanzaki, who had taken charge.

“I’m going too. I’m the one who fought Coronzon and let her escape. I’m responsible for this, so use me for whatever’s necessary.”

“But…”

“Aleister answered my call. He must still be fighting against Coronzon, so I can’t just go lie in a hospital bed!”

Kanzaki Kaori sighed softly.

She looked away from him and toward Index and Mikoto.

“Always have at least two people with you who you can rely on. I am not permitting you to act on your own.”

“I know I’m asking a lot! Thank-”

“Don’t push your luck. I honestly think it would be a lot simpler to knock you out with a punch to the gut, but that would be too cruel given your injuries. I don’t want to overdo it and kill you.”

…How was he supposed to react to something like that?

Kanzaki Kaori continued in complete seriousness.

“You are in a terrible state. If you refuse to let others support you, I really will knock you out. So choose whichever option you consider safer.”

She likely only made such a swift decision because of how pressing the situation was.

“Fool,” said Anna Sprengel. “Coronzon is on her way to escape Academy City even now.”

“Yes,” agreed Index. “We need to stop her before she crosses the wall and is released into the wider world.”

Kamijou nodded at them both.

Kanzaki reacted with exasperation.

“You really don’t change, do you? I don’t know if I should call you reckless or what.”

“Sorry, but I’m not going to die so easily. I swore I wouldn’t waste this life granted to me in hell.”

For some reason, the earnestness of this response made Kanzaki recoil.

But what about an ordinary high school boy could frighten a great Saint like her?

“Heyyy!” called down a voice overhead.

The Bologna Succubus had descended to circle slowly in the night sky above. With Blodeuwedd the Bouquet dangling from her. The low angle was terribly risque when the girl was only wearing a naked apron below the thick metal coat.

“Still no hints for tracking down Coronzon? Then we’ll fly back up and continue our search.”

“W-wait. I thought magicians weren’t suppose to fly! Wasn’t there some weird rule about flying being easy but bringing you down also being easy!?”

“We can survive even if we are brought down, so no worries. In fact, being brought down would tell us Coronzon is nearby, so it would actually be good news.”

With that said, the Bologna Succubus swung Blodeuwedd the Bouquet around in one hand and ascended back into the night sky.

Yet a lively voice still came from Kanzaki’s hand. …So was Kanzaki holding some kind of communication spiritual item?

“As a lover of the unloved, I’ve honestly taken an interest in Coronzon too.”

Kamijou’s jaw dropped.

(Wait, wait, don’t tell me some weird flag has been triggered in Blodeuwedd the Bouquet!)

But he was afraid a careless question about it would push her in the wrong direction.

The Bologna Succubus’s gloomy voice responded. Sounding like she was used to this.

“Side with her and I finally have the justification I need. I will murder you, satisfying years of resentment, you lewd goddess.”

“(This isn’t good, human. For the Transcendents, their salvation conditions are even more important than their own lives.)”

Othinus was right.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet’s comments were certainly concerning, but…

“Too bad. What I’m looking for is someone who’s starved for love. When people are providing a plentiful supply at their own expense and she brushes it off as an unasked-for nuisance, it just pisses me off.”

“So maybe there’s nothing to worry about for now?”

Index did not sound very confident. It didn’t inspire much confidence either.

The Transcendents really were a challenge.

Also, why even bring the naked apron girl along? But Blodeuwedd the Bouquet didn’t seem particular bothered by it.

“Those two must be really good frien- dwah?!”

Kamijou didn’t even finish his comment before something fell from the sky.

If he hadn’t noticed it and dodged out of the way, a glass terrarium heavier than a flower pot would have struck him right in the head. Othinus, who had nearly become collateral damage on his shoulder, looked up into the sky and said something.

“That’s the same deadly prank pulled by rude city crows up on building rooftops.”

The sound of something beating at the air interrupted them.

Was the dazzling light a searchlight or something?

“This is Yomikawa of Anti-Skill! We can only perform a primitive search in the helicopter, but we can’t expect any help from drones or satellites right now!! Where should we start looking!?”

“Fool. It looks like the search can continue even if those silly magicians are brought down by an interception spell.”

And…

“Wait,” said a voice. A flat female voice. “I’m going too.”

It was the track suit girl. Wasn’t her name Takitsubo Rikou?

Her tone was flat, but the sound of her breathing showed something was wrong.

“You are injured.”

Golden retriever Kihara Noukan kept it at that. …Was that dog capable of being considerate enough to refrain from digging deeper?

It was hard to tell because Takitsubo rarely showed any expression, but she appeared to be in a fair bit of pain. Most likely, the condition below her clothing would be shocking to see.

She had contacted Great Demon Coronzon before Kamijou arrived.

Since she had collapsed, she had most likely been attacked in some way.

Kamijou’s eyes widened.

“Are you kidding me? You look closer to death than me. To be clear, the Anglicans alone have tens of thousands of people out working, so it’s no problem if an injured person or two sits this one out. We can’t bring you along in that condition!!”

“Hamazura.”

The track suit girl’s eyes were on another boy who lay unmoving in the red snow.

Hamazura Shiage.

…Kamijou couldn’t remember clearly since he had been near death, but he was pretty sure that guy had sided with Coronzon shortly before the Adikalika large-scale attack spell was activated.

He had betrayed them.

And now Adikalika had failed and Coronzon had fled on her own.

Left behind, Hamazura’s position was looking worse all the time.

“Hamazura will be in trouble. I don’t know what system of rules will punish him, but I need to create some kind of bargaining chip before that punishment can happen. So I will do whatever it takes to protect him.”

Kamijou looked to Index. This had to do with magic, so would jurisdiction fall to the Anglicans?

Kamijou couldn’t say if the “bargaining chip” Takitsubo had in mind would mean anything to them.

But that had to be the only thing left for her to rely on.

“What can you do ''now''?” pressed Mikoto in her black mourning clothes.

That wasn’t disgust in her voice. Was it a hint of fear?

“(I know she’s on our side now, but a first impression like that one is hard to shake.)”

“My AIM Stalker is useless on someone without an AIM Diffusion Field. So I can’t directly search for Coronzon.”

But Takitsubo Rikou didn’t hesitate to respond.

While looking Mikoto square in the face.

“But I also have a history gathering and analyzing information for Item. I am used to tracking down and hunting people in this city.”

“Yes, we could use a tracker from the science side. Especially with that new Board Chairman out of the picture,” said Othinus from Kamijou’s shoulder.

Whether she actually meant it or was only trying to put injured Takitsubo’s mind at ease, Kamijou couldn’t tell.

Kamijou waved both hands to call over Kanzaki who was giving instructions to Tatemiya and Agnese a short distance away. Next to him, Alice hopped up and down and waved her hands along with him.

Kanzaki sighed when she heard what he had to say.

“Then have her start at the beginning.”

She kept the instruction short.

Of course, they weren’t relying only on Takitsubo. The magicians would be performing their own magical search. But they were searching for Great Demon Coronzon, who lurked in the abyss to guard magical knowledge, so those attempts would likely be blocked at every turn.

“Coronzon has fled. However, I doubt she has continued running in a single direction. Takitsubo, was it? How can you track her?”

“That demon(?) fortunately lost the use of her wings, so she can’t cheat by flying. And if she is escaping on the surface, she will leave tracks. Especially on a snowy day like this.”

“She will notice any obvious tracks. Won’t she cover them up?”

Good point.

“So it comes down to the balance between the tracks that cannot be prevented and the tracks that will definitely be erased,” said the golden retriever in a highly refined voice.

Takitsubo Rikou plainly continued.

“It is true footprints in the snow can be easily erased. She might not have ordinary fingerprints to leave behind. And given the state of the city, we can’t hope to search for footage of her from security cameras or security robots.”

“Ugh,” groaned Kamijou. “Then how are we supposed to track down Coronzon!?”

“How about this?”

===Part 2===

Academy City District 3 was the northernmost district.

The dead office area had no lights in the windows or even in the traffic signals.

She had managed to shake those loathsome Magic Gods, Nephthys and Niang-Niang.

If she could cross the wall here, she could leave the city to the north…and into the Saitama area.

Great Demon Coronzon hoped to ''quietly'' slip past the wall. Ideally, her pursuers wouldn’t realize she had escaped.

Her useless wings were folded up for now.

She did not let unnecessary regrets hold her back. The Adikalika large-scale attack spell had been stopped. She accepted that result. Which was why she had decided to crush them with all her might.

For her, a few troublesome people were mixed in with her pursuers.

For example, Index, the grimoire library who had memorized 103,001 grimoires. Or Anna Sprengel, the Rosicrucian magician whose skill exceeded that of Mathers or Crowley. And Alice Anotherbible, the oddity who had been ''too'' successful.

Trump cards weren’t only valuable when actually used.

Think of them like nuclear weapons.

Showing them off without using them could restrict an adversary’s actions.

…In truth, Coronzon’s greatest concern was Alice. She couldn’t accurately judge the threat level of that girl. And there was no such thing as a surefire countermeasure against an unknown.

She wanted to escape as soon as possible and eliminate any trace of her path. Even if it meant tearing down any obstacles that got in her way.

She truly felt that way.

Yet she didn’t do it.

After coming all this way.

“Oops,” she said quietly, pressing against the back of a thick roadside tree.

She had spotted a few figures on the large street. Their odd dress made them seem not a part of this world and they held a variety of spiritual items that ignored the laws against weapons and any sense of realism. That was definitely the gear of those who were “in the know”. These had to be the filthy Anglican magicians.

Had they gotten ahead of her? How? Could they have sprouted wings and flown over her head?

No, they had used a more normal method.

(Cars. Maybe I should steal one next.)

They must have assumed there would be no ordinary vehicles out since people had been ordered to stay in. They had abandoned some vans and trucks in the middle of the three-lane street.

Killing a hundred or even a thousand magicians would be easy enough.

But the rules had changed.

Now that she was trying to escape without being found, her power as a great demon actually hindered her. Anything she did would mean using a major spell, so it was best not to use anything if she could avoid it.

To reiterate, the ideal result was to escape ''quietly''.

That was also why she had “shaken” Nephthys and Niang-Niang instead of immediately killing them with brute force.

“But this is odd…”

She slipped from the tree to a building wall.

Coronzon whispered to herself as she observed the situation on the street.

Kamijou Touma’s side had been precise. Too precise. They had to know her goal was to escape outside Academy City, but they shouldn’t have had any way of detecting what route she would use to cross the wall. After all, the wall surrounded the city in all 360 degrees. So how had they known she was going north to escape into the Saitama area from District 3?

(It wasn’t the security cameras, security robots, and other parts of Academy City’s security network. I already took out Board Chairman Accelerator. And the Anglican magicians have made an awkward takeover of Academy City’s systems, but they couldn’t operate those scientific toys with such precision. That must mean…)

At first, she considered a magical searching method.

Especially when Alice Anotherbible and Anna Sprengel and their extraordinary magic power were in the city. Not to mention that Grimoire Library Index and Magic God Othinus could provide the knowledge.

But then she shook her head.

Because she had arrived at a simpler possibility.

Coronzon’s eyes lowered to her hands.

(Could I have left a hint behind?)

“Aleister… ''How long were you in control of my body''!?”

===Part 3===

Shortly before that, Takitsubo Rikou made her suggestion in District 7.

“Scent.”

Kanzaki was dubious.

It was written plain on her face that she didn’t see how something so ordinary could work.

The track suit girl emotionlessly continued.

“She might be able to easily erase any footprints she leaves, but ''completely'' eliminating the scent particles left in the air is no easy task. After all, your own body is the source of the scent.”

Kamijou looked straight up.

The red snow had stopped and there was no wind, so there was little concern of those particles being swept away.

Coronzon had scattered the thick clouds herself.

Her own actions were beginning to work against her.

“Also, I think it will be a fairly distinctive scent. Instead of just the scent of her hair or clothing, it should be an aroma intentionally left behind.”

“Hm? Why would Coronzon do that?”

“She wouldn’t. But the other one would.”

Did she mean Aleister?

“Scents are invisible. And once you think of something as your own scent, it becomes especially hard for you to detect,” said Othinus.

“It would be a convenient way to tell us where Coronzon is without her noticing,” said Anna Sprengel.

Kamijou tilted his head.

“But what distinctive scent would it be?”

“Probably the snowdrop flower,” replied Takitsubo.

For some reason, this led Kanzaki Kaori to lower her head glumly.

The track suit girl continued with no readable emotion in her eyes.

“It isn’t the best material for an aroma when compared to roses or lavender, but…um, did something occur to you?”

“It’s the title of an erotic novel Crowley wrote around a century ago. Or part of the title, to be more accurate.”

Everyone fell silent.

Alice Anotherbible looked confused.

Humanity might meet its doom before the sun rose in the morning, yet they had run across a choice that may have been serious or may have been a joke in poor taste… Kamijou was certain now. Aleister was definitely still alive.

“But, Touma, how do we follow the scent? A scent…hm, could we use a dog?”

Index sounded disappointed that she only had a calico cat in her arms, but her comment led everyone to look to the dog among them.

At the center of attention, golden retriever Kihara Noukan tilted his head while sitting.

“I do appreciate you consider me reliable, but the world will be destroyed if I screw this up, correct? This is a situation for cautious verification, not my brand of romance. And I would feel bad stealing all of your thunder.”

“Then we can use something else too.”

Takitsubo waved her phone.

But it had an eraser-sized device attached to the connector at the bottom.

“Smelling bad can be considered a form of harassment these days, so they sell these toys for a personal hygiene check. Although I heard they were really just finding ways to expand into other markets because selling breathalyzers wasn’t enough to make back the development costs.”

“But a commercial product won’t be enough to track someone,” said Othinus. “To do that, you should need to expand the hardware or boost the software to forcibly increase its sensitivity.”

“Right.”

Takitsubo tossed her phone over.

To Misaka Mikoto, who could do just about anything when it came to electricity.

“When scent particles adhere to the sensor, they are analyzed into digital values. It’s not glamorous, but the technology has been used in food and detergent labs for decades. And I’d heard there was a special forces team that used this kind of thing in Academy City, but I have no idea what they’re up to now.”

That meant they could track her.

They didn’t know how long Aleister’s hint would last.

They needed to take advantage of it before Coronzon caught on.

Kanzaki waved and the young Amakusas responded. They brought in several vehicles with chains on their tires to deal with the red snow.

“Now we can track her.”

Just like the ritual used by hammer throwers to intentionally push past their own limiters, Kamijou Touma shouted from the bottom of his gut.

Because his body was ready to break if he didn’t.

“We can settle things with Great Demon Coronzon!!”

===Part 4===

She wasn’t even aware of the moments when he took control and she couldn’t question the lapse afterwards.

This was a major problem for Coronzon…but at the same time, it was fortunate she had become aware of the risk sooner rather than later. Even a single second of unconsciousness during a battle could create a fatal opening.

She needed a technical solution.

But for now, she had to lose the nearby pursuers.

Kamijou Touma’s group would arrive in District 3 before long. In pursuit of her. If Aleister had used her body to leave behind a message, there was no doubting it.

(Could I make it if I rushed across the wall from District 3? No. Kamijou Touma is one thing, but the Anglicans are a group. With their coordination, they could have someone waiting there. And this doesn’t actually end after I cross the wall. If they know which direction I escaped to, I can’t disappear and they will continue pursuing me through the Saitama area.)

That meant adopting brute force methods to cross the wall would not solve this. Coronzon’s ideal was to ''quietly'' cross the wall and vanish into the greater world beyond. But this also gave her an opportunity. If her pursuers were convinced she would cross the wall from District 3, she could fully lose them if she crossed the wall from a different district.

She didn’t have much time left.

What could she do in that time?

===Part 5===

“She’s not here?” muttered Kamijou.

They were in District 3, a dead office area where even the traffic signals were off. It was a district for adults, so a high schooler like Kamijou didn’t know it very well. The message Aleister had left by hijacking Coronzon’s body had definitely pointed in this direction. And yet…

“The scent trail ends here,” said Kihara Noukan, sniffing at the ground.

“Confirmed,” said Takitsubo Rikou, her phone in hand.

They were in an empty plaza with nothing there but red snow.

Index tilted her head.

“Did Coronzon notice what was happening and wash it off?”

“Could she wash it off completely enough?”

“She didn’t need to.” Mourning clothes Mikoto breathed a white sigh. “Scents become something entirely different when they mix together. Which is why I really wish they would stop using cheap floral scents in shampoos and body soaps. It reacts with perfumes, ruining their scent.”

Apparently there were other opinions too.

Some were concerned that this hadn’t been Coronzon’s doing.

“Could the message from Aleister itself have been a bluff? I mean, this is Aleister we’re talking about.”

Agnese may have been pushed forward by the many other nuns. She expressed this suspicion as their representative, but Kamijou rejected it.

He had no proof, of course.

But he didn’t want to think that the Aleister who had answered his call would then take Coronzon’s side and try to destroy the world with her.

(What if?)

Kamijou lowered his head.

He pondered the issue with a hand on his chin and his eyes staring down toward his shoes.

(If the message from Aleister was correct and we still lost sight of Coronzon…then one of our assumptions must be wrong. But what could that be?)

Then it hit him.

“I forgot. One basic fact completely slipped my mind.”

“?”

Kanzaki gave him a puzzled look, but he didn’t even glance her way.

He used his foot to scrape the red snow away from the ground, but it wasn’t asphalt below.

He found a thick metal manhole.

All that thought hadn’t been necessary. The answer was so simple!

The loud roar of water rushing by below meant this probably wasn’t an ordinary sewer. It had to be an artificial waterway flowing by below the city.

Humans could not swim in a half-frozen river in January.

Humans could not breathe underwater.

So this couldn’t be called a route. The river wasn’t usable.

Yes, ''if'' you were human.

“''But Great Demon Coronzon isn’t human''!!”

===Part 6===

The water temperature was 2 degrees.

The width was around five meters and the depth was maybe a few meters. Even with microbes and other factors producing some heat, this was a half-frozen January river. If an ordinary human fell in, their life would be at risk.

Of course, that was only for an ordinary human.

“It doesn’t apply to me.”

As she had announced from the beginning, she was a great demon.

Not even the moonlight could reach this place below the city. The ceiling was about two meters up, so a large man would bump his head on that thick concrete.

Maybe there were different areas that required different authorizations to enter and maybe the divisions were out of convenience for the government, but fences and chain-link doors blocked off the passage in places. Coronzon only had to lazily wave her hand to slice right through them.

The rippling water was a deep dark color, but not just because this was a subterranean space ruled by darkness. Jagged metal and what looked like rotting lumber were floating by. One squishy object looked to be a clump of oil larger than a bowling ball.

Great Demon Coronzon sighed in exasperation at herself for hesitating even momentarily.

(Places like this are my proper home. An embodiment of evil shouldn’t avoid impurities. Maybe I spent too long playing the bright and shining Anglican Archbishop.)

This time, she jumped in.

Once the torrent took her away, she would leave District 3 and travel through Districts 14, 19, and 12 to reach the eastern wall bordering the Shinjuku area. That was an entirely different place from the northern wall bordering the Saitama area.

(I don’t know what scent you sprayed on me, Aleister, but now those scent particle can’t be tracked to me.)

Of course, an ordinary human would die before riding the current even 100 meters, but that was no obstacle for Coronzon. She would have no trouble taking this 10+ kilometer water slide.

===Part 7===

Aleister hadn’t lied.

She had been in District 3.

It was a failure on Kamijou’s group’s part that let her escape. They had been wrong to think they could capture Great Demon Coronzon if they surrounded her the same way they would a human. If you were trying to capture a bird or a fish, blockading the roads and setting up checkpoints like you would with a human wouldn’t accomplish much of anything.

Coronzon had thrown herself into the artificial waterway below the city so she could quickly travel long distances.

“The water is two degrees…and she just jumped in?”

Mourning clothes Mikoto couldn’t believe it.

Her phone wouldn’t give her that data, so she may have used her power to hack the river management network. The thing that let you check river water levels during a typhoon.

“The waterway branches out quite complexly. The water generally flows west to east, but it covers a wide area. Predicting her final destination isn’t going to be easy.”

Kanzaki’s assessment didn’t provide any valuable hints.

They didn’t even need to head down underground. They knew Coronzon was using the waterway, but unlike her, they were human. Jumping into filthy half-frozen 2-degree water and letting it carry them for more than 10 kilometers wouldn’t let them track down Coronzon.

“What about the girl?”

“No, Alice.”

Kamijou quickly stopped her.

Alice Anotherbible might be able to survive down there, but that didn’t mean she could catch Coronzon in the endlessly branching waterway. The return was too uncertain for such a definite risk.

They had to come up with some other way.

Even now, Coronzon was being carried rapidly below the city.

Toward some part of the outer wall.

Takitsubo Rikou made a quick decision after simply peaking into the subterranean world through the open manhole.

“We can’t track the scent particles anymore.”

But if they gave up, Coronzon would escape.

Without another hint, humanity was doomed.

“That’s no problem…right? Science isn’t everything. Hey, Index, what ever happened to the magical search methods!? If we try a different approach, we can still-!”

“Touma, what are we supposed to track her with? Some of Coronzon’s blood or hair would be perfect. And if we are going to do it, some more detailed information on that great demon would be helpful.”

Despite the situation – no, because of the situation, Index gave a calm and composed response.

“The famous Aleister Crowley would be one thing…but Coronzon is from the world of myth. Finding detailed information on her will not be easy,” said Anna Sprengel, who seemed fairly legendary herself.

They couldn’t use magic.

But Kanzaki Kaori, commander of the Anglican forces here, wasn’t done.

“There is still something we can do.”

===Part 8===

A large metal object was lowered into the concrete waterway, covering the full width of the dark subterranean space. This wasn’t just grating or a floodgate. This was more brutal. The closest comparison was a giant propeller. But this had several of them arranged along a single shaft to smash up and break down floating objects.

“A public garbage disposal, huh?”

It was more than just the heavy rotating blades. To keep the thick blades sharp, metal-degrading bacteria were made to live on the net-like surface.

She had seen jagged metal and rotting lumber several times on the way here. None of that large trash could be allowed out of the city when the river water flowed out. To prevent any chance of the city’s technology leaking out. So devices to smash up whatever was floating in the river had been placed at regular intervals (and there were likely specialized facilities nearer to the outer wall). The Anglican pursuers in control of Academy City had activated them all.

Coronzon pulled her upper body onto the concrete edge and held her other hand out toward the giant machine.

Destroying it would be easy. It wouldn’t take more than a moment.

But she wanted to avoid triggering an alarm that would inform her pursuers where she was.

That left only one thing to do.

“So the easy ride ends here.”

Coronzon crawled fully out of the filthy water.

There were no signs telling her where to go, but she found some stairs leading up. Still wet, she placed her hand on the railing and got moving.

(I should assume they are guiding me to an extent. It may soon be time to switch to brute force tactics.)

Which district was she in?

She would know as soon as she opened the thick metal door.

===Part 9===

Kamijou heard something like the breathing of a monster.

Something white was being expelled from the pipes on the wall or the metal grate on the ground.

It was hot steam.

This was District 19.

“Hey, Kanzaki. Are you sure Coronzon is here?”

“Assuming the emergency exit sensor was triggered by her. She isn’t an embodiment of science, after all.”

Kamijou spent most of his time in District 7, so he didn’t know much about this one. It was crammed full of short multi-tenant buildings. Overall, the streets looked old and faded. Non-LCD signs had a variety of advertisements posted, but the advertised products were things like cathode-ray tubes, vacuum tubes, records, and steam engines…

“It feels like we’re surrounded by a collection of forgotten technology. Or like the flow of technology branched off and evolved in a unique direction here.”

Mourning clothes Mikoto seemed half taken aback by it all.

A device with several rotating cloth wings slowly passed by on the street. It wasn’t quite a helicopter or a drone. And it was larger than a small truck.

Kamijou looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“What is that? One of da Vinci’s models?”

“Uneducated fool, that is Cayley’s steam-powered flying machine.”

…Had designs for flying cars been around for centuries?

Whatever the case, technology was branching off in weird directions here.

(On any other day, I’d love to explore this place.)

Several giant round metal objects were visible in the distance.

In fact, several of the round things were clustered together.

“Looks like a pack of takoyaki.”

Index was right. That was the best comparison Kamijou could come up with too.

It looked a bit like a gas tank – no, a gas holder, but in District 19, that wouldn’t be what it was.

“The Central Boiler,” explained Takitsubo Rikou. “The fuel is burned in a single location to produce a large quantity of steam and then piped out across the district. There is infrastructure for the excess energy produced by a large factory’s boiler to be sent to smaller factories, but this is a larger scale version of that. So maybe like a steam version of the thermal power stations in the age of electricity?”

Of course, Academy City’s power generation was done with the many wind turbines distributed across the city. This produced steam instead of electricity, it was centralized instead of distributed, and it created energy using fossil fuel…

Othinus sighed in exasperation from Kamijou’s shoulder.

“The people of this district must really not want to follow the mainstream of Academy City.”

===Part 10===

“And.”

Great Demon Coronzon was also grinning. It only took her an instant to detonate it from the outside.

“That gives me an opportunity.”

===Part 11===

A deep, muffled sound rumbled out.

The city distance looked white.

Like the cityscape was being obscured by a giant piece of cotton candy.

But that wasn’t what this was.

The exhausted, late-night city had been overwritten. Kamijou definitely saw something pop like a balloon in that white-covered scenery. Even though the thick steel shouldn’t have been able to burst from within like that.

Wasn’t that…?

“Run, fool.”

“Hey, don’t tell me…”

“Coronzon blew up the Central Boiler,” said Anna Sprengel. “Steam of more than 400 degrees Celsius is about to engulf this district. And we will be swallowed up along with it!”

“If we stay outside, the outdoor steam oven will remove all the oil from our bodies as it boils us up nice and healthily. Just like the chicken tenderloins you parboiled for me,” said Kihara Noukan. “If that does not appeal to you, I would recommend hurrying indoors.”

There wasn’t time to think too hard about it.

Kamijou and the others rushed to the nearest concrete structure.

The deep, muffled noise had grown sharper. A lot like the sizzling of water on a heated frying pan. Which wasn’t that far off from the truth. The red snow on the ground was melting, starting from the distance. And the growing mass of steam discolored the roadside trees and peeled the paint from the cars parked on the curb. Like playground equipment in a long abandoned park.

Anna Sprengel and Kihara Noukan were right. A human wouldn’t last an instant in that.

Index, Mikoto, Kanzaki, Anna Sprengel, Alice, and Agnese rushed inside the same building as Kamijou. Othinus and the cat were with them too. The others would have escaped to different buildings.

Kamijou’s eyes widened.

“Who is she!?”

“Don’t ask me! Why was an ordinary person – and a student at that – wandering around outside at this hour!? And after we ordered everyone to stay at home!”

That meant the girl held under Kanzaki’s arm was not a camouflaged Amakusa.

After diving into the reinforced concrete building, Kamijou kicked the door shut from his position down on the ground.

A scorching sound soon followed.

A male voice came from the radio Kanzaki held. It didn’t seem magical.

Was that one of the Anglican magicians managing Academy City? No, it may have been one of the city’s technicians obeying the magicians.

“Boiler #2…and #8 have already…no, it’s no use, it’s fully ruptured!!”

“#5 isn’t looking good either…the boiler pressure won’t stop- we need to evacuate now!!”

An unpleasant straining sound surrounded them.

The entire building was groaning.

Was the great heat causing the metal to bend, or was it the steam pressure?

“Damn!” cursed Kamijou.

Either way, this made running outside and catching up to Coronzon a complete impossibility. That world of 400 degrees Celsius was melting the asphalt of the streets, so they would need to walk on the sidewalk tiles with thick shoes or else suffer severe burns. In fact, if a human simply took a step outside, their flesh, bones, and eyeballs would boil.

''But Great Demon Coronzon wasn’t human.

They had been taught this lesson over and over now…but could she really brute force her way through like this? What route would she use to escape in that world of scorching heat and death!?

===Part 12===

“District 19’s Central Boiler just exploded!?”

Yomikawa Aiho of Anti-Skill’s eyes widened at that report.

(First those Anglican people take over the city’s law enforcement and now this!?)

She didn’t even need to check the camera footage on the helicopter’s multipurpose monitor.

From her vantage point in the night sky, one section of the surface was visibly expanding. The scale was hard to judge, but the buildings being easily engulfed had to be more than ten stories tall.

The male helicopter pilot adjusted his grip on the control column and asked a question.

“Is this that Coronzon person’s doing too? What the hell!? Aren’t fugitive’s supposed to hold their breath and sneak around!? Why would she go out of her way to cause a scene like this!?”

“Just get us there! Who knows how many people were caught in the blast!”

“I’ll try, but there’s honestly only so much we can do from the air!”

Several shouting voices came over the radio at once, ignoring the aviation radio rules. The pilot was using the radio to pickup as many signals as he could, hoping to get some picture of the situation on the inside.

“Where are the first-aid kits!? Why can’t I find one!?”

“Damn, more burns. There are too many injuries here!! Can someone tell me how I’m supposed to triage this!?”

“We can’t do it in that steam. It’s 400 degrees. We can’t even get close to the storeroom!!”

Yomikawa Aiho glanced aside.

First-aid kits could be found just about anywhere. There was even one belted to the helicopter’s wall. Was the chaos and confusion inside the Central Boiler so bad they couldn’t even find something so basic?

Yes, she had what they needed here.

The pilot must have wanted to help them too, but he gave his expert opinion.

“It’s not happening, Yomikawa! You can see that boiling steam, can’t you!? The steam pressure is disturbing the air currents near the ground too badly to land! If we carelessly descend now, the helicopter will be flipped over on its side!”

“Then what about an ambulance!? If we can’t go by air, we can send someone by ground!”

“What part of ‘boiling steam’ didn’t you understand? An ambulance is little more than an ordinary vehicle, so it just isn’t tough enough. Everyone inside would be steamed to death before they arrived. At 400 degrees, not only would the rubber tires melt, but the asphalt would probably be soft and squishy. Any vehicles will be stuck and the steam getting in through the air conditioning vents would bring the high temps inside too.”

“Then we’ll just have to make do with the helicopter. I know, let’s simulate it!! If we feed the satellite data into the quantum computers and DNA computers, those air current disturbances aren’t an obstacle!”

“How do we do that with the Board Chairman out of commission!? He’s the only one who can use the Master Key!!”

“Kh.”

“We can’t use the satellites, supercomputers, or any other Academy City facilities. Maybe we could use the individual devices, but we can’t tie them together. So my pointstands: it’s not happening, Yomikawa!!”

The helicopter could not descend as the Central Boiler continued to explode.

But voices were calling out for help.

Even an ordinary first-aid kit would be able to save the lives of the people injured by the burning heat and steam.

Yomikawa Aiho saw only one option.

“Then I just won’t use the helicopter.”

“Hey, Yomikawa?”

“You don’t have to do anything crazy. I’ll use this parachute to jump down on my own.”

“Are you stupid!? I said this 5.5 ton piece of metal would be flipped over on its side! You’ll lose all control over a parachute made of flimsy cloth in no time at- wait, no, you idiot!!”

She didn’t bother listening to the end.

Yomikawa Aiho grabbed the first-aid kit in both hands and threw herself out the open side door.

Without hesitation.

It went well. At first.

But 180 seconds after the parachute opened at an altitude of around 20 meters, things rapidly changed. The air current disturbance hit her like a punch from the side. Her neck hurt. She gritted her teeth and tried to restore her balance, but the winds buffeting her from all sides spun her parachute around.

All this and she hadn’t even been directly exposed to the steam. In the last few meters, her parachute turned completely inside out and she landed on some kind of machine. Only after her body badly dented the thin metal panel did she realize it was an industrial air conditioning unit. It had apparently absorbed the force of her landing.

The first-aid kit clutched to her chest had survived too.

Despite the burns and lacerations they must have suffered, the workers ran toward her. Ignoring their own woes and looking worried for her.

The Anti-Skill woman was truly glad she had come to help them.

She pressed the first-aid kit into the chest of a battered-looking worker.

“Are any of your people missing?”

“Th-the chief isn’t here, but his time card shows no record of him arriving. I think he took the night off without calling in…”

Then no need to worry about him.

“No ambulances are coming.”

She made sure they knew their situation.

“I doubt the fire trucks can make it either. So we have to prevent any further harm from the Central Boiler on our own. Where should we start!?”

Something exploded. Very close by.

She heard something whiz past her and felt something sharply stroke her cheek. A pipe must have burst from the internal pressure and a shard the size of a guitar pick had grazed her face.

No one could predict what would explode or when.

As the giant facility collapsed, it was like a single big balloon.

“Just one more…” said a young man, barely breathing. No, he was probably gathering all the strength he could. “Eight boilers make up the giant overall boiler and two of them have already blown. If just one more goes, there will be no stopping it. The reinforced concrete surrounding the place will collapse from the extreme steam pressure!”

“Then that’s what we have to deal with,” said Yomikawa.

“We can’t. We don’t know what happened to the general steam control room. No one can get there. Pipes have burst all throughout the building, so there’s hot steam everywhere!”

“Then I’ll go and check!!”

They could have just told her where that general steam control room was, but a few of the workers whose injuries were relatively minor came with her.

They all wanted to stop this tragedy if they could. Despite saying they couldn’t, they hadn’t given up.

Yomikawa Aiho smiled a little.

“Lead the way.”

She dove into danger.

She was no one special.

Today might finally be the day she died.

''However,'' that was no reason to not protect the Central Boiler and District 19.

===Part 13===

They couldn’t head outside thanks to the intense steam.

Only Coronzon, who had caused the disaster, could move freely in it. They just didn’t know if she would take the subway, the sewers, or what.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

“We can’t just stand around here. Coronzon must even now be working to cross the wall and escape the city!”

Was there a loophole anywhere? Or a safety measure that would let them travel through the ultra-hot steam? The idea sounded too absurd to even consider, but then someone spoke up.

The girl who Kanzaki had picked up somewhere.

“…in the car.”

Kamijou had a bad feeling about this.

This definitely wasn’t a hint.

The words oozed with an ominous air that made him reluctant to hear the rest.

“My parents are still in the car. They said the city is too dangerous to stay, but then we got stuck in the red snow. I didn’t want to hear them arguing, so I got out of the car on my own. Then that steam came, so they’re probably still in there…”

…In all that steam?

Othinus and Anna Sprengel made an honest simulation rather than being weirdly considerate.

“Even in this thick reinforced concrete building, the door could buckle or the windows could break at any time. And if we’re talking about an ordinary car with no bulletproofing or blast resistance…”

“Fool, even if they covered the A/C vents with balled-up cloth, I’m not sure how long a car with windows on all sides would last. And once the windows break, the people inside will be exposed to the 400-degree steam.”

…Kamijou himself had seen the tough paint peeling off of cars. A human wouldn’t last ten seconds exposed to that.

Kanzaki’s eyes widened.

“It’s past midnight! Why would someone be out at this hour!? Especially when the entire city was ordered to stay in!”

“Because the Anglican grip on the city is weakening. Even as we speak.”

Kamijou gave a calm response to Kanzaki’s shouted question.

Maybe it was hard to grasp for a Saint who lived a proper life day in and day out, but human beings tended to want to do the things they were told not to do. All the more once the authority holding them back loosened its grip. Or once they found a loophole.

“I succumbed to temptation. I couldn’t resist.” Mourning clothes Mikoto scratched her cheek. “Phrases like that have existed since ancient times, which tells you a lot about human nature.”

“It’s not that. …They were just willing to try anything if it would keep their precious family safe.”

“Fool,” curtly called Anna Sprengel.

He didn’t need to hear any more. That magician used her wickedness as a great weapon, so he knew what she was trying to say.

If Coronzon was allowed to escape the city here and now, the entire 7 or 8 billion population of the Earth would be headed toward its doom. Once the process started, no one could stop it.

So they couldn’t afford to lose track of her.

They couldn’t stop to save a couple of unrelated people in the middle of the fight against Coronzon.

He knew that.

He really did, but…

“It’ll be alright.”

The next thing he knew, Kamijou Touma was kneeling down in front of the small girl.

And doing the opposite of Anna’s unspoken advice.

Because it was the right thing to do.

“There are a lot of different people here – the Anglicans, the Amakusas, some who were originally Roman Catholic, and even a Magic God and some Transcendents – but none of them are going to abandon you. Because every one of us are here because we want to help people.”

He just had to remember what kind of being Great Demon Coronzon was.

She tore people apart from each other and kept humanity from reaching magical knowledge.

So this was another side of the battle.

In the fight against Coronzon, they would continue to encounter frustratingly malicious “coincidences” as well as trouble and accidents that seemed designed to test them. Because that was the kind of being she was. Just like there was an angel of love and an angel of righteousness and just like there was a demon of wrath and a demon of envy, she was the great demon who specialized in ''that sort of thing''.

He wouldn’t let those bonds be torn asunder.

…An emergency? An urgent situation? The entire human race’s doom would be assured once the dawn arrived? He still wasn’t going to give up on being human. He couldn’t defeat Coronzon if he wasn’t willing to say that!!

No one stopped him.

Not Index, not Misaka Mikoto, not Kanzaki Kaori, not Agnese Sanctis, not Alice Anotherbible, and not even Anna Sprengel who had given him her advice as a wicked woman.

They had all fought against Coronzon.

“I promise you everything will be alright. We’re going to save your parents right now!!”

===Part 14===

Yomikawa Aiho clicked her tongue.

The equipment in the Central Boiler’s general steam control room had survived, but none of the six remaining boilers responded to anything they did in that room lined with the CRT monitors only found in this district.

One of the workers explained.

“The equipment here is all working. It isn’t malfunctioning, but the steam isn’t reaching the condensers… My guess is the distribution board is to blame. We need to head there and fix it.”

“Distribution board?”

Even as Yomikawa asked, she realized it had to be like a fuse box but for steam instead of electricity.

“Where is it? Tell me and I’ll go check it!”

“But…”

“There’s no time! Which is going to take more work: a small distribution board on the wall or this entire giant general steam control room? And to be blunt, it doesn’t look like there’s much for me to do here!!”

The worker nodded a few times at that.

“I’ll sketch you a simple map. Thanks. The boilers can’t stand this much pressure for long. We’ll have a chain reaction of ruptures in the surviving ones soon!”

Yomikawa Aiho grabbed her radio and stepped out the door.

There was so much white steam.

Had the damage to the facility progressed since she arrived in the room?

The 400-degree steam burst from the walls and ceiling as sharp as blades. Even if it didn’t directly hit her, it made the entire space as hot as a sauna. She wouldn’t be killed right away, but it was sapping her stamina.

The spraying steam made it hard to hear the voice from the radio. But then a loud voice came from the facility’s speakers.

“I’m amazed you decided to rush in here with everything going on. Personally, I have half a mind to run away.”

“But you haven’t run away, have you? So we’re not that different. You see, I have some ''freeloaders'' living with me and I want to protect their home. With people’s lives in my care, I can’t half-ass it.”

(Can’t go this way either.)

Even on the way to the general steam control room, they had encountered a few unopenable metal doors. Instead of the force of the explosion bending the doors, it seemed like they were automatic doors that used steam rather than electricity to open. That meant all the steam erupting from the pipes worked against her. Without sufficient pressure supplied to the doors, they couldn’t open. It was actually an adaption of a 2000-year-old invention known as Heron’s steam turbine.

She broke the hinges with her gun and kicked down the door.

That was a convenient tool for opening any door in here, but firing too recklessly could break a thin pipe and trigger a steam explosion nearby.

Something the size of a rugby ball – probably some kind of drone – was ejecting steam to weave across the floor.

The steam-powered lift was unusable. Yomikawa grabbed some rags from the ground and used them like potholders to grab the metal ladder. Several things exploded as she climbed. Sharp shards flew like flying disks and stabbed into the wall much too close for comfort.

The steam obscured her vision more than she had expected.

She had a hastily sketched map, but she felt like she would get lost even with it.

And she wasn’t looking for a special room. It was only a thin metal box attached to a corridor wall.

Finally, she found it.

“That must be the distribution board!!”

“It’s simple enough to operate. Open the cover and you should see 16 levers. Since our commands aren’t getting through, something must have moved some of the levers. Maybe one of the explosions and maybe the vibration of the steam hitting the wall. The levers have two options: up or down. The pattern we want is YNYNYYYNYNNYYYNY. Look for any that are wrong and flip them to the correct position. That should give us back control! And if you can, use tape or something to fix them in place!!”

She found them.

Three of the levers were in the wrong position.

“If I fix these…”

The ceiling exploded.

Yomikawa jumped back as the white steam passed sharply in front of her. Like a dropping guillotine or shutter. She could feel the 400-degree ferocity raising the air temperature in the corridor.

A voice practically screamed out of the speakers.

“Yomikawa-san! Please respond! Boiler #5 isn’t going to last much longer! You need to hurry!”

The worker couldn’t see the situation here. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have said that.

400-degree steam was blocking the way right in front of her. A human would be boiled to the bone by that. She couldn’t even entertain silly ideas about slipping through a gap in the erupting steam.

But if someone didn’t do it, the boiler would rupture. Then the reinforced concrete barrier surrounding them at 3 kilometers would be destroyed by the steam pressure. And everyone working so hard to prevent that would be obliterated along with it.

Could she really let that happen?

(I think this really might be the end for me.)

Yomikawa Aiho honestly accepted that.

But the distribution board was within arm’s reach. Operate that and she could save everyone.

So she had to act.

Misaka Worst, Last Order…and Accelerator.

Academy City was far from a peaceful utopia. It had plenty of flaws. But this was the city that had raised those children. They deserved to smile after everything that had been taken from them. She couldn’t just go, ‘Welp, the city’s destroyed, so that’s that. Bye.” and leave the debt unpaid.

She was afraid to die. Which was why Yomikawa Aiho reminded herself she wanted to be the kind of person who could look those kids in the eye.

So move. Do it.

She was Anti-Skill. She had to focus only on protecting the city.

===Part 15===

They had decided to rescue the ordinary people trapped in a car out on the street.

Hiding inside a reinforced concrete building, mourning clothes Mikoto was the first to speak up.

“The biggest problem with the steam outside is the immense heat and pressure.”

“That’s two problems,” complained Kamijou.

“No, it’s one. The heat is what causes the moisture to expand and produce steam. And that expansion is what creates enough pressure to destroy concrete walls.”

It was important to confirm the basic facts of the situation.

The only flaw was how learning the extent of their hopelessness depressed him so much.

But Kanzaki, who was listening in, saw things differently.

“So we just have to cool it. Is that what you’re saying? The solution is simple. If we cool all that steam, it will return to harmless drops of water.”

Everyone would say that wasn’t possible.

After all, there was enough steam to engulf an entire district. And it was over 400 degrees Celsius. That was hot enough to melt car tires and soften asphalt. Dumping a bucket of water on it wasn’t going to cut it.

“But her logic itself isn’t wrong,” said Othinus.

“Fool. That kind of logic is a crucial condition for magicians. It may look like we can do anything, but we actually achieve our desired result by following a set of laws not found in your chemistry or physics textbooks,” added Anna Sprengel.

Kanzaki listened in while spreading out a large piece of paper on a table.

“We need a simple Christian legend related to cooling. I would suggest St. Dorothea and Theophilus. Agnese, may I borrow a few of your Catholic nuns?”

“Could subordinates like us say no if we wanted to? But that story is the opposite of what you want. The legend says the fresh roses and apples were delivered in the freezing February winter.”

“Which is why we reverse it by adjusting the symbols. Index.”

“That should be easy.”

And they only needed the logic to be sound.

No matter how absurd it looked, they only needed to have “correctness” on their side.

Kanzaki Kaori boldly made her claim.

“From there, I can force it through with my power as a Saint.”

At first, Kamijou thought a machinegun was firing outside.

But no.

Rain was pouring down outside the window. The white steam filling the district was instantly cooled into drops of water. There was so much of it it seemed like the weather had completely changed.

They had altered the scenery itself. The logic may have been sound, but the scale was something else entirely. How many tens of thousands of tons of liquid nitrogen would you need to cause this?

Kamijou felt silly even trying to calculate it.

“This won’t last long… Let’s head out!!”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

But once outside, he found a brown muddy river.

He had stepped down out of the building on pure momentum, but now he couldn’t take another step forward. Everything below his hips felt wrong. If he didn’t keep a hand on the wall and watch his step, he would be dragged down and swept away by the water. He was pretty sure only Alice would be able to stand in this muddy current without difficulty.

The car in question was less than 100 meters away.

Yet getting their was no easy task.

“I think you overdid it!! This is going to wash the car away!”

“This was the only way to keep the hot steam from boiling us!! Everything we do is on the level of changing the weather or dropping a shooting star from the sky!”

The scale of everything with Saints was off the charts.

Kamijou nearly stumbled on the way, but not just because of the current. Something was wrong with the ground. The melted asphalt may have re-hardened in the wrong shape.

Kamijou and Index somehow managed to reach the light car that was rocking like a small boat. The weird round car’s engine compartment looked like a metal drum on its side. Since this was District 19, did it run on steam? No, the lack of smokestack suggested it used coal instead.

Somewhat exasperated, Othinus spoke up from his shoulder.

“If it was a car that used a huge battery to power heating elements that heat water into steam to power the car, it would have been a high-tech eco car.”

This was the part that worried Kamijou.

“The car’s partially submerged, so touching it isn’t going to give me an electric shock, is it? Damn…”

Something banged on the glass from the inside.

Someone was in there. Two someones. Just like the girl had said. Hard to tell if they were more afraid of the steam or the muddy river, though.

(I’m risking my life here too. But I made it this far, so I’m going to save them!!)

The car’s doors weren’t going to open outwards while partially submerged like this. Kamijou grabbed a branch floating down the muddy river and climbed up onto the car’s hood. Sensing his weight, the car’s alarm started beeping, but now wasn’t the time to complain about that. This was probably being recorded by the drive recorder, but he still swung his makeshift bat down towards the windshield.

He smashed right through it, but that wasn’t enough and Kanzaki moved in to tear the rest out along with its frame.

She practically clung to the survivors to drag them out of the car.

The car itself slid sideways, pulled by the current.

It wasn’t going to last much longer.

Clinging to a tree a short distance away, Anna Sprengel shouted over at them.

“With this powerful current, trudging back upstream would be inefficient. Fool, let the current take you! Take shelter in a different building downstream!!”

“Dammit, are you kidding me!?”

He swore, but he was the one who had decided to save these people.

He just had to stick to it to the end.

He started to jump down from the car, but he was stopped by a tug on the back of his neck. Courtesy of Misaka Mikoto.

“Stay there.”

The car clearly moved below his feet. But with a stability not found when the current was pushing it sideways. Was that because he could sense a human will behind it? She must have been magnetically controlling it.

Something shifted out of the way below the water and it began to ride the current like a boat.

Something passed by overhead. He instinctually looked up…and felt his heart freeze when he realized it was a power line. Specifically, an exposed high-voltage line like those used by trains.

“Do they have a retro streetcar running in this area? What would’ve happened to us if that had snapped and fallen into the water?”

“Why is that your main concern when you’re traveling downstream with a billion-volt power source?” asked Mikoto.

The steam car bumped into the stairs at the bottom of a pedestrian overpass.

The muddy river would have prevented them from opening any ground floor doors even if they had wound up right alongside one. Instead, Kamijou, Index, Mikoto, and Kanzaki rushed inside what looked like a department store through the second floor entrance.

Kanzaki shouted into what looked like a paper charm.

“I will be ending the cooling spell’s effects, so everyone get inside a sturdy building! You have 10 seconds!!”

Her countdown was precise.

The white steam once more ruled the world. On the other side of the glass door was a world of deadly steam that would instantly boil a human being with a temperature of more than 400 degrees Celsius.

“While this is tempered security glass, the door could break at any moment. Let’s head further up.”

“What about Coronzon?”

While they dealt with this sidequest, she was free to act.

They had given her time.

So was she already past the wall?

If she had been freed into the wide world beyond, could they even find her? Kamijou felt more and more worried.

But just then…

“Ksshh…ey…”

He heard a sound.

No, a voice. From the small radio Kanzaki held.

“Hey! Please someone listen. This is the Central Boiler’s general steam control room. We somehow managed to keep the rest of the boilers from blowing. We have control of the pressure, so there’s no concern of any more steam escaping! Oh, but call the fire fighters and tell them to hurry!! The Anti-Skill officer helping us hasn’t returned!!”

“Oh, shut up. I’m still alive. Really, if you have fireproof suits for welding work, you should’ve told me. I nearly died.”

Kamijou took a look outside…and sure enough. The density of steam had fallen to little more than a thin fog. He could see things clearly outside. This had started out as a January night cold enough for snow. Without any additional steam, things would cool down on their own.

He and the others tried heading out.

It felt like a sauna. It was hot and humid enough to forget it was January. But it wasn’t enough to burn them. And the muddy river was gone.

Othinus took a look around from his shoulder.

“Looks like you can walk around outside now.”

“I guess it was the heat, but that red snow is gone from the ground.”

Probably a combination of the river and the sauna. Whatever the case, District 19 was clean.

“Fool.”

“Teacherrrr!”

The others caught up with them in the unpleasant steam.

And regrouping meant that girl had been reunited with her parents. The reunion took the form of a tearful embrace.

The steam was no longer a concern. That much was good news. But not all the news was good.

They had lost track of Coronzon. And they had no further clues.

His selfishness had come at a steep price.

Or so he thought, but he had underestimated things.

There were others here fighting.

“Also,” said a voice on the radio. “We have a report from the vicinity of the wall. You’re pursuing a fugitive, right? I don’t know who you’re after or why, but no one has crossed the wall. That much I’m confident of.”

“Eh?”

Several voices were talking.

It wasn’t just one person on the other side of the radio.

“A university research team was still gathering data with all this going on. They’re running a microscopic and macroscopic experiment where they scatter a sticky steam with high water retention over a wide area to see if it will efficiently stick to airborne pollutants, allowing them to be retrieved. What matters to you is that they can tell if someone approaches the wall by the change in the steam distribution. But they didn’t see anything.”

“Whoever it is must still be in the city. And if they’re not there, they must have turned around and gone to another district. Hurry up and catch them. We’d much prefer things to be peaceful around here.”

“The chief was stuck in his car? Oh, he can go to hell. He left his post without taking leave, so you tell him if he really wants to protect people, he needs to do his damn job. Now, if he were alone, I would just leave him out there, but his wife and daughter didn’t do anything wrong, so I guess we’ll have to help!!”

“Coronzon…didn’t approach the wall?”

It didn’t sound real even as Kamijou spoke the words.

But it was the truth.

…This wasn’t over yet.

He had gotten distracted. Taken a detour. Put the entire planet at risk. …Even so, it hadn’t been a complete waste. Small good deeds and kind acts were gathering together to accomplish something bigger.

Because Kamijou’s group had acted selflessly, now these other people were acting selflessly in return.

They were lending a hand.

The ring of cooperation was growing.

This was a weapon they had and Coronzon did not. …Or maybe it was her complete inability to acquire this that had broken her so badly.

Whatever the case, this wasn’t over.

If Coronzon hadn’t crossed the wall, then they could still pursue her!

Then someone voiced a quiet question.

That someone was Misaka Mikoto.

“But why did that Coronzon person move away from the wall?”

“?”

“If you want to escape, it’s human nature to want to run along the wall, right? The wall is right there and if you can get across, you win. But this Coronzon didn’t hesitate to distance herself from the wall. She went away. Heading toward the center of the city should only put her at more risk. What does she gain from this?”

Now that she mentioned it…

“Coronzon is actually trying to escape…isn’t she?” asked Kamijou.

“Yes, she is,” said Othinus. “Not being caught would be her actual top priority, but she must have a goal in mind. In that case, leaving Academy City probably is her priority.”

“But her actions contradict that.” Kihara Noukan joined the conversation. “Approaching the city center and extending her time in the city should only increase the risk of her being caught.”

“The wall might not actually matter,” cut in Index. The magic side girl provided a viewpoint entirely different from Kamijou and Mikoto. “It’s like you said before, Touma: Great Demon Coronzon isn’t human.”

“…?”

Coronzon’s actions were inconsistent.

That made some sense since fleeing after Adikalika failed hadn’t been her initial plan.

At the very least, this wasn’t all some grand plan she had conceived to deceive Kamijou and the others.

So if they wanted to stop her, they had to think up the kind of idea she would come up with but before she did. They were the pursuers. If they overlooked even one thing, she would use it to slip away.

In that sense, Index was bringing them another step closer to Coronzon.

“If you think of her as a collection of Telesma…then she doesn’t actually need to cross the physical wall to leave Academy City. She just has to break herself down into a mass of energy.”

“Hey, wait a second…”

His assumptions were crumbling around him.

Was that really an option?

Could you really just throw this new way of thinking into consideration!?

“Are you saying Coronzon can send herself, and her physical body too, through the city gas or the water pipes!?”

“I don’t know what ‘city gas’ is, but she probably can, yes,” said Index. Confidently. “If she hitches a ride on a ley line – a giant energy line running below the ground – she can’t just escape the city, she can escape to the other side of the planet!!”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume14_Prologue|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume14_Chapter2}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter3

2025-08-24T21:24:34Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 8 */

==Chapter 3: To Protect the World We Live In – Dance_With_ADIKALIKA.==

===Part 1===

“How long are we gonna be stuck here? I’m starving…” groaned Aogami Pierce.

He was in the District 10 crematorium.

They were quarantined inside.

There were some vending machines in the hallway, but about half the options on the bread machine had their red “sold out” lights lit. With the entire class there, a few dozen were forced to use the same vending machine, so it didn’t require the supplier to be falling behind on restocking the machine for it to be running out.

Every window and door was sealed from the outside with a thick bulletproof plastic. The only exit was gas-proof door protected by an air curtain, but it was guarded by a thick powered suit armed with a flamethrower. Whether it was powered suit’s doing or not, no one’s phones had a signal. The only smile was on Aogami Pierce’s Magical Powered Kanamin charm. The view out the windows was already dark. It was 8 PM. Aogami Pierce had been so busy with the funeral this morning that he feared he wouldn’t get a chance to claim the social network game rewards that had become a daily habit for him. He also hadn’t checked the video sites or online news. Falling behind the average person in information felt like being a step away from death for an otaku.

“And yet Kami-yan’s probably still walking around out there when he’s the one who caused all this. Then that woman who seemed in charge bit her tongue and was sent to the hospital and those middle-school-looking guests left too. What’s even the point of keeping us in here at this point?”

“Aside from that, something about this doesn’t feel right. They claim to be afraid of a microscopic infection or contaminant, but they haven’t brought in any kits for testing our blood or mucous membranes.”

Fukiyose Seiri tended to take the reasonable view and reject conspiratorial thinking, but for once she was pursuing it while choosing her words carefully.

Was there really an infection source here?

The crematorium staff and the part-time monk were starting to look skeptical as well. And if trust in Bio-Secure(?), the hosts in charge of the place, dropped, another thought would naturally begin to form.

They were up against a flamethrower-wielding group that kept their faces hidden. The group was highly organized, yet didn’t appear to be the official Anti-Skill.

…Was it really safe to go on obeying their instructions?

Then a sound came from outside the cloudy window.

It sounded like the rustling of a thicket being parted.

The powered suit stationed in front of the gas-proof door tilted its heads in a very human way and then contacted someone.

“B5a, you’re scheduled report is late. How long are you going to hang around out back? I can see your coordinates, so quit slacking off and respond.”

A short silence.

The mood changed.

“B5a? …A3b to C1d, B5a’s coordinates aren’t moving from around back. He’s even switched off his camera sharing, so what the hell is he up to? You’re outside, right? Just to be safe, I’m requesting a visual check.”

For some reason, Aogami Pierce looked to the window clouded by plastic, not the powered suit doing the talking.

He was curious.

What was that rustling sound he could hear coming from just outside?

Or maybe he had no real reason to expect anything and he was simply being guided by a curiosity about the unknown, a psychological tendency found even in ancient myths.

“H-hey? A3b to C1d, what’s wrong? Check in, all of you!”

There was nothing more than a sound like splitting wood. And not a thin piece of plywood either – this was the sound of a centuries-old tree being forcibly split down the center.

The powered suit guarding the gas-proof door contacted someone, shook his head, and then rushed outside.

Aogami Pierce looked puzzled.

“Huh? What’s he doing leaving his post? Could this be our chance to escape?”

“What if he returns right a-”

Fukiyose didn’t finish her sentence.

They heard some kind of rustling sound outside the cloudily translucent window…but nothing more than that.

The powered suit that had left the gas-proof door hadn’t returned.

“Around back of the crematorium would be…right out there, wouldn’t it?”

Because no else was talking, Fukiyose’s voice sounded awfully loud.

Then silence.

It was so uncomfortably quiet that Aogami Pierce’s gulp was audible.

“What is going on outside?”

The bulletproof plastic sprayed over the outside of the window left the view too cloudy to see well. Aogami Pierce slowly approached to try and get a view outside.

''Crash!!

A powered suit’s bucket-like head armor broke through the cloudy window.

“Eek!?”

Aogami Pierce tumbled backwards onto his rear.

No one laughed.

This wasn’t ordinary glass. Even after breaking, it didn’t shatter. The glass advertised as bulletproof stayed in one piece with cracks spiderwebbing across it. How much force had that slammed into the window with? After breaking through the plastic wall, the bucket-like head armor did not move. Aogami Pierce didn’t know exactly how a powered suit worked or was worn, but the head was at an unnatural height for standing or sitting. Wasn’t it painful to have just your head fixed in such an awkward position?

Or.

Was the wearer beyond the point of complaining about pain or fear?

Something was definitely happening.

What that was was less clear.

But while the details were a mystery, staying here would be a bad idea!!

“Th-there’s something out there… I saw ''some kinda giant legs moving around''! If we don’t do anything, will that thing get in through the window!?”

Fukiyose also took a few steps toward the window.

“I-it’s fine,” she said. “It’s fine. I mean, those Bio Secure(?) people sealed up all the exits with that special bulletproof plastic!”

A high-pitched and unpleasant cracking sound rang out.

Yes. Tons of cracks had spiderwebbed through one of those precious windows, destroying it.

What protection was that?

“Are you planning to hide in here forever?” asked Aogami Pierce. “What about food and water? All we’ve got is the bread vending machine in the hallway!”

The bread vending machine was already half covered in “sold out” lights and those special forces(?) protected head-to-toe with tough powered suits hadn’t fared too well themselves. No one could say for certain if the makeshift bulletproof nature of the plastic applied over glass could really prevent this attacker from getting in.

More than that, the trapped high schoolers could succumb to the mental pressure, panic, and suicidally scatter.

Tsukuyomi Komoe, who was responsible for all those students, breathed out through her nose. The 135cm teacher managed to speak even as she tearfully trembled.

“Th-th-th-there was a bus outside! We can take a look outside and, if there’s an opening, make a run for the bus out the main entrance!!”

“But who’s going to drive it!?”

“Believe it or not, I have a Class 2 large vehicle license, so I can handle a bus with ease!!”

The students were leaning heavily toward the “not” side, but complaining would only get them left behind in the crematorium filled with such a dangerous atmosphere. And no one in a 1st year high school class would know how to drive even an ordinary car. So like it or not, Tsukuyomi Komoe was their only hope.

They decided to call over the crematorium staff and the part-time monk too. They gathered their things and approached the gas-proof door that was inflated with air and felt like the goal at the end of a marathon. The problem was the space beyond the two-layer door.

Looking to the roundabout with a large roof to keep the rain off…there it was. The bus they had arrived on.

The 20-ish meters to it clutched at their hearts with fear.

But the group protected by thick powered suits had been taken out.

This had to be better than heading out and staying on foot.

However, there was still a fundamental question.

“So what was that about giant legs moving around?”

“I don’t know. That’s just what I saw through the distorted glass.”

They only saw darkness out front. That didn’t tell them much of anything.

But it had to be there.

“I-I found the key… Okay, everyone, are you ready? There is no turning back if you forget something. Ready, set…go!!”

On Komoe-sensei’s signal, they all ran out toward the bus.

===Part 2===

It was already night and a red snow was falling.

A girl in black mourning clothes, Misaka Mikoto, let her shoulders slump.

Truly the world had to be ending if Shokuhou Misaki was the only person she had to vent to.

“What do we do now!? It’s gotten dark. It’s eight o’clock! But we still haven’t found that idiot, it’s well past the dorm’s curfew, and we missed dinner…”

“I have Mental Out, so I can get by if need be.”

“Are there no hints at all!? We haven’t seen any of those Bio Secure powered suits in a while, so what is even happening anymore!?”

That was who they were supposed to be pursuing, but it felt like they were straying further and further from the center of the excitement. They were in District 10 since the crematorium was there, but was this even the right district to search?

And…

“What is that?”

Just as she was starved for any information at all, Misaka Mikoto spotted something in the distance.

Specifically, at a large intersection with a pedestrian bridge located a short distance away.

“There’s something there.”

“Those aren’t ground-based drones, are they?”

This was nothing at all like Bio Secure and their powered suits. The things didn’t even seem mechanical.

What were those gross 2m monsters crawling with legs?

Mikoto wasn’t a fan of snakes and worms either, but she found it hard to watch many-legged creatures moving around.

And these didn’t look like ordinary creatures. Something like big clumps of blonde hair were crawling this way and that. They inspired the same disgust as peeking inside a stranger’s kitchen trash bucket.

Mikoto held a hand over her mouth in exaggerated sorrow.

“Long blonde hair… Shokuhou, this isn’t some new and extremely cursed special move of yours, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t. How am I supposed to use my psychological Mental Out to make hair move around on its own? Besides, isn’t it obvious at a glance that those monstrous clumps of filth are nothing at all like the perfect beauty ability of my hair!?”

The busty blonde must have been deeply offended because she tearfully grabbed at Mikoto.

Mikoto had a fairly strong belief that half the negative aspects of the world were Shokuhou Misaki’s fault, but apparently these things were part of the other half.

“So what are they?” asked Mikoto.

“I sincerely hope the fact that the dead are getting back up doesn’t mean we’ve entered some alternate world where anything goes…”

Several of the golden things turned their way. Forcefully.

It wasn’t clear why, but the things had locked onto them.

However, if they were vulnerable to physical attacks, they weren’t really anything to fear. Not when Misaka Mikoto was Academy City’s #3 Railgun.

She blasted an arcade coin at three times the speed of sound and the golden crabs, centipedes, and whatnot scattered. Of course, she could only manage this so easily because she was the Level 5 known as the Ace of Tokiwadai and an ordinary person wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

“Misaka-san, there’s one up on the pedestrian bridge.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Misaka-san, you missed one in the right side street.”

“I was just getting to that one.”

“Misaka-san, wait, that isn’t one of them!!”

“Nhh!?”

Misaka Mikoto shook hard.

…Did she just blast a non-blonde thing as it turned a corner up ahead? And the thing making a clanging sound was, um, a vehicle?

This was one problem with being too powerful.

Time froze for a bit.

And Shokuhou Misaki held a hand over her mouth in exaggerated sorrow.

“Misaka-san… To think you would tarnish your name ability with murder at your age…”

“Wait, hold on, they’re probably not dead maybe! Oh please be alive, whoever you are!!”

She rushed over to find no one in the driver’s seat.

In fact, the engine wasn’t even on. Apparently no one had been inside and something had caused the parked car to slowly slide forward. While this frozen street looked flat, if you placed pachinko balls on it, she guessed they would probably all roll in a single direction.

But anyway…

“Phew. No harm, no foul.”

“I have a feeling this still violates several law abilities, but it’s only a feeling, so I’ll ignore it.”

Just as the two of them were breathing a sigh of relief, Mikoto spotted a girl passed out near the car.

The girl wore a white nun’s habit.

And was that a calico cat and a girl figurine she had there?

===Part 3===

Heavy yet unsteady breathing sounded in the dark night of red snow.

“Pant, gasp…”

Coming from Kihara Goukei.

The end of her extended arm was grasping a giant fly head.

Her left arm was missing past the elbow and the right arm holding the corpse was already rotting away in places, revealing the greenish discoloration of the bone below.

Had her opponent called this magic? Some method that Kihara had never before seen had eliminated so many of her biological reactions that even the brains contained within her skull had been fully blown away at least twice, but, well, ''all she had to do was mend the missing biological organs.

(Still, I did lose a lot: three of the stamp-sized computer chips embedded in my body, two of my bacteria colonies, and even my precious pea crabs…)

But she had still defeated that thing.

When she tossed the unneeded fly head aside, it splatted onto the red snow-covered ground and then vanished as if melting into thin air. Like it had never existed in the first place.

Necromancer Isabella Theism was seated with her back against a building wall.

Her head was hanging limply and she wasn’t moving.

A thin layer of red snow had accumulated on her head.

She had to already be unconscious.

However, this wasn’t over yet.

Kihara Goukei heard unpleasant rustling sounds.

Coming from a golden mass resembling a giant crab.

Apparently these things had been scattered around by a visitor who went by the overblown title of “great demon”.

The small boy approached her. Probably because he was afraid.

His name was Urekawa Ousuke, wasn’t it?

She loved children. No, it didn’t have to be children. Asking for help was a gamble because it required revealing your weakness and powerlessness to someone else. To the point that a rejection from them could mean losing everything. Kihara Goukei loved anyone who would take that step to rely on her. Which was why she wanted to live up to that trust no matter what. Even though she knew, as one of the infamous Kiharas, they would all wind up disliking her in the end.

“Madame Gou…”

“Don’t worry. There is nothing to fear.”

By the time she said that, all wounds had vanished from Kihara Goukei. Only smooth skin was visible through her torn clothing. Her rotten and missing limbs were back as well.

A child was watching. Doing the correct thing always made them fear her, but that didn’t mean she should continue showing off all that gruesome blood and injuries.

…However, that didn’t mean she had regained full function of her body.

(Really, I would have been truly dead if that thing had destroyed two more of my miniaturized myocardium bunches.)

She wasn’t about to say so, though.

She was concerned, but increasing the boy’s burden by revealing the state of her remaining lives was the wrong thing to do.

As reliable Madame Gou, the correct choice was to smile and say something else.

“Let’s get you home. I will crush all the dangers and clear a path for you☆”

She was perfectly fine with leaving Isabella to die, but the boy looked up at her with damp eyes and she was forced to give herself two extra arms. …This was not a free-to-use unlimited storage space deal, though. If she didn’t orally ingest various ''ingredients'' such as protein and calcium, she would suffer from deficiency symptoms, so she had to be careful. Apparently her only choice was to fight today while carrying yesterday’s enemy on her back.

(But still.)

“This was too much of détour. I really don’t think I have enough stamina left to deal with that Coronzon person.”

===Part 4===

They had settled on a plan.

First, take a transport plane into the sky. Then every last missile left in Academy City would be fired on Coronzon and they would hide in that barrage to parachute down nearby.

Only so many people could act.

Namely, the group in the crumbling consulate.

Kamijou Touma, Alice Anotherbible, Kihara Noukan, the Bologna Succubus, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Qliphah Puzzle 545, Dion Fortune, Takitsubo Rikou, and Hamazura Shiage.

Their job was to battle a great demon to keep the entire world at peace.

It was ironic that the group they had gathered for such an over-the-top objective had such variety yet wasn’t even large enough to play a soccer match.

(So Vidhatri is ultimately staying in the consulate to rest. At least it sounds like she’s woken up.)

They would just have to do this with the group available.

At 9 PM, they stepped out from the former Bridge Builders Cabal consulate.

Their destination was District 23. It was right next door to District 12 where they were now.

They could travel that distance on foot.

Kamijou took a nervous look out at the main street and was shocked by how dark it was.

Was this really Academy City?

“There’s no one here. No cars either. I know the Anglicans apparently took over the city, but I guess they’re not patrolling the streets like Anti-Skill.”

“Because their priority is Coronzon. That selfish and indiscreet group did not travel halfway around the world to keep order in the city,” said Dion Fortune, pouting her lips.

Even if it was only an interim position, she seemed upset that none of them were listening to what she said as their leader. Understandable.

“If they’re not willing to do the job, they shouldn’t have used military might to take over…” said Accelerator over the wireless earphone Kamijou wore.

That other leader was also in a bad mood. Again, understandable.

District 23 was a unique place that specialized in the aerospace industry and the entire district was a giant off limits zone, but not much security was functioning with the city in such a bad state. And it seemed unlikely the Anglicans would understand the scientific value well enough to post magician guards.

The place was wide open at the moment.

Academy City was darker than usual and Kamijou asked a question while walking through the falling red snow.

“District 7 is a big place. Do we know Coronzon’s location there?”

“The former site of the Windowless Building,” said Accelerator.

“…I see.”

“Apparently that damn demon intends to destroy every piece of Aleister’s legacy.”

Coronzon was currently spreading “blonde hair monsters” around District 7 for defense. They looked frightening at first, but finding the highest concentration would tell you what Coronzon most wanted to protect, which told them where Coronzon was as she completed her ceremony. …Constructing a defensive line was important, but this could easily happen if you weren’t careful where you positioned it.

In this snow, Kamijou found it frightening to be endlessly on the lookout without anything actually happening.

He felt like he would freeze to death if he didn’t do something himself.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet opened and closed her iron maiden thing.

“If you want to warm up, my coat is open to you.”

“Help me, her nemesis!!”

Kamijou clasped his hands and prayed to the flying succubus who launched a flying kick into Miss Bouquet’s face since it was the only exposed part of her. She did it with those sharp heels of hers, so would she be okay?

Meanwhile, the border to District 23 came into view. It was impossible to miss with the metal fence taller than an adult stretching endlessly to the left and right.

“So this is the place.”

From the outside, no guards were in evidence.

That special district was supposedly crammed full of runways and launch sites, but it was terribly dark at the moment. The stadium-like lighting was currently switched off. Probably because the international airport was shut down during the emergency.

“Still, there might be someone in the roofed checkpoints,” cautioned Accelerator. “So instead of causing unnecessary problems, find a good spot and climb over the fence.”

“You’re so nice to normal people.”

“Of course I am. Normal people aren’t a nuisance to society like all of you.”

Kamijou had no response to that one.

They all climbed over the tall fence. It looked like little Alice would have trouble…and she might just spread her arms and break through the fence with a smile if left to her own devices, so Kamijou assisted her.

Meanwhile, Hamazura noticed something and grew flustered.

“H-hey. That bouquet person is flailing around on the ground. She fell over!”

“Peh peh peh. It’s a miracle she even managed to climb to the top of the fence in that iron maiden of a coat!” said the Bologna Succubus.

“This world is deeply sick if we must rely on these people to save us all,” lamented Accelerator.

The Bologna Succubus held a hand to her mouth and roared with laughter while showing zero inclination to help (even though that was her colleague), so Hamazura and Takitsubo had to help up the girl who might as well have been wearing a mascot costume made of steel. With all the metal on the outside, she had to be handled with care lest their palms stick to it in the cold.

And the mystery person inside was crying fairly seriously.

“Uh, uh, eh, uhhh… That insane demon who wanders around in her underwear was making fun of me. I’ll never live it down…”

Apparently the Bologna Succubus’s fashion choices were considered abnormal even among the Transcendents. On the other hand, the girl talking here wore a naked apron underneath her thick coat.

“You should have remove the heavy coat and thrown it over the fence,” commented Kihara Noukan who had made it to the other side of the fence.

How had a dog managed that? Was he really just a golden retriever?

They had finally entered the off-limits zone.

But they would be safe for now. This plan came straight from Accelerator at the very top. Kamijou knew he didn’t need to be nervous, but he still found himself crouching down to avoid being seen.

“Your destination is Runway D-25. A transport plane is waiting for you there. I had the snow cleared in this frigid weather to get it there, so don’t you waste it.”

“I’m amazed to learn the city has at least 25 runways.”

But even with the runway lights off, wouldn’t an airplane and its large wings be pretty noticeable out in the red snow? An airplane’s main wings seemed more delicate than a house’s roof, though.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings.

“If it’s just the boy, I could carry him up into the night sky. No airplane necessary.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Coronzon and the Anglicans will both react sharply to any magical tricks. An airplane lets us fly without using any magic, which will help us hide within the missile explosions to approach.”

Dion Fortune immediately shot down her idea.

In the magic world, you apparently weren’t guaranteed a victory if your magic power level was over a million billion or whatever. At times, it was more useful to fully hide your presence and blend into the background.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had been flapping her own wings for the same reason, so she froze a bit as everyone turned her way.

The red snow was beginning to accumulate in the darkness. The marks on the runway were hard to make out, but that just meant they had to find the place where a lot of people had been moving around clearing the snow. By following the remaining footprints and tire tracks, it looked like they could at least avoid getting lost and walking in circles through the vast District 23.

“Hey, there’s something there.” Kihara Noukan was looking elsewhere. “It doesn’t look like a city security robot. That is a design that would frighten the children to tears.”

A weird, two meter crab creature was scurrying along in the distance.

No, was that even a living thing?

The monster was made from tons of blonde hair.

This was one of the patrolling guards Coronzon was using for defense.

“A scout, I suppose,” said Blodeuwedd the Bouquet with a white breath.

Kamijou frowned.

“Is it something like the Aethyr Avatars I saw in the UK?”

“She isn’t providing them that much power. Probably so she can focus on Adikalika,” assessed Dion Fortune.

But it was still there.

Hadn’t that #1 bastard said they were only in District 7!? Then what’s this one doing here!?

“Coronzon must have noticed me poking around, so she randomized her defensive line to confuse us as we tried to slip through!” said Accelerator.

“What, so it was your fault!?”

“No, it was your fault for failing to settle on a plan without my help!!”

But while he didn’t say it out loud, Kamijou was moderately surprised.

Apparently not even new Board Chairman Accelerator could see anything and everything happening in Academy City.

Was his observable area being limited by all the unrepaired damage across the city?

This meant Coronzon could more easily learn of their plan…but that didn’t ruin everything. She would have learned about it eventually. Even if she knew they were coming, they would still be able to parachute in among the missiles while she was too busy dealing those missiles to deal with them.

“But if the transport plane or the runway are blown up, you won’t be able to take off. Get aboard the plane as soon as you can. We can discuss this after that!”

Kamijou heard the rumbling of an engine.

Based on what Accelerator had said, he was expecting to find airport staff operating a snow plow, but that wasn’t what this was.

“What the hell is that?” asked Accelerator.

“…That’s my class.”

It was a bus.

With a 135cm teacher gripping the steering wheel.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW5.png|thumb]]

Either she wasn’t used to driving such a large vehicle or the tires were slipping on the red snow, because it wasn’t moving any faster than a bicycle. He heard a flapping sound and noticed a window toward the back was open just a bit with a curtain caught in it.

Why had they wandered into off limits District 23?

As he wondered that, he recalled the crematorium was in District 10 and that was adjacent to District 23. With Coronzon and her defenders swarming their home ground of District 7, maybe they hadn’t been able to return to their dorms and had come here for shelter.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet gave a simple comment.

“They’re going to die.”

A shape was already in hot pursuit.

Several were in fact.

Those two meter crabs were made by forcibly wrapping long, long blonde hair. Unlike the weirdly long legs of a Japanese spider crab, these were stouter and had thick, brutally shaped pincers. At that size, a pinch would probably be able to crush and slice right through a steel pipe as big around as Kamijou’s arm, but what was with that clump of hair? In addition to simple physical attacks, its terrifying appearance suggested it could also use toxins and infections.

They couldn’t let Coronzon know what they were doing.

He knew that much.

But then he saw one of the monsters, which could run straight forward despite being a crab, lunge toward the bus that couldn’t get its speed up thanks to the slippery snow. No, the long tail on that one meant it was probably a scorpion. What would happen to his classmates if it caught up?

“…”

Kamijou Touma made a rapid direction change.

He clenched his right fist and charged straight toward the giant killer scorpion.

The instant he punched it, the sensation vanished.

It rapidly lost its shape and scattered across the red snowy ground.

It gave off a twisted shine.

That really was long, long blonde hair it was made of. At this point, there was no need to ask whose.

The #1 groaned from the earphone.

He may have been holding his head where he was.

“You’re just causing us more trouble…”

“Where can I send my class!?”

“The closest option would be the international airport terminal. It’s full of anti-terror mechanisms, so it should last a while. I’ll open the shutter at the delivery entrance.”

Fortunately, smart people could switch gears quick at times like this.

His voice might not reach them inside the bus, but he should still be able to use the school’s social media. Just to be safe, he sent a notification to all their phones, so the entire class received a message from a dead boy’s address simply telling them to change course.

“Now I just have to draw the attention of the golden crabs and snakes so the bus can escape safely!”

''Boom!!!

Something exploded nearby.

No, that was the sound of thick lightning dropping from high in the sky and piercing a giant snake.

“There’s only so much I can do,” said Accelerator. “You figure out which targets are most efficient.”

Kamijou couldn’t afford to die here. Even if he let his class escape, the entire world would be doomed if Coronzon were allowed to launch Adikalika. And then his classmates would be killed regardless.

The Bologna Succubus raised her voice from a short distance away.

“Stop worrying about the future! Focus on what’s right in front of you!!”

The golden scorpion was closer than he had expected.

While he was watching its sharp pincers, something else swooshed sharply down from the upper right of his vision.

That was the giant venomous tail.

“Uh!?”

He heard a powerful metallic roar and saw orange sparks.

For a brief moment, Kamijou truly had no idea what had happened.

He sensed the sweet, sweet scent of nectar and felt someone else’s body heat in what was supposed to be a freezing night.

He wasn’t in complete darkness. He was shut off from the world, but the enclose space was filled with a faint bluish-white light meant for growing plants. And he saw an excessively skinny girl’s body.

That was apparently Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. Her thick metal coat had covered him and deflected the sharply jabbing scorpion tail with its massive armor.

“Th-thank-”

“You’re mine now☆”

“Mgh, mgh, mgahhh!?”

Before the fear could even set in, he was caught in the embrace of a pair of unusually skinny arms. And the thick metal coat that cut him off from the outside world shut the final remaining slit before his eyes. Uh, oh. At this rate, he would be chewed up inside this super-sweet girl’s iron maiden!?

An exasperated voice spoke from outside the coat.

“You know, I’m beginning to think you want the boy’s right hand to strip you naked and toss you out into the open.”

“Hm, is that how it works?”

With a flapping sound, the Bologna Succubus opened her large wings wide.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet also opened her thick coat like double doors.

Those Transcendents had once tried to bring salvation to the people.

…They really were so much alike. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why they didn’t get along.

And now wasn’t the time to be relaxing. Failing to take out any of those monsters would only lead to further victims.

Once Kamijou was finally returned to the outside world, the demon woman smiled and whispered to him.

“Really, boy. You never do stop trying to show off, do you?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I didn’t say that☆” “She didn’t say that☆”

===Part 5===

As the bus departed, Aogami Pierce stared out the window and shouted.

“Kami-yan!!”

But Kamijou did not answer the call from the bus.

Maybe he hadn’t heard through the thick window.

Or maybe he was preoccupied with other matters. Aogami Pierce could see him using his right hand to punch and destroy a few more of the blonde hair crabs and scorpions approaching the bus.

Even though he didn’t have to do that.

Even though he been pushed away as a dangerous source of infection.

Even though Aogami Pierce hadn’t confronted the adults for treating him that way when they hadn’t even applied any real pressure to prevent it.

In truth, the class had no idea what was going on.

Why was Kamijou Touma’s fist so effective against those monsters?

What was he doing here in District 23 after fleeing the crematorium?

But he hadn’t changed.

Dead or resurrected, Kamijou Touma was Kamijou Touma.

The bus drove on.

To leave that boy behind again.

A Magical Powered Kanamin charm swayed from Aogami Pierce’s pocket. The location of a new shelter had been sent to his phone which finally had a signal again.

Fukiyose Seiri looked glum. The highly responsible girl was talking to herself.

“Oh, no. …And I called him a zombie back at the crematorium.”

“That settles it. Busty black-haired Fukiyose Seiri must atone by working as the manager of the boy’s dorm for a while!!”

Aogami Pierce struck a pose shortly before a fist struck his face.

She wasn’t opposed to finding some way to atone, but she disliked Aogami Pierce’s attempt to use that to benefit himself.

Something like a sob came from Tsukuyomi Komoe in the driver’s seat.

She let go of the big steering wheel with one hand to rub her eyes, but the large bus began to slide to the side and was soon swerving back and forth a lot. She was too short for her feet to reach the gas and brake pedals, but maybe it had been a mistake to break a mop handle in two and attach them to her legs with packing tape wrapped around her shins and shoes to forcibly allow her to drive.

Little by little, their usual classroom was returning.

Now the only thing they needed was him.

===Part 6===

District 23 was large and flat. It was dark, devoid of landmarks, and currently covered in an unnatural red snow. The frantic fighting threatened to throw off Kamijou’s sense of direction, leaving him unsure which way he had come from and which way he was going.

(The bus has gone, so now I’d really like to get away from these things.)

“Teacher, look after yourself!”

He didn’t need Alice to tell him that.

Golden crabs and snakes were converging on his location from multiple directions.

He’d taken it too far.

Now he might not make it.

Just as his panic was starting to show, something exploded to the side.

No, that wasn’t it. The steel mass of a snowplow had crashed in and crushed a few of the golden snakes and scorpions.

The driver was too small for the driver’s seat.

The person who hopped out of the snowplow was Anna Sprengel.

Come to think of it, hadn’t she been freeloading in Kamijou’s room since her punishment had been delayed?

“I hope you hadn’t forgotten about me, fool. No, surely not.”

Kamijou Touma’s lack of reaction earned him a kick in the shin.

Apparently his inability to look her in the eye had not been appreciated.

“I have been gathering information on my own and it isn’t looking good. Academy City’s resources are close to depletion, but Coronzon only has to cut off more of her endlessly growing hair to replenish her forces.”

“Eh? That’s how it works?”

“She is only allotting them the bare minimum of resources because she had to focus on Adikalika, but if she focused on mass-producing these things, it could turn into a very big problem.”

A short distance away, the red snow was split through and something like an Eastern dragon drew out a large curve.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was swinging around her metal coat’s large sleeves and shouting something, so she was probably summoning a swarm of starlings or other pest birds.

Kamijou asked Anna Sprengel a question as he ran along the red snow.

“How much do you know about our plan?”

“I wouldn’t be in District 23 if I wasn’t familiar with the general idea.”

He didn’t know how she had learned that, but if she could do it, then someone else could in the same way.

Like Coronzon.

Since they had clashed with her blonde hair monster scouts, she had to know what they were doing regardless.

But that didn’t make this revelation any less frightening.

“…”

Meanwhile, Hamazura Shiage had been silently glaring this way for a while.

The track suit girl with him also showed no sign of stopping.

Kamijou didn’t fully understand all of the relationships between the people here. Did Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou have some connection to Anna Sprengel?

For that matter…

“After R&C Occultics, I bet there aren’t many people with a favorable opinion of Anna Sprengel.”

“You’re not wrong, but I’m being falsely accused in this case. That wasn’t me – it was the filthy scammer who was using my body.”

“?”

That made no sense to Kamijou, but why did Hamazura and Takitsubo also frown when they heard it?

A certain succubus reacted to the phrase “falsely accused” by wagging her tail side to side, but he didn’t have time for her right now.

After some more running, Kamijou came across a lump taller than he was. The pointy-haired boy initially jumped, thinking it was another monster released by Coronzon, but it wasn’t moving. Apparently it was only a large pile of red snow.

The result of clearing the snow.

Of course, this went beyond what someone armed with a shovel could accomplish. Most likely, someone had used that snowplow or a wheel loader.

There were a few different routes marked with tire tracks, so there must have been a team that gathered the runway’s snow here and another team that loaded that into a dump truck or something and carried it away for.

“With those monsters in District 23, I had the workers quit clearing the snow and go hide in the international airport terminal,” said Accelerator. “After all the work they put in for us, I couldn’t let them die for us too.”

That went without saying.

But with the world on the verge of destruction, Kamijou appreciated hearing things like that said out loud. He didn’t know if this should be called an emergency or a crisis, but neither was any reason to trample people’s lives underfoot. And the person serving at the top as board chairman was willing to say so.

And in that case…

“Is that it?” said Kamijou, catching his breath.

Even with barely any lights around, the large shape still stood out from the surrounding darkness.

It looked like a giant whale with wings equipped with several x-shaped propellers.

It was a transport plane.

===Part 7===

Misaka Mikoto sighed after managing to rescue(?) Index in the dark streets of District 10.

“I didn’t screw up. I mean, I’m helping her, so she should thank me. There is no reason for her to throw stones at me. None at all.”

“Hey, girl. You might be able to fool that sheltered nun, but you can’t pull the wool over the eyes of a god of deception.”

The 15cm person(?) was saying something, but she probably wasn’t human and could be safely ignored!

Academy City’s #3 looked into the distance.

There was something there.

But not a scurrying blonde thing. This looked more scientific.

Mikoto stared in amazement.

“Are self-driving vehicles allowed on public roads? I know they let those busses drive around during the Daihaseisai, but wasn’t that a special case?”

“It may be a public app-based taxi service taking advantage of loopholes in the regulations. Besides, aren’t even the traffic lights having trouble in this red snow? When ordinary taxis can’t ensure their safety, they’re probably refusing to work.”

Shokuhou gave some explanations, but it didn’t sound like she had anything solid to go on.

At any rate, Mikoto raised her hand to hail it and it approached her like normal.

“What’s with this car? It’s tiny.”

Probably because it was designed to be self-driving and thus had no driver’s seat or passenger seat. It reminded her of one of those ultra-small cars shaped like an egg lying on its side that you sometimes saw in TV ads. She wondered if a golf cart might actually be more spacious.

Index tilted her head.

“Will that take us to Touma?”

“I don’t feel like explaining, so I’ll just say ‘more or less’.”

“Okay!”

The white nun boarded with guileless eyes. A single piece of candy would probably be enough to kidnap her.

Meanwhile, a much more suspicious type of girl gave the car a skeptical look.

“Not so fast, Misaka-san. Hailing it is all well and good, but do you know where it’s going?”

“Scoot over.”

Mourning clothes Misaka Mikoto ignored the question and climbed in after the nun.

The door automatically shut behind her.

“Huh!?”

Shokuhou Misaki pounded on the door from the outside.

But this self-driving car only seated two!

“Didn’t you hear me say the car was tiny, you stupid girl!? And claiming seats has always been a race! Hmm, what a shame. There’s just not enough room in here for any sacks of fat to join us.”

“–––––!? ……!!!?”

“Hm? Short hair, what is she saying?”

“That right there is her shouting ‘Huhhh? Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh??’ at the top of her lungs. She’s so cute when she’s helpless.”

Misaka Mikoto was cruel through and through.

With a deep rumble, the tiny car mercilessly drove off.

It was clearly electric, so that rumble was probably a sound effect played for safety.

(Since it’s self-driving, if she really wanted to stop it, she only needed to move in front of it while it was stopped so the camera or radar would detect her and automatically apply the brakes. That stupid girl’s inability to ad lib makes her so much easier to deal with.)

15cm Othinus stared into the distance and muttered from Index’s shoulder.

“I may be a god of war, but if that outwitted her, I’m worried she won’t survive left all alone with those weird golden things scurrying around.”

“If that was enough to kill her, she wouldn’t have been a thorn in my side for so long.”

===Part 8===

Aboard the transport plane, Kamijou had been most afraid while they rattled along the frozen runway, but everything stabled out once they were up in the night sky. Even though now was when they were truly approaching death.

He was surprised enough to find they had parachutes small enough for Alice and Anna Sprengel, but then he noticed Kihara Noukan rummaging around a corner of the cargo space. Even though he was a golden retriever. Was there really such a thing as a canine parachute in this wide world?

“It’s an extreme sports product. Manufactured by a start-up with some mistaken ideas about what a pet product should be. They also made dog snowboards and dog diving suits. Even though the animals can’t understand or enjoy the concept of being in a viral video. In the end, it’s a product made by humans for humans.”

The voice coming through the earphone was as prickly as ever.

…Just how much information reached the new board chairman on any given day? This didn’t sound at all relevant to the current global threat.

Kamijou also noticed Blodeuwedd the Bouquet modifying the harness of the parachute she was issued. Equipping it to her thick metal coat probably was a challenge, but was it safe to mess with it on your own?

“The missile attack has started,” said Accelerator.

“I see.”

“The stockpile’s only so big, so you only get one chance at this. Jump out into the sky at the designated point and drop down near Coronzon. Miss this chance and you don’t get another shot at it.”

“I’m aware.”

After that exchange, the #1 fell silent.

He seemed displeased with something.

Accelerator whispered the next words over the transmission.

“…Complain about having to do this.”

“Later. I’ll complain all you want when we’re looking back on it.”

A red warning light lit up and the wind raged in.

The pressure rapidly changed.

In the very back of the transport plane, the door meant for loading and unloading vehicles lowered. It formed a gentle slope and led toward a heart-stopping view of the city far below.

“Time to go.”

“The #1 has to see everyone else go?” said Accelerator. “There really is something wrong with this world.”

It was finally time.

Great Demon Coronzon had probably noticed by now. So they couldn’t hope for the best-case scenario. Their next best bet was to put her in a situation where she couldn’t stop them even if she knew what they were doing.

That meant launching every last missile left in Academy City. Mixed in with all those flying objects, Kamijou’s group would be dropping down toward Coronzon.

“Your drop destination is the former site of the Windowless Building in the center of District 7. Not long now!”

An adult man stood next to the open slope and shouted over the roaring wind. It wasn’t clear if he was from the city’s light side or dark side.

“You will be dropping along with the missile attack! So there is no making a U-turn to try again if you mess up. It would stand out too much. We will be arriving above the drop point shortly. Make sure you jump the first time! It is currently 10 PM sharp. Begin jump!!”

At this point, Kamijou just had to steer himself.

He clenched his teeth and took a running start down the slope leading into the sky at over 2000m up.

He forcefully kicked off the end of the slope.

Gravity vanished.

He jumped.

Did he not feel the ordinary fear of heights in that moment because it was such a dark night? The city night was lit unusually sparsely, making it hard to judge the distance to the ground. …Which was actually a dangerous factor leading to landing accidents when making parachute jumps.

Alice and Takitsubo Rikou zoomed right past him.

Apparently your positioning changed your speed.

Kamijou had been spared tumbling uncontrollably end over end, but not because of any athleticism on his part. The parachute bag on his back was wriggling on its own to adjust his air resistance and balance.

Even so, he was at an altitude of 2000m.

That wasn’t very far. In fact, it was frighteningly short for a fall.

As the wind roared up at him, he checked the small LCD on the shoulder strap to find his free fall speed was more than 200km/h. A mere 2 kilometers was nothing.

(I hope that bastard watching on from his ivory tower of a prison did the math right!!)

Something like a cylinder with collapsible wings dropped by right next to Kamijou. It was about as thick around as a two liter water bottle, but its length was well over his height.

“Wait, a missile!?”

If it detonated now, he was dead.

He was free falling from higher up than a skyscraper roof, but this new development eliminated the ordinary fear of that situation.

Also, this didn’t look like a missile that flew in a straight line before piercing into the target.

“What is that? It’s more like a little fish swimming through the sky. A whole school of them!”

“It’s nothing special,” said Accelerator. “Just a ''turretless'' next-gen tank. If you want to blow up another tank, a self-destructing drone has much better range and precision than an ordinary tank gun. Then all you need is to build a large-scale production line to bring down the cost of each drone stuffed full of semiconductors. Then to load a single tank with as many drones as possible, you replace the top of the tank with as many multiple launchers as will fit.”

The explosive covered in what looked like small smartphone lenses weaved sharply about.

This was more than simple speed.

This bleeding-edge deadly technology would read the trajectories of autocannon fire and auto grenade launchers that used radar fuses and then evade them as it approached its target. Once this swarm of slaughter locked onto you, there was no escape and it seemed to work just fine against magic.

“There really is something wrong with Academy City,” said Kamijou.

“Hey. By claiming and sitting on the military patent for this, we can keep the outside world from making any.”

Apparently the new board chairman had thought this through.

Kamijou just hoped it didn’t backfire.

At any rate, it sounded like he didn’t need to worry about any of the missiles pouring down from the sky accidentally hitting anyone. They could stay put and the ''swimming drones'' would avoid them on their own. In fact, it might be safer if no one panicked and tried moving around. …That did bother Kamijou a little because it reminded him of how people had to go through annoying processes and complete tedious registrations to make the processing easier for the machines.

He soared through the night sky.

He plunged into the valley between buildings.

The city that had looked so tiny rapidly spread out around him.

The LCD on his shoulder strap must have been linked to an altimeter. His parachute opened on its own without him having to pull anything. With a sound like a sheet beating at the air, he felt a squeezing across his body. The complex harness had distributed the weight.

“Gweh!!”

But that didn’t make it gentle. This didn’t feel beautiful it all.

Light as a feather this was not. The point of a parachute was to let you fall from a great height without dying and that was it. Maybe it was similar to how being shot through a bulletproof vest still hurt like hell and immobilized you for a bit.

It wasn’t over with the parachute opening.

In fact, he felt like he was still moving pretty quick with it open. The speed felt similar to attempting a slope while seated on a bicycle.

There was no light.

The swimming drones were detonated here and there in the sky and illuminating the world like camera flashes, but the contrast of the shadows was too strong and it only disoriented him.

The pointy-haired boy was aiming for a wide-open street with three lanes both ways…but it turned out to have a lot more stuff than he had expected: streetlights, trees, a wind turbine. Each one would kill him instantly if he collided with it. And the surrounding buildings created some highly irregular wind currents. In fact, the way the wind was dragging him backwards was terrifying.

“Damn, I wish I’d gone for a building rooftop!!”

“Do you want to die impaled on a street wireless LAN antenna or lightning rod?”

He heard a voice.

Was that Dion Fortune drifting along right next to him?

“More importantly, keep an eye on your altimeter. We’re almost at the ground. Don’t miss the moment of impact because it’s dark and there’s snow. You’re out of the fight here if you break your leg!!”

What exactly was he supposed to do?

Just as he wondered that, all the streetlights at a large intersection unnaturally lit up.

Had the rumored new board chairman done something again?

That showed Kamijou the distance to the ground…but it was way closer than he’d thought!?

“Oh, shit!!”

He bent his legs in preparation to cushion against the shock. The wind carried him over and he crashed into some low bushes between the street and sidewalk, but he supposed that was better than colliding with a thick and solid tree or streetlight.

As soon as he landed, the unnaturally lit up street lights unnaturally extinguished themselves.

(Hey, not so fast!)

He had to feel around in the darkness. He fumbled around until he managed to release the parachute harness from his body.

“Where’s the Windowless Building!?”

“The wind blew us pretty far off course. I caught a glimpse of it earlier, but from this far, Hamazura and Takitsubo might contact Coronzon before us.”

Not good.

They weren’t sure they could defeat that great demon with all of them fighting together. It was too dangerous for anyone to go ahead of the rest. Especially for the non magic experts.

Kamijou heard some large wings flapping overhead.

The Bologna Succubus was flying around while carrying iron-maiden-like Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. She was drawing out a big figure 8, so it didn’t look like she was taking the shortest route somewhere. Perhaps she was trying to draw Coronzon’s attention. They had mentioned magic side people reacting more sensitively to magical tricks.

But where was Alice Anotherbible?

Where had Anna Sprengel gone?

Or Qliphah Puzzle 545?

And Kihara Noukan?

(Damn, we keep losing the people that act like trump cards!)

Regardless, they were short on time. They were right at Coronzon’s throat, but that meant she would use each minute and second they delayed to plot a recovery. He wouldn’t even have time to check if everyone was alright.

Dion Fortune was not shaken.

In fact…

“We’ll just have to make do with the people we have. No matter how carefully you plan it out on paper, battles always come down to what you can do with the cards reality gives you!”

“But getting too accustomed to ad libbing means a complete lack of control.”

“Since when were you the careful planning type?”

…

Looking back, every single one of his fights had been ad libbed from beginning to end!!

They had been separated for now, but they would all be heading to the same place from their different landing spots, so he could only trust they would meet up where Coronzon was.

He was a good distance away from the former location of the Windowless Building, but it was a straight shot down a major street. There was no time to lose. If he was worried about Hamazura and Takitsubo, he had to rush there as fast as possible.

While running, Fortune kept to Kamijou’s left-hand side.

She was keeping her distance from Imagine Breaker.

As much as she looked like a young girl, this part of her may come from her nature as a tarot deck and original grimoire.

But they ended up stopping before long.

Because something blocked their way.

Creatures like two meter crabs and snakes made of blonde hair.

…But that wasn’t all.

''Roar!!!

A sudden blast of wind blew through.

The red snow on the ground was thrown into the air and Kamijou felt like he had been struck by an ocean of blood. If Dion Fortune hadn’t immediately grabbed his left arm and tugged, the surprise attack probably would have bisected him. Right down the middle.

Something scraped along the ground. Leaving behind a strange, sharp, and sinister scar. Kamijou briefly saw it as the earth itself hemorrhaging blood. And when the red snow guided his gaze along the scar…he saw someone.

Wearing black mourning clothes.

With a palette knife in her right hand.

With feline symbols all over her.

And the thing she was riding like a steed was…could you even call that thing a cat? The enormous and lithe beast shadow was made of black paint and stood two or three meters tall.

“You’re…kidding,” groaned Kamijou.

Calling this a reunion would be inaccurate. This was likely a different individual from the woman he knew.

But come to think of it…

Before, in the UK, Great Demon Coronzon had taken measures to stop Kamijou, Aleister, and the rest. She had released several pawns based on members of the Golden cabal. The Dion Fortune here now was the only survivor.

That had included big names like Westcott and Mathers…but come to think of it, there was one Golden magician who Coronzon had never used.

Dion Fortune gave the answer.

She spoke the name of the trump card Coronzon had saved until the very, very end.

“''Moina Mathers''…”

The name sounded subtly different from the one Kamijou knew.

But it likely referred to the same person.

She was the wife who had supported Mathers, one of the Golden cabal’s three founders. She was an engineer who had used her artistic talent to design realistically producible versions of the many spiritual items thought up by the Golden cabal. She was the black cat witch.

She resembled Mina, but the Moina that Coronzon had created really was different. The eyes behind the veil were pitch black. Sticky shadows lurked within them and they were so dark it seemed like they would absorb everything.

And Kamijou was hit by the fear of the unknown.

Thinking back, Mina Mathers had always fought alongside him.

To put it another way, they had never fought each other until one or the other was unconscious.

(You’re kidding…)

Out of all the Golden magicians, the black cat witch was the one whose strength as an enemy he couldn’t judge…

(We ''must'' stop Coronzon and Adikalika. We don’t have time for this risky battle that we might not even be able to win!)

Kamijou gulped.

At the same time, the girl next to him stepped forward.

“I’ll do it.”

“Fortune?”

“Honestly, this is a great opportunity. I was already thinking it was high time I conquered my trauma related to ''her''. I mean, she surrounded my house with black cats that were just meow, meow, meow, meow all night long, keeping the entire neighborhood up. She used an astral technique to gouge into my fragile maiden’s back. And there’s plenty more she needs to pay me back forrrrrrrrrr!!”

She suddenly exploded.

There was a lot of personal resentment mixed in, but Dion Fortune didn’t seem willing to back down.

If Fortune and Moina were going to clash here, then Kamijou had to get moving. He couldn’t stick around and waste Fortune’s determination to give him some time even if it meant wearing down her own life.

“Thanks!!” he shouted.

He thought he saw a small smile when Fortune briefly turned to look at him.

She was always saying hers was an interim position and she was only filling the vacancy.

But…

“She’s doing a pretty good job as archbishop if you ask me.”

Kamijou simply ran.

First those blonde hair monsters and now Moina Mathers… Was that really all? How many trump cards did Coronzon have hidden away?

===Part 9===

At the Windowless Building – or really, its former site – a pillar of pale light rose from the center of the large square clearing.

At this point, she must not have felt the need to hide.

Great Demon Coronzon held a hand to her hip, looked up at it, and sighed.

That was the Adikalika large-scale attack spell.

For a great demon like her to spend hours on it, the spell clearly required a lot of care to set up. Of course, that may have been why she felt so attached to it now.

“Only about an hour to go.”

Even that comment under her breath was interrupted and cut off by a nearby explosion.

Was that Academy City’s missile attack?

None of the missiles could directly hit her. She didn’t even need to raise her palm for them to explode and scatter in midair.

“Fools.”

If they had so much weaponry leftover, they should have ignored her and indiscriminately bombed different parts of the city. They should have thoroughly destroyed the city themselves. That way they could have prevented doom for the world at the cost of a single city.

This time, anyway.

She wasn’t about to call it quits if she failed the first time. She was Great Demon Coronzon and she had never said anything about only having a single devastating trump card.

The center of the threat was not Adikalika.

It was Great Demon Coronzon herself.

Of course, Academy City wasn’t actually placing their own fate and the fate of the world in the hands of this long-distance attack.

She knew just how crafty and greedy humans were.

She moved her feet to draw out the lines of a rectangle in the accumulated red snow. Then she added a diamond and a few lines to divide it into sections where she drew in the necessary symbols.

This was a horoscope.

A glance at the ground was enough to read it.

It detected a few people headed this way.

Sensing was her specialty. She was, after all, the supernatural being who managed knowledge off limits to living humans. And that management primarily meant preventing the masses from reaching or acquiring that knowledge.

She had lost count of how many people she had devoured after they foolishly assumed that summoning and taming her was the ticket to endless knowledge. It was laughable that those people were referred to as talented or wise when they couldn’t even figure out it was a bad idea to contact something that essentially had a warning sign with the words “danger” written in large text.

(Some grimoires make me sound really important while describing a role not much different from this country’s Kokkuri-san. Well, at least it’s not as bad as getting confused with the necromancy where people ask a rotten zombie to reveal the future to them.)

“Still…”

Did they really think an explosive blast – that is, physical light and sound – could disturb her?

It was almost scary how ignorant they were of magic. Or maybe was their misplaced confidence in their knowledge that would hurt them in the end. She felt like she was watching bandits hiding in the dark woods and celebrating their victory while unaware that night-vision devices existed.

There was no reason to wait for them to arrive. She could blow them up from here. And all she would need to do was raise her palm in that direction.

So it was time to obey her rule of dispersion.

Who should she kill first?”

“Heh.”

It amused her to no end that her creation of Dion Fortune had taken over her old position as the Anglican Archbishop. Blowing Fortune away along with the Moina Mathers she had sent out would be simple enough…but that was a low priority. The Archetype Processor that could break apart and transform any magic was a greater threat than Fortune herself, but that still wasn’t enough to push her up out of the low priority category.

Fortune was a toy Coronzon had made after all.

The creation could rebel against its creator, but it could never win.

The Bologna Succubus and Blodeuwedd the Bouquet also weren’t top priority. Coronzon had directly destroyed Crowley, so the Transcendents were small time to her. After all, Alice Anotherbible was ''an accidental success'' by one of Aleister’s students and the other Transcendents were the deteriorated result of mass-producing inferior copies of Alice.

(I can do better.)

“The standard route would be to crush Imagine Breaker here. Isn’t that right, ''Aleister''?”

That was the best choice if she wanted to beat them down the most.

As a demon, it was the most correct option.

Coronzon grinned and, for some reason, rubbed a hand below her navel before holding that palm straight out ahead.

Kamijou Touma wasn’t yet close enough to be visible, but that was a mere trifle. It wouldn’t stop her from targeting and killing him.

If she was going to do this, she might as well show him some truly wonderful sparks.

She would end his life with the terrible toy that had taken Aleister Crowley’s family from him and even triggered the Battle of Blythe Road.

Kamijou Touma.

He didn’t know space itself was about to explode.

With no way to sense it, he couldn’t raise his right hand to defend against it.

And once it hit him, he was destined to die.

The inability to escape that destiny had been proven by the death and doom of Aleister’s family.

“Does it hurt?”

It was rude.

She knew that, but she couldn’t help but let the smile split wide across her face.

“It hurts, doesn’t it, Aleister? Yes, it hurts to be trapped in your own body and forced to watch an ending you do not want. I should know. I lived through it myself. The entire time you had me sealed away, it was endless torture as I watching those hellish scenes playing out! Now it’s your turn, magician!! It’s time you felt even a minuscule fraction of the agony I felt as my body was used against my will!!!”

This was only one step in that process.

With each new step, she would take another life. And she could circle the globe as she went. That was his reward for underestimating a great demon and, even temporarily, using her like that. Look back upon the bloody path you walked and despair, Aleister.

But then…

“…No.”

She heard a voice.

It was a girl’s voice that ever so slightly irritated Great Demon Coronzon as she single-handedly prepared the end of the world.

She had been just a bit faster.

First, a sound like a large sheet beating at the air.

That was the sound of flapping wings.

The girl flew directly in front of the great demon and descended.

And with her feet on the ground, Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 raised her voice.

“I won’t let you. I will never let you do that!!”

===Part 10===

And…

“Qliphah Puzzle 545?”

At first, she had completely forgotten who that was.

Or so Great Demon Coronzon’s expression suggested.

The result was obvious even before they fought. Unlike humans, angels and demons were not physical beings. Which meant they could directly sense the Telesma energy from which they were formed. That was an overwhelming disadvantage for Qliphah Puzzle 545. Frankly, it was amazing she had made it this far without being killed by the scouts Coronzon created by cutting off her own hair.

“Now that you mention it…yes, I remember now. You’re that imitation demon I created. And a creation opposing its creator isn’t even worth a laugh. What can a puny disposable pawn hope to accomplish against me?”

“''Leviathan''.”

She said one word.

Just one little word.

Yet as soon as Qliphah Puzzle 545 recited that incantation, Great Demon Coronzon fell silent.

“See? This will work against you.”

“Damn…you. That…”

[[File:GT Index v13 BW6.png|thumb]]

“Is fatal for you.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was also a demon.

So when she smiled, it split wide across her face.

“Great Demon Coronzon. You are the one who lurks in the Abyss hidden within the great Sephiroth tree and monopolizes the wisdom found there. You are the only wicked being who, as a demon, has managed to remain hidden in the holy realm guarded by angels. And in the end, you are no more than Crowley magic applied to the illicit technique to secretly devour and acquire the tree’s fruit and sap despite being its guardian.”

“Don’t you get that this power is too great for you? If an artificial imitation like you reaches to that place, all you will accomplish is destroying yourself.”

“A demon who is tangled around the very Sephiroth which makes you special, devours it, infects it, and consumes its functions would be your greatest enemy. …And there is one, isn’t there? A demon who appeared from the Qliphoth, the inverted tree which gathers all the world’s injustice and vice, broke the seal when Adam and Eve were driven out, and finally managed to bite at the Sephiroth! A demon so powerful he was reduced to an imperfect form in the current world!!”

Space exploded.

Orange sparks became visible.

Did the clashing of the two demons’ wills contain enough power to distort the phase?

“I create an atmosphere of war, disturb the regulated order, and inspire conflict between people. I may be an imitation, artificial, and false, but on a more basic level…I am still the kind of demon who devours the tree that is this world.”

“…”

Coronzon glanced down at her fingertips.

She wasn’t even scratched.

There was no problem.

…And yet she was trembling?

“How strange. Your structure obviously isn’t human, but it isn’t that of a normal demon either?”

“Just take a look at my name: Qliphah Puzzle 545. I too am a demon who lurks in the colossal tree. Although for me it’s the inverted tree that gathers all the unclean symbols. So I already contain the same traits and value as the serpent of the multiplying heads. I have it all!”

“Hidden in one of the great trees that acts as a diagram of the world, a supernatural being, a usurper of knowledge, and a demon… Why? Why are you so much like me!?”

“''I dunno, maybe cause you created me''?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 attempted a wicked smile, but she was pretty sure she failed.

This wasn’t about challenging or surpassing.

This was a child killing her parent.

That was the lowest and wickedest sin, but perhaps that was what made it so appropriate for a demon.

So she spoke.

“Picture it. Summon within yourself the Beast of Revelation, the monster gnawing on the great tree. Beast and serpent and dragon and demon are one and the same, thus there is no boundary between you and he.”

With each word spoken, the girl-shaped demon could feel it.

Something was straining inside her and pulsing in a disturbing way.

Coronzon spread her wings wide and tangled together countless long blonde hairs like a spiderweb to form a complex magic circle…and then stopped. She had been in such a hurry that the spell she formed ''was too powerful.'' This would cause Adikalika to burst and return to nothing.

(Damn, I wasted 1.5 seconds on this!!)

So while holding herself back with wings spread, Coronzon whispered to her opponent.

And just like a demon, this whisper was meant to guide her in the wrong direction.

“You must be aware your very being is ''unraveling''.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had been created by Coronzon in order to cover the United Kingdom in a war atmosphere to drive it toward ruin. Since she had been meant as a temporary thing, not much care had gone into the structure of her girl form.

“You might be able to activate the spell, but you can never endure the recoil. Your form will break down permanently. And it will go beyond your appearance. You will lose your memories, your personality – everything. And you’re still going to go through with it!?”

By focusing on the primary functions, it would at least blow her away without a trace.

All that would remain would be, well, a twisted form worthy of the demon title. More than just her outer appearance, she would lose everything down to the depths of her mind and become nothing more than a hideous monster.

“7, 10, 8, 11, and 666. Extract the necessary numbers from within yourself while expanding them to their greatest form.”

But she didn’t care.

She wasn’t listening.

That foolish, weak, and filthy demon was intent on expanding the partial knowledge she had after incompletely performing an incomplete copy.

Because of what she had seen.

Inside that prison cell, that boy was working all alone to atone for his crimes and had still managed to find hope in the world outside, but she had seen his face when he found that world was being destroyed. She had seen his expression, which he probably hadn’t meant for anyone to see, when he had learned the boy he considered a comrade in arms was dead.

That’s why she needed to do this.

The people who were running here were a necessary part of the scenery he wanted to protect.

She wouldn’t let it end here. She wouldn’t let them be slaughtered from afar.

…No matter what she had to do.

“Here, I reflect the same number with a different meaning. By letting it engulf me, I gain a different self.”

She would protect the world – the dream – that boy was trying to create.

So Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 roared with all her might.

Shaking free of the chill she felt as she unraveled.

(Farewell, master.)

“Transform me in body and soul, ''Leviathan''!!!”

===Part 11===

Shortly before that…

“Hamazura.

“I…know!!! What the hell!? Don’t despair in the world before you’ve even tried!”

They were lying on top of her.

Two figures had jumped in from behind and tackled Qliphah Puzzle 545 to the ground. Even if it was temporary, she had a body and that meant obstructing her breathing and actions would cancel the spell.

It happened at the very last second and from her own side.

Great Demon Coronzon recognized the pair too.

Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou.

Two who, for some reason, hadn’t been on Coronzon’s list of targets had now arrived.

Pinned down on the red snow, Qliphah Puzzle 545 spoke weakly.

“Why…would you stop me?”

Her voice shook as she asked. Her face was a mess of tears and snot.

Understandably.

She would have lost that face and body.

Her personality and memories would have crumbled away.

She would have turned herself into a monster to battle Coronzon.

Of course that would scare an ordinary girl.

“You idiot!! If you don’t want him to suffer through watching a familiar face die while he’s forced to watch helplessly on from that cell of his, then why would you kill yourself and force it onto him that way!? To be honest, I don’t have a great opinion of the previous board chairman even after everything everyone’s said about him. But this new one’s different, right? He might actually do something to fix this city. But what you’re doing is just gonna send the next board chairman off the rails too!!”

“You saw him from closer than anyone.”

Takitsubo Rikou continued in her flat voice.

But that didn’t mean there was no emotion behind it.

“Doesn’t that mean it was the same for him? The new board chairman sent you to the consulate when the world might end today. He placed all that responsibility on your shoulders and let you handle it. Even though I’m sure there was at least one thing he wanted to protect with his own hands.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 didn’t raise her head from the ground covered in red snow. She curled up, balled up, and shook.

Sobs spilled from her.

Maybe she didn’t want them to see her crying.

That was the moment when something inside Hamazura Shiage that he couldn’t quite put to words crossed a line.

(This world can really go to hell. Why should she have to be embarrassed about that?)

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was a demon. She was a created being. She had come from Coronzon.

None of that could change.

But all she wanted to do was walk next to a familiar person in this ordinary world.

Yet she had been pushed this far.

She had done all this.

Hamazura slowly turned around. To face Coronzon.

“Hey, Coronzon.”

“What is it, Hamazura? If you’re hoping for some odd job to do, wait about an hour and get back to me.”

An hour.

Did that mean the world was set to end at around 11 PM?

Dion Fortune ''had'' said her estimate was optimistic. Still, this was earlier than the midnight estimate.

“Surely you don’t think you can defeat me just because you know a little bit about me. Mathers thought he could control me and Aleister had researched me ten thousand times more than you. Yet they both lost – everyone always does!! Even the great Golden cabal fell! And his legacy of Academy City is my toy as well. So what can you, who couldn’t even accomplish anything within the bounds of that city, hope to-!!!”

“''You’ve gone too far''.”

A grinding sound filled the air.

It may have been the grinding of teeth.

Great Demon Coronzon had fallen silent.

After a full three seconds, she began again.

“Then what will you do about me?”

“That depends on your answer.”

“Do you think you are in any position to test me, fool!!?”

===Part 12===

And.

===Part 13===

Kamijou Touma also arrived.

At the former District 7 site of the Windowless Building.

At that square center of the world.

“Hi,” said Coronzon.

It was 10:30 PM. It had been a close thing, but he had arrived in time.

“What took you so long? I was so bored. Adikalika is such a pain to prepare. I wish I could just activate it already, but it has forced this great demon to wait.”

Two people lay collapsed at her feet. Was that Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou? It was just as he’d feared. They weren’t sure their forces combined could defeat Great Demon Coronzon, so it was too dangerous for any one of them to move out ahead.

What had happened here?

“You should thank them, Kamijou Touma. Arriving here wasn’t your accomplishment alone.”

…Was that the red snow?

He thought it was. Hoped it was.

Please someone say that wasn’t human blood.

Yes.

And come to think of it…

“What ended up happening to Nephthys and Niang-Niang?”

“What do you think happened?”

He had no response for that.

Amused, Coronzon asked him again.

“Tell me, Kamijou Touma. Surely you didn’t actually think those two would defeat me and bring peace to the world? If you had, you wouldn’t have spent your time afterwards planning and preparing to face me. Ha ha! So you must have known the moment you fled!! You knew those two would lose and you still chose to save your own skin!! So am I the only villain here!? Ha ha ha ha ha! Sure, I’m the one who delivered the finishing blow, but you were the one who pushed them toward it!!”

Yes.

That was true.

He still didn’t know what had happened to the two Magic Gods, but…

He was afraid to die. He had learned to feel that ordinary emotion, but now he had survived by forcing the unpleasantness onto someone else. There was no denying that.

“So were you so intent on surviving because you wanted a front-row seat to Adikalika’s activation? You stained your own soul to survive, yet soon you will be destroyed along with the rest of the world.”

He had made Alice cry and she killed him.

He had gone to hell and received the ticket to resurrection that Kingsford or CRC could have used instead.

Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang had told him to run away.

What had he hoped to do after all that?

He had had plenty of opportunities to refuse and stop.

So what had he been so reluctant to leave behind that he never gave up on living?

“Making Aleister despair and releasing me was truly the crowning achievement of your folly. So maybe you do deserve a gift. But just this once, okay? I will give you what you want. I will slice through your body, grab your head, and hold it in place, so enjoy watching the end of the world without even being able to die!!”

“''Give it a rest, Coronzon''.”

Others had been saving him this whole time.

He wanted to end that chain here. He wanted to stand on his own two feet.

He wanted to apologize to all the people he had troubled with his death and he wanted to return to his ordinary life.

Was that so wrong?

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter3

2025-08-24T20:57:08Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 4 */

==Chapter 3: To Protect the World We Live In – Dance_With_ADIKALIKA.==

===Part 1===

“How long are we gonna be stuck here? I’m starving…” groaned Aogami Pierce.

He was in the District 10 crematorium.

They were quarantined inside.

There were some vending machines in the hallway, but about half the options on the bread machine had their red “sold out” lights lit. With the entire class there, a few dozen were forced to use the same vending machine, so it didn’t require the supplier to be falling behind on restocking the machine for it to be running out.

Every window and door was sealed from the outside with a thick bulletproof plastic. The only exit was gas-proof door protected by an air curtain, but it was guarded by a thick powered suit armed with a flamethrower. Whether it was powered suit’s doing or not, no one’s phones had a signal. The only smile was on Aogami Pierce’s Magical Powered Kanamin charm. The view out the windows was already dark. It was 8 PM. Aogami Pierce had been so busy with the funeral this morning that he feared he wouldn’t get a chance to claim the social network game rewards that had become a daily habit for him. He also hadn’t checked the video sites or online news. Falling behind the average person in information felt like being a step away from death for an otaku.

“And yet Kami-yan’s probably still walking around out there when he’s the one who caused all this. Then that woman who seemed in charge bit her tongue and was sent to the hospital and those middle-school-looking guests left too. What’s even the point of keeping us in here at this point?”

“Aside from that, something about this doesn’t feel right. They claim to be afraid of a microscopic infection or contaminant, but they haven’t brought in any kits for testing our blood or mucous membranes.”

Fukiyose Seiri tended to take the reasonable view and reject conspiratorial thinking, but for once she was pursuing it while choosing her words carefully.

Was there really an infection source here?

The crematorium staff and the part-time monk were starting to look skeptical as well. And if trust in Bio-Secure(?), the hosts in charge of the place, dropped, another thought would naturally begin to form.

They were up against a flamethrower-wielding group that kept their faces hidden. The group was highly organized, yet didn’t appear to be the official Anti-Skill.

…Was it really safe to go on obeying their instructions?

Then a sound came from outside the cloudy window.

It sounded like the rustling of a thicket being parted.

The powered suit stationed in front of the gas-proof door tilted its heads in a very human way and then contacted someone.

“B5a, you’re scheduled report is late. How long are you going to hang around out back? I can see your coordinates, so quit slacking off and respond.”

A short silence.

The mood changed.

“B5a? …A3b to C1d, B5a’s coordinates aren’t moving from around back. He’s even switched off his camera sharing, so what the hell is he up to? You’re outside, right? Just to be safe, I’m requesting a visual check.”

For some reason, Aogami Pierce looked to the window clouded by plastic, not the powered suit doing the talking.

He was curious.

What was that rustling sound he could hear coming from just outside?

Or maybe he had no real reason to expect anything and he was simply being guided by a curiosity about the unknown, a psychological tendency found even in ancient myths.

“H-hey? A3b to C1d, what’s wrong? Check in, all of you!”

There was nothing more than a sound like splitting wood. And not a thin piece of plywood either – this was the sound of a centuries-old tree being forcibly split down the center.

The powered suit guarding the gas-proof door contacted someone, shook his head, and then rushed outside.

Aogami Pierce looked puzzled.

“Huh? What’s he doing leaving his post? Could this be our chance to escape?”

“What if he returns right a-”

Fukiyose didn’t finish her sentence.

They heard some kind of rustling sound outside the cloudily translucent window…but nothing more than that.

The powered suit that had left the gas-proof door hadn’t returned.

“Around back of the crematorium would be…right out there, wouldn’t it?”

Because no else was talking, Fukiyose’s voice sounded awfully loud.

Then silence.

It was so uncomfortably quiet that Aogami Pierce’s gulp was audible.

“What is going on outside?”

The bulletproof plastic sprayed over the outside of the window left the view too cloudy to see well. Aogami Pierce slowly approached to try and get a view outside.

''Crash!!

A powered suit’s bucket-like head armor broke through the cloudy window.

“Eek!?”

Aogami Pierce tumbled backwards onto his rear.

No one laughed.

This wasn’t ordinary glass. Even after breaking, it didn’t shatter. The glass advertised as bulletproof stayed in one piece with cracks spiderwebbing across it. How much force had that slammed into the window with? After breaking through the plastic wall, the bucket-like head armor did not move. Aogami Pierce didn’t know exactly how a powered suit worked or was worn, but the head was at an unnatural height for standing or sitting. Wasn’t it painful to have just your head fixed in such an awkward position?

Or.

Was the wearer beyond the point of complaining about pain or fear?

Something was definitely happening.

What that was was less clear.

But while the details were a mystery, staying here would be a bad idea!!

“Th-there’s something out there… I saw ''some kinda giant legs moving around''! If we don’t do anything, will that thing get in through the window!?”

Fukiyose also took a few steps toward the window.

“I-it’s fine,” she said. “It’s fine. I mean, those Bio Secure(?) people sealed up all the exits with that special bulletproof plastic!”

A high-pitched and unpleasant cracking sound rang out.

Yes. Tons of cracks had spiderwebbed through one of those precious windows, destroying it.

What protection was that?

“Are you planning to hide in here forever?” asked Aogami Pierce. “What about food and water? All we’ve got is the bread vending machine in the hallway!”

The bread vending machine was already half covered in “sold out” lights and those special forces(?) protected head-to-toe with tough powered suits hadn’t fared too well themselves. No one could say for certain if the makeshift bulletproof nature of the plastic applied over glass could really prevent this attacker from getting in.

More than that, the trapped high schoolers could succumb to the mental pressure, panic, and suicidally scatter.

Tsukuyomi Komoe, who was responsible for all those students, breathed out through her nose. The 135cm teacher managed to speak even as she tearfully trembled.

“Th-th-th-there was a bus outside! We can take a look outside and, if there’s an opening, make a run for the bus out the main entrance!!”

“But who’s going to drive it!?”

“Believe it or not, I have a Class 2 large vehicle license, so I can handle a bus with ease!!”

The students were leaning heavily toward the “not” side, but complaining would only get them left behind in the crematorium filled with such a dangerous atmosphere. And no one in a 1st year high school class would know how to drive even an ordinary car. So like it or not, Tsukuyomi Komoe was their only hope.

They decided to call over the crematorium staff and the part-time monk too. They gathered their things and approached the gas-proof door that was inflated with air and felt like the goal at the end of a marathon. The problem was the space beyond the two-layer door.

Looking to the roundabout with a large roof to keep the rain off…there it was. The bus they had arrived on.

The 20-ish meters to it clutched at their hearts with fear.

But the group protected by thick powered suits had been taken out.

This had to be better than heading out and staying on foot.

However, there was still a fundamental question.

“So what was that about giant legs moving around?”

“I don’t know. That’s just what I saw through the distorted glass.”

They only saw darkness out front. That didn’t tell them much of anything.

But it had to be there.

“I-I found the key… Okay, everyone, are you ready? There is no turning back if you forget something. Ready, set…go!!”

On Komoe-sensei’s signal, they all ran out toward the bus.

===Part 2===

It was already night and a red snow was falling.

A girl in black mourning clothes, Misaka Mikoto, let her shoulders slump.

Truly the world had to be ending if Shokuhou Misaki was the only person she had to vent to.

“What do we do now!? It’s gotten dark. It’s eight o’clock! But we still haven’t found that idiot, it’s well past the dorm’s curfew, and we missed dinner…”

“I have Mental Out, so I can get by if need be.”

“Are there no hints at all!? We haven’t seen any of those Bio Secure powered suits in a while, so what is even happening anymore!?”

That was who they were supposed to be pursuing, but it felt like they were straying further and further from the center of the excitement. They were in District 10 since the crematorium was there, but was this even the right district to search?

And…

“What is that?”

Just as she was starved for any information at all, Misaka Mikoto spotted something in the distance.

Specifically, at a large intersection with a pedestrian bridge located a short distance away.

“There’s something there.”

“Those aren’t ground-based drones, are they?”

This was nothing at all like Bio Secure and their powered suits. The things didn’t even seem mechanical.

What were those gross 2m monsters crawling with legs?

Mikoto wasn’t a fan of snakes and worms either, but she found it hard to watch many-legged creatures moving around.

And these didn’t look like ordinary creatures. Something like big clumps of blonde hair were crawling this way and that. They inspired the same disgust as peeking inside a stranger’s kitchen trash bucket.

Mikoto held a hand over her mouth in exaggerated sorrow.

“Long blonde hair… Shokuhou, this isn’t some new and extremely cursed special move of yours, is it?”

“Of course it isn’t. How am I supposed to use my psychological Mental Out to make hair move around on its own? Besides, isn’t it obvious at a glance that those monstrous clumps of filth are nothing at all like the perfect beauty ability of my hair!?”

The busty blonde must have been deeply offended because she tearfully grabbed at Mikoto.

Mikoto had a fairly strong belief that half the negative aspects of the world were Shokuhou Misaki’s fault, but apparently these things were part of the other half.

“So what are they?” asked Mikoto.

“I sincerely hope the fact that the dead are getting back up doesn’t mean we’ve entered some alternate world where anything goes…”

Several of the golden things turned their way. Forcefully.

It wasn’t clear why, but the things had locked onto them.

However, if they were vulnerable to physical attacks, they weren’t really anything to fear. Not when Misaka Mikoto was Academy City’s #3 Railgun.

She blasted an arcade coin at three times the speed of sound and the golden crabs, centipedes, and whatnot scattered. Of course, she could only manage this so easily because she was the Level 5 known as the Ace of Tokiwadai and an ordinary person wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

“Misaka-san, there’s one up on the pedestrian bridge.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Misaka-san, you missed one in the right side street.”

“I was just getting to that one.”

“Misaka-san, wait, that isn’t one of them!!”

“Nhh!?”

Misaka Mikoto shook hard.

…Did she just blast a non-blonde thing as it turned a corner up ahead? And the thing making a clanging sound was, um, a vehicle?

This was one problem with being too powerful.

Time froze for a bit.

And Shokuhou Misaki held a hand over her mouth in exaggerated sorrow.

“Misaka-san… To think you would tarnish your name ability with murder at your age…”

“Wait, hold on, they’re probably not dead maybe! Oh please be alive, whoever you are!!”

She rushed over to find no one in the driver’s seat.

In fact, the engine wasn’t even on. Apparently no one had been inside and something had caused the parked car to slowly slide forward. While this frozen street looked flat, if you placed pachinko balls on it, she guessed they would probably all roll in a single direction.

But anyway…

“Phew. No harm, no foul.”

“I have a feeling this still violates several law abilities, but it’s only a feeling, so I’ll ignore it.”

Just as the two of them were breathing a sigh of relief, Mikoto spotted a girl passed out near the car.

The girl wore a white nun’s habit.

And was that a calico cat and a girl figurine she had there?

===Part 3===

Heavy yet unsteady breathing sounded in the dark night of red snow.

“Pant, gasp…”

Coming from Kihara Goukei.

The end of her extended arm was grasping a giant fly head.

Her left arm was missing past the elbow and the right arm holding the corpse was already rotting away in places, revealing the greenish discoloration of the bone below.

Had her opponent called this magic? Some method that Kihara had never before seen had eliminated so many of her biological reactions that even the brains contained within her skull had been fully blown away at least twice, but, well, ''all she had to do was mend the missing biological organs.

(Still, I did lose a lot: three of the stamp-sized computer chips embedded in my body, two of my bacteria colonies, and even my precious pea crabs…)

But she had still defeated that thing.

When she tossed the unneeded fly head aside, it splatted onto the red snow-covered ground and then vanished as if melting into thin air. Like it had never existed in the first place.

Necromancer Isabella Theism was seated with her back against a building wall.

Her head was hanging limply and she wasn’t moving.

A thin layer of red snow had accumulated on her head.

She had to already be unconscious.

However, this wasn’t over yet.

Kihara Goukei heard unpleasant rustling sounds.

Coming from a golden mass resembling a giant crab.

Apparently these things had been scattered around by a visitor who went by the overblown title of “great demon”.

The small boy approached her. Probably because he was afraid.

His name was Urekawa Ousuke, wasn’t it?

She loved children. No, it didn’t have to be children. Asking for help was a gamble because it required revealing your weakness and powerlessness to someone else. To the point that a rejection from them could mean losing everything. Kihara Goukei loved anyone who would take that step to rely on her. Which was why she wanted to live up to that trust no matter what. Even though she knew, as one of the infamous Kiharas, they would all wind up disliking her in the end.

“Madame Gou…”

“Don’t worry. There is nothing to fear.”

By the time she said that, all wounds had vanished from Kihara Goukei. Only smooth skin was visible through her torn clothing. Her rotten and missing limbs were back as well.

A child was watching. Doing the correct thing always made them fear her, but that didn’t mean she should continue showing off all that gruesome blood and injuries.

…However, that didn’t mean she had regained full function of her body.

(Really, I would have been truly dead if that thing had destroyed two more of my miniaturized myocardium bunches.)

She wasn’t about to say so, though.

She was concerned, but increasing the boy’s burden by revealing the state of her remaining lives was the wrong thing to do.

As reliable Madame Gou, the correct choice was to smile and say something else.

“Let’s get you home. I will crush all the dangers and clear a path for you☆”

She was perfectly fine with leaving Isabella to die, but the boy looked up at her with damp eyes and she was forced to give herself two extra arms. …This was not a free-to-use unlimited storage space deal, though. If she didn’t orally ingest various ''ingredients'' such as protein and calcium, she would suffer from deficiency symptoms, so she had to be careful. Apparently her only choice was to fight today while carrying yesterday’s enemy on her back.

(But still.)

“This was too much of détour. I really don’t think I have enough stamina left to deal with that Coronzon person.”

===Part 4===

They had settled on a plan.

First, take a transport plane into the sky. Then every last missile left in Academy City would be fired on Coronzon and they would hide in that barrage to parachute down nearby.

Only so many people could act.

Namely, the group in the crumbling consulate.

Kamijou Touma, Alice Anotherbible, Kihara Noukan, the Bologna Succubus, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet, Qliphah Puzzle 545, Dion Fortune, Takitsubo Rikou, and Hamazura Shiage.

Their job was to battle a great demon to keep the entire world at peace.

It was ironic that the group they had gathered for such an over-the-top objective had such variety yet wasn’t even large enough to play a soccer match.

(So Vidhatri is ultimately staying in the consulate to rest. At least it sounds like she’s woken up.)

They would just have to do this with the group available.

At 9 PM, they stepped out from the former Bridge Builders Cabal consulate.

Their destination was District 23. It was right next door to District 12 where they were now.

They could travel that distance on foot.

Kamijou took a nervous look out at the main street and was shocked by how dark it was.

Was this really Academy City?

“There’s no one here. No cars either. I know the Anglicans apparently took over the city, but I guess they’re not patrolling the streets like Anti-Skill.”

“Because their priority is Coronzon. That selfish and indiscreet group did not travel halfway around the world to keep order in the city,” said Dion Fortune, pouting her lips.

Even if it was only an interim position, she seemed upset that none of them were listening to what she said as their leader. Understandable.

“If they’re not willing to do the job, they shouldn’t have used military might to take over…” said Accelerator over the wireless earphone Kamijou wore.

That other leader was also in a bad mood. Again, understandable.

District 23 was a unique place that specialized in the aerospace industry and the entire district was a giant off limits zone, but not much security was functioning with the city in such a bad state. And it seemed unlikely the Anglicans would understand the scientific value well enough to post magician guards.

The place was wide open at the moment.

Academy City was darker than usual and Kamijou asked a question while walking through the falling red snow.

“District 7 is a big place. Do we know Coronzon’s location there?”

“The former site of the Windowless Building,” said Accelerator.

“…I see.”

“Apparently that damn demon intends to destroy every piece of Aleister’s legacy.”

Coronzon was currently spreading “blonde hair monsters” around District 7 for defense. They looked frightening at first, but finding the highest concentration would tell you what Coronzon most wanted to protect, which told them where Coronzon was as she completed her ceremony. …Constructing a defensive line was important, but this could easily happen if you weren’t careful where you positioned it.

In this snow, Kamijou found it frightening to be endlessly on the lookout without anything actually happening.

He felt like he would freeze to death if he didn’t do something himself.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet opened and closed her iron maiden thing.

“If you want to warm up, my coat is open to you.”

“Help me, her nemesis!!”

Kamijou clasped his hands and prayed to the flying succubus who launched a flying kick into Miss Bouquet’s face since it was the only exposed part of her. She did it with those sharp heels of hers, so would she be okay?

Meanwhile, the border to District 23 came into view. It was impossible to miss with the metal fence taller than an adult stretching endlessly to the left and right.

“So this is the place.”

From the outside, no guards were in evidence.

That special district was supposedly crammed full of runways and launch sites, but it was terribly dark at the moment. The stadium-like lighting was currently switched off. Probably because the international airport was shut down during the emergency.

“Still, there might be someone in the roofed checkpoints,” cautioned Accelerator. “So instead of causing unnecessary problems, find a good spot and climb over the fence.”

“You’re so nice to normal people.”

“Of course I am. Normal people aren’t a nuisance to society like all of you.”

Kamijou had no response to that one.

They all climbed over the tall fence. It looked like little Alice would have trouble…and she might just spread her arms and break through the fence with a smile if left to her own devices, so Kamijou assisted her.

Meanwhile, Hamazura noticed something and grew flustered.

“H-hey. That bouquet person is flailing around on the ground. She fell over!”

“Peh peh peh. It’s a miracle she even managed to climb to the top of the fence in that iron maiden of a coat!” said the Bologna Succubus.

“This world is deeply sick if we must rely on these people to save us all,” lamented Accelerator.

The Bologna Succubus held a hand to her mouth and roared with laughter while showing zero inclination to help (even though that was her colleague), so Hamazura and Takitsubo had to help up the girl who might as well have been wearing a mascot costume made of steel. With all the metal on the outside, she had to be handled with care lest their palms stick to it in the cold.

And the mystery person inside was crying fairly seriously.

“Uh, uh, eh, uhhh… That insane demon who wanders around in her underwear was making fun of me. I’ll never live it down…”

Apparently the Bologna Succubus’s fashion choices were considered abnormal even among the Transcendents. On the other hand, the girl talking here wore a naked apron underneath her thick coat.

“You should have remove the heavy coat and thrown it over the fence,” commented Kihara Noukan who had made it to the other side of the fence.

How had a dog managed that? Was he really just a golden retriever?

They had finally entered the off-limits zone.

But they would be safe for now. This plan came straight from Accelerator at the very top. Kamijou knew he didn’t need to be nervous, but he still found himself crouching down to avoid being seen.

“Your destination is Runway D-25. A transport plane is waiting for you there. I had the snow cleared in this frigid weather to get it there, so don’t you waste it.”

“I’m amazed to learn the city has at least 25 runways.”

But even with the runway lights off, wouldn’t an airplane and its large wings be pretty noticeable out in the red snow? An airplane’s main wings seemed more delicate than a house’s roof, though.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings.

“If it’s just the boy, I could carry him up into the night sky. No airplane necessary.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Coronzon and the Anglicans will both react sharply to any magical tricks. An airplane lets us fly without using any magic, which will help us hide within the missile explosions to approach.”

Dion Fortune immediately shot down her idea.

In the magic world, you apparently weren’t guaranteed a victory if your magic power level was over a million billion or whatever. At times, it was more useful to fully hide your presence and blend into the background.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had been flapping her own wings for the same reason, so she froze a bit as everyone turned her way.

The red snow was beginning to accumulate in the darkness. The marks on the runway were hard to make out, but that just meant they had to find the place where a lot of people had been moving around clearing the snow. By following the remaining footprints and tire tracks, it looked like they could at least avoid getting lost and walking in circles through the vast District 23.

“Hey, there’s something there.” Kihara Noukan was looking elsewhere. “It doesn’t look like a city security robot. That is a design that would frighten the children to tears.”

A weird, two meter crab creature was scurrying along in the distance.

No, was that even a living thing?

The monster was made from tons of blonde hair.

This was one of the patrolling guards Coronzon was using for defense.

“A scout, I suppose,” said Blodeuwedd the Bouquet with a white breath.

Kamijou frowned.

“Is it something like the Aethyr Avatars I saw in the UK?”

“She isn’t providing them that much power. Probably so she can focus on Adikalika,” assessed Dion Fortune.

But it was still there.

Hadn’t that #1 bastard said they were only in District 7!? Then what’s this one doing here!?

“Coronzon must have noticed me poking around, so she randomized her defensive line to confuse us as we tried to slip through!” said Accelerator.

“What, so it was your fault!?”

“No, it was your fault for failing to settle on a plan without my help!!”

But while he didn’t say it out loud, Kamijou was moderately surprised.

Apparently not even new Board Chairman Accelerator could see anything and everything happening in Academy City.

Was his observable area being limited by all the unrepaired damage across the city?

This meant Coronzon could more easily learn of their plan…but that didn’t ruin everything. She would have learned about it eventually. Even if she knew they were coming, they would still be able to parachute in among the missiles while she was too busy dealing those missiles to deal with them.

“But if the transport plane or the runway are blown up, you won’t be able to take off. Get aboard the plane as soon as you can. We can discuss this after that!”

Kamijou heard the rumbling of an engine.

Based on what Accelerator had said, he was expecting to find airport staff operating a snow plow, but that wasn’t what this was.

“What the hell is that?” asked Accelerator.

“…That’s my class.”

It was a bus.

With a 135cm teacher gripping the steering wheel.

[[File:GT Index v13 BW5.png|thumb]]

Either she wasn’t used to driving such a large vehicle or the tires were slipping on the red snow, because it wasn’t moving any faster than a bicycle. He heard a flapping sound and noticed a window toward the back was open just a bit with a curtain caught in it.

Why had they wandered into off limits District 23?

As he wondered that, he recalled the crematorium was in District 10 and that was adjacent to District 23. With Coronzon and her defenders swarming their home ground of District 7, maybe they hadn’t been able to return to their dorms and had come here for shelter.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet gave a simple comment.

“They’re going to die.”

A shape was already in hot pursuit.

Several were in fact.

Those two meter crabs were made by forcibly wrapping long, long blonde hair. Unlike the weirdly long legs of a Japanese spider crab, these were stouter and had thick, brutally shaped pincers. At that size, a pinch would probably be able to crush and slice right through a steel pipe as big around as Kamijou’s arm, but what was with that clump of hair? In addition to simple physical attacks, its terrifying appearance suggested it could also use toxins and infections.

They couldn’t let Coronzon know what they were doing.

He knew that much.

But then he saw one of the monsters, which could run straight forward despite being a crab, lunge toward the bus that couldn’t get its speed up thanks to the slippery snow. No, the long tail on that one meant it was probably a scorpion. What would happen to his classmates if it caught up?

“…”

Kamijou Touma made a rapid direction change.

He clenched his right fist and charged straight toward the giant killer scorpion.

The instant he punched it, the sensation vanished.

It rapidly lost its shape and scattered across the red snowy ground.

It gave off a twisted shine.

That really was long, long blonde hair it was made of. At this point, there was no need to ask whose.

The #1 groaned from the earphone.

He may have been holding his head where he was.

“You’re just causing us more trouble…”

“Where can I send my class!?”

“The closest option would be the international airport terminal. It’s full of anti-terror mechanisms, so it should last a while. I’ll open the shutter at the delivery entrance.”

Fortunately, smart people could switch gears quick at times like this.

His voice might not reach them inside the bus, but he should still be able to use the school’s social media. Just to be safe, he sent a notification to all their phones, so the entire class received a message from a dead boy’s address simply telling them to change course.

“Now I just have to draw the attention of the golden crabs and snakes so the bus can escape safely!”

''Boom!!!

Something exploded nearby.

No, that was the sound of thick lightning dropping from high in the sky and piercing a giant snake.

“There’s only so much I can do,” said Accelerator. “You figure out which targets are most efficient.”

Kamijou couldn’t afford to die here. Even if he let his class escape, the entire world would be doomed if Coronzon were allowed to launch Adikalika. And then his classmates would be killed regardless.

The Bologna Succubus raised her voice from a short distance away.

“Stop worrying about the future! Focus on what’s right in front of you!!”

The golden scorpion was closer than he had expected.

While he was watching its sharp pincers, something else swooshed sharply down from the upper right of his vision.

That was the giant venomous tail.

“Uh!?”

He heard a powerful metallic roar and saw orange sparks.

For a brief moment, Kamijou truly had no idea what had happened.

He sensed the sweet, sweet scent of nectar and felt someone else’s body heat in what was supposed to be a freezing night.

He wasn’t in complete darkness. He was shut off from the world, but the enclose space was filled with a faint bluish-white light meant for growing plants. And he saw an excessively skinny girl’s body.

That was apparently Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. Her thick metal coat had covered him and deflected the sharply jabbing scorpion tail with its massive armor.

“Th-thank-”

“You’re mine now☆”

“Mgh, mgh, mgahhh!?”

Before the fear could even set in, he was caught in the embrace of a pair of unusually skinny arms. And the thick metal coat that cut him off from the outside world shut the final remaining slit before his eyes. Uh, oh. At this rate, he would be chewed up inside this super-sweet girl’s iron maiden!?

An exasperated voice spoke from outside the coat.

“You know, I’m beginning to think you want the boy’s right hand to strip you naked and toss you out into the open.”

“Hm, is that how it works?”

With a flapping sound, the Bologna Succubus opened her large wings wide.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet also opened her thick coat like double doors.

Those Transcendents had once tried to bring salvation to the people.

…They really were so much alike. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why they didn’t get along.

And now wasn’t the time to be relaxing. Failing to take out any of those monsters would only lead to further victims.

Once Kamijou was finally returned to the outside world, the demon woman smiled and whispered to him.

“Really, boy. You never do stop trying to show off, do you?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I didn’t say that☆” “She didn’t say that☆”

===Part 5===

As the bus departed, Aogami Pierce stared out the window and shouted.

“Kami-yan!!”

But Kamijou did not answer the call from the bus.

Maybe he hadn’t heard through the thick window.

Or maybe he was preoccupied with other matters. Aogami Pierce could see him using his right hand to punch and destroy a few more of the blonde hair crabs and scorpions approaching the bus.

Even though he didn’t have to do that.

Even though he been pushed away as a dangerous source of infection.

Even though Aogami Pierce hadn’t confronted the adults for treating him that way when they hadn’t even applied any real pressure to prevent it.

In truth, the class had no idea what was going on.

Why was Kamijou Touma’s fist so effective against those monsters?

What was he doing here in District 23 after fleeing the crematorium?

But he hadn’t changed.

Dead or resurrected, Kamijou Touma was Kamijou Touma.

The bus drove on.

To leave that boy behind again.

A Magical Powered Kanamin charm swayed from Aogami Pierce’s pocket. The location of a new shelter had been sent to his phone which finally had a signal again.

Fukiyose Seiri looked glum. The highly responsible girl was talking to herself.

“Oh, no. …And I called him a zombie back at the crematorium.”

“That settles it. Busty black-haired Fukiyose Seiri must atone by working as the manager of the boy’s dorm for a while!!”

Aogami Pierce struck a pose shortly before a fist struck his face.

She wasn’t opposed to finding some way to atone, but she disliked Aogami Pierce’s attempt to use that to benefit himself.

Something like a sob came from Tsukuyomi Komoe in the driver’s seat.

She let go of the big steering wheel with one hand to rub her eyes, but the large bus began to slide to the side and was soon swerving back and forth a lot. She was too short for her feet to reach the gas and brake pedals, but maybe it had been a mistake to break a mop handle in two and attach them to her legs with packing tape wrapped around her shins and shoes to forcibly allow her to drive.

Little by little, their usual classroom was returning.

Now the only thing they needed was him.

===Part 6===

District 23 was large and flat. It was dark, devoid of landmarks, and currently covered in an unnatural red snow. The frantic fighting threatened to throw off Kamijou’s sense of direction, leaving him unsure which way he had come from and which way he was going.

(The bus has gone, so now I’d really like to get away from these things.)

“Teacher, look after yourself!”

He didn’t need Alice to tell him that.

Golden crabs and snakes were converging on his location from multiple directions.

He’d taken it too far.

Now he might not make it.

Just as his panic was starting to show, something exploded to the side.

No, that wasn’t it. The steel mass of a snowplow had crashed in and crushed a few of the golden snakes and scorpions.

The driver was too small for the driver’s seat.

The person who hopped out of the snowplow was Anna Sprengel.

Come to think of it, hadn’t she been freeloading in Kamijou’s room since her punishment had been delayed?

“I hope you hadn’t forgotten about me, fool. No, surely not.”

Kamijou Touma’s lack of reaction earned him a kick in the shin.

Apparently his inability to look her in the eye had not been appreciated.

“I have been gathering information on my own and it isn’t looking good. Academy City’s resources are close to depletion, but Coronzon only has to cut off more of her endlessly growing hair to replenish her forces.”

“Eh? That’s how it works?”

“She is only allotting them the bare minimum of resources because she had to focus on Adikalika, but if she focused on mass-producing these things, it could turn into a very big problem.”

A short distance away, the red snow was split through and something like an Eastern dragon drew out a large curve.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was swinging around her metal coat’s large sleeves and shouting something, so she was probably summoning a swarm of starlings or other pest birds.

Kamijou asked Anna Sprengel a question as he ran along the red snow.

“How much do you know about our plan?”

“I wouldn’t be in District 23 if I wasn’t familiar with the general idea.”

He didn’t know how she had learned that, but if she could do it, then someone else could in the same way.

Like Coronzon.

Since they had clashed with her blonde hair monster scouts, she had to know what they were doing regardless.

But that didn’t make this revelation any less frightening.

“…”

Meanwhile, Hamazura Shiage had been silently glaring this way for a while.

The track suit girl with him also showed no sign of stopping.

Kamijou didn’t fully understand all of the relationships between the people here. Did Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou have some connection to Anna Sprengel?

For that matter…

“After R&C Occultics, I bet there aren’t many people with a favorable opinion of Anna Sprengel.”

“You’re not wrong, but I’m being falsely accused in this case. That wasn’t me – it was the filthy scammer who was using my body.”

“?”

That made no sense to Kamijou, but why did Hamazura and Takitsubo also frown when they heard it?

A certain succubus reacted to the phrase “falsely accused” by wagging her tail side to side, but he didn’t have time for her right now.

After some more running, Kamijou came across a lump taller than he was. The pointy-haired boy initially jumped, thinking it was another monster released by Coronzon, but it wasn’t moving. Apparently it was only a large pile of red snow.

The result of clearing the snow.

Of course, this went beyond what someone armed with a shovel could accomplish. Most likely, someone had used that snowplow or a wheel loader.

There were a few different routes marked with tire tracks, so there must have been a team that gathered the runway’s snow here and another team that loaded that into a dump truck or something and carried it away for.

“With those monsters in District 23, I had the workers quit clearing the snow and go hide in the international airport terminal,” said Accelerator. “After all the work they put in for us, I couldn’t let them die for us too.”

That went without saying.

But with the world on the verge of destruction, Kamijou appreciated hearing things like that said out loud. He didn’t know if this should be called an emergency or a crisis, but neither was any reason to trample people’s lives underfoot. And the person serving at the top as board chairman was willing to say so.

And in that case…

“Is that it?” said Kamijou, catching his breath.

Even with barely any lights around, the large shape still stood out from the surrounding darkness.

It looked like a giant whale with wings equipped with several x-shaped propellers.

It was a transport plane.

===Part 7===

Misaka Mikoto sighed after managing to rescue(?) Index in the dark streets of District 10.

“I didn’t screw up. I mean, I’m helping her, so she should thank me. There is no reason for her to throw stones at me. None at all.”

“Hey, girl. You might be able to fool that sheltered nun, but you can’t pull the wool over the eyes of a god of deception.”

The 15cm person(?) was saying something, but she probably wasn’t human and could be safely ignored!

Academy City’s #3 looked into the distance.

There was something there.

But not a scurrying blonde thing. This looked more scientific.

Mikoto stared in amazement.

“Are self-driving vehicles allowed on public roads? I know they let those busses drive around during the Daihaseisai, but wasn’t that a special case?”

“It may be a public app-based taxi service taking advantage of loopholes in the regulations. Besides, aren’t even the traffic lights having trouble in this red snow? When ordinary taxis can’t ensure their safety, they’re probably refusing to work.”

Shokuhou gave some explanations, but it didn’t sound like she had anything solid to go on.

At any rate, Mikoto raised her hand to hail it and it approached her like normal.

“What’s with this car? It’s tiny.”

Probably because it was designed to be self-driving and thus had no driver’s seat or passenger seat. It reminded her of one of those ultra-small cars shaped like an egg lying on its side that you sometimes saw in TV ads. She wondered if a golf cart might actually be more spacious.

Index tilted her head.

“Will that take us to Touma?”

“I don’t feel like explaining, so I’ll just say ‘more or less’.”

“Okay!”

The white nun boarded with guileless eyes. A single piece of candy would probably be enough to kidnap her.

Meanwhile, a much more suspicious type of girl gave the car a skeptical look.

“Not so fast, Misaka-san. Hailing it is all well and good, but do you know where it’s going?”

“Scoot over.”

Mourning clothes Misaka Mikoto ignored the question and climbed in after the nun.

The door automatically shut behind her.

“Huh!?”

Shokuhou Misaki pounded on the door from the outside.

But this self-driving car only seated two!

“Didn’t you hear me say the car was tiny, you stupid girl!? And claiming seats has always been a race! Hmm, what a shame. There’s just not enough room in here for any sacks of fat to join us.”

“–––––!? ……!!!?”

“Hm? Short hair, what is she saying?”

“That right there is her shouting ‘Huhhh? Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh??’ at the top of her lungs. She’s so cute when she’s helpless.”

Misaka Mikoto was cruel through and through.

With a deep rumble, the tiny car mercilessly drove off.

It was clearly electric, so that rumble was probably a sound effect played for safety.

(Since it’s self-driving, if she really wanted to stop it, she only needed to move in front of it while it was stopped so the camera or radar would detect her and automatically apply the brakes. That stupid girl’s inability to ad lib makes her so much easier to deal with.)

15cm Othinus stared into the distance and muttered from Index’s shoulder.

“I may be a god of war, but if that outwitted her, I’m worried she won’t survive left all alone with those weird golden things scurrying around.”

“If that was enough to kill her, she wouldn’t have been a thorn in my side for so long.”

===Part 8===

Aboard the transport plane, Kamijou had been most afraid while they rattled along the frozen runway, but everything stabled out once they were up in the night sky. Even though now was when they were truly approaching death.

He was surprised enough to find they had parachutes small enough for Alice and Anna Sprengel, but then he noticed Kihara Noukan rummaging around a corner of the cargo space. Even though he was a golden retriever. Was there really such a thing as a canine parachute in this wide world?

“It’s an extreme sports product. Manufactured by a start-up with some mistaken ideas about what a pet product should be. They also made dog snowboards and dog diving suits. Even though the animals can’t understand or enjoy the concept of being in a viral video. In the end, it’s a product made by humans for humans.”

The voice coming through the earphone was as prickly as ever.

…Just how much information reached the new board chairman on any given day? This didn’t sound at all relevant to the current global threat.

Kamijou also noticed Blodeuwedd the Bouquet modifying the harness of the parachute she was issued. Equipping it to her thick metal coat probably was a challenge, but was it safe to mess with it on your own?

“The missile attack has started,” said Accelerator.

“I see.”

“The stockpile’s only so big, so you only get one chance at this. Jump out into the sky at the designated point and drop down near Coronzon. Miss this chance and you don’t get another shot at it.”

“I’m aware.”

After that exchange, the #1 fell silent.

He seemed displeased with something.

Accelerator whispered the next words over the transmission.

“…Complain about having to do this.”

“Later. I’ll complain all you want when we’re looking back on it.”

A red warning light lit up and the wind raged in.

The pressure rapidly changed.

In the very back of the transport plane, the door meant for loading and unloading vehicles lowered. It formed a gentle slope and led toward a heart-stopping view of the city far below.

“Time to go.”

“The #1 has to see everyone else go?” said Accelerator. “There really is something wrong with this world.”

It was finally time.

Great Demon Coronzon had probably noticed by now. So they couldn’t hope for the best-case scenario. Their next best bet was to put her in a situation where she couldn’t stop them even if she knew what they were doing.

That meant launching every last missile left in Academy City. Mixed in with all those flying objects, Kamijou’s group would be dropping down toward Coronzon.

“Your drop destination is the former site of the Windowless Building in the center of District 7. Not long now!”

An adult man stood next to the open slope and shouted over the roaring wind. It wasn’t clear if he was from the city’s light side or dark side.

“You will be dropping along with the missile attack! So there is no making a U-turn to try again if you mess up. It would stand out too much. We will be arriving above the drop point shortly. Make sure you jump the first time! It is currently 10 PM sharp. Begin jump!!”

At this point, Kamijou just had to steer himself.

He clenched his teeth and took a running start down the slope leading into the sky at over 2000m up.

He forcefully kicked off the end of the slope.

Gravity vanished.

He jumped.

Did he not feel the ordinary fear of heights in that moment because it was such a dark night? The city night was lit unusually sparsely, making it hard to judge the distance to the ground. …Which was actually a dangerous factor leading to landing accidents when making parachute jumps.

Alice and Takitsubo Rikou zoomed right past him.

Apparently your positioning changed your speed.

Kamijou had been spared tumbling uncontrollably end over end, but not because of any athleticism on his part. The parachute bag on his back was wriggling on its own to adjust his air resistance and balance.

Even so, he was at an altitude of 2000m.

That wasn’t very far. In fact, it was frighteningly short for a fall.

As the wind roared up at him, he checked the small LCD on the shoulder strap to find his free fall speed was more than 200km/h. A mere 2 kilometers was nothing.

(I hope that bastard watching on from his ivory tower of a prison did the math right!!)

Something like a cylinder with collapsible wings dropped by right next to Kamijou. It was about as thick around as a two liter water bottle, but its length was well over his height.

“Wait, a missile!?”

If it detonated now, he was dead.

He was free falling from higher up than a skyscraper roof, but this new development eliminated the ordinary fear of that situation.

Also, this didn’t look like a missile that flew in a straight line before piercing into the target.

“What is that? It’s more like a little fish swimming through the sky. A whole school of them!”

“It’s nothing special,” said Accelerator. “Just a ''turretless'' next-gen tank. If you want to blow up another tank, a self-destructing drone has much better range and precision than an ordinary tank gun. Then all you need is to build a large-scale production line to bring down the cost of each drone stuffed full of semiconductors. Then to load a single tank with as many drones as possible, you replace the top of the tank with as many multiple launchers as will fit.”

The explosive covered in what looked like small smartphone lenses weaved sharply about.

This was more than simple speed.

This bleeding-edge deadly technology would read the trajectories of autocannon fire and auto grenade launchers that used radar fuses and then evade them as it approached its target. Once this swarm of slaughter locked onto you, there was no escape and it seemed to work just fine against magic.

“There really is something wrong with Academy City,” said Kamijou.

“Hey. By claiming and sitting on the military patent for this, we can keep the outside world from making any.”

Apparently the new board chairman had thought this through.

Kamijou just hoped it didn’t backfire.

At any rate, it sounded like he didn’t need to worry about any of the missiles pouring down from the sky accidentally hitting anyone. They could stay put and the ''swimming drones'' would avoid them on their own. In fact, it might be safer if no one panicked and tried moving around. …That did bother Kamijou a little because it reminded him of how people had to go through annoying processes and complete tedious registrations to make the processing easier for the machines.

He soared through the night sky.

He plunged into the valley between buildings.

The city that had looked so tiny rapidly spread out around him.

The LCD on his shoulder strap must have been linked to an altimeter. His parachute opened on its own without him having to pull anything. With a sound like a sheet beating at the air, he felt a squeezing across his body. The complex harness had distributed the weight.

“Gweh!!”

But that didn’t make it gentle. This didn’t feel beautiful it all.

Light as a feather this was not. The point of a parachute was to let you fall from a great height without dying and that was it. Maybe it was similar to how being shot through a bulletproof vest still hurt like hell and immobilized you for a bit.

It wasn’t over with the parachute opening.

In fact, he felt like he was still moving pretty quick with it open. The speed felt similar to attempting a slope while seated on a bicycle.

There was no light.

The swimming drones were detonated here and there in the sky and illuminating the world like camera flashes, but the contrast of the shadows was too strong and it only disoriented him.

The pointy-haired boy was aiming for a wide-open street with three lanes both ways…but it turned out to have a lot more stuff than he had expected: streetlights, trees, a wind turbine. Each one would kill him instantly if he collided with it. And the surrounding buildings created some highly irregular wind currents. In fact, the way the wind was dragging him backwards was terrifying.

“Damn, I wish I’d gone for a building rooftop!!”

“Do you want to die impaled on a street wireless LAN antenna or lightning rod?”

He heard a voice.

Was that Dion Fortune drifting along right next to him?

“More importantly, keep an eye on your altimeter. We’re almost at the ground. Don’t miss the moment of impact because it’s dark and there’s snow. You’re out of the fight here if you break your leg!!”

What exactly was he supposed to do?

Just as he wondered that, all the streetlights at a large intersection unnaturally lit up.

Had the rumored new board chairman done something again?

That showed Kamijou the distance to the ground…but it was way closer than he’d thought!?

“Oh, shit!!”

He bent his legs in preparation to cushion against the shock. The wind carried him over and he crashed int some low bushes between the street and sidewalk, but he supposed that was better than colliding with a thick and solid tree or streetlight.

As soon as he landed, the unnaturally lit up street lights unnaturally extinguished themselves.

(Hey, not so fast!)

He had to feel around in the darkness. He fumbled around until he managed to release the parachute harness from his body.

“Where’s the Windowless Building!?”

“The wind blew us pretty far off course. I caught a glimpse of it earlier, but from this far, Hamazura and Takitsubo might contact Coronzon before us.”

Not good.

They weren’t sure they could defeat that great demon with all of them fighting together. It was too dangerous for anyone to go ahead of the rest. Especially for the non magic experts.

Kamijou heard some large wings flapping overhead.

The Bologna Succubus was flying around while carrying iron-maiden-like Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. She was drawing out a big figure 8, so it didn’t look like she was taking the shortest route somewhere. Perhaps she was trying to draw Coronzon’s attention. They had mentioned magic side people reacting more sensitively to magical tricks.

But where was Alice Anotherbible?

Where had Anna Sprengel gone?

Or Qliphah Puzzle 545?

And Kihara Noukan?

(Damn, we keep losing the people that act like trump cards!)

Regardless, they were short on time. They were right at Coronzon’s throat, but that meant she would use each minute and second they delayed to plot a recovery. He wouldn’t even have time to check if everyone was alright.

Dion Fortune was not shaken.

In fact…

“We’ll just have to make do with the people we have. No matter how carefully you plan it out on paper, battles always come down to what you can do with the cards reality gives you!”

“But getting too accustomed to ad libbing means a complete lack of control.”

“Since when were you the careful planning type?”

…

Looking back, every single one of his fights had been ad libbed from beginning to end!!

They had been separated for now, but they would all be heading to the same place from their different landing spots, so he could only trust they would meet up where Coronzon was.

He was a good distance away from the former location of the Windowless Building, but it was a straight shot down a major street. There was no time to lose. If he was worried about Hamazura and Takitsubo, he had to rush there as fast as possible.

While running, Fortune kept to Kamijou’s left-hand side.

She was keeping her distance from Imagine Breaker.

As much as she looked like a young girl, this part of her may come from her nature as a tarot deck and original grimoire.

But they ended up stopping before long.

Because something blocked their way.

Creatures like two meter crabs and snakes made of blonde hair.

…But that wasn’t all.

''Roar!!!

A sudden blast of wind blew through.

The red snow on the ground was thrown into the air and Kamijou felt like he had been struck by an ocean of blood. If Dion Fortune hadn’t immediately grabbed his left arm and tugged, the surprise attack probably would have bisected him. Right down the middle.

Something scraped along the ground. Leaving behind a strange, sharp, and sinister scar. Kamijou briefly saw it as the earth itself hemorrhaging blood. And when the red snow guided his gaze along the scar…he saw someone.

Wearing black mourning clothes.

With a palette knife in her right hand.

With feline symbols all over her.

And the thing she was riding like a steed was…could you even call that thing a cat? The enormous and lithe beast shadow was made of black paint and stood two or three meters tall.

“You’re…kidding,” groaned Kamijou.

Calling this a reunion would be inaccurate. This was likely a different individual from the woman he knew.

But come to think of it…

Before, in the UK, Great Demon Coronzon had taken measures to stop Kamijou, Aleister, and the rest. She had released several pawns based on members of the Golden cabal. The Dion Fortune here now was the only survivor.

That had included big names like Westcott and Mathers…but come to think of it, there was one Golden magician who Coronzon had never used.

Dion Fortune gave the answer.

She spoke the name of the trump card Coronzon had saved until the very, very end.

“''Moina Mathers''…”

The name sounded subtly different from the one Kamijou knew.

But it likely referred to the same person.

She was the wife who had supported Mathers, one of the Golden cabal’s three founders. She was an engineer who had used her artistic talent to design realistically producible versions of the many spiritual items thought up by the Golden cabal. She was the black cat witch.

She resembled Mina, but the Moina that Coronzon had created really was different. The eyes behind the veil were pitch black. Sticky shadows lurked within them and they were so dark it seemed like they would absorb everything.

And Kamijou was hit by the fear of the unknown.

Thinking back, Mina Mathers had always fought alongside him.

To put it another way, they had never fought each other until one or the other was unconscious.

(You’re kidding…)

Out of all the Golden magicians, the black cat witch was the one whose strength as an enemy he couldn’t judge…

(We ''must'' stop Coronzon and Adikalika. We don’t have time for this risky battle that we might not even be able to win!)

Kamijou gulped.

At the same time, the girl next to him stepped forward.

“I’ll do it.”

“Fortune?”

“Honestly, this is a great opportunity. I was already thinking it was high time I conquered my trauma related to ''her''. I mean, she surrounded my house with black cats that were just meow, meow, meow, meow all night long, keeping the entire neighborhood up. She used an astral technique to gouge into my fragile maiden’s back. And there’s plenty more she needs to pay me back forrrrrrrrrr!!”

She suddenly exploded.

There was a lot of personal resentment mixed in, but Dion Fortune didn’t seem willing to back down.

If Fortune and Moina were going to clash here, then Kamijou had to get moving. He couldn’t stick around and waste Fortune’s determination to give him some time even if it meant wearing down her own life.

“Thanks!!” he shouted.

He thought he saw a small smile when Fortune briefly turned to look at him.

She was always saying hers was an interim position and she was only filling the vacancy.

But…

“She’s doing a pretty good job as archbishop if you ask me.”

Kamijou simply ran.

First those blonde hair monsters and now Moina Mathers… Was that really all? How many trump cards did Coronzon have hidden away?

===Part 9===

At the Windowless Building – or really, its former site – a pillar of pale light rose from the center of the large square clearing.

At this point, she must not have felt the need to hide.

Great Demon Coronzon held a hand to her hip, looked up at it, and sighed.

That was the Adikalika large-scale attack spell.

For a great demon like her to spend hours on it, the spell clearly required a lot of care to set up. Of course, that may have been why she felt so attached to it now.

“Only about an hour to go.”

Even that comment under her breath was interrupted and cut off by a nearby explosion.

Was that Academy City’s missile attack?

None of the missiles could directly hit her. She didn’t even need to raise her palm for them to explode and scatter in midair.

“Fools.”

If they had so much weaponry leftover, they should have ignored her and indiscriminately bombed different parts of the city. They should have thoroughly destroyed the city themselves. That way they could have prevented doom for the world at the cost of a single city.

This time, anyway.

She wasn’t about to call it quits if she failed the first time. She was Great Demon Coronzon and she had never said anything about only having a single devastating trump card.

The center of the threat was not Adikalika.

It was Great Demon Coronzon herself.

Of course, Academy City wasn’t actually placing their own fate and the fate of the world in the hands of this long-distance attack.

She knew just how crafty and greedy humans were.

She moved her feet to draw out the lines of a rectangle in the accumulated red snow. Then she added a diamond and a few lines to divide it into sections where she drew in the necessary symbols.

This was a horoscope.

A glance at the ground was enough to read it.

It detected a few people headed this way.

Sensing was her specialty. She was, after all, the supernatural being who managed knowledge off limits to living humans. And that management primarily meant preventing the masses from reaching or acquiring that knowledge.

She had lost count of how many people she had devoured after they foolishly assumed that summoning and taming her was the ticket to endless knowledge. It was laughable that those people were referred to as talented or wise when they couldn’t even figure out it was a bad idea to contact something that essentially had a warning sign with the words “danger” written in large text.

(Some grimoires make me sound really important while describing a role not much different from this country’s Kokkuri-san. Well, at least it’s not as bad as getting confused with the necromancy where people ask a rotten zombie to reveal the future to them.)

“Still…”

Did they really think an explosive blast – that is, physical light and sound – could disturb her?

It was almost scary how ignorant they were of magic. Or maybe was their misplaced confidence in their knowledge that would hurt them in the end. She felt like she was watching bandits hiding in the dark woods and celebrating their victory while unaware that night-vision devices existed.

There was no reason to wait for them to arrive. She could blow them up from here. And all she would need to do was raise her palm in that direction.

So it was time to obey her rule of dispersion.

Who should she kill first?”

“Heh.”

It amused her to no end that her creation of Dion Fortune had taken over her old position as the Anglican Archbishop. Blowing Fortune away along with the Moina Mathers she had sent out would be simple enough…but that was a low priority. The Archetype Processor that could break apart and transform any magic was a greater threat than Fortune herself, but that still wasn’t enough to push her up out of the low priority category.

Fortune was a toy Coronzon had made after all.

The creation could rebel against its creator, but it could never win.

The Bologna Succubus and Blodeuwedd the Bouquet also weren’t top priority. Coronzon had directly destroyed Crowley, so the Transcendents were small time to her. After all, Alice Anotherbible was ''an accidental success'' by one of Aleister’s students and the other Transcendents were the deteriorated result of mass-producing inferior copies of Alice.

(I can do better.)

“The standard route would be to crush Imagine Breaker here. Isn’t that right, ''Aleister''?”

That was the best choice if she wanted to beat them down the most.

As a demon, it was the most correct option.

Coronzon grinned and, for some reason, rubbed a hand below her navel before holding that palm straight out ahead.

Kamijou Touma wasn’t yet close enough to be visible, but that was a mere trifle. It wouldn’t stop her from targeting and killing him.

If she was going to do this, she might as well show him some truly wonderful sparks.

She would end his life with the terrible toy that had taken Aleister Crowley’s family from him and even triggered the Battle of Blythe Road.

Kamijou Touma.

He didn’t know space itself was about to explode.

With no way to sense it, he couldn’t raise his right hand to defend against it.

And once it hit him, he was destined to die.

The inability to escape that destiny had been proven by the death and doom of Aleister’s family.

“Does it hurt?”

It was rude.

She knew that, but she couldn’t help but let the smile split wide across her face.

“It hurts, doesn’t it, Aleister? Yes, it hurts to be trapped in your own body and forced to watch an ending you do not want. I should know. I lived through it myself. The entire time you had me sealed away, it was endless torture as I watching those hellish scenes playing out! Now it’s your turn, magician!! It’s time you felt even a minuscule fraction of the agony I felt as my body was used against my will!!!”

This was only one step in that process.

With each new step, she would take another life. And she could circle the globe as she went. That was his reward for underestimating a great demon and, even temporarily, using her like that. Look back upon the bloody path you walked and despair, Aleister.

But then…

“…No.”

She heard a voice.

It was a girl’s voice that ever so slightly irritated Great Demon Coronzon as she single-handedly prepared the end of the world.

She had been just a bit faster.

First, a sound like a large sheet beating at the air.

That was the sound of flapping wings.

The girl flew directly in front of the great demon and descended.

And with her feet on the ground, Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 raised her voice.

“I won’t let you. I will never let you do that!!”

===Part 10===

And…

“Qliphah Puzzle 545?”

At first, she had completely forgotten who that was.

Or so Great Demon Coronzon’s expression suggested.

The result was obvious even before they fought. Unlike humans, angels and demons were not physical beings. Which meant they could directly sense the Telesma energy from which they were formed. That was an overwhelming disadvantage for Qliphah Puzzle 545. Frankly, it was amazing she had made it this far without being killed by the scouts Coronzon created by cutting off her own hair.

“Now that you mention it…yes, I remember now. You’re that imitation demon I created. And a creation opposing its creator isn’t even worth a laugh. What can a puny disposable pawn hope to accomplish against me?”

“''Leviathan''.”

She said one word.

Just one little word.

Yet as soon as Qliphah Puzzle 545 recited that incantation, Great Demon Coronzon fell silent.

“See? This will work against you.”

“Damn…you. That…”

[[File:GT Index v13 BW6.png|thumb]]

“Is fatal for you.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was also a demon.

So when she smiled, it split wide across her face.

“Great Demon Coronzon. You are the one who lurks in the Abyss hidden within the great Sephiroth tree and monopolizes the wisdom found there. You are the only wicked being who, as a demon, has managed to remain hidden in the holy realm guarded by angels. And in the end, you are no more than Crowley magic applied to the illicit technique to secretly devour and acquire the tree’s fruit and sap despite being its guardian.”

“Don’t you get that this power is too great for you? If an artificial imitation like you reaches to that place, all you will accomplish is destroying yourself.”

“A demon who is tangled around the very Sephiroth which makes you special, devours it, infects it, and consumes its functions would be your greatest enemy. …And there is one, isn’t there? A demon who appeared from the Qliphoth, the inverted tree which gathers all the world’s injustice and vice, broke the seal when Adam and Eve were driven out, and finally managed to bite at the Sephiroth! A demon so powerful he was reduced to an imperfect form in the current world!!”

Space exploded.

Orange sparks became visible.

Did the clashing of the two demons’ wills contain enough power to distort the phase?

“I create an atmosphere of war, disturb the regulated order, and inspire conflict between people. I may be an imitation, artificial, and false, but on a more basic level…I am still the kind of demon who devours the tree that is this world.”

“…”

Coronzon glanced down at her fingertips.

She wasn’t even scratched.

There was no problem.

…And yet she was trembling?

“How strange. Your structure obviously isn’t human, but it isn’t that of a normal demon either?”

“Just take a look at my name: Qliphah Puzzle 545. I too am a demon who lurks in the colossal tree. Although for me it’s the inverted tree that gathers all the unclean symbols. So I already contain the same traits and value as the serpent of the multiplying heads. I have it all!”

“Hidden in one of the great trees that acts as a diagram of the world, a supernatural being, a usurper of knowledge, and a demon… Why? Why are you so much like me!?”

“''I dunno, maybe cause you created me''?”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 attempted a wicked smile, but she was pretty sure she failed.

This wasn’t about challenging or surpassing.

This was a child killing her parent.

That was the lowest and wickedest sin, but perhaps that was what made it so appropriate for a demon.

So she spoke.

“Picture it. Summon within yourself the Beast of Revelation, the monster gnawing on the great tree. Beast and serpent and dragon and demon are one and the same, thus there is no boundary between you and he.”

With each word spoken, the girl-shaped demon could feel it.

Something was straining inside her and pulsing in a disturbing way.

Coronzon spread her wings wide and tangled together countless long blonde hairs like a spiderweb to form a complex magic circle…and then stopped. She had been in such a hurry that the spell she formed ''was too powerful.'' This would cause Adikalika to burst and return to nothing.

(Damn, I wasted 1.5 seconds on this!!)

So while holding herself back with wings spread, Coronzon whispered to her opponent.

And just like a demon, this whisper was meant to guide her in the wrong direction.

“You must be aware your very being is ''unraveling''.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 had been created by Coronzon in order to cover the United Kingdom in a war atmosphere to drive it toward ruin. Since she had been meant as a temporary thing, not much care had gone into the structure of her girl form.

“You might be able to activate the spell, but you can never endure the recoil. Your form will break down permanently. And it will go beyond your appearance. You will lose your memories, your personality – everything. And you’re still going to go through with it!?”

By focusing on the primary functions, it would at least blow her away without a trace.

All that would remain would be, well, a twisted form worthy of the demon title. More than just her outer appearance, she would lose everything down to the depths of her mind and become nothing more than a hideous monster.

“7, 10, 8, 11, and 666. Extract the necessary numbers from within yourself while expanding them to their greatest form.”

But she didn’t care.

She wasn’t listening.

That foolish, weak, and filthy demon was intent on expanding the partial knowledge she had after incompletely performing an incomplete copy.

Because of what she had seen.

Inside that prison cell, that boy was working all alone to atone for his crimes and had still managed to find hope in the world outside, but she had seen his face when he found that world was being destroyed. She had seen his expression, which he probably hadn’t meant for anyone to see, when he had learned the boy he considered a comrade in arms was dead.

That’s why she needed to do this.

The people who were running here were a necessary part of the scenery he wanted to protect.

She wouldn’t let it end here. She wouldn’t let them be slaughtered from afar.

…No matter what she had to do.

“Here, I reflect the same number with a different meaning. By letting it engulf me, I gain a different self.”

She would protect the world – the dream – that boy was trying to create.

So Artificial Demon Qliphah Puzzle 545 roared with all her might.

Shaking free of the chill she felt as she unraveled.

(Farewell, master.)

“Transform me in body and soul, ''Leviathan''!!!”

===Part 11===

Shortly before that…

“Hamazura.

“I…know!!! What the hell!? Don’t despair in the world before you’ve even tried!”

They were lying on top of her.

Two figures had jumped in from behind and tackled Qliphah Puzzle 545 to the ground. Even if it was temporary, she had a body and that meant obstructing her breathing and actions would cancel the spell.

It happened at the very last second and from her own side.

Great Demon Coronzon recognized the pair too.

Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou.

Two who, for some reason, hadn’t been on Coronzon’s list of targets had now arrived.

Pinned down on the red snow, Qliphah Puzzle 545 spoke weakly.

“Why…would you stop me?”

Her voice shook as she asked. Her face was a mess of tears and snot.

Understandably.

She would have lost that face and body.

Her personality and memories would have crumbled away.

She would have turned herself into a monster to battle Coronzon.

Of course that would scare an ordinary girl.

“You idiot!! If you don’t want him to suffer through watching a familiar face die while he’s forced to watch helplessly on from that cell of his, then why would you kill yourself and force it onto him that way!? To be honest, I don’t have a great opinion of the previous board chairman even after everything everyone’s said about him. But this new one’s different, right? He might actually do something to fix this city. But what you’re doing is just gonna send the next board chairman off the rails too!!”

“You saw him from closer than anyone.”

Takitsubo Rikou continued in her flat voice.

But that didn’t mean there was no emotion behind it.

“Doesn’t that mean it was the same for him? The new board chairman sent you to the consulate when the world might end today. He placed all that responsibility on your shoulders and let you handle it. Even though I’m sure there was at least one thing he wanted to protect with his own hands.”

Qliphah Puzzle 545 didn’t raise her head from the ground covered in red snow. She curled up, balled up, and shook.

Sobs spilled from her.

Maybe she didn’t want them to see her crying.

That was the moment when something inside Hamazura Shiage that he couldn’t quite put to words crossed a line.

(This world can really go to hell. Why should she have to be embarrassed about that?)

Qliphah Puzzle 545 was a demon. She was a created being. She had come from Coronzon.

None of that could change.

But all she wanted to do was walk next to a familiar person in this ordinary world.

Yet she had been pushed this far.

She had done all this.

Hamazura slowly turned around. To face Coronzon.

“Hey, Coronzon.”

“What is it, Hamazura? If you’re hoping for some odd job to do, wait about an hour and get back to me.”

An hour.

Did that mean the world was set to end at around 11 PM?

Dion Fortune ''had'' said her estimate was optimistic. Still, this was earlier than the midnight estimate.

“Surely you don’t think you can defeat me just because you know a little bit about me. Mathers thought he could control me and Aleister had researched me ten thousand times more than you. Yet they both lost – everyone always does!! Even the great Golden cabal fell! And his legacy of Academy City is my toy as well. So what can you, who couldn’t even accomplish anything within the bounds of that city, hope to-!!!”

“''You’ve gone too far''.”

A grinding sound filled the air.

It may have been the grinding of teeth.

Great Demon Coronzon had fallen silent.

After a full three seconds, she began again.

“Then what will you do about me?”

“That depends on your answer.”

“Do you think you are in any position to test me, fool!!?”

===Part 12===

And.

===Part 13===

Kamijou Touma also arrived.

At the former District 7 site of the Windowless Building.

At that square center of the world.

“Hi,” said Coronzon.

It was 10:30 PM. It had been a close thing, but he had arrived in time.

“What took you so long? I was so bored. Adikalika is such a pain to prepare. I wish I could just activate it already, but it has forced this great demon to wait.”

Two people lay collapsed at her feet. Was that Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou? It was just as he’d feared. They weren’t sure their forces combined could defeat Great Demon Coronzon, so it was too dangerous for any one of them to move out ahead.

What had happened here?

“You should thank them, Kamijou Touma. Arriving here wasn’t your accomplishment alone.”

…Was that the red snow?

He thought it was. Hoped it was.

Please someone say that wasn’t human blood.

Yes.

And come to think of it…

“What ended up happening to Nephthys and Niang-Niang?”

“What do you think happened?”

He had no response for that.

Amused, Coronzon asked him again.

“Tell me, Kamijou Touma. Surely you didn’t actually think those two would defeat me and bring peace to the world? If you had, you wouldn’t have spent your time afterwards planning and preparing to face me. Ha ha! So you must have known the moment you fled!! You knew those two would lose and you still chose to save your own skin!! So am I the only villain here!? Ha ha ha ha ha! Sure, I’m the one who delivered the finishing blow, but you were the one who pushed them toward it!!”

Yes.

That was true.

He still didn’t know what had happened to the two Magic Gods, but…

He was afraid to die. He had learned to feel that ordinary emotion, but now he had survived by forcing the unpleasantness onto someone else. There was no denying that.

“So were you so intent on surviving because you wanted a front-row seat to Adikalika’s activation? You stained your own soul to survive, yet soon you will be destroyed along with the rest of the world.”

He had made Alice cry and she killed him.

He had gone to hell and received the ticket to resurrection that Kingsford or CRC could have used instead.

Magic Gods Nephthys and Niang-Niang had told him to run away.

What had he hoped to do after all that?

He had had plenty of opportunities to refuse and stop.

So what had he been so reluctant to leave behind that he never gave up on living?

“Making Aleister despair and releasing me was truly the crowning achievement of your folly. So maybe you do deserve a gift. But just this once, okay? I will give you what you want. I will slice through your body, grab your head, and hold it in place, so enjoy watching the end of the world without even being able to die!!”

“''Give it a rest, Coronzon''.”

Others had been saving him this whole time.

He wanted to end that chain here. He wanted to stand on his own two feet.

He wanted to apologize to all the people he had troubled with his death and he wanted to return to his ordinary life.

Was that so wrong?

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter2

2025-08-23T20:24:14Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 2 */

==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 though 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.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume13_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter2

2025-04-28T23:53:35Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 14 */

==Chapter 2: Funeral – Good_Bye_Bad.==

===Part 1===

Cold rain that couldn’t quite become snow fell from thick gray clouds.

It was weaker than before.

But that made it seem more stable, suggesting it would last longer.

A funeral was underway.

It had begun in the school auditorium.

The entire student body was gathered there, so they had to line up based on a system to fit. …Except Aogami Pierce and Fukiyose Seiri had frozen up nearby. Apparently Komoe-sensei had panicked, so their class’s guidance was a mess. But that boy may have appreciated a human response like that.

The space was large enough to hold hundreds of people.

That meant the heating was only so effective. Even with the air conditioning and halogen heaters, the chill could not be fully banished.

It was the presence of death.

Something you normally didn’t sense but crept up on everyone the same.

Aogami Pierce felt like the world itself were telling him an attempt to act cheerful would not fundamentally change what they were here for.

This was a funeral.

A member of their class was dead.

“Thank you all for attending despite the poor weather. Perhaps the heavens themselves are weeping for the deceased. It pains me just as much to lose someone so young.”

A young Buddhist monk got started with a microphone in hand. Fukiyose Seiri was only familiar with the term “abbot” as a title for a Buddhist monk, but she wasn’t sure if there was a proper hierarchy there.

“The abbot is the head of a single temple,” explained Aogami Pierce. “They’re the one who leads the rest of the temple’s monks. But there are a fair number of temples where the abbot is the only monk due to the aging population or just being shorthanded, so a lot of people get the terms monk and abbot confused. It’s unusual for someone that young to be one.”

“Why do you know so much about this?”

“What, are you really not reading that social media gag manga that went viral on New Year’s? It’s called ‘I Was Reincarnated and Got a Hypnotizing 5 yen Coin That Makes People Do Anything I Say, but I Ended Up in a Buddhist Temple Full of Macho Monks’. The unexpected mismatch!! What fate awaits our gloomy heroine after the ascetic life and vegetarian food cleanses her in body and soul!?”

“Why can’t someone ban this guy’s very existence?” asked an exasperated Fukiyose.

But had her senses dulled over winter break? She appeared to have forgotten insults of that level were nothing more than a reward. She could be two or even three times as harsh and he would still welcome it.

The screen on the wall behind the auditorium stage came to life.

“I am truly grateful you have all gathered today for our son.”

Remote comments by Kamijou Touma’s parents played on the screen. They apparently used more than just telegrams in this day and age.

A loud slam came from the back of the auditorium.

Someone had been unable to contain themselves and rushed out while covering their mouth. For a brief moment, the outside light shined into the dark auditorium. Surprisingly, this person was not from their class. From where they came from, they must have been a student from another year.

“Kami-yan sure was loved.”

“He had the weirdest connections. I sometimes saw him speaking with an upperclassman girl.”

There was some kind of accident that led to shouting, but the funeral itself continued without a hitch.

Aogami Pierce got some words out while staring out ahead.

“Why…?”

“Hm?”

“Why do people die so easily?”

This was somehow different from before.

Death.

The word carried so much more weight. Instead of the light and empty feeling of losing a life in a video game, this carried the heavy weight of reality.

Maybe that was what a funeral was.

It was about saying goodbye.

But in a different way from a classmate moving away.

Instead of not being able to see him again after this, they already couldn’t see him again. People could not accept that so quickly, so they needed a way to smooth over the rough edges of reality or else the small society that was a school could collapse.

It was like bringing things into focus.

Uh, oh.

It wasn’t so bad when the image before Aogami’s eyes was blurry. He could stand that. But once the outlines came into focus, the corners of his eyes could be in trouble.

Trouble?

Who said it was wrong to cry? It wasn’t a competition and who did he even think he was competing with? Apparently adolescent rebelliousness could needlessly screw with people’s lives even here.

“…”

He realized he hadn’t heard Fukiyose’s voice in a while.

When he focused, he could hear some breaths seemingly covered by an unseen hand.

Or maybe she had a handkerchief out.

He wasn’t about to peek over at the next seat, though.

He envied the people who could let themselves cry here. He was always shouting in the classroom, but he felt some kind of barrier forcing himself to hold back here.

Aogami Pierce was not a diligent student.

Even during ordinary classes, he would stare out the window and daydream about battling terrorists.

He had always thought Kamijou Touma would survive to the very end.

He could do anything in his fantasies, but for some reason that boy always survived longer than Aogami himself. Aogami would sometimes save everyone and end up with a harem and he would sometimes get dramatically shot and die, but no matter what happened, Kamijou Touma would always survive to the end, no matter how beat up he was.

But.

Reality was something else entirely.

He could think of any number of things to say if he were the one to die, but he couldn’t think of a single one when it was Kamijou Touma who had died.

“I’m such an idiot,” he muttered to himself.

He hadn’t expected this.

Something had happened somewhere he wasn’t aware of.

He guessed people all over thought these things as they lived with regret.

“Now, if you will please come forward to burn incense. Yes, it will help if you climb the stairs on the right and descend the stairs on the left. You may begin.”

===Part 2===

Meanwhile, two girls experienced this from a different viewpoint.

District 7.

An ordinary high school.

The entire student body was gathered in the auditorium. But even with the warmth of hundreds of bodies, the chilly air could not be entirely banished by the air conditioning too weak for the size of the space and the halogen heaters set up in a hurry.

That acted as the breath of death in contrast to the human warmth.

A large portrait photo sat atop the stage.

The face belonged to Kamijou Touma.

They must not have expected this. He looked almost villainous on the portrait forcibly blown up from his student ID. But maybe anyone would in an expressionless ID photo taken from head on.

A part-time monk, who was apparently an unsuccessful entertainer who did this as a side job, held a microphone.

His weirdly cheerful voice may have come from mixing together his two jobs.

“Thank you all for attending despite the poor weather. Perhaps the heavens themselves are weeping for the deceased. It pains me just as much to lose someone so young.”

In addition to the student body, a guest space had been prepared at one side.

Mikoto and Shokuhou were seated there.

One of them was shaking.

“Brrrrrr. Misa-Misaka-sa-Misaka-san, it’s so c-c-cold, you need to w-w-w-warm me up.”

“Are you even wearing clothes?”

Mikoto sighed while using a hand to the face to shove away the idiot queen – who Mikoto was beginning to suspect she might actually be “wearing” body paint – as she shivered and tried to cling to Mikoto from the side.

This was a high school.

For a middle schooler, it was like another world entirely.

But the usual tension she would feel was nowhere to be found.

She had actually been here before, but…

(I never imagined I would visit that idiot’s high school for this.)

Her heavy sighing wouldn’t stop.

However, she saw no one who could be his parents in the guest section.

Unsurprisingly.

Given all the paperwork and approvals required, there just hadn’t been time to invite someone in to Academy City.

“?”

“What is it, scheming queen?”

“Oh, I was just wondering who the chief mourner is. Ahn, halogen heater☆”

Shokuhou Misaki’s eyes melted at a machine that was like a “warm fan” that an official had placed in the nearby aisle. She looked about ready to spread her arms and hug the heater with hearts displayed in her pupils. Why had she even come to the funeral?

That aside…

(Chief mourner.)

Come to think of it, this was odd.

As fancy as all this looked, the crucial pillars were missing.

It all felt hollow and artificial.

“That said, we must not keep the deceased here forever. As painful as it will be, we must continue with the ceremony to put him at ease as he takes his journey into the great beyond.”

A gentle sound enveloped the auditorium.

Classical music of unknown composer and title began to play.

“…?”

Mikoto knew how to play the piano and the violin, but she frowned. She didn’t recognize this. It may have been healing music recently composed entirely on a computer. That would be fitting for Academy City.

A slideshow of photos played along with the music.

It was obvious what these were from.

“The Daihaseisai, the Ichihanaransai – Kamijou Touma-san really did smile so brightly during these events.”

''Uh, uh…

Damp sobs spilled from here and there.

But wait.

Hold on.

What was this? Even in his school, how many people even knew Kamijou Touma? He hadn’t been part of any clubs and he had no connections outside his class. He wasn’t a master shogi player and he didn’t get the top score in the national practice exam. So why were all of those students who looked like second or third years shedding tears?

Mikoto was astonished.

Maybe it was a Pavlovian response, like people who would always cry when hearing a music box playing when in a sad mood.

“They’re like the delinquents who only cry at the graduation ceremony.”

Now that she had recovered using the heat of the halogen heater, Shokuhou’s whisper pierced sharply into Mikoto.

You smile at New Year’s and you cry at funerals.

That was all it was.

Like flipping a switch or turning a dial.

Was that really enough?

Could someone’s life end with this?

Of course, it would also piss her off if someone was chatting or using their phone in the middle of the ceremony, but this felt different somehow. The tears felt cheap. She wanted to stand up and shout that this wasn’t right.

Mikoto was sad.

She didn’t know what to do now that the time had come to say goodbye.

But.

She felt her heart distancing itself at the scene she found here. The distance kept growing. Her heart had lost the ability to sense her feelings.

Why?

It was already over. She knew that. Yet she felt some kind of powerful impatience growing inside her.

Was this really enough?

Would this mark the end of someone’s life?

“To represent you all, his homeroom teacher Tsukuyomi Komoe-sensei will now present some flowers.”

“Uhh.”

It might all look emotional, but it was nothing but checking off everything on the list.

It was a routine.

It was a ceremony to cut someone away from society, forget them, and erase them.

And.

Mikoto saw a red dot out of the corner of her eye.

“?”

Curious, she looked over to see a video being recorded.

Since she wasn’t familiar with funerals, she thought maybe that was a way to leave some memory behind, but…

“(That’s the funeral company. I bet they’ll chop it up and use it in their ads.)”

Shokuhou was more coldhearted.

Perhaps she was more accustomed to death than Mikoto.

But from where?

There was no answer to that question. As Shokuhou faced forward, her profile looked somehow lonely.

The entertainer hosting the event continued on.

“We will now receive a message from Kamijou Touma-san’s parents.”

The slide show of school events switched to something else.

“I am truly grateful you have all gathered today for our son.”

Were they using an online conference app?

The white wall behind the auditorium stage acted as a large screen to project someone who was presumably his father.

He was likely at home. The room behind him looked lived in.

Maybe this had been too sudden for anything else.

His user name was displayed below him in small text.

Kamijou Touya.

His flowing words were anything but coldhearted.

Even through the screen, Mikoto could sense just how hard that grown adult was clenching his teeth to get through it.

That distant place carried a much more appropriate mood than the site of the funeral.

Or so it seemed to Mikoto.

She sensed something authentic there.

“I’m sure Touma’s life in Academy City was full of smiles and memories with all of you. He never was great in school and he didn’t develop any kind of esper power, but we have all of you to thank for allowing him to enjoy himself enough to forget about those things. Our son seemed so happy in all the emails and messages he sent us. He also sent plenty of photos and videos. Those limited glimpses into his life were enough to know his time there was a bright and happy one. And I imagine he enjoyed himself even more than he let us know. I would like to thank you all deeply on behalf of our son. Even if his life there was cut short, he was truly fortunate to be surrounded by so many wonderful frie- kh...no, I can’t do it!!”

His trembling voice grew strained partway through.

The middle-aged man’s face filled the screen. With tears welling in his eyes.

“He was our family!! Our son is dead!!! But they won’t let us in the city!! They won’t even tell us the exact cause of death!! Is it not as safe inside those walls as we were led to believe!? This is crazy! What the hell is going on in that ci- (voice muted)”

His mouth flapped silently for a few more seconds before the video also cut out.

The host put on a fake smile and worked at smoothing that over.

“Oh, dear. The signal appears to be unstable and since it still hasn’t come back, we will move on.”

How could they just move past that!?

Mikoto just about stood up from her folding chair, but Shokuhou grabbed her hand.

Firmly, to hold her in place.

Even his parent’s wholehearted rebellion had accomplished nothing.

That was just one branch on the flowchart.

By following that branch through, they could bring the ceremony back on track.

“Now, if you will please come forward to burn incense. Yes, it will help if you climb the stairs on the right and descend the stairs on the left. You may begin.”

If the entire student body burned incense, it would take all day. Instead, each class sent a representative up to the altar. The staff held stopwatches and kept everything on the schedule determined during the dry run. Someone had died, but they didn’t allow anything to break down.

It was like the sand in an hourglass.

Once the stock had been used up, it was over. The coffin would be shut and placed in the hearse to be taken to the crematorium. Then nothing would remain. Kamijou Touma would be burned to ashes, leaving nothing even on the genetic level.

The entertainer monk continued with a smile.

“Finally, I would like to read the telegrams that have arrived from those close to the deceased. To start with, um, we have a Miss Leivinia Birdway from England.”

It was ending.

The funeral really was going to end.

“You’re looking at it wrong.”

Still facing forward, Shokuhou spoke quietly but clearly in her mourning clothes.

Even though Mental Out wasn’t supposed to work on Mikoto.

Her voice was somewhat stiff, but she still managed to say it.

“We have to bring his life to an end ourselves. So, Misaka-san, you need to prepare yourself to actually say goodbye.”

===Part 3===

Outside in the frigid January city, Index and Othinus stood in the rain.

Without an umbrella.

Breakfast time had passed, but for once Index had no appetite.

On her shoulder, Othinus held down the brim of her hat and looked up.

“Good grief. Even the weather forecast felt need to betray us… This unnatural rain is more what I would expect of that human’s misfortune.”

“That would be just like Touma.”

“Along with the fake-looking condition of the sky.”

“?”

A long vehicle passed them. The strange automobile was decorated with black and gold.

It was a hearse.

Two buses followed after it.

Once they had fully passed by, Othinus whispered a question.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go?”

“What about you?”

“I am the god of war, magic, and deception. This isn’t Baldr’s trial and I’m not the type to cry at funerals. But you’re a nun, aren’t you? This really is your last chance. You might be fine now, but the regret over not seeing him off will weigh heavy on you later.”

“I’m still in training.”

Index hung her head.

She had to be feeling something.

Othinus didn’t address it.

The one-eyed god with a lance was rarely depicted as kind.

“Now, what will we do? We are a living sample of a Magic God and a grimoire library. If we head out into the world with Academy City’s protection gone, magic cabals the world over will be after us both. If you aren’t interested in following him into death, then you need to continue working at survival.”

The city was surrounded by a thick wall and invisible EM and IR were used to cut off all wireless communications between the outside and inside. Even so, the air on both sides was the same and bugs and birds could fly across the wall with ease.

So.

Index raised her head and gave her answer.

“''We’ll do what the carrier pigeon said to.''”

“Good grief. Is that method just so old-fashioned they overlooked it? But as soon as Academy City learns about it, they’ll probably fill that hole with pheromones or light or something.”

If they headed to his school now, they might make it in time.

But they didn’t.

They couldn’t.

Index gave her reasoning.

“If I was there to say goodbye, I know I’d ruin the whole ceremony by crying too loud.”

The cat said nothing in the girl’s arms.

He wasn’t supposed to understand what was going on, but for some reason he seemed to.

===Part 4===

“It’s over,” muttered Aogami Pierce.

All the strength left his body.

He made it sound like his team had just lost a big tournament.

“That’s the end of Kami-yan’s funeral.”

“Pull yourself together. Komoe-sensei is calling us over to get to the crematorium.”

Perhaps Fukiyose found it easier if she focused her mind on a task. She seemed to be constantly searching for a new one.

Aogami rubbed his belly.

“I’m starving… I want to devour my lunch while watching an isekai cooking anime to give a psychological boost to the convenience store bento.”

“How about you chew on a handkerchief?”

Only his classmates were going to the crematorium. As much as they had sobbed during the funeral, the students from other years didn’t wait around before leaving the auditorium. Almost like a movie ad with people making insincere-sounding comments at an advance screening. The kind of ad that made it sound like the record for most moving film of the century was broken every other second.

Aogami saw a busty black-haired upperclassman girl look back toward the stage just once at the exit before leaving.

“Would they even show up if it was us who died?”

“This is better than it could be. Do you ordinarily get teary-eyed seeing the news on TV or online?” dryly asked Fukiyose.

That she sounded more irritable than normal may have been the greatest compliment to Kamijou Touma who had disappeared from their school.

===Part 5===

A woman in a beige habit stood in a city of white and black.

That was Human Aleister Crowley.

The ridiculous artificial rain continued to fall.

The golden retriever stayed by his side in the frigid chill without a word of complaint, but he did ask a question here.

“You aren’t going to see it through to the end?”

“You know all too well I don’t have the courage. Why would I have struggled so much if I did?”

“The regret always comes later.”

“I know that. Better than anyone in the world,” spat Aleister.

He didn’t want to believe it.

She had promised she would break whatever rules were necessary to save the boy.

Had she broken her promise in the end?

That meant there was something even Anna Kingsford couldn’t do.

He knew this was as absurd as wanting your parents to continue to be infallible beings, but still.

“If I could only save that one,” muttered Aleister.

“?”

“That one act would have meant so much. It would have triggered a chain reaction to fix everything. But it failed at the very first domino. …That boy remains dead.”

Kihara Noukan was an unusual genius even for a Kihara, but even he had trouble grasping what Aleister was getting at.

And he knew the human wasn’t going to explain.

Whatever it was, it was a dream that had ended unrealized.

“What now?” asked the dog.

“I wouldn’t be wandering like this if I could answer that.”

Was there any meaning in life now?

His questions had reached that level.

What in this wide world should he tie his existence to?

===Part 6===

The rain was falling.

The funeral in the auditorium had ended, so most of the students were using the walkway to return to the main school building.

They were pinching something and sprinkling it on their heads. It turned out to be salt.

Mikoto sighed softly as she walked out.

“So even the students at his school treat his death as something unclean.”

“I doubt many people in Academy City understand the symbolism. Just like very few people bother looking up the etymology of words like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. Most people see it as no more than the done thing, like bowing your head when entering a room. And does it have to be so cold!?”

Shokuhou’s shouted breath was already visible.

And a frigid rain was falling outside.

Shokuhou had started off holding her own shoulders, but once she set her sights on Mikoto, she grabbed onto her.

“Get off, Shokuhou. Kimonos are hard to fix once they start to come undone, so don’t grab onto me.”

“Oh, c’mon. Being a hot-water bottle is about all you’re good for, Misaka-san.”

“Oh, really? Even though I happen to have some hand warmers?”

Shokuhou Misaki petrified.

The corners of her lips twitched.

Her pride appeared to be conflicted over whether or not she should put on a polite smile.

“If you don’t want any, then fine. I’ll seal them away at the bottom of my purse. In the zone where I can’t dig them out again.”

“Wait, Misaka-saaan! You win, I admit it! So please show some love to this Little Match Girl freezing in the winter collllllllld!!”

“You have everyone call you a queen and now you have the nerve to act like the unfortunate Little Match Girl?

Mikoto toyed with the unathletic girl by tossing her hand warmer packs one after another as if to have her juggle them.

…This entire exchange may have been a way of preserving their mental balance. To Mikoto, the forced cheerfulness only made her entire life seem like an act.

“Ahh…☆”

“Hey, where the hell are you shoving that hand warmer, Shokuhou!? What happened to us having a shame culture!?”

The girl was shutting her eyes, trembling, and sighing like she was sinking into a hot spring, but the details were best left unstated.

She was capable of prioritizing what really mattered, meaning she was the type who would decide to nestle together in the nude to stay warm if they were stranded on a snowy mountain in the winter. Mikoto was certain of that now.

The official next to the hearse formed a megaphone with his hands and guided them.

“The buses are over here! Um, if you’re from the school, use bus 1. If you’re a visitor, use bus 2.”

Yes, it wasn’t over yet.

Many umbrellas blossomed like flowers and gathered together.

Carried by the adults.

The coffin was loaded onto the hearse.

The black and gold vehicle was headed to District 10.

Specifically, to the crematorium.

The entire student body wouldn’t fit there, so only what appeared to be Kamjou’s class would be going.

A bus was enough to carry that many.

And a second bus was enough for the visitors.

Another time limit had appeared.

Mikoto saw the distance to the crematorium like the timer ticking down on a time bomb.

But what did that time limit matter at this point?

Death could not be overturned.

It was already over.

“…”

“Ohh, blessed heat ability. Modern conveniences are truly wonderful…”

Next to her, the queen was saying something that suggested a kotatsu was all you needed to win her heart.

The two buses left the rear of the school to follow the hearse. The reporters out front seemed to be making a minor fuss, but the buses had no obligation to wait for them.

No one on the fairly large bus uttered a word.

The GPS navigation system provided a few instructions in a female voice, but the driver appeared to be ignoring them. Maybe there was some kind of etiquette to it, but the hearse seemed to avoid the shortest route and took a longer way to their destination.

In the adjacent seat, Shokuhou whispered briefly while staring out the window being pummeled by raindrops.

“Misaka-saaan.”

“Ugh, what idiot is sending a drone after us?”

With a sparking sound, the multicopter lost control out in the rain.

But who did those persistent reporters want to attack with their articles? Surely it wasn’t Alice Anotherbible or the Transcendents from the hidden side of the world.

“Maybe you could say we sent him to his death too. We didn’t stand in his way and attack him, but we did give him a push from behind.”

“Misaka-san. Malign his resolve and determination again and I will slap you.”

But Shokuhou didn’t actually deny it.

It probably bothered her too.

It was the same when they had fought Christian Rosencreutz. It had required a lot of power to repel him and Kamijou would have been killed if it had been even slightly insufficient.

Even so.

If their power hadn’t been up to the task, would he have considered running away?

“Not likely.”

“Not a chance. I can’t see him giving up on a fight once he started it.”

He hadn’t actually started that fight himself, but no matter how unfairly he was dragged into it, he had always fought to end it. So he could gently untangle the mess of threads.

“…”

It didn’t take very long.

They arrived at the crematorium.

A large roof covered the area in front of the entrance.

Had it been designed with bad weather like this in mind?

It looked like they had to wait for the workers to deal with the coffin.

“Go on, Misaka-san.”

At Shokuhou’s prompting, Mikoto got off the bus.

She wasn’t used to descending a bus’s stairs in Japanese mourning clothes. The clothing was like a single tube, so had it even been designed with climbing and descending stairs in mind?

“Of course it was. Did you forget the stone steps leading up to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples?”

“Oh, no. Now that idiot is correcting me.”

“Oh? Misaka-san, did you forget I am the intellectual type? Care to see who does better with our next exam ability?”

Come to think of it, didn’t they have five-story pagodas in the Edo period? And those buildings wouldn’t have had elevators or escalators.

Shokuhou Misaki continued to rub the hand warmer against her cheek. It would have run out of heat by now, so was she making use of the placebo effect? Or maybe the cold was making her hallucinate.

An official guided them into the building.

There were numbered tatami mat waiting rooms with cremation chambers lined up.

Maybe there was a rule, but the cremation chambers not in use had their doors wide open. A square metal door led into a closed space seemingly made of brick or blocks. The shape was something like a modified baker’s furnace.

Mikoto peered inside and fell silent.

“…”

It wasn’t even the size of a laundromat.

Yet it felt far too ordered and optimized.

She sighed softly.

(I’m just not used to this.)

It was actually a bit of a relief when she spotted a few old vending machines jumbled together in a corner of the long hallway. She had wanted to see something that threw off the excessive organization of the place.

“It’s nice and warm in the building at least. Ugh, but now I kind of have to use the restroom.”

“I was a fool looking for salvation in a messy idiot like her…”

They could hear the conversation of officials in some room or another.

The voices crept up from the floor like the chill.

“A healthy high school boy? He should have thick bones.”

“We’ll have to burn him for a full four hours. That way there’s no chance any trace of his DNA map or the chemicals used for esper development will remain.”

A heavy scraping sound followed.

It came from something like a piece of pottery the size of a volleyball. Something had caused it to scrape against its lid.

“What does the height chart say? Is this size good?”

That was the funerary urn.

Would a whole person really fit in something so small?

Mourning clothes Mikoto frowned.

“Hold on. I get cremating him, but who gets his ashes?”

“The funerary urn can be transferred to someone else after being placed in the grave.”

Shokuhou’s finger hovered indecisively in front of the vending machine, but she only fidgeted without actually buying any warm coffee. Her fear of artificial additives appeared to be rearing its ugly head again.

“For now, he’ll probably be temporarily buried in a public grave.”

Could they really just do that?

Even as ashes, he would officially count as “remains”.

Besides. His parents apparently weren’t in the city, so who had submitted the notification of death to the government office? Mikoto had thought you couldn’t cremate someone until that had been received.

(Then again, this is the city that buried over ten thousand clones in secret, so they may have some tricks to get around that.)

They entered the waiting room.

The space was about 45 square meters.

Perhaps everyone wanted their own space.

His high school classmates were here, but Mikoto didn’t know any of them very well. She naturally kept her distance.

It was a weird feeling.

Why was she staying by Shokuhou’s side?

And while Mikoto mostly associated funerals with flowers and incense, the scent of burning candles was stronger. Maybe because that scent was a lot more oily.

A large LCD TV sat in the tatami mat room. In addition to over-the-air, and cable, it included an online streaming app. There were also a tablet with a public SIM. That may have been so hot food could be ordered in with a bike delivery service. Mikoto recognized a few of the apps lined up on the screen.

Shokuhou pointed at a sliding screen by the wall that seemed to lead to storage space.

“It looks like they have napping blankets in there.”

“I can’t imagine sleeping here could lead to sweet dreams.”

Four hours.

That explained why they had so many entertainment options for killing time.

“Shokuhou.”

“Yes?”

“Can you last four hours?”

“Sorry, excuse me a moment while I go freshen up.”

Western mourning clothes Shokuhou vanished somewhere with a severe look on her face. She had apparently gone out to visit the ladies room. Unable to relax without anything to focus on, Mikoto grabbed the TV remote and faced the giant screen. The time for New Year’s specials was over. A middle schooler like her had no idea what usually aired on weekday mornings.

(But maybe it would look more authentic if I don’t get all worked up over it?)

You were supposed to smile at New Year’s and cry at funerals.

She was fed up seeing people switch modes as if with a switch or dial.

She flipped through the channels for a bit.

The talk shows were more than she could handle today, so she kept changing the channel to escape them, but that mostly left shopping shows and old dramas.

After settling on a satellite broadcast animal show, she saw an enormous polar bear mercilessly attacking a family of seals. She was taken aback. She had been expecting footage of frolicking kittens or puppies. She wasn’t looking for the bloody and gory reality of nature right now!!

“What are you doing, Misaka-saaan? Why wouldn’t you go for a safe worldwide cruise show?”

That girl returned, looking exasperated.

But why was Shokuhou Misaki so familiar with TV on weekday mornings?

“Are you really a middle schooler?”

“If you’re trying to imply I’m an old lady, I will hit you.”

Something was sitting next to the TV.

At first, Mikoto thought it was a piece of Japanese-style artwork meant to help set the mood.

“Wait…” she said without thinking.

They already had a memorial tablet ready.

At first, Mikoto was confused who it was for. Because the name on it was a dharma name.

“I always thought the name was meant to be symbolic in some way.”

“In Academy City, they apparently have a website that automatically assigns one. Y’know, by tweaking a program ability meant to come up with a pet name if you can’t come up with one yourself.”

Did this city not have the rule where it only counted if it came from an important abbot?

Of course, it seemed like Academy City’s monks were part-timers who also worked as entertainers.

===Part 7===

Inside the District 10 prison, a monitor displayed Anti-Skill officer and high school teacher Yomikawa Aiho as she gave a report.

“The funeral ended without issue.”

“I see.”

“The hearse has left for the crematorium. Here, we’re holding an abbreviated version of the opening ceremony. You’re closer to the crematorium actually.”

The crematorium was in the same district, but that simple fact was far from the new Board Chairman’s mind.

It didn’t feel real.

(Accept his death? Why am I the one saying that shit?)

He had thought he would feel rage when standing on the verge of the death. But now that that line had been crossed, he was supposed to shake off all that emotion? Accelerator couldn’t say anything. Was he facing this like he should, or had his senses simply numbed over?

He couldn’t afford to forget what human warmth felt like.

No matter how many he saved with lifeless methods, he would only be retreading the path of Academy City’s former mistakes.

So what should he do?

Was it more human to let his emotions explode and destroy everything in sight?

“…”

Academy City’s #1 monster looked up.

He couldn’t see heaven there. Only a ceiling made of a special thick armor.

The prison had taken considerable damage from the attack by one of those Transcendents. This room was actually a secondary cell he had been moved to. Still, the white monster hadn’t died. Even though there were plenty of reasons for him to be killed. Was this just how life was?

“What was that bastard thinking dying before the villain,” he muttered.

Death was impartial.

It could visit anyone at any time, no matter how good a person they were, and they would lose their life.

“Aneri.”

An electronic beep.

Of rejection.

Apparently someone else had administrator privileges there. The new Board Chairman didn’t particularly care.

“Qliphah Puzzle 545.”

“Yes, yes. Kee hee hee.”

In that sense, the artificial demon was a lot less trouble.

And she also knew a lot about the world ''beyond'' science.

The #1 had just one question.

“Where is the person who did it?”

===Part 8===

A cold rain was falling.

The ugly rain could not become snow, but it rejected all human warmth while it naturally permeated the city of cutting-edge scientific technology.

The rain stealing heat from the entire city was impartial.

Even in the back alleys.

The countless raindrops falling from the heavens mercilessly located everyone, even a silent and unsteady girl, and soaked them.

She was tall. She wore black leather belts wrapped complexly around her naked body, making her stand out even in Academy City, which was isolated from the outside world.

Her long wavy blonde hair was plastered to her white skin.

She didn’t seem to have even the willpower to brush it away.

“…”

Alice Anotherbible.

She looked up at the sliver of rainy sky visible between the buildings.

And she didn’t move.

She had known that boy would die before they even met.

She had announced it herself.

But he had left the track of survival so that he could save the lives of others.

''“You will die.”

''“That doesn’t change my answer.”

She had seen the boy rushing toward death.

She had thought he might seek help at some point.

But he hadn’t.

''“So fight me!! Alice Anotherbible!!!”

Kamijou Touma had rejected her once.

She had lost sight of herself and resurrected Christian Rosencreutz as she was told.

''“Hold on. You don’t mean…?”

Yes, he had been shaken when he first learned he was doomed to die.

But he had still ultimately chosen the lives of others.

The doomed boy had stuck to his way of life and finally brought Alice Anotherbible back to her senses.

''“…I…”

''“I don’t…”

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

He wasn’t coming back.

Alice Anotherbible could easily twist the world to her liking, but that was exactly why the person she had killed could not return. No matter what.

This was the result.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rest of the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal were no longer here.

That meant Alice Anotherbible was no longer a fearsome leader.

She could trick people into seeing a form of beauty by taking death and violence to their extremes, but that was meaningless without those extremes. Being second best or lower simply made you a troublemaker.

A scratchy voice spoke.

The girl who had lost everything whispered into the emptiness.

“Tea…cher.”

===Part 9===

The final moment had arrived.

They would never see Kamijou Touma’s face again.

The coffin was already closed.

Although it was a Japanese-style coffin, so there was a small double door open over the face. That small square space seemed to be gradually cut away from the world at large.

“…”

Mikoto reached out her hand a bit and touched his cheek. Softly.

“?”

“Wait. You’d feel bad if you messed up his mortuary makeup at the very end, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, right. It’s just…”

“What?”

Mikoto had no answer for Shokuhou’s quizzical gaze.

Meanwhile, the #5 Queen made her move. She raised a hand to the side of her head and lifted her veil before lowering her head toward the little window.

The instant before she kissed his cheek, Mikoto elbowed her in the side.

Sharply.

“No touching.”

“Ubwogh!? I-I really don’t see what’s so wrong with wishing him good fortune in the next life!!”

“You wouldn’t want to mess up his mortuary makeup, would you? Besides, you’re wearing lipstick.”

Misaka Mikoto had grown up in Academy City where science was everything, but she still knew it would be inappropriate to have him cremated with a lipstick mark on his face.

Each of them wasn’t given much time to say their goodbyes.

Mikoto and Shokuhou moved away.

Aogami Pierce placed a small rectangular object on his close-eyed friend’s pillow.

It was a smartphone.

Fukiyose frowned.

“Are you really allowed to put that in there?”

“Kami-yan was so happy when he got his first smartphone…”

An employee might get mad at him if they found out, but after burning any gold teeth and artificial bones along with the body, they apparently retrieved the rare earths. …And they wouldn’t know what materials had been included in some rich person’s expensive pure gold accessory.

The unsuccessful entertainer who worked part-time as a monk began speaking into the microphone he held.

“Now, everyone, let us once more pray for the deceased’s fortune in the next life. It is now time to say our final goodbye.”

===Part 10===

And.

And.

And then.

===Part 11===

…

…

…

Kamijou Touma silently opened his eyes in a small, dark space.

Yes.

The pointy-haired boy opened his eyes.

“?”

(Where am I? I can’t tell, but this definitely isn’t that artificial hell. Then am I alive again? Did Kingsford actually keep her prom-)

“Bweh, cough! Cough, hack!!”

Now wasn’t the time to be getting emotional.

Something was caught deep in his throat. He desperately coughed until he got a clump of something out. It was too dark to see what it was. He groped around the cramped space until he found something. For whatever reason, a phone was with him in the small box.

That gave him a light.

He tried to open his eyes to see, but something was wrong with his vision.

“Ow!! My eyes hurt!? What the hell!? You’re kidding, right!? Is there something in them!?”

He hesitantly pinched his eyelid and used the other hand’s index finger to feel around. It was big. He pulled something larger than a 100 yen coin from under his eyelids. He checked with with the LED light and found it was absorbent cotton heavy with his tears. He shuddered.

And the thing that had been in hist throat appeared to be some kind of cloth.

Maybe to keep his tongue from falling back into his throat or maybe to keep insects from getting inside his body? He hadn’t known they did all that at funerals.

And something else gradually dawned on him.

This was not a hospital morgue. He had thought it was one of those locker-like storage spaces seen in TV dramas, but it wasn’t. He didn’t feel chilly at all.

That only left one possibility.

“Wait…”

He was lying face up in a space too small to move much. He smelled wood and flowers all around him. The ceiling? He sensed the wood less than 30cm away. Relying on the phone light, he tried pressing on it with his palm and the resistance vanished sooner than expected. Oh? It wasn’t heavy at all?

No.

He had only opened a small double door that had already been there. About 20cm across.

“Wait, wait, wait…”

The space beyond the little window was dark too. And it smelled of metal. After all the cheap meals he had cooked in his dorm, he recognized what he was seeing.

That was a fish grill.

Except this one was large enough to cook an entire human being.

“Ubwahhhhhh!! Does that mean I’m in the crematorium!!?”

Understanding your circumstances was important.

Because now the squeezing at his heart was so much stronger.

Did that mean the wooden box he was inside was a coffin!? He pushed on the actual cover with his palms to try and get out this time, but…oh, no. It wasn’t opening. It didn’t appear to be nailed shut. It would open upwards a few centimeters before something stopped it. Apparently the cremation chamber itself was short, so the coffin door was hitting the top.

Wait, did that mean he couldn’t get out?

If he stayed here like this, he had a strong feeling they really would ignite the chamber!

“Help!! I know it’s way too late for this, but Kamijou Touma is alive, so you all need to waiiiiiiiit!!”

He screamed with all his might…but did it do any good?

There was no reaction.

He wasn’t even certain his voice could be heard outside the chamber. He had never been to a crematorium before, but didn’t the cremation chambers have thick metal walls? And he was Academy City’s Mr. Misfortune. It was looking more likely he was going to go unnoticed and be roasted due to this careless mistake. A lot more likely.

“Th-th-th-the ph-ph-phone! I need to call someone outside and- mgwah!? Why doesn’t it have a signal!? Because the walls are so thick!? Is this stone and metal cremation chamber blocking the signal!?”

It didn’t look like he could count on any help from outside.

He would have to crawl out on his own.

However, the space was so small. It didn’t seem like the coffin lid would be able to open inside the cremation chamber, but that just meant he needed to get creative.

“Hnh!!”

Specifically, he moved to one side of the rectangular coffin to shift the center of gravity. Then he rolled up onto the side. Like rolling around in a giant ball, he tilted the entire coffin over 90 degrees.

There would be more horizontal than vertical space.

He could finally push on the large lid and escape the coffin…or so he thought before a powerful blow hit his back. He choked hard and then realized he had fallen off of something. The ceiling had seemed so low because the coffin had been sitting on something like a stretcher. The metal scent was a lot stronger now. Still, the place was dark and he knew he was inside a giant fish grill that would burn his flesh and bones using city gas. Even now, he assumed the emotional goodbyes were solemnly approaching their climax. If he waited around, he would meet the same fate as a saury prepared by a childhood friend who was a terrible cook.

(How long until they ignite it? Damn, I can’t hear any voices from outside!!)

It might happen an hour from now, but it also might happen a minute from now.

Either way, he was done for once it happened.

Kamijou aimed the phone around and discovered steel pipes as thick as his thumb running near the low ceiling. He chose not to imagine what the black soot he saw was primarily composed of. In fact, he worked very hard to not think about it. The shape of the place was indeed similar to a fish grill. That meant it had a few gas sprayers and spark plugs.

(I’m screwed if those work properly.)

“!! Oh, hell!!”

Or to put it another way, he had to destroy them if he wanted to live! He grabbed at whatever he could and yanked until a pipe came away with a dull snap.

He couldn’t celebrate yet.

A horrible stench stabbed into his nose.

A threat familiar to anyone who used a kitchen clutched at his heart. Even more strongly than before.

(Wait a second. Is that city gas?)

“Gwohhhhh!! Doesn’t that mean this chamber is filling with gas, even if it isn’t burning!? Then I’m going to suffocate and die anyway!!”

He had no idea if he had increased or decreased his time limit.

Flailing about wasn’t going to help.

He knew what he had to do. He had to get out of here. No matter what.

There was nothing like a chimney. He assumed it did have an exhaust vent somewhere, but he couldn’t find it with his phone’s light. Was there a small hole hidden in some gap somewhere? At the very least, it didn’t seem likely he could sneak out through a duct like an action movie star.

That left only one option.

The only exit was the door he had been shoved in through.

“Kh.”

(But will it open? I don’t know much about funerals, but aren’t cremation chamber doors made of really thick metal!?)

He desperately shined his phone’s LED lights that way…and didn’t see a knob. In fact, he was surprised to find the back of the metal door was covered in stuff. A few metal panels and joints fit together complexly.

That was probably the mechanism that allowed the door to be opened by a large lever on the outside.

Did it look like one big panel on the outside, but this opening and closing gimmick was hidden on the back?

Which meant…

“Can I break it open by kicking at this stuff?”

…The problem was the flammable city gas beginning to fill the interior of the chamber.

If he waited, he would definitely suffocate and die, but what if two metal pieces collided and produced a spark?

Accept it.

Trust in hope.

Giving into fear will only mean suffocating.

“Open.”

He had to do it.

Even if he was terrified and even if his heart was raising a scream so soon after beginning to beat once more.

Kamijou Touma repeatedly slammed his heel against the complex stopper on the back of the cremation chamber door.

“Opeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!”

===Part 12===

It came from within.

The metal door was kicked down with a loud roar.

Everyone gasped.

There was a voice.

''Today is my January birthday.

:''Today is the day I was born.

::''I am the star of this wonderful birthday.

''Today is my January birthday.

He was dressed in burial clothes.

A triangle of cloth was tied to the forehead below his pointy hair.

It was definitely him who crawled on out.

And he spoke.

“Hi there, everyone! Sorry if I surpri-”

“Eeeek, a zombie! It’s going to infect us all with who knows what!!!”

[[File:GT Index v12 BW1.png|thumb]]

They didn’t even let him finish his sentence.

Tears welled up in the eyes of the corner-of-the-classroom boy who didn’t get to be the star even after coming back from the dead.

Panic and pandemonium were already setting in.

Of course they were.

Based on his phone’s screen, it hadn’t just been a few minutes since he died. Anyone would be terrified if someone who’s heart had long since stopped beating suddenly got back up.

(I’m grateful you brought me back to life, but couldn’t you have worked a little faster, Kingsford!?)

“Abababawawa, no, no, it’s true I, Kamijou Touma, died, but I’m alive again, and I mean, technically today isn’t my birthday, but can’t you please give me a more peaceful reaction along the lines of what you would do if a cardiac massage work-”

“Quiet, everyone! Quiet!! Take deep breaths to calm yourselves and stay where you are. Now, what were you doing in there? Who are you!?”

The extremely part-time monk was shouting into his microphone.

Then Kamijou heard a strange mechanical sound.

Someone was coming.

These people were wearing shiny silver armor that covered them from head to toe.

No, were those powered suits?

“Is that the exceptional remains!?”

“Commence incineration.”

They were holding something at their hips.

They looked like a fire fighter’s hose, but not quite.

A small lighter-sized flame flickered in front of the nozzle.

“Flamethrowers!!?”

How well prepared were they!?

Why did they have a unit like this already on standby? Did corpses have a habit of getting back up in this city!?

Anyway, he couldn’t let himself be roasted after just narrowly escaping that fate.

He had no choice but to run barefoot out of the crematorium.

“Damn!!”

Kamijou Touma threw open the frosted glass window and climbed out.

Frigid rain was falling outside.

''And the girl who pointed at me and called me a zombie right after I came back to life – that was Fukiyose, wasn’t it? Kamijou-san isn’t about to forget that!!

===Part 13===

Kamijou Touma wasn’t the only one in trouble.

Aogami Pierce, Fukiyose Seiri, and the others left in the crematorium were in no position to just stare.

The situation was on the move.

“Whoa!?”

They heard a “fwoosh!!” sound.

It came from right outside the window. More people in powered suits were spraying something out of large canisters. It was reminiscent of spraying agrochemicals on a field, but these weren’t pesticides. The outside of the window soon grew thick and translucent.

Aogami Pierce couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Is that a plastic glue? That’s like a more impressive version of the security sheets you put on windows.”

“With that, they can quarantine a location in less than 5 minutes. Now I doubt any person or any bacteria or viruses can get in or out.”

At field hospitals, thick plastic sheets were used to demarcate a space while air curtains controlled the air currents, but was this a more advanced version of that?

Then Fukiyose commented on the a phrase she had used that had caught her attention.

“Any person…?”

“A corpse just woke up and ran off. That qualifies as an emergency in my book. Did it not occur to you that we’re trapped inside here now?”

But the reaction had been too quick.

Kamijou Touma’s remains getting up and fleeing the crematorium was certainly a shock, but not even a few minutes had passed since then.

That speed was only possible if those people had been on standby to begin with.

It meant they must always monitor the cremations of anyone who had died under “suspicious circumstances”.

“(If they were this well prepared, does this kind of thing happen from time to time in Academy City?)”

“(Anything can happen here. I mean, this city creates superhuman Level 5s.)”

None of it sounded real.

Kamijou Touma had gotten up. That much was true.

But what exactly had happened? Saying a mystery virus was responsible sounded plausible enough, but it lacked the weight of reality. That was the same as saying ghosts were actually plasma. Smugly explaining that in a dark abandoned building did nothing to put your mind at ease.

And that aside…

“What happens to us now?” asked Aogami.

“Trying to move from here could be dangerous.”

That she didn’t scoff at his question meant Fukiyose was aware they were trapped in here.

This wasn’t like daydreaming about fighting terrorists during a boring class.

The entire building was sealed off from the outside by thick plastic walls. A mop or a metal bat weren’t going to break through the windows. Even a gun probably wouldn’t be enough. A specialized gas proof door had been set up as the only way in or out, but the powered suits were gathered around it.

And someone was loudly approaching from there.

At some point the number of powered suits had grown past 10.

“Quiet, everyone! We are Bio Secure!”

This person also wore a powered suit.

Maybe anything seemed suspicious when viewed in that light, but it felt like they were intentionally making themselves indistinguishable from each other. Like robbers in masks.

“Your movement will be temporarily restricted, but please do not worry. Once we ensure you are safe, you will be released, so I ask that you cooperate and avoid causing a disturbance.”

He “asked that” they cooperate, but he showed no sign of waiting for a yes or no response from them.

He was actually telling them to resist at their peril.

He made it clear who was in charge here.

How were they supposed to “not worry” when he was wearing a fully-sealed powered suit and equipped with a flamethrower? It was written on his hidden face that there was likely something invisible in the air and that his team would be fine.

“W-wait…” protested a pale-faced crematorium worker.

Even the adults didn’t know what this was.

That only worried Aogami Pierce and Fukiyose Seiri more. And they doubted Komoe-sensei was going to be much help here.

“Wait a second! What is happening? The paperwork said nothing about infectious disease, but are we safe? And do we have permission to continue running this facility!?”

“We are not authorized to answer that. Chief ''Kihara Goukei'' has yet to arrive, but she will explain everything once she does. Hold your questions until then.”

A sound a lot like steam followed.

The powered suits were tossing things into a large rectangular glass vat full of powerful acid. They were quite casual about it, probably because the splashing liquid and smoke wouldn’t harm them anymore.

Those were the bouquets and Kamijou Touma’s possessions prepared for the funeral.

They of course didn’t ask anyone’s permission first.

It had been through a screen, but during the funeral Aogami Pierce had seen the tearful face of that father enraged over his son’s death. The items he and his wife were meant to receive were all being heartlessly dissolved.

Even if this had been a performance put together by professionals, the sight seemed to fully reject the gentle atmosphere of the day.

His breathing was shallow and a cold sweat wouldn’t stop pouring down his brow, but Aogami may still not have accurately grasped the threat. If he had, he could easily have collapsed from hyperventilation.

If he couldn’t take advantage of his own ignorance here, he was in trouble.

His instincts told him so.

What was going to happen to them?

Would they be infected?

If they were, would that be done to them too?

But the situation was advancing whether he liked it or not.

A short distance away, one powered suit was speaking to another.

“What is it?”

“Chief Kihara Goukei has arrived.”

===Part 14===

The dead had come back to life.

Did that qualify as a good thing or a bad thing?

And this was Academy City.

If he was captured, he would either be sent to a lab to be soaked in formalin or he would be directly roasted by flamethrower.

Either way…

“I’m screwed!! My life is over if I’m caught!!”

Kamijou Touma ran outside in the frigid rain.

His burial clothes, which were one step removed from being a Halloween costume, did nothing to keep out the cold. And he was barefoot. Keep in mind it was January. Being stuck out in the rain dressed like this would kill him within an hour of coming back to life!!

“Ahh, brrr. There aren’t even any soaked girls caught in the sudden summer downpour. Winter sucks. There’s nothing at all good about being wet in this season.”

The city had been badly damaged.

The cumulative effect of the battles against Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible really had left it close to collapse. The repairs could not keep up, so construction scaffolding and soundproofing sheets could be seen all over the place.

Kamijou Touma had received that same deadly force with his flesh-and-blood body.

That explained why it was so unusual for him to be alive.

He heard a groaning “gashunk!!” sound.

That was the sound of a powered suit’s artificial muscles operating.

“Dammit, they’re so fast!!”

Powered suit legs could run at 40-50km/h without the help of wheels or a car motor.

An ordinary human couldn’t hope to escape them while running along a wide street on foot.

“Kh.”

They had nearly caught up.

The powered suit’s thick fingers were approaching the back of his neck.

“Damn!!”

He clicked his tongue and changed direction.

He slid across the wet pavement, slipped below a soundproofing sheet, and tumbled into the construction site for repairs on a nearby building.

Sites like this could be found just about anywhere thanks to the battles against powerful foes like Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible.

He heard the snapping of breaking metal.

After the powered suit’s thick fingers had found only air, it had easily torn through the exterior barricade made of soundproofing sheets and metal panels.

It worked like the building demolition beaks attached to the end of a mechanical arm.

A hit from that would smash his body apart even if it only caught on his clothes a little.

“Why aren’t we authorized to use our flamethrowers!?”

“Ask Chief Kihara Goukei. She’s the boss of Bio Secure, not us.”

He heard some terrifying voices from behind, but he couldn’t just stop.

The sounds of thick metal tearing apart continued.

The pursuing powered suits didn’t bother going around or climbing over obstacles. They would shove a stack of pipes aside with a single arm or tackle through a forest of erected steel beams, causing an entire half-repaired building to tilt.

Getting caught in any of that would be the end of Kamijou.

He couldn’t stay here in the construction site.

“Eek!!”

The loud and heavy sounds of bending metal filled the air.

Two of the rapidly-moving powered suits appeared to have collided.

“Y-your suit’s lost integrity!”

“Don’t worry about me and go on ahead! Hurry!!”

“Stop acting all heroic while brandishing flamethrowers! It’s terrifying!” shouted Kamijou, bristling as he fled.

In their minds, they weren’t ganging up on a victim to bully him – they seemed to truly see themselves as fighting to protect Academy City. Which meant they would not compromise or let their guard down. But so what? Someone who could emotionally kill a stranger without second thought was a terrible person in Kamijou’s book.

Kamijou spotted a slope leading underground, so he raced down it. He was expecting an underground mall, but was instead hit by a mass of malodorous air. He had apparently wandered into a culvert where a river ran below the city.

On the floor, he found large wireless communication equipment, professional-looking tools, and a long power cable leading somewhere.

Apparently repairs were underway here as well.

He was afraid of giving away his position, but it was dark in here. Missing a step and falling into the winter river would be no laughing matter, so he suppressed the fear and switched on the LED light.

“The all-purpose smartphone really is one of humanity’s greatest inventions.”

He wished he could just call Anti-Skill and have them come to the rescue, but he got the impression he couldn’t trust in the grownups’ systems.

Where was the exit?

Was heading outside even his best option?

Or should he hide out in this labyrinthine underground structure until his pursuers had moved on?

And how many minutes would he have to wait until he considered that plan a success?

He had too many unanswered questions.

Behind him, he heard the “gashunk, gashunk” of machines operating. Were they still after him!?

(But they’re not moving as fast as before. Did they not have night vision gear because it’s still daytime, or are they afraid of falling in the water and sinking like a rock?)

He thought he would pass out from the fear if he didn’t force his thoughts in a positive direction.

He had to keep running and escape.

It was all so unfair.

He was moments away from death, but for some reason he found laughter spilling from his lips as he ran away soaking wet.

He couldn’t stop.

“Ha ha ha…”

He was afraid of dying.

Of course he was.

Because no matter what anyone might say, Kamijou Touma was alive!!

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

He was alive.

He had never felt so aware of the life within him.

He wasn’t a ghost or a zombie or anything like that.

Being human was such a wonderful feeling!!

Although if Anna Kingsford saw this, she might hold a hand to her head in exasperation or she might bring her fist down on his head.

(Still…)

Chief Kihara Goukei.

They had used the name Kihara.

Was it the same Kihara?

In addition to the business with Kihara Kagun, he was pretty sure he had heard that name associated with the incident where he first met Alice Anotherbible. That operation had been meant to clean up the dark side lurking in Academy City’s shadows, but outside influence had twisted it into a great tragedy. Many people had died. But…they were still there.

“Does that mean that dark side thing is still alive and kicking after all that? Dammit!”

He heard an ominous roar.

That was the sound of flames sucking in oxygen.

He looked back while running and his eyes widened. A fireball of a flame flickered in the air.

That was the tip of a flamethrower.

“A-are you kidding me!?”

Even though it branched off every which way, this was still an enclosed space. Bio Secure might survive thanks to their thick powered suits and oxygen supplies, but Kamijou would either be instantly fried or would suffocate with his lungs roasted.

(I thought that Kihara person wasn’t letting them use those!)

It was too late to complain now.

And maybe it had been wrong to count on the enemy’s situation remaining unchanged.

Without hesitation, the flamethrower nozzle aimed his way spewed an oxidant and a jelly-like liquid combustible material.

And a moment later…

It exploded.

“Wahgyahhh!!!”

Kamijou was soaked with sweat as he leaped down a different branching path.

What?

He was still alive, but what was that!?

There had been flames, but that wasn’t right. If the flamethrower had been functioning normally, he knew he should have been wrapped in flames himself. The powered suit had done something wrong. Because it was the pursuer who had ended up on fire.

White fire.

What kind of explosion was that?

It had seemed like something at the powered suit’s feet had exploded immediately after the flamethrower was activated.

(Was that acetylene gas used for welding!?)

That special flammable gas was used to create the ultra-high temperature flames needed to melt and combine reinforcing steel. The powered suit appeared to be designed to withstand the heat of a flamethrower, but an explosion of that stuff at such close range had to have damaged it at least some.

Kihara Goukei was it?

This may have been part of the reason why the powered suits’ boss had banned them from using their flamethrowers. With propane, city gas, and more, the densely populated city contained a surprising amount of flammables and explosives. The recovery had finally begun after the many battles. There was even the possibility of unexploded shells or missiles lying around.

“Pant, gasp!!”

Anyway, Kamijou Touma was alive.

If he continued playing tag with these powered suits, he would be killed. If he was going to escape, it had to be now while they were panicked over their own screw up.

Bio Secure(?), or whatever they were called, didn’t seem worried inside the steel-melting flames.

He felt their gaze on him.

And heard a straining sound.

They were having trouble, but they only had to wait until their suits managed to reboot inside the flames. Kamijou know he couldn’t destroy them by going on the offensive. Once their self-scans and error recovery was complete, he would be out of options. He wouldn’t be able to escape.

So move your legs.

The culvert was one step removed from a sewer. He was worn out from all the strenuous exercise, but he wasn’t at all inclined to lean against the wall. He used his phone’s LED light to walk down a small side path in the dark culvert that stank of sludge and he eventually found a small door.

Maybe it was for work access and maybe it was an emergency exit, but on the other side, narrow stairs led up toward the surface.

“Wheeze, wheeze…”

He was right back out in the rainy world.

He honestly didn’t feel at all like he had escaped.

He was certain the flamethrower-wielding powered suits would find him again soon enough.

Was coming back from the dead really so difficult?

This was nothing like the emotional reactions to a miraculous experience he had been expecting.

(But what do I do now? If I’m supposed to be dead, my dorm room might be gone. And it doesn’t look like anyone I know will be any help.)

“?”

He spotted a camera-equipped security robot and instinctively moved from the main road to an alley to hide.

He felt like he was moving further and further from the sun.

At this rate, was he going to find himself crawling underneath a flower pot in the schoolyard?

“Also.”

Being dead had scared him.

Finding some way of returning to life had been the only thing on his mind.

But.

Could it be?

“Does no one want a world with me in it?”

He hung his head.

It really hurt.

Then again, he was only a high school boy. He wasn’t some important Buddhist priest whose remains would be preserved after death. So maybe there just wasn’t anyone who wanted to see him again badly enough to deal with something as bizarre as this…

He had died and come back.

Being killed by Alice Anotherbible had complicated matters this time, but he had actually already experienced something similar a few times with full-power Othinus and Good, Old Mary…but was it just different once the pieces on the board had made it as far as the funeral? Instead of just physically dying, his death had been socially accepted this time. It took dying for him to realize death happened in stages.

A whirring motor sound passed by overhead.

“Eek!?”

Now wasn’t the time to be waxing philosophical.

Kamijou released a quick shriek and then hid below an air conditioner attached to the wall in the narrow alley. The flying drone passed by. The dark side was supposed to have declined and they could still do all this? He really didn’t want to be found by the adults right now. They did have flamethrowers after all!

And that hadn’t just been a scout.

It wasn’t harmless.

It was very different from one of these drum-shaped security robots.

Specifically, an object the size of a rugby ball was hanging down from it. He couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty sure that was an anti-tank rocket.

If it had noticed him and fired that, he would have been blown to pieces along with this corner of the alley. That 8000yen-a-pop explosive was enough to fully change the meaning of the electronic device.

It was over once he was caught.

Kamijou Touma desperately held his breath.

Maybe he was doing something incredibly stupid. After all, it wasn’t a living creature. Staying still behind cover like this might not matter depending on what kinds of sensors it was using to scan the surface.

The next 30 seconds seemed to scorch his heart.

And that was assuming his sense of time was accurate.

The drone indifferently flew off. Like nothing had happened.

In that final moment, its motion seemed somehow human, so it was possible it had shifted from programmed flight to remote manual control.

Regardless, that meant the threat had passed…right?

“Phew…”

Thanks to that assumption, it caught him completely by surprise.

While all his focus was overhead, he heard a noise from straight ahead.

A quiet footstep.

Someone was there.

The person was frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at him.

She was tall and beautiful. Her long wavy blonde hair was wet with rain and her skinny body was tightly bound by black leather belts, making for a strange manner of dress even for Academy City.

She was a Transcendent.

Alice Anotherbible.

She was frozen in apparent surprise, widened eyes directed his way.

“Y-you can…see me???”

The idiot had so lost his faith in humanity he had to ask that in a trembling voice.

Tears welled up in the corners of the girl’s eyes.

Large ones.

The cold rain was still falling, but these drops were noticeably different and carried body heat.

“T-””

She was stiff and trembling.

And…

“Teacher!!”

[[File:GT Index v12 BW2.png|thumb]]

She spread her arms and leaped at him.

Her momentum was too much for him, so Kamijou Touma toppled back onto his rear.

Yes, he could feel her.

Her hair wet with the cold rain, her skin, her sweet scent, and her high-pitched voice piercing into his ears. Sensations the dead could never experience bewildered his senses and stabbed directly into his brain. Kamijou Touma was alive, including those brains.

…I thought I would never see you again.

His heart had stopped, his brain’s neural network had been shredded, and he had fully died.

Saying he would return to life had been an absurd fantasy.

Yet he had done it.

He had returned alive from hell.

However, he didn’t deserve the credit there.

That hell had been an artificial one that Christian Rosencreutz had created to resurrect himself and Anna Kingsford had hijacked control of it. And she hadn’t hesitated to hand the resurrection ticket to Kamijou Touma.

He had been saved every step of the way.

The pointy-haired boy hadn’t accomplished anything on his own. Those true experts had done it for him.

They had taught him what it means to save people.

But.

He hadn’t done the wrong thing.

He had finally found something in this half-destroyed world that convinced him of that.

“You’re alive, you’re here, ohh, the girl can touch you, teacher is really here. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

No matter how cold the rain was, he could feel this girl’s warmth beyond it.

Returning to life was meaningless?

Don’t be ridiculous.

There was a girl here letting him experience something he never would have if he hadn’t returned to the world of the living.

“Thank goodness… Teacher, you’re breathing, you’re alive. The girl, uh, the girlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!”

She couldn’t even get her words out.

Still slumped down, Kamijou Touma placed a hand on sobbing Alice’s head.

He could touch her.

He could influence things.

He could save a single crying girl.

The pointy-haired boy was undoubtedly alive here.

“Heh…”

What an awful day.

He had taken so long to return to life that now he was seen as the living dead. They seemed to think he was infected with some kind of Academy City something, so a group of adults with flamethrowers was after him.

But.

Nevertheless…

“Coming back to life…was definitely the right move.”

He could finally say that.

For today at least, he could smile.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume12_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume12_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter4

2024-09-22T13:27:38Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 4: I’d Wanted To Do This With You – Duel_and_Struggle,_XXX.Revenge.==

===Part 1===

Kamijou Touma and Christian Rosencreutz.

The result of a direct battle between the two of them should have had an obvious result. Before, Academy City had gathered all its forces to oppose that man and Kamijou had relied on the Dragon Strike emerging from his right arm, but he had still failed to fully defeat him and Alice Anotherbible had needed to deliver the finishing blow.

He was that much of a monster.

If a mere high school boy faced him, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be turned to mincemeat in less than a second.

''And yet.

''Pop!!!

The instant Kamijou swung his right hand horizontally, something in the empty air burst and vanished.

Everything about this hell was twisted and wrong.

The right hand that acted as a reference point negated and destroyed the magic of the living that was considered out of place by that negative world.

In that moment, it wasn’t Kamijou Touma whose eyes widened in surprise. It was Christian Rosencreutz who had held his palm straight out from a short distance away.

The puny boy was a step ahead of CRC.

That alone should have been impossible.

“!!”

Rosencreutz slashed his fingers through the air a few more times, but still he could not hit.

Kamijou swung his right hand in the same way, negating each extraordinary piece magic just before it hit.

They were evenly matched.

They were fighting on equal footing.

Was it Imagine Breaker?

No, that wasn’t enough to explain this.

The boy shouted at his opponent.

“What’s next, CRC? Citrinitas? Or maybe the Pneuma-less Shell!?”

“!?”

A giant silver sphere slammed down behind the red-clad young man. Kamijou’s prediction was correct. Rosencreutz finally realized that his actions were being predicted. He panicked as he reached behind himself and rotated the round handle to randomly produce one of the world’s oldest causes of death.

It produced a thin tree branch.

That was the world’s oldest whip. But that cause of death had to have more openings than uranium or plutonium.

Did bad luck tend to stack?

Conversely, the momentum and trend were tilting in Kamijou’s favor. Which was unusual thanks to his misfortune.

That meant something other than luck was controlling this.

CRC clicked his tongue and tossed the tree branch aside.

“What did you do? Boy, nothing about your body has changed. Or is this old man expected to believe that a boy with no knowledge of magic manipulated this entire hell to produce something to your advantage!?”

That wasn’t the answer.

Kamijou couldn’t possibly control hell.

The answer was much simpler, which may have been why that overthinking expert had missed it.

“We walked through hell together, didn’t we?”

That brief explanation was his immediate answer.

“You haven’t forgotten, have you, Rosencreutz? When we fought you in Academy City, it was our first time seeing any of it. None of us knew who the legendary CRC was or what he could do. It was new to us. So we had no choice but to run defenseless into it all! …But that’s changed. I’ve seen all your spells. And more than that, I know you’re actually Johann Valentin Andreae! I know how you use everything at your disposal and I know how you use familiar attacks to trap us!! No matter how strong you are, this isn’t the same as our last battle!!!”

And it wasn’t just Kamijou who had drawn out Rosencreutz’s various methods of attack back in Academy City.

Anti-Skill had been there. And Judgment.

Misaka Mikoto, Aradia, Index, and Aleister had all been there.

Kamijou had to remember the home he was to return to.

The life he still had ahead of him.

The people waiting for him in Academy City.

Kamijou could only stand here now because of the cards they had each flipped over.

He now understood both CRC’s tactics and Johann’s way of thinking.

No longer did he have to agonize over this game of concentration.

Once it was his turn, he could take all the cards for himself!!

“No…”

CRC audibly gulped.

He couldn’t believe it, but he also couldn’t deny what was happening here.

Because he was wiser than anyone else.

“You cannot make up for your inferior skill that way. You are no more than a high school boy, while this old man is the Christian Rosencreutz of legend. Nothing can ever fill the endless gap between us!”

Kingsford then spoke to the shocked-looking silver-haired young man in red.

As if returning to the start of the boy’s words.

“Have you forgotten, CRC?”

“…”

“You left after Alice ☠️ed you and have spent the rest of your ⌚ holed up in your false hell preparing for your resurrection, but ❌ so for him. He lived on after that. It was ❌ for long, but in that ⌚, Kamijou Touma defeated Alice Anotherbible.”

“He…what?”

“On his own. Without relying on 🐉 Strike.”

He finally fell silent.

Common reality had surpassed his imagination.

“Kamijou Touma has already done one thing that CRC could ❌. Do you 💭 he gained nothing from that?”

The benevolent expert was unshaken.

The simple act of living was precious in and of itself.

Those words would sound so cheesy coming from an ordinary person, but Kingsford properly understood their meaning. So even as she easily crossed between life and death, Anna Kingsford would never treat lives and souls with anything but the utmost care.

“The ☠️ are forever stuck in place, but the living are always growing. A puny boy? Do ❌ assume he is the same as he was when you ⚔️ him.”

On his own, Kamijou Touma might have understood this intellectually, but his body wouldn’t have kept up.

But he had that benevolent expert with him.

Kingsford supported and realized the inexperienced boy’s ideas.

And the opposite, the expert who brought only death and destruction, responded.

While cynically returning to the same starting point.

“But did you forget, boy?”

===Part 2===

Kamijou heard a low rumbling.

And felt a tremor.

Th entire hell shrouded in darkness began to shake vertically.

Christian Rosencreutz spread his arms wide and made an announcement.

With great force.

“This old man built this hell on his own. The two of you are no more than unwelcome visitors. So this old man can control this false hell at will!!”

According to Kingsford, this was not the “real” hell.

Christian Rosencreutz – or Johann Valentin Andreae – had constructed this temporary collection of images in order to forcibly shove this dead soul back into the living world. That was the purpose of this hell.

So it was best to assume he could freely control anything here.

Which meant…

With a great crash, something fell straight down as if from heaven to earth.

For an instant, Kamijou thought it was holy divine punishment.

But that had no place in hell.

It was something like an ultra-high pressure water jet.

If Kingsford hadn’t immediately pushed him aside, Kamijou would have been bisected before he could even think. Bisected vertically.

“The Acheron, the Styx, and the Phlegethon – you have redirected the rivers flowing through the levels of hell to us and use them as a weapon, haven’t you? Those special rivers act as the border between life and ☠️ and prevent the living or the ☠️ from reaching the wrong side. By forcibly increasing the pressure for use as a direct attack, the 🌊s work their way deep inside the target, allowing you to make use of their ‘division into two parts’ power.”

“Sorry, Kingsford-sensei, but can you just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking out for as I fight!? If something like that hits me, it’s all over, but I don’t know what kind of initial action to look out for to dodge it. Hurry, Sensei!”

“This is only the beginning. Much more is coming.”

“Yes, of course that was only the beginning!!” roared Rosencreutz.

“You stupid geniuses move too fast! Stop skipping three steps in your head and actually explain everything one step at a time!!”

Kamijou’s tearful shouting received a gentle sigh from Kingsford.

“You do ❌ understand?” asked the glasses woman.

“Understand what!?”

“Hell is shaped like a mortar that narrows in toward the center. So if hell as a whole shakes violently, all the giant objects that appeared on the various levels along the slope will come rolling down to the bottom.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

“You should assume that every single level of hell you have seen thus far will now be your enemy.”

It wasn’t just the one thing.

A big stone gate dropped like a meteor. Was that the gate into hell? If that happened to hit Kamijou, he would be smashed into little pieces. And it wasn’t just structures. The bull-headed minotaur and Nyx-chan slinging around dark sludge came tumbling down as well.

This was worse than just falling rocks.

A single hit from any of this would mean instant death.

…Or wait. Would he remain conscious even after being smashed into a pulp? But if he couldn’t move, then CRC could torment him at his leisure.

And he would have no way of stopping CRC from climbing the spiral staircase back to life.

“Whoa!?” shouted Kamijou as a whole bunch of objects fell in front of him.

Something else came rolling down the mortar-shaped hell. And if it came from the higher levels, it had to be something he had seen during their journey here.

It was a giant breast.

“Now ''this'' is divine punishment!!!”

He leaped aside to dodge it.

He had forgotten that his worldly thoughts had caused that to appear on a higher level of hell. And thinking back, they had just left it there, hadn’t they?

He had just about been killed by his own sin.

But diving once wasn’t enough to make him safe. He scrambled back to his feet and ran full speed away from there, but this wasn’t like a round soccer ball. The mountain-sized breast was much more dangerous in how it bounced every which way as it rolled.

It was going to kill him.

He was going to be killed by a giant breast.

But once he started running, he couldn’t stay on the ground forever. This was the bottom of the mortar-shaped hell, so there was only so much space.

He had no choice but to trust in the sturdiness of the thick layer of ice and head out onto the frozen lake in the center.

Ironic that he had to trust in something about this hell that was thoroughly unkind to anyone inside it.

“I-I just have to go for it… I’m sure there’s still plenty of stuff still caught up on the higher levels. Oh, right. I forgot about Kingsford’s armpit and giant butt. I don’t want to be crushed to death by those, so I have to risk the ice!! Isn’t that right, Sensei!!?”

“…”

This was an exceedingly serious situation with their lives and the outcome of the battle on the line, yet the benevolent expert did not agree with him as she held a hand to her cheek with a smile frozen on her face. She looked as gentle as ever, but the pressure radiating from her was terrifying.

But that wasn’t his biggest concern.

With so many things falling from higher up in the mortar-shaped hell, they couldn’t stay on the outer edge forever. So they had to walk out onto the thick frozen lake. That much he knew.

But that layer of ice was not just ice.

There was a lord there.

“Hey, Kingsford?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“So, uh, since Rosencreutz can control and attack us with everything in this hell, is that giant thing lurking in the shadows going to attack us too!?”

“The six-🪽ed being at the center of the 🧊 is known as the 👑 of the 👿s or the 👑 of hell. Some 💬 he is Satan, some 💬 Beelzebub, and others 💬 Lucifer.”

“I don’t care what his name is! Besides, those are all top-level star players, aren’t they!?”

“Well, he is the big boss at the bottom of hell.”

Fair point.

Finding a tiny goblin or pixie awaiting them all the way down here would be terrifying in it’s own way. Because that monster would probably be extremely high level.

A low straining sound reached them.

Coming from the beyond the veil of shadow.

From the lord – or core – of hell.

Seeing that would be deadly.

Kamijou was certain of it despite the fact that you couldn’t die in hell, even if your whole body were burned to a crisp or you were skewered through. He could tell that seeing that thing was the one exception and a single attack would be enough to shatter his soul.

And for some reason, Christian Rosencreutz had his arms spread as he leaped forcefully toward those shadows.

And a loud voice came from the shadows.

“Fus☆ion!”

“Ahhhh!! Someone stop that childish old maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!”

Kingsford slammed her fist down in empty air and (however it worked) Rosencreutz crashed down into the ice lake while only a meter away from the lord of demons.

That was a close one.

His transformation sequence had been stopped before he cast off his clothing.

The birth of Demon Lord Girl Belzebu-tan – who had transcended both age and gender – had been prevented.

===Part 3===

The lord of demons remained in the shadows.

Kingsford and Rosencreutz’s clash began before he could slowly start to move. Something exploded. Kingsford fought evenly with Rosencreutz while sometimes sending her fingertips racing through empty air and sometimes using a single hand to grab and swing around a large tree or castle wall pouring down from above.

Kamijou could only watch.

“Hee hee! You’ll need more than that!!”

CRC took a few steps back to put some distance between them.

She had not managed a clean hit so far, but Kingsford did not look concerned as her opponent escaped beyond her range.

She wasn’t fixated on a quick resolution.

She had prioritized keeping Rosencreutz away from the lord of demons.

“As if that could control this old man.”

“I did ❌ 💭 that would be enough.”

“This old man won’t let you forget who created this hell.”

All of a sudden, a thick shadow bared its fangs and engulfed Kingsford from the head down. That was not the veil of kind shadow protecting Kamijou by obscuring his view.

That was Nyx.

More than just inanimate objects were rolling down from the higher levels of the mortar-shaped hell.

“Adonai Melekh Ne’eman.”

Anna Kingsford crossed herself.

That was all.

Some self-styled specialists might scoff and say that wasn’t even a spell. In Christian regions, people even prayed before meals, so crossing oneself was a mystical act known even to elementary school children.

But a true expert did not neglect the fundamentals.

By mastering them to the extreme, they could elevate every spell they knew to deadly levels.

The amorphous silhouette of reddish white and sludgy black was blown straight back up just before contacting her. Afterwards, it slithered away as if to avoid Kingsford. Almost like a slug that had finally realized it had leapt at a pile of purifying salt.

“Hell and the 👿 world seem like similar concepts, but they are ❌,” said the benevolent expert.

Kingsford had not lost her shine even in the depths of such darkness.

“Hell is not where the 👿s gather their strength while waiting for a chance to rebel. It is a righteous device created by god to eternally torment the sinners he has damned there. The 👑 of the 👿s resides in Judecca at the very bottom of hell, but there he only gnaws on the greatest sinners in the 🌍. …That makes him a part of god’s plan, so the glory of god can be found even in the very depths of hell.”

The color red twinkled overhead.

In countless places.

That fiery snow would burn away the body if it came in contact, but it oddly never seemed to reach Kingsford. She wasn’t actually doing anything. The fiery snow avoided the benevolent expert.

“Like I 💬d, hell is a part of god’s plan. Past the forest of suicide is the wasteland of scorching sand. That hell of 🔥y ❄️ is used to punish the sinners who violated the providence of god or the laws of nature. So if you have ❌ stained your ✋s with heretical acts, you need ❌ fear punishment.”

Kamijou’s ignorance prevented him from even thinking of heretical spells, so he too had made it through unharmed.

Which meant…

“CRC.”

“Kh.”

The tides were changing.

Past the fiery snow was Rosencreutz who had supposedly set this in motion.

(Can he not control it?)

Kamijou groaned.

A benevolent expert and a deadly expert.

It was like a massive device. Had they begun fighting over control of hell below the surface?

“This is ❌ the real hell. It is undoubtedly a phase you forcibly inserted. But even if you are its creator, you still need to be careful. Haven’t you already had a bad experience with your own creation turning against you?”

“You would mock this old man!? You, the false expert whose blind belief has led to nothing but stagnation!!?” roared the silver-haired young man in red.

Something responded.

Kingsford was not fazed. When the minotaur swung its massive axe in from the side, she stopped it with two fingers, swung it around herself, and tossed the minotaur away such that the three-headed cerberus was taken out as well.

She had an overwhelming advantage.

But the situation was still in motion.

The thick ice below their feet cracked.

“Kh!!”

Kamijou tried to stay in place, but after noticing something, Rosencreutz held his palm out this way.

A few explosions followed.

If the orbs of light were flying toward him, Kamijou could have negated them with his right hand, but that wasn’t enough for this.

This attack struck the thick ice.

Had Rosencreutz not meant to hit Kamijou?

Then what? Was sending a stray shot down into the thick ice of the frozen lake supposed to accomplish something?

(Oh, no.)

“Kh!!”

Kamijou braced his legs the best he could.

The ice below him slanted.

He couldn’t afford to stop running, so he kept jumping from foothold to foothold as giant fissures ran through the ice. Unlike Kingsford, who he had a feeling could fly through the sky if she wanted, he had to keep his feet on the ground, meaning this was a matter of life or death.

More and more of the thick ice shattered, some pieces sinking down and others jutting up.

If he carelessly contacted any of that, his leg could get caught and broken.

He was afraid that one of the fissures would end up too wide, but a cliff like height difference would be just as bad. Choosing the wrong place to stand would leave him stranded with nowhere to move and then Rosencreutz could concentrate his fire on him.

This was Judecca, the very bottom of hell.

That frozen lake wasn’t just ordinary ice. It was a negative holy ground created to eternally torment the three greatest sinners in the world.

This footing was only temporary.

Kamijou couldn’t imagine what would happen to him if he fell from the edge of this thick ice. He could guess it would be worse than being chewed by the great maw formed by two giant pieces of ice.

Not knowing was a form of fear.

He would have been less concerned fighting over a pool of lava.

And…

(Damn, where’d Kingsford go? We got separated in the darkness!!)

He was panicking, but the situation wasn’t going to wait for him to catch up.

The enemy was directly in front of him.

He was afraid that even moving his gaze around his surroundings would give CRC extra information.

And in that instant of hesitation…

“!!”

Something grazed the side of his head as it flew past.

He felt scorching heat from it.

He had to change his focus. If Kingsford wasn’t here, he had to do this on his own.

He was willing to give up an ear.

He probably wouldn’t die in hell even if his heart was gouged out or his head was blown off. This territory was thoroughly unkind to humans, so it wouldn’t provide an easy way out like the comfort of death.

So Kamijou had only one thing to focus on.

If his body was smashed to a pulp, the wrong person would climb the spiral stairs back to the realm of the living. He would only be able to watch as it happened. Come to think of it, what had happened to CRC’s body after Alice killed him? Or would Rosencreutz’s soul enter Kamijou Touma’s body to be revived? Either way, the threat of Christian Rosencreutz would appear within Academy City once more. Academy City had yet to recover after the first time, so it probably couldn’t stop a second attack.

Index was there.

So was Misaka Mikoto, Aogami Pierce, Komoe-sensei, Aradia, Aleister, and Accelerator.

How could he let that happen?

No one else needed to die and experience this.

So even if it meant the destruction of his body or soul, he would stop Rosencreutz here.

No matter what.

If Kamijou Touma climbed the spiral staircase even one step ahead of him, CRC’s resurrection could be stopped!!

“Hee hee. It would seem this old man cannot end this so easily with direct attacks, boy.”

“Kh.”

“But what about less direct methods? That right hand lacks the power to destroy illusions without touching them first!!”

CRC directed his palm overhead.

That hand held an eternal lamp that’s light would never be extinguished.

The bright light shined into the emptiness. However, no fiery rain poured down like a cloudburst and no massive explosion consumed all the oxygen in the vicinity.

This was much worse.

Did you forget?

Kamijou had only managed to maintain his sanity here in the depths of hell because of the thick veil of darkness so kindly protecting him. The lord of demons, the lord of hell, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer. He went by many names, but Kamijou had been spared from seeing that being without a known identity or settled name.

What if a powerless signal flare had just been launched here? But was that really so harmless? Even if it was nothing more than a bright and gentle light, what would happen when the thick shadows at the bottom of hell were thoughtlessly swept away, revealing that which was hidden behind them!?

“Take this, uncultured boy!! You need not even touch it. Simply observing or speaking of this blot upon the world is considered a sin. Knowing his wicked nature is enough to corrode your very being!!!”

===Part 4===

The darkness was pulled back.

Everything was exposed to the light.

The lord of demons, the lord of hell, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer. He had many important-sounding names, but what was he really? Not knowing the answer had to be the better choice in this case, but the answer was presented to Kamijou against his will.

“!!?”

He seriously considered crushing his own eyes before anything could happen.

But he didn’t have the time or the resolve. His sensibilities from his time alive got in the way.

The wicked light swept aside the kind darkness before he could do anything.

Yes.

''There was nothing there?

“Wha-?”

The expression of shock actually came from Rosencreutz.

A rumbling sound followed.

The tremor thundered out and the thick ice shattered in a chain reaction.

But it wasn’t that CRC had miscalculated. Something clearly unnatural lay before them. There was a gap in the center of the frozen lake. Located past the source of the mystery impact. It was located unnaturally far away from the center of the giant piece of ice.

There was no point in discussing who had done it.

There were only so many experts who could handle a direct battle with the true lord of hell who could shatter souls just by being seen.

She had done it empty handed.

Her arms were spread wide.

And she hadn’t hesitated.

“Anna Kingsford!? Did you directly challenge him without a second thought? He is the very core of hell, a part of the almighty god’s plan!!”

Now that the ultimate attack had ended in a dud, nothing remained to stop Kamijou.

He once more stepped toward CRC.

Powerfully.

Rosencreutz immediately slashed his fingers through the air.

Kamijou was faster.

His right fist shattered the magic and the tip of the silver-haired young man in red’s fingernail split. Producing a single drop of blood

It was 1-on-1.

Kamijou refused to rely on the reckless Dragon Strike which required cutting off his own arm, but he had still hung on this far. The young man’s face twisted at that fact and Kamijou Touma whispered to him.

“I might not have been able to win if you were Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Boy, what are you-”

“But right now, you aren’t the CRC who attacked Academy City.”

Yes.

That was it.

Something had felt off. He had thought hell was such hopeless place that there was no entertainment here, but it had still been odd.

CRC was somehow different from when he had fought in Academy City.

“You showed an interest in everything and made all sorts of detours. You cried at the drop of a hat and displayed empathy which led you to readily destroy an entire country or the whole world.”

“Kh.”

“That was the unmanageable disaster named Christian Rosencreutz!! But I’ve been watching you throughout our journey in hell. You never complained to our guide Kingsford and you just followed the standard path. You can’t afford to play around now that you’re in hell, can you? Rosencreutz was selfish and capricious, which made him hard to predict, but that identity’s been stripped away, leaving only Johann Valentin Andreae!!”

The hints had been found all throughout hell.

None of it had been a waste. You could not lie to yourself.

The path here had shown Kamijou the answer.

“You might have the same cards in your deck, but now the more responsible Johann Valentin Andreae is in charge. You’re easy to predict. I know all your cards and you have a terrible poker face, so you have no chance of winning!!”

Kamijou wouldn’t let him escape.

Kamijou wouldn’t allow another tragedy.

Kamijou wouldn’t let anyone else cry.

This one attack would save him and the world.

He had a tightly-clenched fist.

He was already in range.

Whatever CRC thought of that fact, he let out a roar.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

No, that was not Christian Rosencreutz.

It was Johann Valentin Andreae.

That dangerous expert had to know that his odds of defeating Kamijou would be higher if he stuck to playing the selfish, capricious, and unpredictable CRC.

But in that final moment, he was not Rosencreutz.

Johann came to the forefront.

As Kamijou Touma exposed his entire being and moved in for the attack, the man who had once been a 15-year-old boy may have wanted to also attack as himself.

Even if his coldly calculating side knew that would reduce his odds.

One of them spoke.

“I want to go back…”

“Yes,” agreed the other. “I want to go back.”

And they shouted as one as they reached each other.

“I want to go back!!!” “I want to go back!!!”

A dull impact exploded out.

Kamijou Touma’s right fist caught the young man’s cheekbone and pushed in.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter2

2024-09-22T12:07:57Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 6 */

==Chapter 2: Journey – What’s_That_Adventurer’s_Party?==

===Part 1===

The rain poured down.

Everything a step below the hill Kamijou stood on was a mess of dirt and mud. The place was like a giant, empty pool cut out of the ground. Countless figures squirmed within. They appeared to be fleeing from something, but when he tried to get a look at what that something was, Kingsford’s hand covered his eyes.

“That would be Cerberus. ❌ a good sign.”

“Cer-what?”

What was that?

He was pretty sure he had seen that name in RPGs before.

Wasn’t it usually a black doglike thing that used fire? Or was that a hellhound?

For that matter, what was a hellhound?

He was getting distracted.

“It is ❌ enough of a monster to ☠️ if you simply 👁️ it, but it will dull your soul.”

When Kingsford-sensei sounded that serious about something, it was probably a good idea to do as she said.

And what happened if his soul lost its luster?

Regardless, he didn’t want to climb down where a monster like that was lurking. The bottom looked like a muddy bog, so if it did pursue him, he doubted he could escape on foot. And he didn’t want to even think about what happened if it took a big chomp out of his side.

He doubted hell had rules about keeping your dog on a leash.

Christian Rosencreutz chuckled cruelly.

“It is a three-headed demon dog. What, you aren’t going to tame it by feeding it lumps of dirt?”

“With all this mud around, I do ❌ 💭 that would have much of an effect. It will have already 🍴en plenty.”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

Was that conversation based on some myth or another?

That aside, what were they going to do?

A dog the size of a light car was terrifying.

Anna Kingsford pointed at a stone pillar(?) nearby.

It had a small hole at around hip height.

“Looks like we need a 🗝️ to operate the draw🌉.”

“Whoa!?”

It was so big Kamijou hadn’t noticed.

The massive structure the size of a broadcast tower was apparently a stone bridge with chains that could lower it by 90 degrees.

Were you supposed to insert something into the small pillar to work it?

“But what key?”

“It appears the harpy has it. I see it glittering in that 🐦’s 🪺.”

Did Kingsford mean that thing cawing up there? It looked kind of like a girl.

And sure enough, there was the key.

But it was up in the tree. And the tree trunk looked eerily like a human silhouette. But this wasn’t the same as the lewd tree crotch that made the little kids at the neighborhood park (and Aogami Pierce) laugh so hard.

The key was too far up to reach from the ground.

Could Kingsford or Rosencreutz just fly up and nab it?

“I can climb up onto your shoulders.”

“That’s an awfully grounded idea.”

“There is ❌ need to use secret tricks when the standard solution works just as well. Okay, I need you to crouch down.”

The spiky-haired boy went ahead and obeyed.

He should have thought this through some more.

“Here goes.”

She approached from behind him.

A soft weight pushed in at the back of his head and at his cheeks.

Were those her thighs squeezing his head?

Was that also her thighs resting on his shoulders? Or was that actually part of her butt?

And what part of her anatomy was that soft sensation he felt on the back of his neck!? Teach me, sensei!!

“That should do it. You can stand up now. Is something wrong?”

“…I think the pareo has the opposite effect here.”

“?”

He had thought a pareo was like a safety device meant to cover up the body, but here it created the illusion that he was sticking his head up this soft young woman’s skirt. But it was only an illusion, okay?

He gathered strength in his knees and slowly stood up.

The pressure from the sides increased.

“Oh, dear. Ah ha ha. Doing things I am ❌ accustomed to is kind of nerve wracking. But this should work.”

“Bwgohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Hm? Why the 💥ive roar?”

Yeah, this was a bad idea. Letting a clueless swimsuit woman ride on your shoulders was a terrible idea!!

But for now, they had to accomplish what they set out to do.

“➡️, ➡️.” “A little further ⬅️.” “➡️ again.” Kamijou kept tottering side to side to fulfill Kingsford’s requests.

When he tried to look up to see the harpy nest for himself, he was greatly distracted by the pareo falling over his face. The sweet young woman scent was powerful.

He decided to just let Kingsford guide him.

“Got it. This 🗝️ will let us continue on.”

“G-glad to 👂 it…”

Her way of speaking was contagious.

His brain was breaking down.

The shock was like unwittingly drinking a super-sweet chain coffee from a cafe that gathered customers with its whipped cream covered donuts and pancakes more than the coffee itself.

Even so.

The shoulder ride that felt like having his skull pried open and having sugar dumped directly inside was finally ov-

“Wait, do ❌ move.”

“Why!?”

“The harpy noticed us. I will deal with her, so do ❌ move from there.”

“Can’t you do that after I lower you to the ground, Sensei!?”

She gave his face a squeeze.

A hard squeeze.

The glasses woman was probably only entering combat mode, but this went beyond a simple thigh-based reward.

His head didn’t feel right.

It seemed to be swelling, but it wasn’t quite the same as suffocating.

Could she be constricting his carotid artery rather than his windpipe?

“I need to convert to the reverse tree. Gevurah corresponds to Agshekeloh. The reverse of justice is cruelty. The element is 🔥. The wicked name that rules Sphere 5i is Golohab. You who are bound by the name and the number, obey my right 🖕 and display your power!!”

A tremor shook the place.

Almost like an artillery blast. Whatever Kingsford had done, a bright beam of light shot out and her upper body was knocked back as if by recoil.

It was a fairly large action made while still gripping Kamijou’s neck between her thighs.

The spiky-haired boy recalled a life hack for using a door’s hinge to crack a tough walnut.

Wait! But if the fulcrum is my neck, or my carotid artery really, then-

“Oh, dear???”

It happened far too easily.

The spiky-haired boy was rendered unconscious much like some kind of judo chokehold.

===Part 2===

What were they doing again?

Kamijou Touma’s mind was too woozy to remember.

Regardless, he opened his eyes.

What he saw looked strange. Was he lying down? He felt something soft below his head. Someone was peering down at him, but he couldn’t tell who it was due to the large pair of breasts blocking his view of their lower face.

The glasses jogged his memory.

It was her.

“Whoa!?”

He was resting on Kingsford-sensei’s lap pillow.

And since she was wearing a swimsuit, it was a bare lap pillow.

“Oh? You could have 💤ed longer, you know?”

The glasses woman placed a hand over her mouth and laughed elegantly. He decided he needed to get up before he developed any further problems with his heart rate. Why did he feel like he was losing years from his life when he was already dead?

Surprisingly, Rosencreutz did not seem exasperated.

He stroked his beard in his hand and commented on the situation.

“Hm. It would seem sleeping in hell does not eternally bind you here.”

“Old man, do you have to take this so seriously?”

“Hm, hm. You should count yourself lucky that sleeping does not eternally trap you in a dream within a dream within a dream…to the point you lose track of how many dreams deep you are.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me even a woman’s thighs could be a devious trap in hell!?”

Kamijou’s party continued trekking through hell while taking the occasional short break.

They traveled through a variety of different hells, which mostly seemed to be fire based.

They had managed to descend a few levels thanks to Kingsford’s guidance.

“Wow…”

Kamijou hadn’t actually been counting what level of hell they were on, but in this hell, tons of embers were pouring down on them like a blizzard. The embers were especially noticeable in the darkness and they continued burning without extinguishing even after falling onto the sand. He knew nothing good would come from having those land on his skin. He doubted any kind of unexpected romance would be starting here. The embers reminded him a lot of white phosphorous or napalm.

The wind changed and the fiery snow blew this way.

Kamijou froze in place.

What was he supposed to do?

There were no gaps in that. Was he supposed to play a real-life bullet hell game!?

“Bwah, bwah, bwah!? Ah, no, it’s burning, it’s on fire, gya, gya, gya, gya, this old man’s beard is burning, bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah!?”

Kamijou had hoped there was some kind of loophole or safe zone hidden away in this general area-of-effect attack, but that hope was dashed when he saw the person rolling on the ground and burning. The distribution was just too even. Unlike in a shmup, there were no gaps at all. And once one of those embers touched your skin, it apparently kept on burning. The fact that water was immune to fire and the human body was 60-70% water didn’t seem to matter. Kamijou Touma learned the all-too-unpleasant fact that humans really did dance when they were burned alive.

Oh, right.

He had forgotten.

Tears formed in Kamijou’s eyes. The dead were horrifically punished after descending into hell and, since they were already dead, they wouldn’t die even if they were burned and stabbed in hell! Even if the total damage was well past a fatal level and even if it was complete overkill, their lives wouldn’t shut down at the moment of death, in a way making this even worse than the world of the living!

“Phew.”

Kamijou heard a sweet sigh.

It came from the teacher-like glasses woman.

Anna Kingsford untied the pareo she wore around her hips and spread it out overhead. She provided an umbrella not for herself but for Kamijou walking next to her. As if to protect just the spiky-haired boy from an unexpected rain shower.

Apparently she considered her witchy hat to be protection enough.

“You will be safe now. I guarantee it as an expert. I will ❌ allow your soul to be lost until you have been safely returned to the 🌍 of the living.”

A sweet scent wafted over to Kamijou.

It may have been the scent of her sweat.

When she was this close, he couldn’t ignore the warmth of her shoulder against his even if he wanted to. Her newly uncovered thighs were dazzlingly bright and his attempt to not look at them hurt his neck.

“?”

The oblivious woman tilted her head.

At extreme close range.

…Hold on, Kamijou panicked. Could it be that the sexy young woman was rapidly becoming his greatest obstacle in this journey through hell? She rattled his adolescence in a different way from the Bologna Succubus who walked around in her underwear or Aradia who did the same in a star-shaped bikini. Anna Kingsford wore something like a near-future racing swimsuit, so she didn’t show off all that much skin.

But.

Did she have to act so clueless and unguarded? This probably was necessary for them to pass through the fiery snow and continue on their journey, but the pareo umbrella made him feel like he was sticking his head up an ordinarily meek glasses woman’s long skirt. His worldly thoughts meter was on the rise and he already knew hell would react and make those thoughts visible!!!

“Eh heh. I’m burning. Eh heh heh. Now that I’ve lost all feeling, this old man is kind of enjoying it.”

Half of Rosencreutz’s surface area was now pockmarked with burns several centimeters in diameter, a sight that helped recover Kamijou’s SAN a bit.

If he made Kingsford go “eek, pervert!” and shove him out from under the umbrella, he would end up with that fiery snow all over him too. He would end up traveling beyond the realm of pain and start twitching on the ground.

(Come to think of it.)

Kamijou started to reach his right hand out from under the umbrella to touch an ember.

“Kh.”

But he pulled back.

Was that really safe?

He wanted to test if he still had Imagine Breaker, but surely there was a safer way.

If he was wrong, he would end up seeing his own finger bone.

Kingsford, meanwhile, decided to completely ignore her fellow expert, Rosencreutz.

Her kindness must have been limited to amateurs.

The traveler with no sympathy for the scorched first-rate pro began to speak.

“Sigh. This area of hell is still partway between the medium and 🌶️ levels. To be blunt, Westcott, Mathers, and my other students saw much worse when they made a mistake.”

“…”

What was education like in the late 19th century?

Kamijou had trouble imagining it. He lived in an age when no one was even asked to stand out in the hall holding buckets, so this was beyond anything he could imagine. And was the Mathers she mentioned ''the'' Mathers he had seen in London? Had that ultimate genius actually cried after being beaten up by his teacher? What in the world had he done to deserve that?

Rosencreutz (who was lying burnt at their feet) joined the conversation.

“Pant, wheeze. B-by the way, a little later in the early 20th century, the famous Crowley had this to say to his students: ‘You made a mistake? Then slash your arm with a razor to leave a permanent scar. That pain will teach you your mind is capable of controlling you.’ ”

“Who let a guy like that reign at the top of Academy City?”

Had Aleister been that strict? Then again, he did seem like the type who would writhe on the floor in agony when someone dug up a story of his past.

But apparently Anna Kingsford was from the era before even that.

She looked like a gentle and smiling glasses woman, but maybe Kamijou needed to focus a little more on what was hidden deep inside?

Rosencreutz was still smoldering, but by the time he returned unsteadily to his feet, his burns had all vanished.

He really was an expert.

The ability to turn horrific burns like that into a joke was anything but normal.

“But, well, you know.”

“Hm?”

“You know. If Anna Kingsford were only a little nicer, this old man would see her as a certain ideal.”

“She seems nice enough to me.”

“Does she now? Then are you saying you see her as the ideal you-know-what, boy? I envy you.”

The ideal what?

Did he know what?

Kamijou Touma felt a cold sweat dripping down his back.

Oh, no.

He shouldn’t have let himself think it. But now that the thought was in his mind, it wouldn’t leave.

It was the worst possible thought.

Yes.

Wasn’t Anna Kingsford a lot like ''the ideal dorm manager''?

He knew he shouldn’t think it, but he couldn’t escape the image he had conjured into his mind.

The ideal.

She was a generally clueless and gentle woman, but she was stylish, sexy, older than him, could do both her job and housework, and she would accept anything he might do, but she also loved his attention as the sweet and lovely school dorm manager. That ideal was so powerful he couldn’t shake it. ''Don’t give in. Harness your mental fortitude. Weren’t you going to crawl out of hell and wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears back in the world of the living? C’mon, Kamijou Touma, you’re better than this. Just remember that crying face waiting for you! You need to return. Don’t think about it if it’s possible with ordinary methods. You have two extraordinary monsters with you. Didn’t you decide to escape from this hell with Kingsford’s help and Rosencreutz’s power!? This isn’t about a dorm manager!!''

…''But wait. As well guarded as her front is, the back of that racing swimsuit is wide open, leaving a lot of exposed skin. Isn’t it a lot like a naked apron? No!! Don’t let her swimsuit distract you. Refocus your mind. This is only the starting point. There has to be more to this. This place is called hell, so there’s bound to be some hellish obstacles here. So stay focused! Shut down your imagination! Keep that image out of your head!! But it’s true a dorm manager would be at a city pool, not a midsummer beach. And she would wear a racing swimsuit instead of a flashy bikini. Wait!! I don’t need to pursue a dorm manager all the way to hell when there are plenty of them back on earth!! Nwoahhhhhh!!! Good morning, Kamijou-san. Hee hee. You have some bedhead. My, my, did you only just get up? What a naughty boy you are. Oh, by the way, Kamijou-san, do you have some free time? I can’t figure out how to hook up my TV and digital recorder. Oh, this? I made too much nikujaga, so I thought I would share some with you☆

The world warped around Kamijou.

He paled. He had noticed the change.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Nothing could be worse right now! This wasn’t just the surface-level stuff like boobs or a butt. This was the very core of what made Kamijou Kamijou. He had to admit it. If a young woman gave him an icy look and rejected this softer part inside him, he really would cry. The boy’s soul was wracked with the fear of a lack of acceptance and understanding. ''No, wait! Anything I say now will only hurt me. If they find out about this, they can directly attack my innermost desires!!!

“S-stop this, hell!! Don’t react now of all times. Ah, ah, ah, nooo. Why does hell have to be so merciless? Why does my dorm manager dream have to appear like this? Damn, the very center of my heart is blooming before my eyes! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Hell shined bright.

He was dead.

Kamijou flailed his right hand at the empty air, but hell refused to disappear. No matter what. Unable to bear it, the teenager covered his face with his hands. Couldn’t someone silently kill him right this instant? Without speaking a word?

But he waited and waited without hearing any comments from Kingsford or Rosencreutz.

He puzzled over this in the darkness of his hands.

…Were they too disturbed?

…Had his open display of worldly desire left them speechless?

But something still felt off. There was a tension in the air. A serious tension. He didn’t get the sense they were going to criticize his desires. Nervously, he moved his hands from his face and viewed the outer world through the gap.

“What…is that?”

This wasn’t at all what he had expected.

He saw some kind of city.

However, it wasn’t a modern city of concrete skyscrapers and asphalt streets. This was something older – much older – with nothing but stone-paved roads and pointy roofs he could imagine an RPG king living below.

So was this a fantasy world?

No.

“I see. This imagery comes from him. Hell is designed to reveal each individual’s sins and provide an appropriate punishment. So even an expert – ❌, especially an expert – will have his greedy and defiled soul revealed before us.”

Anna Kingsford still had her back to them. As if protecting them from the scene spread out before their eyes.

Yes, them.

It wasn’t just Kamijou this time. She was protecting the other one as well.

Christian Rosencreutz.

“…”

His head was lowered.

He was averting his eyes.

CRC was never slow to provide verbal abuse or mockery, but now he said nothing.

(Is that monster afraid?)

“1602, the Holy Roman Empire, the University of Tübingen. That would be modern day 🇩🇪. Back then, you were ❌ more than a 15-year-old boy who was still learning theology while also engrossing yourself in the works of John Dee, the queen’s 🧙‍♂️.”

Had that monster really been 15 years old once?

And a student?

Wait, wasn’t 15 the same age as Kamijou?

It should have been obvious, but Kamijou found that obvious fact surprising. He had more or less imagined that Rosencreutz had been born an expert in magic who destroyed the world as he pleased while shouting about how he was an old man.

But that wasn’t the case.

“This is your origin, CRC. The center point of your sin and your distortion upon the 🌍. …This is why Anna Sprengel chose the path of 🪄, why the Golden cabal was born, why Westcott, Mathers, and my other students strayed in pursuit of their own desires, why the 👿 lord known as Aleister Crowley was awoken within the world’s greatest cabal and destroyed it all, and why some unknown person created Alice Anotherbible without Crowley noticing.”

Aleister.

And Alice.

Kamijou leaned forward at the mention of those familiar names.

Yes, this wasn’t something from a game or an isekai fantasy story. As large as the scale was and as absurdly unrealistic as it might sound, this story was directly connected to the real world.

This was a story Kamijou Touma needed to know.

“So he was 15 back in 1602? But what happened there?”

“The beginning happened.”

Anna Kingsford’s voice was stiff as she responded without turning back.

“The beginning of it all. The very moment that the Rosicrucian cabal, the world’s most mysterious 🪄 cabal, came to be.”

===Part 3===

A light clanking sound continued endlessly.

It was a lot like ancient gears fitting together. But this lacked the precision of a clock. It moved sometimes fast and sometimes slow. This was an old machine supported by the tolerance of the viewers, from a time when the slight margin of error caused by the hand crank was thought to give it “flavor”.

This was a film projector.

In a flat world confined to a rectangle, something danced in grainy black and white. It was a boy walking across undulating dunes of scorching sand, a young man gathering students from across Europe, and an old man with a bald head and long beard writing silently at a desk.

“Christian Rosencreutz,” said Kingsford as she viewed the images. “He abandoned a privileged life to travel east where the great professors living in secret in the depths of the desert granted him wisdom, which he chose to distribute freely throughout his homeland of Europe after managing to bring it back with him. But the foolish European educated class – that is the ignorant religious leaders who ruled the Dark Ages that preceded the Renaissance – rejected his wisdom and silenced him. Eventually, he established the House of the Holy Spirit where he could learn along with the few students who shared his vision. He fought against vested interests while healing small human illnesses, correcting the great distortion of the world, and leading humanity as a whole toward goodness. He was a truly benevolent expert.”

“…”

Much like a children’s picture book, it was all so abstract and simple, but it didn’t sound anything like the red-clad young man standing silently next to Kamijou now.

Kamijou felt more like he was viewing images of a handsome prince charming.

That is, it was all so perfect it felt flimsy.

This didn’t feel like a living human being.

“But all of that was an illusion.”

Anna Kingsford left no room for doubt.

At the same time, the flimsy story projected by the projector shattered like glass. With a single statement, the thick stone wall acting as the white screen crumbled away, revealing a hallway on the other side.

The expert spoke while staring down that.

“The mysterious Rosicrucian cabal was first revealed to the 🌍 by a booklet, which only presented him with the mysterious initials CRC. The full name of Christian Rosencreutz did ❌ appear until much later. An individual by that name did ❌ yet exist, so it is more accurate to say Rosicrucianism was created by the person who ✍️ that booklet.”

Kamijou Touma had not been present when Alice took revenge on CRC, but he had been told that the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal didn’t actually exist. Really, he had just suddenly discovered the smart people like Othinus and Anna Sprengel were talking based on that assumption, so he had found it difficult to keep up.

He had also learned that the person named Christian Rosencreutz had been invented.

Kamijou wasn’t going to doubt the man’s power.

It didn’t matter to him if someone dressed up as the god or demon of their choice to draw on that figure’s abilities to reach out a helping hand to whoever they had decided to save. It didn’t matter to him if they didn’t actually throw out their magic name to become a Magic God. That was the foundation of the Transcendents like Aradia and the Bologna Succubus. That had also become the driving force for Anna Sprengel who monopolized so much power yet always fell short of Kingsford and who had pushed past all that to face Alice Anotherbible’s distortion and prevent the destruction of the world.

“…Johann…”

Kamijou heard a voice from down the hallway.

It belonged to a boy his own age. He doubted the boy was speaking Japanese, yet he could understand it even though he couldn’t even speak English well.

“Johann.”

It was a name.

The man next to him.

The silver-haired young man in red hadn’t said anything for a while now. His constant insults had vanished. Like he sat in the defendant’s seat in court. Was this what happened to anyone who was accused?

A step.

Kingsford took a step into the hallway beyond the screen as she spoke calmly.

“The legend of Rosencreutz is said to have begun in 1378, but the real 📅 is much later. It truly began in 1602. It happened here at the University of Tübingen, in what is now known as 🇩🇪. …It happened in a tiny room at one corner of that massive educational institution where people were free to learn the natural sciences thanks to the Renaissance but it also taught theology, in which people learned how to read the Bible in greater detail. It all began as nothing more than a single 💧 being added to the 🌍.”

So at this point, it didn’t matter if it was real or fake. There was something else they had to pursue further.

The false information was intentionally distributed.

What had someone hoped to accomplish by creating the fictional image of CRC – Christian Rosencreutz – as if he were a real person?

What were his intentions and goals?

Kamijou had already been told he was still only 15 at the time. Kamijou didn’t know anything about the educational environment of 17th century Germany, but he could guess it wasn’t something just anyone was allowed to attend.

The University of Tübingen allowed humans to learn about god in detail.

Including his mysteries.

This somewhat reminded Kamijou of Academy City, which looked like a peaceful city of children but actually had massive gears turning below the surface. However, this seemed even more blatant. Instead of enacting some kind of plan in secret, no effort was put into disguising the truth and all effort was dedicated to a single grand objective.

Rosicrucianism had caused so much trouble.

It had created all the foundational theory that had formed the basis for the Golden cabal.

There had to be something there.

There just had to.

So Kamijou prepared himself for the worst. He felt his heart pounding even though he wasn’t sure he really had a heart anymore.

They arrived at the end of the hallway.

There was a small door there.

It was a thick oak door in a stone wall, yet it had none of the grandeur of the door to a cathedral or to the audience chamber in the demon lord’s castle. It was smaller, more grounded, and something even a high school boy like Kamijou could picture.

The actual parts used were different, but the overall scene brought a term to Kamijou’s mind.

(A clubroom?)

No, it couldn’t be.

Kingsford threw open the oak door without knocking.

Johann Valentin Andreae.

His true form was finally revealed.

Voices flooded out from the small room.

“Johann, are you planning ''another'' prank? You only just got reprimanded for that phony newspaper saying Bacon and Shakespeare are one and the same. …What are you plotting now, writing up some weird booklet?”

“You had better be ready, Christoph, because this one’s a doozy! Once this young man finishes writing this, I’ll finally get back at those professors lording it over us from their lecterns. This young man calls it the Great Rosencreutz Operation!!”

===Part 4===

A prank.

Those professors.

Operation.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………Umm?”

Kamijou had heard it himself, but he still couldn’t believe it.

What was with this light mood?

Those cheerful voices sounded like two children digging a pitfall in a field somewhere.

“Johann Valentin Andreae.”

Anna Kingsford sighed again.

In exasperation.

“It all began with him. And ❌ everything that changes the 🌍 begins as some grand strategy or plan.”

The two boys had no idea Kamijou’s party was observing them.

In fact, they were upset about being crammed into such a small room.

“Besides, the Dark Ages are over. Over! No longer will our Germanic people be seen as the enemy of European culture by the fools who refuse to think for themselves. We live in a new era where everyone is familiar with the concept of the Renaissance! Instead of waiting for a drop of miracle to trickle down to our parched lips, we can mix our own potions and publish our own newspapers! Paintings have depth thanks to perspective and there are naked statues aplenty! The people and the cities have received the visual blessings of the Renaissance, so it’s wrong to force everyone to think of god in the one ‘accepted’ view.”

“Johann.”

“This young man is not arguing against there being just one god. I’m not interested in the complicated arguments over what exactly the Greek Zeus or Roman Venus were or over whether the great Caesar and Aristotle went to heaven or hell because they died without being baptized. Those kinds of details aren’t for the young. I’m just saying each individual theologian should have their own stance on how they think about and view the one god. This is Tübingen! We’re paying an arm and a leg in tuition to receive an education in ''that subject''!! So what is this!? The professors think they’re better than us just because they’ve lived longer. They think the world’s reformation ended with criticizing the old church for its indulgences and all that. Give those educated idiots enough free time and they’ll stir up trouble by writing a book criticizing innocent witches or something. Like our country’s greatest author of nonsense: Heinrich Kramer! There are still so many real problems to deal with. The ideal is to allow free debate of all possibilities and then collect the best of them and link them together into an even better theory, right? This is a university, so that’s what we should all be collaborating on. But how are we supposed to debate anything when simple thinking is deemed ‘sinful’!? What’s even the point of attending university then!? You might as well go to a tiny rural church and listen to the ancient priest’s sermons!!”

“Johann, you’re rambling. And this is why everyone says you’re dangerous. You’ll be burned as a witch eventually, I swear.”

“But it’s all true. The adults just don’t like it when you question them, so they try to silence anyone who’s too smart for them. Right?”

“Don’t drag me into this. Your grandfather is weeping.”

“You sound just like the teachers, Christoph. It’s true my grandfather is famous in the field of theology, but that’s all anyone knows about him. Just so you know, he’s far more active and playful than me back home. If he was as strict and serious as everyone thinks he is, he wouldn’t have fathered 18 children, now would he?”

“No comment. Geez, there’s nothing like an insider’s view, huh? So what’s this Rosen thing? What does all this have to do with that flimsy booklet? I don’t want to be in the dark when your trouble hits the university, so tell me how this prank works. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“This young man is glad you asked!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae energetically swung his hands around and spoke theatrically loud.

“Rosen…creutz!! The rose and the cross. Heh heh. A mysterious combination like that is sure to grab everyone’s attention, don’t you think!?”

“Is it? But there’s a trick, right? Tell me.”

“Heh heh. My erudite and impoverished friend Christoph Besold. Are you familiar with the Andreae house crest?”

“So that’s it, you troublemaker.”

“Yes, it is four red roses and a diagonal white cross. Everyone will be worshiping this young man!”

It wasn’t just Kamijou’s modern viewpoint.

Johann’s friend from the University of Tübingen was also exasperated.

In the distant illusion, Johann waved the booklet between his fingers.

“Rosencreutz. The two of us will set this up as a legendary magic cabal. This young man would like the help of your unnecessarily knowledgeable mind! The Chemical Wedding. It’s the perfect name for the current era. Everyone is familiar with flasks and beakers now, so even the general public will be interested! Because the Renaissance changed the world a short while ago!!”

“To make it a legend, you’ll have to cover a long period of time.”

“This young man is well aware. What if we say it was established 200 years ago? A mysterious organization acted from the shadows to smash the petrified knowledge of the church and end the mysterious Dark Ages while they spread the light of the Renaissance across the current age, but this collection of true wise men was not satisfied with just that. They are a cabal capable of changing the world. A good lie is not a perfectly flawless myth. To give it verisimilitude, it must feel lived in and match the changing of the world around us all. The people have grown bored of the Renaissance. They seek the next great change!! See, see!? The general public will believe it in a heartbeat!”

Bored of the Renaissance.

The changing of the world.

Like when high-speed flat-rate internet swept across the world, or when online shopping and smartphones changed how people lived their lives. Had Johann taken advantage of the idea that a single good idea could change everything?

In an age of plenty, people were not necessarily satisfied.

Those people would have their own complaints.

“This young man will release these all-consuming omnivorous fish into the waters of public opinion,” said Johann with a grin and the thin booklet in hand. “This young man hasn’t decided how long yet, but probably at least 2 years. Just the one booklet will seem too sudden, so we need to set the stage by first leaking a few fragments of supposed documents. Of course, if it looks like the truth is coming out early, we can make our move before it all falls apart.”

“You’re going to hide that you faked it all for no good reason for two whole years? If nothing else, this is a great example of the terrifying focus of someone with too much time on their hands.”

“Ideologies spread in no time. And if the topic is to spread among the educated, maybe we should aim for the salons for playwrights or composers? Those people are always searching for mystical material, be it Greek or Roman or even the Germanic Valkyries or Egyptian Isis and Nephthys. They’ll leap at a mysterious world-spanning cabal that no one’s ever heard of. If we add in a king or queen or princess, we’ll be reeling them in like salmon or anchovies.”

“I’m impressed, Johann. Just how many enemies are you planning to make? Trying to set a new world record for how much trouble you can cause with words alone?”

“No one in the world can put a lid on the truth for their own convenience. This might only be a thin handmade booklet right now, but once plenty of copies have spread around and people are whispering of its existence, even the most absurd story starts to sound a lot more real. We can fake multiple sources all on our own. That way it will grow to the point that not even those professors can ignore it. They look all dignified now, but just you wait until they’re onboard with it too.”

“Well, those old men have all learned the history of what happened to the hardheaded Christians who refused to get onboard with the Renaissance when it showed up.”

“This young man just know they’ll claim to have known all about it before the general public found out or even claim to secretly be a member. …Heh heh. After all, it’s the rose and the cross. Those proud adults will all be smugly confessing their association with a secret organization that reveres the house crest of the very same Johann Valentin Andreae they look down upon. They will claim to have sworn allegiance to this young man!!”

“Bff!? …S-sorry. Unlike you, I have this thing called common sense. I am extremely concerned about the trouble I see brewing in the future. I certainly wasn’t laughing.”

“Don’t try and hide it. Ah ha ha ha!! Those narcissistic teachers act like they’re omniscient despite being as human as the rest of us, so this young man can’t wait to have them bowing their heads to me with looks of utter solemnity! Oh, I already can’t wait until the day we can reveal the truth!!!”

It could hardly be worse.

The corners of Kamijou’s mouth were more than a little stiff.

Was this really acceptable?

Maybe it didn’t matter if it was nor not.

The hidden truth of Johann Valentin Andreae may have been even worse than Aleister Crowley’s.

“Really…?” said Kamijou without thinking.

Rosencreutz(?) refused to turn his way. For a while now, he had been avoiding Kamijou’s eye.

This was the unvarnished truth.

It may have hurt him.

Kamijou took a deep breath and kept a straight face.

“Are you stupid? No one asked you to, but you went right on ahead and created your own original myth with yourself as the leader? I’ve heard most people write some embarrassing things in their youth, but this is ridiculous. Could you not look at yourself objectively and see why you were an outcast?”

“Salt in the wound!? And this old man means the sea salt with pieces bigger than sesame seeds!?”

Kamijou spoke plainly.

This was his chance.

He was so glad he had lived an honest life. He could now take revenge and give this man his just deserts.

“Heh heh heh. Don’t try to pretend you don’t deserve it, Rosencreutz. You did your best to torment me when Kingsford’s giant boobs and butt appeared. That ended peacefully because Kingsford is a wonderful person, but I was this close to receiving a blow powered by an expert’s arm strength, sending my head spinning all the way around. Heh heh, ha ha ha ha! At the hand of Kingsford, the owner of the giant boobs and butt!!”

“Shut up, be quiet, take this: racing swimsuit woman armpiiiiiiit!!!”

That was a curse.

CRC’s cry dragged out the boy’s adolescence.

And hell reacted.

The earth split apart and something emerged. It had no head, arms, or anything below the hips. It looked so much like an indecent silicone doll made with only the necessary parts, but it was enormous. It rivaled a high-voltage transmission tower in size. And hell had even included the racing swimsuit. Was hell particular about such things?

Kamijou Touma seriously screamed as he looked up at the giant something towering above him.

“Ahhhhhh, now that is a niche thing. Boobs and butts are mainstream, but I’d have a hard time calling this sexy. But…if it belongs to a young woman…maybe? If you see it as the one small chink in the young woman’s perfect armor, then maybe an armpit is pretty nice after all!?”

“…”

A short distance away, Anna Kingsford placed a hand on her cheek and remained absolutely silent, but that wasn’t the problem right now.

The fake booklet.

Was that the initial motive?

After spreading the lie everywhere and waiting for enough people to believe it, he would announce it was all a lie to pull the ladder out from under them. And once they were all trapped up on the roof, he could point and laugh at them.

That was all.

The reveal wouldn’t do much damage to Johann and his friend as they stewed inside their little room, but the same could not be said of the important scholars.

This was mischievousness taken to an extreme.

But.

“?”

Kamijou couldn’t believe what he had seen, but then something occurred to him.

Something didn’t add up.

This was something he could only notice because he was looking back from the present time and already knew all the answers.

He gave voice to his confusion.

“But wait… Rosicrucianism was all a lie and it all came to an end when Johann confessed to his enormous prank once the time came, right? Then why do people in later times believe that Rosicrucianism and Rosencreutz were real? Like Anna Sprengel who claimed to be an important figure in the Rosicrucian cabal. Hell, you even said Rosicrucianism is a foundational part of the Golden cabal.”

“It did ❌ come to an end.”

Kingsford’s answer was a simple one.

Generally speaking, that expert did not make mistakes.

“Johann Valentin Andreae abandoned his plan ❌finished.”

That would explain it.

But that called into question the earlier assumptions.

“Johann knew it was all a lie from the beginning, right?”

“🎯.”

“And his prank was meaningless if he didn’t tell everyone it was a lie, right?”

“🎯.”

…Then why did he abandon it unfinished? For hundreds of years, it would seem.

For Johann, the prank lost all meaning if he abandoned it unfinished. Had he lost interest in it? After resisting for two whole years waiting for it to charge up, had he abandoned it all without actually pulling the trigger?

Or.

Could it be…?

“Johann’s greatest error was ❌ accounting for his own perfectionism. While he was a 15-year-old prankster, he was also a student at the University of Tübingen and through his own self-study he had accumulated a great wealth of knowledge in many subjects including theology, alchemy, and astrology. ❌. He lived in the 1600s, the 17th century. The Dark Ages had already ended, a reformation had occurred in a massive system, and as long as they knew Latin, anyone could broaden their horizons past ✝️ and learn about Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so many other aspects of the occult.”

“…”

“❌ wanting his prank to be discovered early, he was very careful as he built up his Rosicrucian mythology from the ground up. ❌ matter how detailed a story is, it can still all fall apart if the author says the fraternity does ❌ exist. …But Johann’s greatest error was letting his great knowledge and perfectionism drive him to create such an intricate story that ❌ one saw it as a mere story.”

The fraternity bearing the crest of Johann’s family was spoken of in the utmost seriousness and even the university professors had bragged about having long known of it or even of being a secret member. It must have a wild experience for the author who knew the truth.

But.

A mere student’s voice had less strength than the voices of influential scholars. Once it became a trend flooding the public, nothing the prankster could say would overcome the wall of majority rule.

No matter the truth of the matter.

So what would happen if he tried to explain what had really happened?

“Are you saying he made his big reveal…and no one believed him?”

===Part 5===

Anna Kingsford pinched the center of her racing swimsuit(?)’s ample chest and tugged.

She let air into the cleavage. Or rather, the created tunnel.

Damp with sweet sweat, she used the back of her other hand to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“Phew. It sure is 🌡️ here. I’m soaked with sweat. Yet the bottom level of hell is supposed to be an 🧊 prison.”

“Is that really necessary? Hey, I thought you were just dragging a really serious truth out into the open!! Why are you trying to overpower that with your unbeatable femininity!?”

“?”

She looked confused.

Ms. Sexy’s glasses had started to fog up.

And her air of natural gentleness seemed to press in on him.

…Was she not even aware she was doing it? No, it couldn’t be! It was true his adolescent brain’s memory was more stimulated into activity by the faintly flushed skin of this busty young woman than it was by the distant past of some historical old man!! But not even he was going to focus on the sexy woman in this moment. Wouldn’t that be as extremely inappropriate as ogling the wife in mourning clothes during a tearful funeral ceremony? Did that glasses woman’s hair and skin have to smell so sweet!? Was she like the ultimate mayonnaise that overwhelmed all the other more subtle flavors!?

The silver-haired young man in red was hanging his head.

His expression was hidden, but his shoulders were shaking. In this gloomy atmosphere.

It was no use.

Trying to be nice would probably just make him cry here.

Apparently CRC’s selfishness and capriciousness had all been an act to make himself look bad and he was really just a diligent 15-year-old deep down.

Kamijou Touma had to harden his heart if he was to protect Rosencreutz’s pride and soul.

“Ah ha ha, bwa ha ha, hee hee hee hee hee!!! …I-I can’t do it. I can’t. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. Christian Rosencreutz. Oh, I can’t stand it. Bwah ha! I’m sorry. Pfft. But all this talk about – pfft – the secrets of the world – kee hee hee hee hee – and it can’t hold a candle to a woman in a swimsuit! Pffffft!!!”

“Answer me, hell. Send Kingsford’s giant glasses plummeting toward us. I call upon you, meteor, to crush this insolent boy.”

CRC raised his arms and recited a curse.

But hell did not react this time.

He had fumbled it. Not even Kamijou had taken his adolescence to such an extreme that he couldn’t control himself when it came to glasses that weren’t currently on a woman.

Apparently CRC wasn’t all powerful.

In fact, it sounded like his failures had outnumbered his successes in the past.

Magicians were the end result when a failure kept on struggling. Which was why they tried to distort reality. They wielded supernatural power, but they were entirely different from the Level 5s who had mastered their innate talents. Since Rosencreutz had risen to the level of expert, he must have had a reason behind it all…right?

But in that case…

Noticing Kamijou’s eyes on her, the other expert smiled a little.

“Yes. My past is full of failure and regret.”

And so she had mastered magic.

Unable to forgive her own weakness or tendency to give up, she had decided she would change the world even if it meant remaking herself.

But be that as it may, Kingsford was still perfection as far as Kamijou was concerned. She continued saving people even after dying, but she had also thrown out her resurrected life and descended into hell to collect Kamijou there. This wasn’t like Othinus or Aleister. He sensed something that set Kingsford apart.

He needed to behave himself.

He had to.

“But I just can’t help it. Pft, we were talking about Rosencreutz, but Kingsford is all I can think about.”

“I hope this boy is devoured headfirst by a giant vagina-shaped monster. A horrifyingly hairy vagina!! It can abduct him in a beam of light like a UFO!!!”

Something suddenly exploded.

It came in the form of a fist. The smiling glasses woman had sent a blow right into the center of CRC’s face.

Kingsford was fairly merciless when it came to a death-dealing expert.

Kamijou was glad hell hadn’t reacted to that one…

“While this is CRC’s starting point, we are only looking at echoes of the past. Kamijou Touma, this may be necessary information for you in the present, but do ❌ let it influence you too much.”

“…”

But this was about Rosicrucianism.

He had seen the truth about Christian Rosencreutz.

This was the foundation that had, on some level, influenced the Golden cabal and their greatest mutation Aleister, influenced Anna Sprengel, and even influenced Alice Anotherbible and the other Transcendents.

Kamijou had no idea if he could return from hell alive.

But it still wouldn’t hurt for him to learn all of-

“By the way, Kamijou Touma. While there is 🔥 and lava bursting from the ground here, hell’s 🌊 quality means there is ❌ much hope for a ♨️. But do you think we could manage a hot stone spa?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be discussing Rosencreutz!? I’m sure hell is a boring place for a perfect and flawless woman like you, but stop filling in the gaps with merciless condensed milk!! Everything will end up having that super sweet Kingsford flavor!!!”

Immediately, Kamijou noticed a pale glow.

At first, he thought he was going to get to see a giant young woman enjoying a hot stone spa, but this appeared to be something else.

He sensed a different current or trend to this.

A familiar scene emerged from the scenery. He was again seeing the University of Tübingen which shouldn’t have existed here or now.

Hell had activated.

===Part 6===

A great commotion was underway.

Asking where was meaningless. Talk of the rose and the cross was so popular it was happening pretty much everywhere.

Even though it was all made up.

He had loudly insisted it was all a lie, but no one had listened.

Rosicrucianism had completely left Johann’s control. It now belonged to everyone else.

If they wanted to enjoy it, so be it.

As long as that was what they wanted, an individual might be happy living a blindfolded life.

But.

This was on another level altogether.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I am an official Rosicrucian member. Pray to me and you might just acquire a potion capable of curing the ailment destroying your body.”

That was one of the professors.

One of the important scholars who taught at the university. As much as the boy was loath to admit it, that man was a respectable theologian who had supported the protestants to critique corruption in the monasteries and the selling of indulgences in order to drive out the vested interests of the old world.

But…

This wasn’t the same as an individual refusing to face reality and blindfolding themselves. Stealing reality away from those who had yet to be deceived was something else entirely.

The boy attempted to fight it.

Recklessly.

The worst part was that this professor was a professor.

That meant he wasn’t trying to deceive people maliciously. He believed the Rosicrucian legend from the bottom of his heart and ''had truly convinced himself that praying to a member of the cabal would heal other’s ailments.''

So.

This was well past the point where a good argument could function as a weapon.

Only academic theories could be beaten with logic.

Logic was powerless against faith.

“You say you created it all yourself? …Nonsense. Even I have barely even begun to scratch the surface of its true depths, so you – you who are so close to flunking out – could never understand even a fragment of the Rosicrucian truths that flawlessly combine mind-bendingly complex theories with supremely simple answers!!”

There is no deeper meaning! It’s a joke! It’s my house crest!!

Johann’s shouts reached no one.

No one at all.

The people who spoke of his invented nonsense as if it were real instead mocked him as ignorant and uneducated, shunning him.

They were like a naked emperor who no one could judge.

They all were.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Johann wasn’t alone. The friend who had accompanied him in that small room was the only other one who knew of the prank. In that topsy-turvy world, only he understood the same truth as Johann. He had helped created this trend. So if they worked together, surely they could bring an end to this ridiculous festival.

Or so Johann thought.

“It wasn’t us.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The original assumption had crumbled away within his friend.

“We didn’t create this. You said you searched through all sorts of old non-Christian texts, right? Well, couldn’t you have stumbled upon some real secret Rosicrucian document in there? That must be it. That makes so much more sense than thinking the two of us somehow managed to remake the world!! Right!?”

Johann could not forget the strange light deep in his friend’s eyes.

He could never forget.

Something had taken root deep inside his friend.

The monster those two had created had taken on a life of its own and grown to the point it could travel freely from person to person. And even swallow up one of its own creators.

Had that friend been unable to bear the pressure of breaking the world?

Or had he not wanted to destroy the Rosicrucian illusion. Even if it meant altering his own memories?

Yourself or the world?

When one or the other had to be wrong, an individual mind would give into the majority rule and rewrite its own memories. People would fabricate memories in no time as long as they were aware that simply lying to themselves would let them escape eternal isolation and join the crowd.

Hypnosis only worked when the subject wanted it to.

This was a perfect example of a self-suggestion no one had asked for.

…Johann didn’t know what happened to his friend afterwards. They had continued attending the same university, but they had barely spoken. He may have begun a search for nonexistent old texts related to the rose and the cross.

Johann had no allies left.

He was all alone.

In a storm of fierce words, Johann was forced to endure the gale of text all alone.

Meanwhile, the important people who believed in Rosicrucianism began pulling out dusty old documents. They discussed whether Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, or other things might point to a piece of the Rosicrucian secrets and they tried patching it all together. The powerless invented story began to to change as the patchwork gradually took on a new form. By the time the original flavor was no longer recognizable, a drop of true poison had found its way inside.

In other words, various forms of eastern and western magic.

''They'' must have decided this would make good camouflage and help them in their factional conflicts.

So a kernel of knowledge taken from, of all places, an original grimoire was included.

Once the ball began rolling down the hill, no one could stop it.

Not even Johann.

He was its creator, but he had lost control.

Once people were wielding visible miracles, it became impossible to say whether it was a lie or the truth.

“Ahh.”

“Pray to me.”

“Help me.” “I’ll pay anything.” “Give it to me too.”

“No.” “It hurts.” “That’s weird.” “Help.” “I heard the Rosicrucian book could heal me.”

“L-L-Lord Rosencreutz!!” “Argh, I’m willing to spend my entire fortune to track down CRC!” “Are you sure that’s safe?” “Hee hee. Care to try some divination of the rose and the cross?” “Uweeeeaahhhhhhh!” “Please don’t leave me.” “This here is the sequel to the primary text of a secret cult! Any takers!?” “Wait, you seriously don’t believe in CRC?” “I heard you shelter Rosicrucians in your territory.” “Are you the enemy of mankind who dares defy Lord Rosencreutz!?” “All you have to do is believe, so stop making waves.” “They say it’s complete.” “You got what you deserved. You wouldn’t be sick if you hadn’t insulted the Rosicrucians.” “I am Rosencreutz reborn!” “I have the elixir of life!!” “You must be removed. Your lack of belief in CRC makes you an illness upon this world!!” “Hee hee. I’m making a killing off of this.” “Can you really call yourself an intellectual if you aren’t well-read on the rose and the cross?” “Help me!!” “Don’t worry. Everyone will be saved as long as they do as Rosencreutz says.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae.

He was ''defeated by Christian Rosencreutz.

Reality was stolen from him.

He had invented it, but he was labeled the liar.

CRC had transformed into a secret truth. And the Rosicrucian legend with him at the top had left the control of the 15-year-old boy who had created it. He had been able to switch it on, but switching it off wasn’t so easy.

He heard the world changing.

Distorting.

Bending.

Twisting.

Breaking.

He had created an engine that convinced so many people they were happy even as it dragged them down to hell.

===Part 7===

“Mugyu.”

That was a sound effect.

It came from Kingsford’s lips.

And Kamijou Touma’s face was fully buried in the large chest of her swimsuit-like outfit.

Her arms were holding him tight.

(Why!?)

“!!!???”

“🤫.”

Anna Kingsford was perfectly calm.

The heat must have been too much even for an expert because her body felt overheated and was slick with sweet sweat!!

“There is something here. But this is ❌ as characterized as the Malebranche, so it must be a more primitive concept. Perhaps a manifestation of Nyx who surrounds Tartarus.”

“(Mghghmgh, what does that have to do with these boobs in my face, mgh!?)”

“Nyx seems to calculate the #️⃣ of souls wandering in hell and 🔒s onto them, so by bringing our souls close together, the difference between one and two vanishes and we can avoid her.”

Kingsford explained a mysterious concept as if it were obvious.

Of course, Kamijou’s confusion was probably his fault for being ignorant.

Also, Kingsford appeared to be counting them as souls, not bodies. That was a weird feeling for Kamijou. Did it mean he was sensing this body heat, sweet scent, and large soft boobs without them actually having bodies!?

“Also, it seems CRC will be attacked because he is all alone over there.”

“Old man!! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and run away!!”

He was right there next to them.

And in an instant where the soaring beads of sweat seemed to freeze in space like jewels, Kamijou’s outstretched hand just barely failed to reach him.

He was pulled back.

Forcefully.

He had lost to Anna Kingsford's big boobs.

“You trait-”

Something rushed right past him and then the silver-haired young man in red vanished in the middle of shouting something. There was now nothing past Kamijou’s fingertips. The selfish and capricious old man who was surprisingly diligent deep down had disappeared.

Something like a great wave of pitch black sludge being slung around by the color white tinged with red enveloped and took away Rosencreutz. The language may have broken down there a bit, but that was unavoidable when something so strange had happened. That was just how it was in a hell beyond human understanding.

It was now a level lower.

It was rolling down.

Making an unpleasant sludge-like noise the entire time.

That extraordinary monster had made a physical attack just as its target was immobilized by their past trauma. That showed just how unforgiving hell was.

Now was not the time to be buried in a kind glasses woman’s sweaty boobs.

“Ahhhhhh!! I-I don’t believe it. CRC was taken out in a single blow? What, are we playing on hell difficulty!”

“Um, do you need to specify that when we’re in hell?”

Yes.

This truly was hell.

“By the way, Nyx is a girl, so you could say CRC was just attacked by a goddess of the night. Yes, a very passionate mounting attack.”

“Did you say a goddess of the night!?”

Why did that sound so extremely indecent!? Based on the white statues, he could guess Greek mythology’s surface-level standards of beauty weren’t all that different from the modern standards, so if he wanted to see an extremely lewd and beautiful goddess, was his best option to wait and see what happened!? …That would be fine, right? CRC was an expert, so he had to be pretty sturdy and waiting a bit before rescuing him wouldn’t make all that much difference, right!?

The glasses woman tilted her head.

“Sigh. I do ❌ know what has inspired this desire to learn more about the Hellenistic gods, but one of her most notable traits is that she goes on to marry her older brother.”

“She’s a goddess of the night, a little sister, a young bride, and a divine wife!? D-do gods just exist at a level beyond human imagination? This goddess has way too much going on. I’m having a hard time even visualizing her!!!”

Kamijou’s adolescent soul took a powerful blow, like he snuck into a park full of lovers at night, but that probably wasn’t what this was.

Look, Rosencreutz had been taken away by the color white tinged with red, pitch black, and a flash flood.

What about that was a girl?

“Um, Kingsford-sensei?”

“Yes?”

“The limbs and back can be as monstrous as you want, but the face and body need to maintain that soft femininity. What I mean is, the end result should look someone wearing fancy thigh highs and long gloves.”

“?”

It was actually extremely rare for the benevolent expert to be left tilting her head in confusion, but Kamijou failed to notice that.

Listen.

This was a very important discussion for the pointy-haired boy.

“My point is, if you don’t follow those rules, I’ll have a hard time accepting it as a niche type of moe. The way things are, Nyx-chan seems more like a traditional monster than the kind with ‘girl’ tacked on the end. And that sludge doesn’t even seem like a translucent slime girl where you can see right through her!! So can you please explain what this even is, sensei!? Senseiiii!!!”

“Well, while I did call her a goddess, the Greek Nyx is actually a giant amorphous something that surrounds hell in place of the river of the ☠️.”

“Wh-what the hell!? These old mythologies just don’t get it! Are you kidding me!? How is that supposed to be my little sister young wife goddess of the night!?”

“Hm??? Your?”

“No sheer negligee and no frilly apron? If I asked Othinus about a long thing surrounding the world, she’d probably tell me it’s something like a giant serpent. Which means this is a legit mythological creature!!”

“How many times do I need to tell you that Nyx is a Greek goddess, dammit?”

“That’s just a horror monster trying to kill Rosencreutz! There’s nothing cute about it! It’s a scam! Did you think there were boys out there who would get excited over a hug from a female tyrannosaurus!?”

“Oh…I 💭 you hurt Nyx’s feelings. She’s leaving CRC and trembling.”

“Are you serious? Have I finally reached the point of making a goddess cry?”

“I 💭 she 💭 she was just playing with him.”

That kind of playing seemed like it would kill a human, though. Also, it turned out that big wave of black sludge was in fact a clump of filthy wet hair.

Kamijou Touma had accidentally saved Rosencreutz.

This was a new record for him.

He couldn’t imagine what kind of damage being mounted by Nyx would cause, but the silver-haired young man in red lay unmoving on the ground. No. Don’t laugh. Yes, he’s sizzling with smoke rising from him, but that damage is serious. Don’t laugh! I have no proof, but I’m certain that would have killed me. But I can’t help it. Peh heh heh. The more I try to tell myself it’s inappropriate, the more hilarious it seems. This is the same guy who strutted across Academy City trying to destroy the world. Bwa ha. It’s just too funny. Ah ha ha. He really is lying there on his back like a dead cicada, sprawled out with some smoke rising from the very top of his head. Hee hee. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

This was hell.

Kamijou swore to himself he would take this seriously.

<span style="font-size:75%">“I-I am pleased to see Rosencreutz is safe?”</span>

“Boy. For as long as I live, this old man will never forget that grinning face twitching on the verge of exploding into laughter.”

Now he had a lifelong promise from a legendary figure.

But this didn’t sound like the beginning of a love story.

And hell began to glow once more.

The cycle seemed to be speeding up.

===Part 8===

The Rosicrucian social phenomenon proved to be more than just a temporary fad.

It had taken root.

The educated class had developed an understanding that anyone who wasn’t well-versed in Rosicrucianism was behind the times.

Or to put it another way, simply being able to discuss it came with advantages.

At that point, the instigator was no longer needed. A cycle had been established, allowing rumors to birth further rumors.

It all began at the University of Tübingen in the Holy Roman Empire.

That university was a base of the Lutherans who had thoroughly criticized the self-interest and bad habits of the old church, meaning it was a protestant institution. Thanks to this, the three major Christian powers – the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church – were slow to react. They were slow to identify the source and this delay allowed the delusions of the rose and the cross to spread too far to be stopped.

The witch hunts that began in the 12th century and spread rapidly in that period were another problem. To stop the people’s emotions and the standardization of vigilante justice, the three major Christian powers were trying to apply the brakes on the rejection of heretics at the time. Public executions were a symbol of fear from above, but when an execution failed, the furious public were liable to rush in and kill the executioner.

In the 17th century, the Renaissance had split the public in two and changed how rational people thought. The people once more accepted ancient Greek and Roman art, they let their imaginations run wild about the Egyptian pyramids, and the old church, which had oppressed such things and even slaughtered the public they were meant to protect, fell out of favor. At first, the three major powers tried to pin the blame for this failure on each other, but they were also hesitant to act for fear of repeating the same mistakes and reopening the half-healed wounds.

This allowed the legend of Christian Rosencreutz to spread too far and endlessly alter the world.

If they were truly in the right, they shouldn’t have hesitated.

Of course, there was a downside to the Rosicrucian movement sweeping across that era.

Use a certain special method and you will be successful.

You must not follow any other method.

Training came with danger.

If it was easy, everyone could become an expert, so the creator of the myth had to make sure the task was difficult to achieve. So difficult that people would give up before they even tried.

Nevertheless.

Visible rituals weren’t a problem as long as they were on the level of putting stockings out on Christmas Eve or writing on a tanzaku for Tanabata, but when they escalated to the point of severely restricting people’s actions, they could lead to a dangerous path.

Looking back, it was all the work of a 15-year-old boy.

Who hadn’t given it all that much thought.

He had only sought simple ways of making it seem more realistic so his prank would succeed.

And because that creator hadn’t properly ended his prank, the truth born from the lies produced real victims. He struggled for years but couldn’t change it. In fact, he learned that this would likely continue well into the future. Possibly even after his own death. Maybe forever.

So…

“This is this young man’s responsibility…”

The words leaving the former-boy’s mouth carried resentment.

True resentment.

The magician raised his head and made a howling announcement to the world.

“So. So! Listen, you fools claiming to be members of the phony Rosicrucian cabal!! And you masses dragging yourself down to the depths by innocently believing in the nonexistent Christian Rosencreutz!! No matter what it takes – even if it takes centuries. This young man swears he will obliterate every last trace of this ridiculous legeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend!!!”

===Part 9===

Kamijou heard that cry.

He listened to the entirety of the lament, the wail, the roar.

To the cry of the boy who had once been 15.

That monster turned out to in fact be unexpectedly responsible. He felt so responsible for the problem he had caused that he had dedicated his entire life to ending it.

That was Christian Rosencreutz.

No, that was Johann Valentin Andreae wearing the costume.

He was indeed the cause of it all.

But was he really such a villain that he deserved to suffer even after his death?

“And so he became Christian Rosencreutz,” whispered Kingsford. Quietly but firmly. “He had created the character, so he knew what weak points to target to make him crumble. He concluded that dressing up as his most hated character and causing nothing but violence was the quickest way to disillusion the 🌍 and its people with Rosicrucianism and thus saving them. The man named Johann Valentin Andreae built up his status as a theologian while secretly using his Rosencreutz guise to ruin the people who believed in him.”

Like a bandit.

Like a phantom thief.

Like a con artist.

He became a mysterious and elusive miracle of a man who seemed to exist in that same era, but no one in the world could come in contact with.

“Come to think of it, hell has a spot to punish liars and frauds. It was believed to be near the bottom of hell as a whole, which shows just how sinful an act that was thought to be. Hell is another part of the mythology. If he had studied theology a little more seriously, this may ❌ have happened in the first place.”

“…”

“Let’s go. We are still only partway through hell. We are ❌ even close to finished.”

Kamijou suddenly realized Tübingen was nowhere to be found.

This was no longer a university.

It was hell.

Everything he had seen was so overwhelming he had lost sight of where he was walking, so it had taken a bit to notice. Without that benevolent expert guiding him, he doubted he could have even walked in a straight line here. It wasn’t just the fiery hell and the mountainous hell. Simply following the path was a challenge. He hurried after Kingsford so he wouldn’t be left behind.

But still, this was hell.

Kamijou once more gulped at how effective it was. It wasn’t just an ordinary high school boy like him. Hell would even mercilessly attack a monster like Christian Rosencreutz.

And…

“I see. The benevolent expert, hm? But do not think you can hide it forever. The truth is gradually coming into focus for this old man.”

“?”

Kamijou thought this was only some nonsense from the selfish and capricious expert.

No matter how it had begun, that man had become someone who brought ruin to everyone who believed in him. Kamijou knew how dangerous it was to carelessly listen to anything CRC said.

But…

“Hmph. Anna Kingsford has some guts saying all that while ignoring her own presence.”

That statement caught Kamijou’s attention.

CRC made it sound like the benevolent expert – perfect Anna Kingsford – had some kind of flaw.

Kamijou had trouble imaging that.

If this was a baseless accusation made out of sour grapes, surely CRC could do better than that.

It felt completely out of place.

Which bothered him.

“What? Boy, have you really not noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Rosencreutz’s surprise looked fairly legitimate.

They had fought a deadly battle in Academy City, but this was an unusual look from him.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person. Sigh, she really has tamed you, hasn’t she? Has the boy who defeated this old man regressed to being a baby bird that can only follow after its mother?”

“Hey, even I know to remain a little caut-”

“Was it her boobs or her butt that ensnared your soul? You can tell this old man. Or is this something more psychological? Is it based on your dream of being babied by a dorm manager in a naked apro-”

“(Shut your mouth. Kingsford-sensei can hear everything you’re saying at this range!!)”

“?”

The point of Kingsford’s witchy hat wobbled a bit as she walked up ahead…or so it looked to Kamijou.

Which scared him.

The adolescent frantically covered the young old man’s mouth with his right hand.

The two filthy guys spoke from extreme close range while Kingsford walked a few steps ahead.

“Now, then.”

Something floated in the air.

It was a clear jigsaw puzzle. That miniature model of the world was too bugged too function here in hell, but Rosencreutz was still trying force it into a V-shape.

Was that supposed to be a cross-section of the mortar-shaped hell?

Rosencreutz poked at a piece wiggling a bit below the middle.

“Even if you are unfamiliar with the structure of the western hell, you must remember that we started by passing through the gate, correct?”

Now that he mentioned it…

Of course, Kamijou couldn’t remember much about that gate with the later impact of the giant boobs and butt, Rosencreutz’s secret, and Nyx-chan.

“There is a reason you barely remember it,” said Rosencreutz, sounding deeply exasperated. “That was the entrance to hell. That is, it was the earliest stage on the easiest difficulty setting.”

''Oh, is that all?'' thought Kamijou because it had seemed more like a dark forest and stone, which wasn’t very hell-like. Things had seemed a lot more like hell once they started seeing orange-glowing magma.

…But then Kamijou froze.

Wait.

Hold on.

“Caught on, did you?”

“Um. Weren’t we trying to stage a ‘jailbreak’ to escape hell?”

“So you have caught on.”

“''Then why did we all pass through the entrance and then start walking down toward the bottom of hell''?”

Kamijou took another look at Anna Kingsford’s back a few steps ahead of him.

His impression of her had changed.

Kamijou had already walked through the gate. He may have only been one step into the afterlife when he first woke up, but then he had crossed hell’s starting point of his own free will.

“''You will die.''”

“''That doesn’t change my answer.''”

He recalled his past conversation with Alice.

Could it be?

Was it possible that he had once again made a fatal decision right at the very start before anyone had even explained it to him?

“Umm…”

“Is something wrong?”

Kingsford sounded unconcerned. She turned back to look at him, but he could only manage a noncommittal smile in return.

Unconcerned?

He of course had no clue what her truth was. That expert had complete control over her body and mind. It was possible her willpower was strong enough to manipulate the value of her heart rate, so he could never hope to see through her poker face.

He had seen and heard a lot in this hell.

But he hadn’t put any effort into any of it. The fact that a benevolent expert like Anna Kingsford had shown up in hell was too good to be true for someone for whom misfortune was his default state.

With his misfortune, he would more likely be left behind on a school trip after the bus tour guide forgot all about him.

He had no actual evidence to back it up, but his instincts were screaming that he shouldn’t trust that everything was as it seemed concerning this lucky turn of events.

So he had been prepared to find a lie somewhere.

But…

(Come to think of it, I never did learn what Anna Kingsford’s goal here is. Can I really just assume this is just a kind young woman acting of a maternal spirit of volunteerism? But what if she does have her own purpose here and I can’t trust her either?)

He heard some screeching.

It almost sounded like birds, but he doubted it really was.

If he did peer into the shadows to find out what it was, he had a feeling it would shatter his soul. That was a perfectly plausible outcome in hell.

(Then should I get away from Kingsford and try to escape without her? All on my own while already past the midpoint of hell!?)

“Be careful,” whispered CRC.

He even kept his lips motionless to keep the benevolent expert from noticing.

“This old man is an obvious threat…but the truly terrifying threats are the ones that aren’t so obvious at first glance.”

===Monsters===

'''Cerberus

Originally the guard dog standing at the entrance to the Greek underworld. Was incorporated into the Christian view of hell, where he is a beast that chases down sinners and crushes them in his great jaws.

Looks terrifying but has a strong canine side, so it may be possible for a human to tame him if they know the correct method?

'''Nyx

Goddess of the night and the being that fully surrounds the Greek hell of Tartarus. She is depicted in many different forms, but here she is depicted as a woman with exceedingly long hair.

While she is in hell, she does not necessarily do bad things and she is heavily involved in the structure of the world.

She acts as an extremely solid border, so her appearance indicates you are approaching some kind of taboo.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter2

2024-09-22T06:12:32Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 2: Journey – What’s_That_Adventurer’s_Party?==

===Part 1===

The rain poured down.

Everything a step below the hill Kamijou stood on was a mess of dirt and mud. The place was like a giant, empty pool cut out of the ground. Countless figures squirmed within. They appeared to be fleeing from something, but when he tried to get a look at what that something was, Kingsford’s hand covered his eyes.

“That would be Cerberus. ❌ a good sign.”

“Cer-what?”

What was that?

He was pretty sure he had seen that name in RPGs before.

Wasn’t it usually a black doglike thing that used fire? Or was that a hellhound?

For that matter, what was a hellhound?

He was getting distracted.

“It is ❌ enough of a monster to ☠️ if you simply 👁️ it, but it will dull your soul.”

When Kingsford-sensei sounded that serious about something, it was probably a good idea to do as she said.

And what happened if his soul lost its luster?

Regardless, he didn’t want to climb down where a monster like that was lurking. The bottom looked like a muddy bog, so if it did pursue him, he doubted he could escape on foot. And he didn’t want to even think about what happened if it took a big chomp out of his side.

He doubted hell had rules about keeping your dog on a leash.

Christian Rosencreutz chuckled cruelly.

“It is a three-headed demon dog. What, you aren’t going to tame it by feeding it lumps of dirt?”

“With all this mud around, I do ❌ 💭 that would have much of an effect. It will have already 🍴en plenty.”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

Was that conversation based on some myth or another?

That aside, what were they going to do?

A dog the size of a light car was terrifying.

Anna Kingsford pointed at a stone pillar(?) nearby.

It had a small hole at around hip height.

“Looks like we need a 🗝️ to operate the draw🌉.”

“Whoa!?”

It was so big Kamijou hadn’t noticed.

The massive structure the size of a broadcast tower was apparently a stone bridge with chains that could lower it by 90 degrees.

Were you supposed to insert something into the small pillar to work it?

“But what key?”

“It appears the harpy has it. I see it glittering in that 🐦’s 🪺.”

Did Kingsford mean that thing cawing up there? It looked kind of like a girl.

And sure enough, there was the key.

But it was up in the tree. And the tree trunk looked eerily like a human silhouette. But this wasn’t the same as the lewd tree crotch that made the little kids at the neighborhood park (and Aogami Pierce) laugh so hard.

The key was too far up to reach from the ground.

Could Kingsford or Rosencreutz just fly up and nab it?

“I can climb up onto your shoulders.”

“That’s an awfully grounded idea.”

“There is ❌ need to use secret tricks when the standard solution works just as well. Okay, I need you to crouch down.”

The spiky-haired boy went ahead and obeyed.

He should have thought this through some more.

“Here goes.”

She approached from behind him.

A soft weight pushed in at the back of his head and at his cheeks.

Were those her thighs squeezing his head?

Was that also her thighs resting on his shoulders? Or was that actually part of her butt?

And what part of her anatomy was that soft sensation he felt on the back of his neck!? Teach me, sensei!!

“That should do it. You can stand up now. Is something wrong?”

“…I think the pareo has the opposite effect here.”

“?”

He had thought a pareo was like a safety device meant to cover up the body, but here it created the illusion that he was sticking his head up this soft young woman’s skirt. But it was only an illusion, okay?

He gathered strength in his knees and slowly stood up.

The pressure from the sides increased.

“Oh, dear. Ah ha ha. Doing things I am ❌ accustomed to is kind of nerve wracking. But this should work.”

“Bwgohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Hm? Why the 💥ive roar?”

Yeah, this was a bad idea. Letting a clueless swimsuit woman ride on your shoulders was a terrible idea!!

But for now, they had to accomplish what they set out to do.

“➡️, ➡️.” “A little further ⬅️.” “➡️ again.” Kamijou kept tottering side to side to fulfill Kingsford’s requests.

When he tried to look up to see the harpy nest for himself, he was greatly distracted by the pareo falling over his face. The sweet young woman scent was powerful.

He decided to just let Kingsford guide him.

“Got it. This 🗝️ will let us continue on.”

“G-glad to 👂 it…”

Her way of speaking was contagious.

His brain was breaking down.

The shock was like unwittingly drinking a super-sweet chain coffee from a cafe that gathered customers with its whipped cream covered donuts and pancakes more than the coffee itself.

Even so.

The shoulder ride that felt like having his skull pried open and having sugar dumped directly inside was finally ov-

“Wait, do ❌ move.”

“Why!?”

“The harpy noticed us. I will deal with her, so do ❌ move from there.”

“Can’t you do that after I lower you to the ground, Sensei!?”

She gave his face a squeeze.

A hard squeeze.

The glasses woman was probably only entering combat mode, but this went beyond a simple thigh-based reward.

His head didn’t feel right.

It seemed to be swelling, but it wasn’t quite the same as suffocating.

Could she be constricting his carotid artery rather than his windpipe?

“I need to convert to the reverse tree. Gevurah corresponds to Agshekeloh. The reverse of justice is cruelty. The element is 🔥. The wicked name that rules Sphere 5i is Golohab. You who are bound by the name and the number, obey my right 🖕 and display your power!!”

A tremor shook the place.

Almost like an artillery blast. Whatever Kingsford had done, a bright beam of light shot out and her upper body was knocked back as if by recoil.

It was a fairly large action made while still gripping Kamijou’s neck between her thighs.

The spiky-haired boy recalled a life hack for using a door’s hinge to crack a tough walnut.

Wait! But if the fulcrum is my neck, or my carotid artery really, then-

“Oh, dear???”

It happened far too easily.

The spiky-haired boy was rendered unconscious much like some kind of judo chokehold.

===Part 2===

What were they doing again?

Kamijou Touma’s mind was too woozy to remember.

Regardless, he opened his eyes.

What he saw looked strange. Was he lying down? He felt something soft below his head. Someone was peering down at him, but he couldn’t tell who it was due to the large pair of breasts blocking his view of their lower face.

The glasses jogged his memory.

It was her.

“Whoa!?”

He was resting on Kingsford-sensei’s lap pillow.

And since she was wearing a swimsuit, it was a bare lap pillow.

“Oh? You could have 💤ed longer, you know?”

The glasses woman placed a hand over her mouth and laughed elegantly. He decided he needed to get up before he developed any further problems with his heart rate. Why did he feel like he was losing years from his life when he was already dead?

Surprisingly, Rosencreutz did not seem exasperated.

He stroked his beard in his hand and commented on the situation.

“Hm. It would seem sleeping in hell does not eternally bind you here.”

“Old man, do you have to take this so seriously?”

“Hm, hm. You should count yourself lucky that sleeping does not eternally trap you in a dream within a dream within a dream…to the point you lose track of how many dreams deep you are.”

“Wait, what? Are you telling me even a woman’s thighs could be a devious trap in hell!?”

Kamijou’s party continued trekking through hell while taking the occasional short break.

They traveled through a variety of different hells, which mostly seemed to be fire based.

They had managed to descend a few levels thanks to Kingsford’s guidance.

“Wow…”

Kamijou hadn’t actually been counting what level of hell they were on, but in this hell, tons of embers were pouring down on them like a blizzard. The embers were especially noticeable in the darkness and they continued burning without extinguishing even after falling onto the sand. He knew nothing good would come from having those land on his skin. He doubted any kind of unexpected romance would be starting here. The embers reminded him a lot of white phosphorous or napalm.

The wind changed and the fiery snow blew this way.

Kamijou froze in place.

What was he supposed to do?

There were no gaps in that. Was he supposed to play a real-life bullet hell game!?

“Bwah, bwah, bwah!? Ah, no, it’s burning, it’s on fire, gya, gya, gya, gya, this old man’s beard is burning, bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah!?”

Kamijou had hoped there was some kind of loophole or safe zone hidden away in this general area-of-effect attack, but that hope was dashed when he saw the person rolling on the ground and burning. The distribution was just too even. Unlike in a shmup, there were no gaps at all. And once one of those embers touched your skin, it apparently kept on burning. The fact that water was immune to fire and the human body was 60-70% water didn’t seem to matter. Kamijou Touma learned the all-too-unpleasant fact that humans really did dance when they were burned alive.

Oh, right.

He had forgotten.

Tears formed in Kamijou’s eyes. The dead were horrifically punished after descending into hell and, since they were already dead, they wouldn’t die even if they were burned and stabbed in hell! Even if the total damage was well past a fatal level and even if it was complete overkill, their lives wouldn’t shut down at the moment of death, in a way making this even worse than the world of the living!

“Phew.”

Kamijou heard a sweet sigh.

It came from the teacher-like glasses woman.

Anna Kingsford untied the pareo she wore around her hips and spread it out overhead. She provided an umbrella not for herself but for Kamijou walking next to her. As if to protect just the spiky-haired boy from an unexpected rain shower.

Apparently she considered her witchy hat to be protection enough.

“You will be safe now. I guarantee it as an expert. I will ❌ allow your soul to be lost until you have been safely returned to the 🌍 of the living.”

A sweet scent wafted over to Kamijou.

It may have been the scent of her sweat.

When she was this close, he couldn’t ignore the warmth of her shoulder against his even if he wanted to. Her newly uncovered thighs were dazzlingly bright and his attempt to not look at them hurt his neck.

“?”

The oblivious woman tilted her head.

At extreme close range.

…Hold on, Kamijou panicked. Could it be that the sexy young woman was rapidly becoming his greatest obstacle in this journey through hell? She rattled his adolescence in a different way from the Bologna Succubus who walked around in her underwear or Aradia who did the same in a star-shaped bikini. Anna Kingsford wore something like a near-future racing swimsuit, so she didn’t show off all that much skin.

But.

Did she have to act so clueless and unguarded? This probably was necessary for them to pass through the fiery snow and continue on their journey, but the pareo umbrella made him feel like he was sticking his head up an ordinarily meek glasses woman’s long skirt. His worldly thoughts meter was on the rise and he already knew hell would react and make those thoughts visible!!!

“Eh heh. I’m burning. Eh heh heh. Now that I’ve lost all feeling, this old man is kind of enjoying it.”

Half of Rosencreutz’s surface area was now pockmarked with burns several centimeters in diameter, a sight that helped recover Kamijou’s SAN a bit.

If he made Kingsford go “eek, pervert!” and shove him out from under the umbrella, he would end up with that fiery snow all over him too. He would end up traveling beyond the realm of pain and start twitching on the ground.

(Come to think of it.)

Kamijou started to reach his right hand out from under the umbrella to touch an ember.

“Kh.”

But he pulled back.

Was that really safe?

He wanted to test if he still had Imagine Breaker, but surely there was a safer way.

If he was wrong, he would end up seeing his own finger bone.

Kingsford, meanwhile, decided to completely ignore her fellow expert, Rosencreutz.

Her kindness must have been limited to amateurs.

The traveler with no sympathy for the scorched first-rate pro began to speak.

“Sigh. This area of hell is still partway between the medium and 🌶️ levels. To be blunt, Westcott, Mathers, and my other students saw much worse when they made a mistake.”

“…”

What was education like in the late 19th century?

Kamijou had trouble imagining it. He lived in an age when no one was even asked to stand out in the hall holding buckets, so this was beyond anything he could imagine. And was the Mathers she mentioned ''the'' Mathers he had seen in London? Had that ultimate genius actually cried after being beaten up by his teacher? What in the world had he done to deserve that?

Rosencreutz (who was lying burnt at their feet) joined the conversation.

“Pant, wheeze. B-by the way, a little later in the early 20th century, the famous Crowley had this to say to his students: ‘You made a mistake? Then slash your arm with a razor to leave a permanent scar. That pain will teach you your mind is capable of controlling you.’ ”

“Who let a guy like that reign at the top of Academy City?”

Had Aleister been that strict? Then again, he did seem like the type who would writhe on the floor in agony when someone dug up a story of his past.

But apparently Anna Kingsford was from the era before even that.

She looked like a gentle and smiling glasses woman, but maybe Kamijou needed to focus a little more on what was hidden deep inside?

Rosencreutz was still smoldering, but by the time he returned unsteadily to his feet, his burns had all vanished.

He really was an expert.

The ability to turn horrific burns like that into a joke was anything but normal.

“But, well, you know.”

“Hm?”

“You know. If Anna Kingsford were only a little nicer, this old man would see her as a certain ideal.”

“She seems nice enough to me.”

“Does she now? Then are you saying you see her as the ideal you-know-what, boy? I envy you.”

The ideal what?

Did he know what?

Kamijou Touma felt a cold sweat dripping down his back.

Oh, no.

He shouldn’t have let himself think it. But now that the thought was in his mind, it wouldn’t leave.

It was the worst possible thought.

Yes.

Wasn’t Anna Kingsford a lot like ''the ideal dorm manager''?

He knew he shouldn’t think it, but he couldn’t escape the image he had conjured into his mind.

The ideal.

She was a generally clueless and gentle woman, but she was stylish, sexy, older than him, could do both her job and housework, and she would accept anything he might do, but she also loved his attention as the sweet and lovely school dorm manager. That ideal was so powerful he couldn’t shake it. ''Don’t give in. Harness your mental fortitude. Weren’t you going to crawl out of hell and wipe away Alice Anotherbible’s tears back in the world of the living? C’mon, Kamijou Touma, you’re better than this. Just remember that crying face waiting for you! You need to return. Don’t think about it if it’s possible with ordinary methods. You have two extraordinary monsters with you. Didn’t you decide to escape from this hell with Kingsford’s help and Rosencreutz’s power!? This isn’t about a dorm manager!!''

…''But wait. As well guarded as her front is, the back of that racing swimsuit is wide open, leaving a lot of exposed skin. Isn’t it a lot like a naked apron? No!! Don’t let her swimsuit distract you. Refocus your mind. This is only the starting point. There has to be more to this. This place is called hell, so there’s bound to be some hellish obstacles here. So stay focused! Shut down your imagination! Keep that image out of your head!! But it’s true a dorm manager would be at a city pool, not a midsummer beach. And she would wear a racing swimsuit instead of a flashy bikini. Wait!! I don’t need to pursue a dorm manager all the way to hell when there are plenty of them back on earth!! Nwoahhhhhh!!! Good morning, Kamijou-san. Hee hee. You have some bedhead. My, my, did you only just get up? What a naughty boy you are. Oh, by the way, Kamijou-san, do you have some free time? I can’t figure out how to hook up my TV and digital recorder. Oh, this? I made too much nikujaga, so I thought I would share some with you☆

The world warped around Kamijou.

He paled. He had noticed the change.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Nothing could be worse right now! This wasn’t just the surface-level stuff like boobs or a butt. This was the very core of what made Kamijou Kamijou. He had to admit it. If a young woman gave him an icy look and rejected this softer part inside him, he really would cry. The boy’s soul was wracked with the fear of a lack of acceptance and understanding. ''No, wait! Anything I say now will only hurt me. If they find out about this, they can directly attack my innermost desires!!!

“S-stop this, hell!! Don’t react now of all times. Ah, ah, ah, nooo. Why does hell have to be so merciless? Why does my dorm manager dream have to appear like this? Damn, the very center of my heart is blooming before my eyes! Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

Hell shined bright.

He was dead.

Kamijou flailed his right hand at the empty air, but hell refused to disappear. No matter what. Unable to bear it, the teenager covered his face with his hands. Couldn’t someone silently kill him right this instant? Without speaking a word?

But he waited and waited without hearing any comments from Kingsford or Rosencreutz.

He puzzled over this in the darkness of his hands.

…Were they too disturbed?

…Had his open display of worldly desire left them speechless?

But something still felt off. There was a tension in the air. A serious tension. He didn’t get the sense they were going to criticize his desires. Nervously, he moved his hands from his face and viewed the outer world through the gap.

“What…is that?”

This wasn’t at all what he had expected.

He saw some kind of city.

However, it wasn’t a modern city of concrete skyscrapers and asphalt streets. This was something older – much older – with nothing but stone-paved roads and pointy roofs he could imagine an RPG king living below.

So was this a fantasy world?

No.

“I see. This imagery comes from him. Hell is designed to reveal each individual’s sins and provide an appropriate punishment. So even an expert – ❌, especially an expert – will have his greedy and defiled soul revealed before us.”

Anna Kingsford still had her back to them. As if protecting them from the scene spread out before their eyes.

Yes, them.

It wasn’t just Kamijou this time. She was protecting the other one as well.

Christian Rosencreutz.

“…”

His head was lowered.

He was averting his eyes.

CRC was never slow to provide verbal abuse or mockery, but now he said nothing.

(Is that monster afraid?)

“1602, the Holy Roman Empire, the University of Tübingen. That would be modern day 🇩🇪. Back then, you were ❌ more than a 15-year-old boy who was still learning theology while also engrossing yourself in the works of John Dee, the queen’s 🧙‍♂️.”

Had that monster really been 15 years old once?

And a student?

Wait, wasn’t 15 the same age as Kamijou?

It should have been obvious, but Kamijou found that obvious fact surprising. He had more or less imagined that Rosencreutz had been born an expert in magic who destroyed the world as he pleased while shouting about how he was an old man.

But that wasn’t the case.

“This is your origin, CRC. The center point of your sin and your distortion upon the 🌍. …This is why Anna Sprengel chose the path of 🪄, why the Golden cabal was born, why Westcott, Mathers, and my other students strayed in pursuit of their own desires, why the 👿 lord known as Aleister Crowley was awoken within the world’s greatest cabal and destroyed it all, and why some unknown person created Alice Anotherbible without Crowley noticing.”

Aleister.

And Alice.

Kamijou leaned forward at the mention of those familiar names.

Yes, this wasn’t something from a game or an isekai fantasy story. As large as the scale was and as absurdly unrealistic as it might sound, this story was directly connected to the real world.

This was a story Kamijou Touma needed to know.

“So he was 15 back in 1602? But what happened there?”

“The beginning happened.”

Anna Kingsford’s voice was stiff as she responded without turning back.

“The beginning of it all. The very moment that the Rosicrucian cabal, the world’s most mysterious 🪄 cabal, came to be.”

===Part 3===

A light clanking sound continued endlessly.

It was a lot like ancient gears fitting together. But this lacked the precision of a clock. It moved sometimes fast and sometimes slow. This was an old machine supported by the tolerance of the viewers, from a time when the slight margin of error caused by the hand crank was thought to give it “flavor”.

This was a film projector.

In a flat world confined to a rectangle, something danced in grainy black and white. It was a boy walking across undulating dunes of scorching sand, a young man gathering students from across Europe, and an old man with a bald head and long beard writing silently at a desk.

“Christian Rosencreutz,” said Kingsford as she viewed the images. “He abandoned a privileged life to travel east where the great professors living in secret in the depths of the desert granted him wisdom, which he chose to distribute freely throughout his homeland of Europe after managing to bring it back with him. But the foolish European educated class – that is the ignorant religious leaders who ruled the Dark Ages that preceded the Renaissance – rejected his wisdom and silenced him. Eventually, he established the House of the Holy Spirit where he could learn along with the few students who shared his vision. He fought against vested interests while healing small human illnesses, correcting the great distortion of the world, and leading humanity as a whole toward goodness. He was a truly benevolent expert.”

“…”

Much like a children’s picture book, it was all so abstract and simple, but it didn’t sound anything like the red-clad young man standing silently next to Kamijou now.

Kamijou felt more like he was viewing images of a handsome prince charming.

That is, it was all so perfect it felt flimsy.

This didn’t feel like a living human being.

“But all of that was an illusion.”

Anna Kingsford left no room for doubt.

At the same time, the flimsy story projected by the projector shattered like glass. With a single statement, the thick stone wall acting as the white screen crumbled away, revealing a hallway on the other side.

The expert spoke while staring down that.

“The mysterious Rosicrucian cabal was first revealed to the 🌍 by a booklet, which only presented him with the mysterious initials CRC. The full name of Christian Rosencreutz did ❌ appear until much later. An individual by that name did ❌ yet exist, so it is more accurate to say Rosicrucianism was created by the person who ✍️ that booklet.”

Kamijou Touma had not been present when Alice took revenge on CRC, but he had been told that the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal didn’t actually exist. Really, he had just suddenly discovered the smart people like Othinus and Anna Sprengel were talking based on that assumption, so he had found it difficult to keep up.

He had also learned that the person named Christian Rosencreutz had been invented.

Kamijou wasn’t going to doubt the man’s power.

It didn’t matter to him if someone dressed up as the god or demon of their choice to draw on that figure’s abilities to reach out a helping hand to whoever they had decided to save. It didn’t matter to him if they didn’t actually throw out their magic name to become a Magic God. That was the foundation of the Transcendents like Aradia and the Bologna Succubus. That had also become the driving force for Anna Sprengel who monopolized so much power yet always fell short of Kingsford and who had pushed past all that to face Alice Anotherbible’s distortion and prevent the destruction of the world.

“…Johann…”

Kamijou heard a voice from down the hallway.

It belonged to a boy his own age. He doubted the boy was speaking Japanese, yet he could understand it even though he couldn’t even speak English well.

“Johann.”

It was a name.

The man next to him.

The silver-haired young man in red hadn’t said anything for a while now. His constant insults had vanished. Like he sat in the defendant’s seat in court. Was this what happened to anyone who was accused?

A step.

Kingsford took a step into the hallway beyond the screen as she spoke calmly.

“The legend of Rosencreutz is said to have begun in 1378, but the real 📅 is much later. It truly began in 1602. It happened here at the University of Tübingen, in what is now known as 🇩🇪. …It happened in a tiny room at one corner of that massive educational institution where people were free to learn the natural sciences thanks to the Renaissance but it also taught theology, in which people learned how to read the Bible in greater detail. It all began as nothing more than a single 💧 being added to the 🌍.”

So at this point, it didn’t matter if it was real or fake. There was something else they had to pursue further.

The false information was intentionally distributed.

What had someone hoped to accomplish by creating the fictional image of CRC – Christian Rosencreutz – as if he were a real person?

What were his intentions and goals?

Kamijou had already been told he was still only 15 at the time. Kamijou didn’t know anything about the educational environment of 17th century Germany, but he could guess it wasn’t something just anyone was allowed to attend.

The University of Tübingen allowed humans to learn about god in detail.

Including his mysteries.

This somewhat reminded Kamijou of Academy City, which looked like a peaceful city of children but actually had massive gears turning below the surface. However, this seemed even more blatant. Instead of enacting some kind of plan in secret, no effort was put into disguising the truth and all effort was dedicated to a single grand objective.

Rosicrucianism had caused so much trouble.

It had created all the foundational theory that had formed the basis for the Golden cabal.

There had to be something there.

There just had to.

So Kamijou prepared himself for the worst. He felt his heart pounding even though he wasn’t sure he really had a heart anymore.

They arrived at the end of the hallway.

There was a small door there.

It was a thick oak door in a stone wall, yet it had none of the grandeur of the door to a cathedral or to the audience chamber in the demon lord’s castle. It was smaller, more grounded, and something even a high school boy like Kamijou could picture.

The actual parts used were different, but the overall scene brought a term to Kamijou’s mind.

(A clubroom?)

No, it couldn’t be.

Kingsford threw open the oak door without knocking.

Johann Valentin Andreae.

His true form was finally revealed.

Voices flooded out from the small room.

“Johann, are you planning ''another'' prank? You only just got reprimanded for that phony newspaper saying Bacon and Shakespeare are one and the same. …What are you plotting now, writing up some weird booklet?”

“You had better be ready, Christoph, because this one’s a doozy! Once this young man finishes writing this, I’ll finally get back at those professors lording it over us from their lecterns. This young man calls it the Great Rosencreutz Operation!!”

===Part 4===

A prank.

Those professors.

Operation.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………Umm?”

Kamijou had heard it himself, but he still couldn’t believe it.

What was with this light mood?

Those cheerful voices sounded like two children digging a pitfall in a field somewhere.

“Johann Valentin Andreae.”

Anna Kingsford sighed again.

In exasperation.

“It all began with him. And ❌ everything that changes the 🌍 begins as some grand strategy or plan.”

The two boys had no idea Kamijou’s party was observing them.

In fact, they were upset about being crammed into such a small room.

“Besides, the Dark Ages are over. Over! No longer will our Germanic people be seen as the enemy of European culture by the fools who refuse to think for themselves. We live in a new era where everyone is familiar with the concept of the Renaissance! Instead of waiting for a drop of miracle to trickle down to our parched lips, we can mix our own potions and publish our own newspapers! Paintings have depth thanks to perspective and there are naked statues aplenty! The people and the cities have received the visual blessings of the Renaissance, so it’s wrong to force everyone to think of god in the one ‘accepted’ view.”

“Johann.”

“This young man is not arguing against there being just one god. I’m not interested in the complicated arguments over what exactly the Greek Zeus or Roman Venus were or over whether the great Caesar and Aristotle went to heaven or hell because they died without being baptized. Those kinds of details aren’t for the young. I’m just saying each individual theologian should have their own stance on how they think about and view the one god. This is Tübingen! We’re paying an arm and a leg in tuition to receive an education in ''that subject''!! So what is this!? The professors think they’re better than us just because they’ve lived longer. They think the world’s reformation ended with criticizing the old church for its indulgences and all that. Give those educated idiots enough free time and they’ll stir up trouble by writing a book criticizing innocent witches or something. Like our country’s greatest author of nonsense: Heinrich Kramer! There are still so many real problems to deal with. The ideal is to allow free debate of all possibilities and then collect the best of them and link them together into an even better theory, right? This is a university, so that’s what we should all be collaborating on. But how are we supposed to debate anything when simple thinking is deemed ‘sinful’!? What’s even the point of attending university then!? You might as well go to a tiny rural church and listen to the ancient priest’s sermons!!”

“Johann, you’re rambling. And this is why everyone says you’re dangerous. You’ll be burned as a witch eventually, I swear.”

“But it’s all true. The adults just don’t like it when you question them, so they try to silence anyone who’s too smart for them. Right?”

“Don’t drag me into this. Your grandfather is weeping.”

“You sound just like the teachers, Christoph. It’s true my grandfather is famous in the field of theology, but that’s all anyone knows about him. Just so you know, he’s far more active and playful than me back home. If he was as strict and serious as everyone thinks he is, he wouldn’t have fathered 18 children, now would he?”

“No comment. Geez, there’s nothing like an insider’s view, huh? So what’s this Rosen thing? What does all this have to do with that flimsy booklet? I don’t want to be in the dark when your trouble hits the university, so tell me how this prank works. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“This young man is glad you asked!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae energetically swung his hands around and spoke theatrically loud.

“Rosen…creutz!! The rose and the cross. Heh heh. A mysterious combination like that is sure to grab everyone’s attention, don’t you think!?”

“Is it? But there’s a trick, right? Tell me.”

“Heh heh. My erudite and impoverished friend Christoph Besold. Are you familiar with the Andreae house crest?”

“So that’s it, you troublemaker.”

“Yes, it is four red roses and a diagonal white cross. Everyone will be worshiping this young man!”

It wasn’t just Kamijou’s modern viewpoint.

Johann’s friend from the University of Tübingen was also exasperated.

In the distant illusion, Johann waved the booklet between his fingers.

“Rosencreutz. The two of us will set this up as a legendary magic cabal. This young man would like the help of your unnecessarily knowledgeable mind! The Chemical Wedding. It’s the perfect name for the current era. Everyone is familiar with flasks and beakers now, so even the general public will be interested! Because the Renaissance changed the world a short while ago!!”

“To make it a legend, you’ll have to cover a long period of time.”

“This young man is well aware. What if we say it was established 200 years ago? A mysterious organization acted from the shadows to smash the petrified knowledge of the church and end the mysterious Dark Ages while they spread the light of the Renaissance across the current age, but this collection of true wise men was not satisfied with just that. They are a cabal capable of changing the world. A good lie is not a perfectly flawless myth. To give it verisimilitude, it must feel lived in and match the changing of the world around us all. The people have grown bored of the Renaissance. They seek the next great change!! See, see!? The general public will believe it in a heartbeat!”

Bored of the Renaissance.

The changing of the world.

Like when high-speed flat-rate internet swept across the world, or when online shopping and smartphones changed how people lived their lives. Had Johann taken advantage of the idea that a single good idea could change everything?

In an age of plenty, people were not necessarily satisfied.

Those people would have their own complaints.

“This young man will release these all-consuming omnivorous fish into the waters of public opinion,” said Johann with a grin and the thin booklet in hand. “This young man hasn’t decided how long yet, but probably at least 2 years. Just the one booklet will seem too sudden, so we need to set the stage by first leaking a few fragments of supposed documents. Of course, if it looks like the truth is coming out early, we can make our move before it all falls apart.”

“You’re going to hide that you faked it all for no good reason for two whole years? If nothing else, this is a great example of the terrifying focus of someone with too much time on their hands.”

“Ideologies spread in no time. And if the topic is to spread among the educated, maybe we should aim for the salons for playwrights or composers? Those people are always searching for mystical material, be it Greek or Roman or even the Germanic Valkyries or Egyptian Isis and Nephthys. They’ll leap at a mysterious world-spanning cabal that no one’s ever heard of. If we add in a king or queen or princess, we’ll be reeling them in like salmon or anchovies.”

“I’m impressed, Johann. Just how many enemies are you planning to make? Trying to set a new world record for how much trouble you can cause with words alone?”

“No one in the world can put a lid on the truth for their own convenience. This might only be a thin handmade booklet right now, but once plenty of copies have spread around and people are whispering of its existence, even the most absurd story starts to sound a lot more real. We can fake multiple sources all on our own. That way it will grow to the point that not even those professors can ignore it. They look all dignified now, but just you wait until they’re onboard with it too.”

“Well, those old men have all learned the history of what happened to the hardheaded Christians who refused to get onboard with the Renaissance when it showed up.”

“This young man just know they’ll claim to have known all about it before the general public found out or even claim to secretly be a member. …Heh heh. After all, it’s the rose and the cross. Those proud adults will all be smugly confessing their association with a secret organization that reveres the house crest of the very same Johann Valentin Andreae they look down upon. They will claim to have sworn allegiance to this young man!!”

“Bff!? …S-sorry. Unlike you, I have this thing called common sense. I am extremely concerned about the trouble I see brewing in the future. I certainly wasn’t laughing.”

“Don’t try and hide it. Ah ha ha ha!! Those narcissistic teachers act like they’re omniscient despite being as human as the rest of us, so this young man can’t wait to have them bowing their heads to me with looks of utter solemnity! Oh, I already can’t wait until the day we can reveal the truth!!!”

It could hardly be worse.

The corners of Kamijou’s mouth were more than a little stiff.

Was this really acceptable?

Maybe it didn’t matter if it was nor not.

The hidden truth of Johann Valentin Andreae may have been even worse than Aleister Crowley’s.

“Really…?” said Kamijou without thinking.

Rosencreutz(?) refused to turn his way. For a while now, he had been avoiding Kamijou’s eye.

This was the unvarnished truth.

It may have hurt him.

Kamijou took a deep breath and kept a straight face.

“Are you stupid? No one asked you to, but you went right on ahead and created your own original myth with yourself as the leader? I’ve heard most people write some embarrassing things in their youth, but this is ridiculous. Could you not look at yourself objectively and see why you were an outcast?”

“Salt in the wound!? And this old man means the sea salt with pieces bigger than sesame seeds!?”

Kamijou spoke plainly.

This was his chance.

He was so glad he had lived an honest life. He could now take revenge and give this man his just deserts.

“Heh heh heh. Don’t try to pretend you don’t deserve it, Rosencreutz. You did your best to torment me when Kingsford’s giant boobs and butt appeared. That ended peacefully because Kingsford is a wonderful person, but I was this close to receiving a blow powered by an expert’s arm strength, sending my head spinning all the way around. Heh heh, ha ha ha ha! At the hand of Kingsford, the owner of the giant boobs and butt!!”

“Shut up, be quiet, take this: racing swimsuit woman armpiiiiiiit!!!”

That was a curse.

CRC’s cry dragged out the boy’s adolescence.

And hell reacted.

The earth split apart and something emerged. It had no head, arms, or anything below the hips. It looked so much like an indecent silicone doll made with only the necessary parts, but it was enormous. It rivaled a high-voltage transmission tower in size. And hell had even included the racing swimsuit. Was hell particular about such things?

Kamijou Touma seriously screamed as he looked up at the giant something towering above him.

“Ahhhhhh, now that is a niche thing. Boobs and butts are mainstream, but I’d have a hard time calling this sexy. But…if it belongs to a young woman…maybe? If you see it as the one small chink in the young woman’s perfect armor, then maybe an armpit is pretty nice after all!?”

“…”

A short distance away, Anna Kingsford placed a hand on her cheek and remained absolutely silent, but that wasn’t the problem right now.

The fake booklet.

Was that the initial motive?

After spreading the lie everywhere and waiting for enough people to believe it, he would announce it was all a lie to pull the ladder out from under them. And once they were all trapped up on the roof, he could point and laugh at them.

That was all.

The reveal wouldn’t do much damage to Johann and his friend as they stewed inside their little room, but the same could not be said of the important scholars.

This was mischievousness taken to an extreme.

But.

“?”

Kamijou couldn’t believe what he had seen, but then something occurred to him.

Something didn’t add up.

This was something he could only notice because he was looking back from the present time and already knew all the answers.

He gave voice to his confusion.

“But wait… Rosicrucianism was all a lie and it all came to an end when Johann confessed to his enormous prank once the time came, right? Then why do people in later times believe that Rosicrucianism and Rosencreutz were real? Like Anna Sprengel who claimed to be an important figure in the Rosicrucian cabal. Hell, you even said Rosicrucianism is a foundational part of the Golden cabal.”

“It did ❌ come to an end.”

Kingsford’s answer was a simple one.

Generally speaking, that expert did not make mistakes.

“Johann Valentin Andreae abandoned his plan ❌finished.”

That would explain it.

But that called into question the earlier assumptions.

“Johann knew it was all a lie from the beginning, right?”

“🎯.”

“And his prank was meaningless if he didn’t tell everyone it was a lie, right?”

“🎯.”

…Then why did he abandon it unfinished? For hundreds of years, it would seem.

For Johann, the prank lost all meaning if he abandoned it unfinished. Had he lost interest in it? After resisting for two whole years waiting for it to charge up, had he abandoned it all without actually pulling the trigger?

Or.

Could it be…?

“Johann’s greatest error was ❌ accounting for his own perfectionism. While he was a 15-year-old prankster, he was also a student at the University of Tübingen and through his own self-study he had accumulated a great wealth of knowledge in many subjects including theology, alchemy, and astrology. ❌. He lived in the 1600s, the 17th century. The Dark Ages had already ended, a reformation had occurred in a massive system, and as long as they knew Latin, anyone could broaden their horizons past ✝️ and learn about Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so many other aspects of the occult.”

“…”

“❌ wanting his prank to be discovered early, he was very careful as he built up his Rosicrucian mythology from the ground up. ❌ matter how detailed a story is, it can still all fall apart if the author says the fraternity does ❌ exist. …But Johann’s greatest error was letting his great knowledge and perfectionism drive him to create such an intricate story that ❌ one saw it as a mere story.”

The fraternity bearing the crest of Johann’s family was spoken of in the utmost seriousness and even the university professors had bragged about having long known of it or even of being a secret member. It must have a wild experience for the author who knew the truth.

But.

A mere student’s voice had less strength than the voices of influential scholars. Once it became a trend flooding the public, nothing the prankster could say would overcome the wall of majority rule.

No matter the truth of the matter.

So what would happen if he tried to explain what had really happened?

“Are you saying he made his big reveal…and no one believed him?”

===Part 5===

Anna Kingsford pinched the center of her racing swimsuit(?)’s ample chest and tugged.

She let air into the cleavage. Or rather, the created tunnel.

Damp with sweet sweat, she used the back of her other hand to wipe the sweat from her brow.

“Phew. It sure is 🌡️ here. I’m soaked with sweat. Yet the bottom level of hell is supposed to be an 🧊 prison.”

“Is that really necessary? Hey, I thought you were just dragging a really serious truth out into the open!! Why are you trying to overpower that with your unbeatable femininity!?”

“?”

She looked confused.

Ms. Sexy’s glasses had started to fog up.

And her air of natural gentleness seemed to press in on him.

…Was she not even aware she was doing it? No, it couldn’t be! It was true his adolescent brain’s memory was more stimulated into activity by the faintly flushed skin of this busty young woman than it was by the distant past of some historical old man!! But not even he was going to focus on the sexy woman in this moment. Wouldn’t that be as extremely inappropriate as ogling the wife in mourning clothes during a tearful funeral ceremony? Did that glasses woman’s hair and skin have to smell so sweet!? Was she like the ultimate mayonnaise that overwhelmed all the other more subtle flavors!?

The silver-haired young man in red was hanging his head.

His expression was hidden, but his shoulders were shaking. In this gloomy atmosphere.

It was no use.

Trying to be nice would probably just make him cry here.

Apparently CRC’s selfishness and capriciousness had all been an act to make himself look bad and he was really just a diligent 15-year-old deep down.

Kamijou Touma had to harden his heart if he was to protect Rosencreutz’s pride and soul.

“Ah ha ha, bwa ha ha, hee hee hee hee hee!!! …I-I can’t do it. I can’t. It makes me laugh every time I think about it. Christian Rosencreutz. Oh, I can’t stand it. Bwah ha! I’m sorry. Pfft. But all this talk about – pfft – the secrets of the world – kee hee hee hee hee – and it can’t hold a candle to a woman in a swimsuit! Pffffft!!!”

“Answer me, hell. Send Kingsford’s giant glasses plummeting toward us. I call upon you, meteor, to crush this insolent boy.”

CRC raised his arms and recited a curse.

But hell did not react this time.

He had fumbled it. Not even Kamijou had taken his adolescence to such an extreme that he couldn’t control himself when it came to glasses that weren’t currently on a woman.

Apparently CRC wasn’t all powerful.

In fact, it sounded like his failures had outnumbered his successes in the past.

Magicians were the end result when a failure kept on struggling. Which was why they tried to distort reality. They wielded supernatural power, but they were entirely different from the Level 5s who had mastered their innate talents. Since Rosencreutz had risen to the level of expert, he must have had a reason behind it all…right?

But in that case…

Noticing Kamijou’s eyes on her, the other expert smiled a little.

“Yes. My past is full of failure and regret.”

And so she had mastered magic.

Unable to forgive her own weakness or tendency to give up, she had decided she would change the world even if it meant remaking herself.

But be that as it may, Kingsford was still perfection as far as Kamijou was concerned. She continued saving people even after dying, but she had also thrown out her resurrected life and descended into hell to collect Kamijou there. This wasn’t like Othinus or Aleister. He sensed something that set Kingsford apart.

He needed to behave himself.

He had to.

“But I just can’t help it. Pft, we were talking about Rosencreutz, but Kingsford is all I can think about.”

“I hope this boy is devoured headfirst by a giant vagina-shaped monster. A horrifyingly hairy vagina!! It can abduct him in a beam of light like a UFO!!!”

Something suddenly exploded.

It came in the form of a fist. The smiling glasses woman had sent a blow right into the center of CRC’s face.

Kingsford was fairly merciless when it came to a death-dealing expert.

Kamijou was glad hell hadn’t reacted to that one…

“While this is CRC’s starting point, we are only looking at echoes of the past. Kamijou Touma, this may be necessary information for you in the present, but do ❌ let it influence you too much.”

“…”

But this was about Rosicrucianism.

He had seen the truth about Christian Rosencreutz.

This was the foundation that had, on some level, influenced the Golden cabal and their greatest mutation Aleister, influenced Anna Sprengel, and even influenced Alice Anotherbible and the other Transcendents.

Kamijou had no idea if he could return from hell alive.

But it still wouldn’t hurt for him to learn all of-

“By the way, Kamijou Touma. While there is 🔥 and lava bursting from the ground here, hell’s 🌊 quality means there is ❌ much hope for a ♨️. But do you think we could manage a hot stone spa?”

“Aren’t we supposed to be discussing Rosencreutz!? I’m sure hell is a boring place for a perfect and flawless woman like you, but stop filling in the gaps with merciless condensed milk!! Everything will end up having that super sweet Kingsford flavor!!!”

Immediately, Kamijou noticed a pale glow.

At first, he thought he was going to get to see a giant young woman enjoying a hot stone spa, but this appeared to be something else.

He sensed a different current or trend to this.

A familiar scene emerged from the scenery. He was again seeing the University of Tübingen which shouldn’t have existed here or now.

Hell had activated.

===Part 6===

A great commotion was underway.

Asking where was meaningless. Talk of the rose and the cross was so popular it was happening pretty much everywhere.

Even thought it was all made up.

He had loudly insisted it was all a lie, but no one had listened.

Rosicrucianism had completely left Johann’s control. It now belonged to everyone else.

If they wanted to enjoy it, so be it.

As long as that was what they wanted, an individual might be happy living a blindfolded life.

But.

This was on another level altogether.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I am an official Rosicrucian member. Pray to me and you might just acquire a potion capable of curing the ailment destroying your body.”

That was one of the professors.

One of the important scholars who taught at the university. As much as the boy was loath to admit it, that man was a respectable theologian who had supported the protestants to critique corruption in the monasteries and the selling of indulgences in order to drive out the vested interests of the old world.

But…

This wasn’t the same as an individual refusing to face reality and blindfolding themselves. Stealing reality away from those who had yet to be deceived was something else entirely.

The boy attempted to fight it.

Recklessly.

The worst part was that this professor was a professor.

That meant he wasn’t trying to deceive people maliciously. He believed the Rosicrucian legend from the bottom of his heart and ''had truly convinced himself that praying to a member of the cabal would heal other’s ailments.''

So.

This was well past the point where a good argument could function as a weapon.

Only academic theories could be beaten with logic.

Logic was powerless against faith.

“You say you created it all yourself? …Nonsense. Even I have barely even begun to scratch the surface of its true depths, so you – you who are so close to flunking out – could never understand even a fragment of the Rosicrucian truths that flawlessly combine mind-bendingly complex theories with supremely simple answers!!”

There is no deeper meaning! It’s a joke! It’s my house crest!!

Johann’s shouts reached no one.

No one at all.

The people who spoke of his invented nonsense as if it were real instead mocked him as ignorant and uneducated, shunning him.

They were like a naked emperor who no one could judge.

They all were.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Johann wasn’t alone. The friend who had accompanied him in that small room was the only other one who knew of the prank. In that topsy-turvy world, only he understood the same truth as Johann. He had helped created this trend. So if they worked together, surely they could bring an end to this ridiculous festival.

Or so Johann thought.

“It wasn’t us.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The original assumption had crumbled away within his friend.

“We didn’t create this. You said you searched through all sorts of old non-Christian texts, right? Well, couldn’t you have stumbled upon some real secret Rosicrucian document in there? That must be it. That makes so much more sense than thinking the two of us somehow managed to remake the world!! Right!?”

Johann could not forget the strange light deep in his friend’s eyes.

He could never forget.

Something had taken root deep inside his friend.

The monster those two had created had taken on a life of its own and grown to the point it could travel freely from person to person. And even swallow up one of its own creators.

Had that friend been unable to bear the pressure of breaking the world?

Or had he not wanted to destroy the Rosicrucian illusion. Even if it meant altering his own memories?

Yourself or the world?

When one or the other had to be wrong, an individual mind would give into the majority rule and rewrite its own memories. People would fabricate memories in no time as long as they were aware that simply lying to themselves would let them escape eternal isolation and join the crowd.

Hypnosis only worked when the subject wanted it to.

This was a perfect example of a self-suggestion no one had asked for.

…Johann didn’t know what happened to his friend afterwards. They had continued attending the same university, but they had barely spoken. He may have begun a search for nonexistent old texts related to the rose and the cross.

Johann had no allies left.

He was all alone.

In a storm of fierce words, Johann was forced to endure the gale of text all alone.

Meanwhile, the important people who believed in Rosicrucianism began pulling out dusty old documents. They discussed whether Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, or other things might point to a piece of the Rosicrucian secrets and they tried patching it all together. The powerless invented story began to to change as the patchwork gradually took on a new form. By the time the original flavor was no longer recognizable, a drop of true poison had found its way inside.

In other words, various forms of eastern and western magic.

''They'' must have decided this would make good camouflage and help them in their factional conflicts.

So a kernel of knowledge taken from, of all places, an original grimoire was included.

Once the ball began rolling down the hill, no one could stop it.

Not even Johann.

He was its creator, but he had lost control.

Once people were wielding visible miracles, it became impossible to say whether it was a lie or the truth.

“Ahh.”

“Pray to me.”

“Help me.” “I’ll pay anything.” “Give it to me too.”

“No.” “It hurts.” “That’s weird.” “Help.” “I heard the Rosicrucian book could heal me.”

“L-L-Lord Rosencreutz!!” “Argh, I’m willing to spend my entire fortune to track down CRC!” “Are you sure that’s safe?” “Hee hee. Care to try some divination of the rose and the cross?” “Uweeeeaahhhhhhh!” “Please don’t leave me.” “This here is the sequel to the primary text of a secret cult! Any takers!?” “Wait, you seriously don’t believe in CRC?” “I heard you shelter Rosicrucians in your territory.” “Are you the enemy of mankind who dares defy Lord Rosencreutz!?” “All you have to do is believe, so stop making waves.” “They say it’s complete.” “You got what you deserved. You wouldn’t be sick if you hadn’t insulted the Rosicrucians.” “I am Rosencreutz reborn!” “I have the elixir of life!!” “You must be removed. Your lack of belief in CRC makes you an illness upon this world!!” “Hee hee. I’m making a killing off of this.” “Can you really call yourself an intellectual if you aren’t well-read on the rose and the cross?” “Help me!!” “Don’t worry. Everyone will be saved as long as they do as Rosencreutz says.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Johann Valentin Andreae.

He was ''defeated by Christian Rosencreutz.

Reality was stolen from him.

He had invented it, but he was labeled the liar.

CRC had transformed into a secret truth. And the Rosicrucian legend with him at the top had left the control of the 15-year-old boy who had created it. He had been able to switch it on, but switching it off wasn’t so easy.

He heard the world changing.

Distorting.

Bending.

Twisting.

Breaking.

He had created an engine that convinced so many people they were happy even as it dragged them down to hell.

===Part 7===

“Mugyu.”

That was a sound effect.

It came from Kingsford’s lips.

And Kamijou Touma’s face was fully buried in the large chest of her swimsuit-like outfit.

Her arms were holding him tight.

(Why!?)

“!!!???”

“🤫.”

Anna Kingsford was perfectly calm.

The heat must have been too much even for an expert because her body felt overheated and was slick with sweet sweat!!

“There is something here. But this is ❌ as characterized as the Malebranche, so it must be a more primitive concept. Perhaps a manifestation of Nyx who surrounds Tartarus.”

“(Mghghmgh, what does that have to do with these boobs in my face, mgh!?)”

“Nyx seems to calculate the #️⃣ of souls wandering in hell and 🔒s onto them, so by bringing our souls close together, the difference between one and two vanishes and we can avoid her.”

Kingsford explained a mysterious concept as if it were obvious.

Of course, Kamijou’s confusion was probably his fault for being ignorant.

Also, Kingsford appeared to be counting them as souls, not bodies. That was a weird feeling for Kamijou. Did it mean he was sensing this body heat, sweet scent, and large soft boobs without them actually having bodies!?

“Also, it seems CRC will be attacked because he is all alone over there.”

“Old man!! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and run away!!”

He was right there next to them.

And in an instant where the soaring beads of sweat seemed to freeze in space like jewels, Kamijou’s outstretched hand just barely failed to reach him.

He was pulled back.

Forcefully.

He had lost to Anna Kingsford's big boobs.

“You trait-”

Something rushed right past him and then the silver-haired young man in red vanished in the middle of shouting something. There was now nothing past Kamijou’s fingertips. The selfish and capricious old man who was surprisingly diligent deep down had disappeared.

Something like a great wave of pitch black sludge being slung around by the color white tinged with red enveloped and took away Rosencreutz. The language may have broken down there a bit, but that was unavoidable when something so strange had happened. That was just how it was in a hell beyond human understanding.

It was now a level lower.

It was rolling down.

Making an unpleasant sludge-like noise the entire time.

That extraordinary monster had made a physical attack just as its target was immobilized by their past trauma. That showed just how unforgiving hell was.

Now was not the time to be buried in a kind glasses woman’s sweaty boobs.

“Ahhhhhh!! I-I don’t believe it. CRC was taken out in a single blow? What, are we playing on hell difficulty!”

“Um, do you need to specify that when we’re in hell?”

Yes.

This truly was hell.

“By the way, Nyx is a girl, so you could say CRC was just attacked by a goddess of the night. Yes, a very passionate mounting attack.”

“Did you say a goddess of the night!?”

Why did that sound so extremely indecent!? Based on the white statues, he could guess Greek mythology’s surface-level standards of beauty weren’t all that different from the modern standards, so if he wanted to see an extremely lewd and beautiful goddess, was his best option to wait and see what happened!? …That would be fine, right? CRC was an expert, so he had to be pretty sturdy and waiting a bit before rescuing him wouldn’t make all that much difference, right!?

The glasses woman tilted her head.

“Sigh. I do ❌ know what has inspired this desire to learn more about the Hellenistic gods, but one of her most notable traits is that she goes on to marry her older brother.”

“She’s a goddess of the night, a little sister, a young bride, and a divine wife!? D-do gods just exist at a level beyond human imagination? This goddess has way too much going on. I’m having a hard time even visualizing her!!!”

Kamijou’s adolescent soul took a powerful blow, like he snuck into a park full of lovers at night, but that probably wasn’t what this was.

Look, Rosencreutz had been taken away by the color white tinged with red, pitch black, and a flash flood.

What about that was a girl?

“Um, Kingsford-sensei?”

“Yes?”

“The limbs and back can be as monstrous as you want, but the face and body need to maintain that soft femininity. What I mean is, the end result should look someone wearing fancy thigh highs and long gloves.”

“?”

It was actually extremely rare for the benevolent expert to be left tilting her head in confusion, but Kamijou failed to notice that.

Listen.

This was a very important discussion for the pointy-haired boy.

“My point is, if you don’t follow those rules, I’ll have a hard time accepting it as a niche type of moe. The way things are, Nyx-chan seems more like a traditional monster than the kind with ‘girl’ tacked on the end. And that sludge doesn’t even seem like a translucent slime girl where you can see right through her!! So can you please explain what this even is, sensei!? Senseiiii!!!”

“Well, while I did call her a goddess, the Greek Nyx is actually a giant amorphous something that surrounds hell in place of the river of the ☠️.”

“Wh-what the hell!? These old mythologies just don’t get it! Are you kidding me!? How is that supposed to be my little sister young wife goddess of the night!?”

“Hm??? Your?”

“No sheer negligee and no frilly apron? If I asked Othinus about a long thing surrounding the world, she’d probably tell me it’s something like a giant serpent. Which means this is a legit mythological creature!!”

“How many times do I need to tell you that Nyx is a Greek goddess, dammit?”

“That’s just a horror monster trying to kill Rosencreutz! There’s nothing cute about it! It’s a scam! Did you think there were boys out there who would get excited over a hug from a female tyrannosaurus!?”

“Oh…I 💭 you hurt Nyx’s feelings. She’s leaving CRC and trembling.”

“Are you serious? Have I finally reached the point of making a goddess cry?”

“I 💭 she 💭 she was just playing with him.”

That kind of playing seemed like it would kill a human, though. Also, it turned out that big wave of black sludge was in fact a clump of filthy wet hair.

Kamijou Touma had accidentally saved Rosencreutz.

This was a new record for him.

He couldn’t imagine what kind of damage being mounted by Nyx would cause, but the silver-haired young man in red lay unmoving on the ground. No. Don’t laugh. Yes, he’s sizzling with smoke rising from him, but that damage is serious. Don’t laugh! I have no proof, but I’m certain that would have killed me. But I can’t help it. Peh heh heh. The more I try to tell myself it’s inappropriate, the more hilarious it seems. This is the same guy who strutted across Academy City trying to destroy the world. Bwa ha. It’s just too funny. Ah ha ha. He really is lying there on his back like a dead cicada, sprawled out with some smoke rising from the very top of his head. Hee hee. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

This was hell.

Kamijou swore to himself he would take this seriously.

<span style="font-size:75%">“I-I am pleased to see Rosencreutz is safe?”</span>

“Boy. For as long as I live, this old man will never forget that grinning face twitching on the verge of exploding into laughter.”

Now he had a lifelong promise from a legendary figure.

But this didn’t sound like the beginning of a love story.

And hell began to glow once more.

The cycle seemed to be speeding up.

===Part 8===

The Rosicrucian social phenomenon proved to be more than just a temporary fad.

It had taken root.

The educated class had developed an understanding that anyone who wasn’t well-versed in Rosicrucianism was behind the times.

Or to put it another way, simply being able to discuss it came with advantages.

At that point, the instigator was no longer needed. A cycle had been established, allowing rumors to birth further rumors.

It all began at the University of Tübingen in the Holy Roman Empire.

That university was a base of the Lutherans who had thoroughly criticized the self-interest and bad habits of the old church, meaning it was a protestant institution. Thanks to this, the three major Christian powers – the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Russian Orthodox Church – were slow to react. They were slow to identify the source and this delay allowed the delusions of the rose and the cross to spread too far to be stopped.

The witch hunts that began in the 12th century and spread rapidly in that period were another problem. To stop the people’s emotions and the standardization of vigilante justice, the three major Christian powers were trying to apply the brakes on the rejection of heretics at the time. Public executions were a symbol of fear from above, but when an execution failed, the furious public were liable to rush in and kill the executioner.

In the 17th century, the Renaissance had split the public in two and changed how rational people thought. The people once more accepted ancient Greek and Roman art, they let their imaginations run wild about the Egyptian pyramids, and the old church, which had oppressed such things and even slaughtered the public they were meant to protect, fell out of favor. At first, the three major powers tried to pin the blame for this failure on each other, but they were also hesitant to act for fear of repeating the same mistakes and reopening the half-healed wounds.

This allowed the legend of Christian Rosencreutz to spread too far and endlessly alter the world.

If they were truly in the right, they shouldn’t have hesitated.

Of course, there was a downside to the Rosicrucian movement sweeping across that era.

Use a certain special method and you will be successful.

You must not follow any other method.

Training came with danger.

If it was easy, everyone could become an expert, so the creator of the myth had to make sure the task was difficult to achieve. So difficult that people would give up before they even tried.

Nevertheless.

Visible rituals weren’t a problem as long as they were on the level of putting stockings out on Christmas Eve or writing on a tanzaku for Tanabata, but when they escalated to the point of severely restricting people’s actions, they could lead to a dangerous path.

Looking back, it was all the work of a 15-year-old boy.

Who hadn’t given it all that much thought.

He had only sought simple ways of making it seem more realistic so his prank would succeed.

And because that creator hadn’t properly ended his prank, the truth born from the lies produced real victims. He struggled for years but couldn’t change it. In fact, he learned that this would likely continue well into the future. Possibly even after his own death. Maybe forever.

So…

“This is this young man’s responsibility…”

The words leaving the former-boy’s mouth carried resentment.

True resentment.

The magician raised his head and made a howling announcement to the world.

“So. So! Listen, you fools claiming to be members of the phony Rosicrucian cabal!! And you masses dragging yourself down to the depths by innocently believing in the nonexistent Christian Rosencreutz!! No matter what it takes – even if it takes centuries. This young man swears he will obliterate every last trace of this ridiculous legeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend!!!”

===Part 9===

Kamijou heard that cry.

He listened to the entirety of the lament, the wail, the roar.

To the cry of the boy who had once been 15.

That monster turned out to in fact be unexpectedly responsible. He felt so responsible for the problem he had caused that he had dedicated his entire life to ending it.

That was Christian Rosencreutz.

No, that was Johann Valentin Andreae wearing the costume.

He was indeed the cause of it all.

But was he really such a villain that he deserved to suffer even after his death?

“And so he became Christian Rosencreutz,” whispered Kingsford. Quietly but firmly. “He had created the character, so he knew what weak points to target to make him crumble. He concluded that dressing up as his most hated character and causing nothing but violence was the quickest way to disillusion the 🌍 and its people with Rosicrucianism and thus saving them. The man named Johann Valentin Andreae built up his status as a theologian while secretly using his Rosencreutz guise to ruin the people who believed in him.”

Like a bandit.

Like a phantom thief.

Like a con artist.

He became a mysterious and elusive miracle of a man who seemed to exist in that same era, but no one in the world could come in contact with.

“Come to think of it, hell has a spot to punish liars and frauds. It was believed to be near the bottom of hell as a whole, which shows just how sinful an act that was thought to be. Hell is another part of the mythology. If he had studied theology a little more seriously, this may ❌ have happened in the first place.”

“…”

“Let’s go. We are still only partway through hell. We are ❌ even close to finished.”

Kamijou suddenly realized Tübingen was nowhere to be found.

This was no longer a university.

It was hell.

Everything he had seen was so overwhelming he had lost sight of where he was walking, so it had taken a bit to notice. Without that benevolent expert guiding him, he doubted he could have even walked in a straight line here. It wasn’t just the fiery hell and the mountainous hell. Simply following the path was a challenge. He hurried after Kingsford so he wouldn’t be left behind.

But still, this was hell.

Kamijou once more gulped at how effective it was. It wasn’t just an ordinary high school boy like him. Hell would even mercilessly attack a monster like Christian Rosencreutz.

And…

“I see. The benevolent expert, hm? But do not think you can hide it forever. The truth is gradually coming into focus for this old man.”

“?”

Kamijou thought this was only some nonsense from the selfish and capricious expert.

No matter how it had begun, that man had become someone who brought ruin to everyone who believed in him. Kamijou knew how dangerous it was to carelessly listen to anything CRC said.

But…

“Hmph. Anna Kingsford has some guts saying all that while ignoring her own presence.”

That statement caught Kamijou’s attention.

CRC made it sound like the benevolent expert – perfect Anna Kingsford – had some kind of flaw.

Kamijou had trouble imaging that.

If this was a baseless accusation made out of sour grapes, surely CRC could do better than that.

It felt completely out of place.

Which bothered him.

“What? Boy, have you really not noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Rosencreutz’s surprise looked fairly legitimate.

They had fought a deadly battle in Academy City, but this was an unusual look from him.

“There is no such thing as a perfect person. Sigh, she really has tamed you, hasn’t she? Has the boy who defeated this old man regressed to being a baby bird that can only follow after its mother?”

“Hey, even I know to remain a little caut-”

“Was it her boobs or her butt that ensnared your soul? You can tell this old man. Or is this something more psychological? Is it based on your dream of being babied by a dorm manager in a naked apro-”

“(Shut your mouth. Kingsford-sensei can hear everything you’re saying at this range!!)”

“?”

The point of Kingsford’s witchy hat wobbled a bit as she walked up ahead…or so it looked to Kamijou.

Which scared him.

The adolescent frantically covered the young old man’s mouth with his right hand.

The two filthy guys spoke from extreme close range while Kingsford walked a few steps ahead.

“Now, then.”

Something floated in the air.

It was a clear jigsaw puzzle. That miniature model of the world was too bugged too function here in hell, but Rosencreutz was still trying force it into a V-shape.

Was that supposed to be a cross-section of the mortar-shaped hell?

Rosencreutz poked at a piece wiggling a bit below the middle.

“Even if you are unfamiliar with the structure of the western hell, you must remember that we started by passing through the gate, correct?”

Now that he mentioned it…

Of course, Kamijou couldn’t remember much about that gate with the later impact of the giant boobs and butt, Rosencreutz’s secret, and Nyx-chan.

“There is a reason you barely remember it,” said Rosencreutz, sounding deeply exasperated. “That was the entrance to hell. That is, it was the earliest stage on the easiest difficulty setting.”

''Oh, is that all?'' thought Kamijou because it had seemed more like a dark forest and stone, which wasn’t very hell-like. Things had seemed a lot more like hell once they started seeing orange-glowing magma.

…But then Kamijou froze.

Wait.

Hold on.

“Caught on, did you?”

“Um. Weren’t we trying to stage a ‘jailbreak’ to escape hell?”

“So you have caught on.”

“''Then why did we all pass through the entrance and then start walking down toward the bottom of hell''?”

Kamijou took another look at Anna Kingsford’s back a few steps ahead of him.

His impression of her had changed.

Kamijou had already walked through the gate. He may have only been one step into the afterlife when he first woke up, but then he had crossed hell’s starting point of his own free will.

“''You will die.''”

“''That doesn’t change my answer.''”

He recalled his past conversation with Alice.

Could it be?

Was it possible that he had once again made a fatal decision right at the very start before anyone had even explained it to him?

“Umm…”

“Is something wrong?”

Kingsford sounded unconcerned. She turned back to look at him, but he could only manage a noncommittal smile in return.

Unconcerned?

He of course had no clue what her truth was. That expert had complete control over her body and mind. It was possible her willpower was strong enough to manipulate the value of her heart rate, so he could never hope to see through her poker face.

He had seen and heard a lot in this hell.

But he hadn’t put any effort into any of it. The fact that a benevolent expert like Anna Kingsford had shown up in hell was too good to be true for someone for whom misfortune was his default state.

With his misfortune, he would more likely be left behind on a school trip after the bus tour guide forgot all about him.

He had no actual evidence to back it up, but his instincts were screaming that he shouldn’t trust that everything was as it seemed concerning this lucky turn of events.

So he had been prepared to find a lie somewhere.

But…

(Come to think of it, I never did learn what Anna Kingsford’s goal here is. Can I really just assume this is just a kind young woman acting of a maternal spirit of volunteerism? But what if she does have her own purpose here and I can’t trust her either?)

He heard some screeching.

It almost sounded like birds, but he doubted it really was.

If he did peer into the shadows to find out what it was, he had a feeling it would shatter his soul. That was a perfectly plausible outcome in hell.

(Then should I get away from Kingsford and try to escape without her? All on my own while already past the midpoint of hell!?)

“Be careful,” whispered CRC.

He even kept his lips motionless to keep the benevolent expert from noticing.

“This old man is an obvious threat…but the truly terrifying threats are the ones that aren’t so obvious at first glance.”

===Monsters===

'''Cerberus

Originally the guard dog standing at the entrance to the Greek underworld. Was incorporated into the Christian view of hell, where he is a beast that chases down sinners and crushes them in his great jaws.

Looks terrifying but has a strong canine side, so it may be possible for a human to tame him if they know the correct method?

'''Nyx

Goddess of the night and the being that fully surrounds the Greek hell of Tartarus. She is depicted in many different forms, but here she is depicted as a woman with exceedingly long hair.

While she is in hell, she does not necessarily do bad things and she is heavily involved in the structure of the world.

She acts as an extremely solid border, so her appearance indicates you are approaching some kind of taboo.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume11 Chapter1

2024-09-22T04:57:10Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 1 */

==Chapter 1: The Other Side of the Ordinary – Hell,_Hades,_and_Gehenna.==

===Part 1===

“…”

“…”

Silence.

After all, this was ''the'' Rosencreutz. How were you supposed to hold a conversation with the monster who single-handedly made a mess of Academy City!? It felt like being alone in a cramped elevator late at night with a man who had a prominent pompadour. The tension was intense. Kamijou was more friendly and welcoming to science, magic, and weirdos than most, but even he had his limits. Just walking alongside this man counted as an emergency in his book!

“Hm, hm♪ Oh, dear. Maybe I should have 🍴en some 🗾ese katsudon before I died.”

Kamijou heard a carefree voice.

The only smiling person here was Anna Kingsford as she walked a step ahead of him.

A great gale blew across the wasteland here, but she simply held her hat down with a hand like none of it mattered.

She even hummed a casual tune.

Kamijou really would have preferred to stick with that gentle and safe young woman who looked so soft in every aspect than to have anything to do with that dangerous man, but doing that would have meant turning his back to CRC. How could he do that? Wouldn’t that be just as suicidal as refusing to stick with the group and holing up in a room alone while a murderer lurked the halls of the mansion? It honestly terrified him!!!

“Don’t worry so much, boy.” The red-clad young man chuckled while stroking his beard. “This old man must also travel through hell, so at the very least I will not disturb your journey. They say all travelers could use a companion, don’t they? This old man has died, so now I must redo things. So let’s form the greatest all-star party and enjoy a picnic together!!”

“…”

Kamijou felt blue.

He sensed more to that man’s words, or he wasn’t sure how to interpret them. Regardless, each and every thing he said seemed to carry a deep and dangerous meaning!! The way he talked about a traveling companion with such a dark grin was terrifying!!!

“The ✝️ hell is shaped like a giant mortar,” said Kingsford without looking back.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Was she not afraid? Hadn’t Rosencreutz killed her once?

Or was being killed just the once a trivial matter to an expert who had transcended life and death?

This was unlike Aleister Crowley and Anna Sprengel, who were extraordinary magicians in their own right. Those two still clung to their lives and formulated their plans and strategies without giving up on living. So even if their skills were transcendent, Kamijou and others could predict their actions to an extent.

The Magic Gods like Othinus and High Priest had sacrificed their lives to master their paths, but it was their understanding of how valuable a life was that allowed them to make such great use of their own.

But this woman lacked that, so she could casually cross the boundary between life and death.

She could leave and return.

That was Anna Kingsford.

Doing things normally and ordinarily in these circumstances was in fact extremely bizarre.

“The shape of hell is ❌ so much like a 🌕 crater as it is like what you’ll see if you search for an image of open-pit mining. Each level is like another step, with the levels growing narrower as they go down, with the very bottom converging on a single point.”

Kamijou heard the clinking sounds of hard objects colliding. Rather than plastic, this was the high-pitched and dangerous sound of glass or crystal.

Rosencreutz held something like a clear jigsaw puzzle in his hand.

“This was originally a single card.”

The jumble of pieces refused to fit together, their contours constantly bumping together.

It looked the full shape would be…a V?

No, a mortar.

But when viewing a cross-section from the side, it may have resembled a deep canyon.

Although it appeared to be glitching and refused to function.

“My miniature model of the world recreates all phenomena within itself, thus gathering all phenomena relating to the world’s past, present, and future in my hand. However, it does not seem to work with the realm of hell which is found outside the world.”

Regardless, Kamijou and the others were at the very top of the mortar, on the outermost edge.

Hell was spacious.

They were supposed to be pulling a jailbreak, but where were they supposed to go and what were they supposed to do?

“Like I 💬, hell is shaped like a giant mortar or like an inverted pyramid.”

Kingsford poked the broken model with a smile.

Those two were both experts.

The location was hell.

All things considered, this was one hell of a roadside chat.

“By 👣ing all the way around each level, we should find a stairway or slope leading down to the next level.”

“Hmph. I doubt that’s ''all'' we will find.”

CRC boredly poked his finger at the V-shaped miniature model(?) floating in front of his face to guide a stray piece toward the whole.

“This hell is a mixture of a few different ideas. There is no accurate model, so there is no correct path. We might suddenly wind up in the Buddhist Eight Great Hells or in the Shinto Yomotsu Hirasaka. In fact, if we go waltzing down there, thinking we know the answer, we might just run into a dead end.”

“I am aware of that.”

Kingsford and Rosencreutz looked Kamijou’s way at the same time.

He didn’t understand it.

Feeling like an outsider, the idiot had been only half-listening, waiting for the experts to arrive at an answer, so he panicked now.

“Wh-what? Me?”

“In this case, I expect he will be the 🗝️. Our view will mostly be the Western conception of hell, but he is 🗾ese and will think of the Eastern conception of hell, ruled by Lord Enma and full of 👹.”

“If we’re lucky. How are we supposed to predict what we’ll run across if he’s thinking of the ‘demon world’ shown on some trading card? This old man’s miniature model of the world is only meant to reproduce the past, present, and future of the real world. It can’t do the same for a purely fictional story.”

Kamijou didn’t like what he was hearing.

Apparently he had leveled up from dead weight to a ticking time bomb.

“Also, do ❌ lose the sense that you do ❌ belong.”

“?”

“Traveling through hell is all well and good, but you must ❌ let it influence you too much. This is only a temporary place for you. If you plant roots too deep, you will ❌ be able to return. Just think of it as a good-luck charm to help our jailbreak succeed.”

That made sense.

He doubted he could ever feel at home in hell, but how long would that last? Who keeps company with the wolf will learn to howl. The Japanese language contained multiple phrases to that same end, which suggested everyone knew it could happen. Kamijou had a feeling the Japanese were especially prone to just going with the flow. Like how everyone complained about global warming while gradually getting used to the higher temperatures.

But.

“Okay, I get the idea, but what exactly am I supposed to avoid doing? I’m not sure how I can avoid it if you don’t tell me what the ‘land mines’ are.”

“There is ❌ way to know how many there are in all.”

Wait.

“Wouldn’t the simplest examples be eating or drinking the food and drink of hell?” said Rosencreutz.

“What about looking back?”

“In the story of Orpheus stealing back his wife, he had promised Hades he would not look back until he had left hell. We just have to hope we do not run afoul of any rules we can break without first making a promise.”

“Um.”

Kamijou wanted them to slow down.

Weren’t there any more obvious “land mines” like kicking a jizo statue on the side of the road or eating a grave offering? Now he was more worried then ever he would step on one without realizing it!

Kingsford gently placed a hand on her cheek and looked his way.

“It should go without 💬ing that hell does not play fair.”

“Ugh.”

“But at the same ⏱️, hell is meant to make sinners suffer, not to apply violence indiscriminately.”

In that sense, was hell better than the overly passionate and indiscriminate stories of being chased through the school all night long after happening to see a ghost there or finding a strange woman waiting at an intersection?

The idea of only the properly judged sinners being chosen for punishment was very different from the 2-hour summer ghost story specials on TV where the suffering dead would grab at anyone and everyone to drag them down to hell with them. In Japanese horror, it was more the fresh and still-living souls that would gather around.

But…

“We were in fact properly judged and sent to hell. Not this young lady who cheated her way here, but I doubt you or this old man will be awarded that luxurious mystery prize.”

“Ugh!!”

Kamijou had forgotten he had wound up in hell the ordinary way.

But at least he would be less hesitant to escape from a gloomy and torturous hell than from a heaven where all his wants were fulfilled.

He could become bound to hell.

There were taboo actions hidden in the scenery around him.

Without knowing the exact conditions, he couldn’t predict when or where he might step on a “land mine”. It was possible one wrong move was all it took, but he decided to assume the danger grew the longer he remained in hell. Like how the danger of Russian roulette grew with each consecutive round.

“☠️ing and being killed in hell are ❌ problem. What you need to 👀 out for is becoming bound to hell. Keep that in 🧠.”

“Watch that you do not ''cling to'' hell, boy.”

Kamijou decided to assume hell was always hostile.

And that it would pull out all the stops on violence and deception.

He heard a rustling sound.

He turned toward it and saw something there.

A muscular macho man with a bull’s head was carrying a humongous axe.

Was this a random encounter!? What were the “land mines” he had to avoid here? Was he really supposed to keep going without knowing the rules of hell!?

“Hey, wait, wh-what is this all of a sudden!?”

“Good question. A Greek harpy or minotaur as a gatekeeper is a very odd thing for a Christian-based hell.”

“That is not what I meant! Quit grinning at me like thaaaaaaaat!!!”

Even as Kamijou shouted, he clenched his right fist.

Would that help here?

Did he even still have Imagine Breaker now that he was dead? And even if he did, he had no clue if it would work against that mountain of muscle!!

The minotaur was a bipedal and muscular monster standing what looked to be 3m tall. It raised an ultra-heavy axe that rivaled the minotaur itself in size. The wind roared as the air was compressed. That axe had the unmistakable weight and glint of steel. At the very least, the weapon part didn’t look like an illusion.

Oh, I might be screwed.

Just as that thought came to the spiky-haired boy, Anna Kingsford and Christian Rosencreutz each took a step forward. The two experts both waved their right index finger.

Casually.

The great mountain of muscle was sliced through diagonally down from each shoulder, forming an X-shape.

The minotaur didn’t seem to have any weight. Instead of its pieces falling to the ground, they turned to thin shadows and vanished into nothingness.

The two experts didn’t seem to care much.

“That should do it. Since we have descended from earth to hell, the heaven-to-earth format of the Sephiroth needed to be replaced with the Qliphoth, but it worked out well enough. It would seem magic is still functional even in hell.”

“Sigh. There really should ❌ have been a minotaur at this shallow a level. A world of 🧠 images must be more easily influenced than I thought.”

Kamijou had no words.

One was an expert of good, the other was the opposite.

They really were on a level far beyond Kamijou Touma’s understanding.

===Part 2===

They continued through the dark hell.

Hell as a whole was supposedly shaped like mortar, but it looked like their goal was to continue downwards. Kamijou didn’t know his way around, so he had no choice but to follow Kingsford. He wanted to avoid getting lost and ending up alone with ''the'' Rosencreutz.

(Also…)

His right hand.

Did it still have any power, or not?

He tried touching his palm to a nearby black rock.

Inconclusive.

The rock was a rock, but it showed no sign of disappearing. He couldn’t say for sure what that meant. He was only sure of one thing: he was probably making a fool of himself.

For his next test, he tried touching Rosencreutz.

“O-oh?”

No change.

Why wouldn’t that man just disappear?

Then again, Kingsford had suffered no ill effects from him taking her hand.

Even so, he couldn’t be certain about Imagine Breaker unless he saw something be unnaturally destroyed. Like maybe that unnecessarily long beard.

“Wh-why are you suddenly flirting with this old man? O-oh, my. Someone help! This boy is a molester!”

A touch from his right hand proved nothing.

And he had another question.

“What did you mean about hell being influenced?”

He meant the question for Kingsford, but Rosencreutz answered (while trembling for some reason).

“Ultimately, it is possible god didn’t give all that much thought to hell compared to heaven. It is described in Revelation, but modern people are as influenced by hymns and Paradise Lost as they are by the Bible and academic books.”

“Is it really that vague? I mean, aren’t heaven and hell a pretty core or root part of the entire mythology?”

“Tartarus, Niflheim, the Eight Great Hells, Yomi, and all other ideas of the realm of the dead are no more than phases placed on top of the physical world. But once you enter one, you can never return to the basic physical world.”

That made it sound like ''this'' was found alongside the ordinary streets and parks, just behind a thin layer of reality. That was hard to believe while seeing it from the hell side.

“Also, everyone views hell differently. The 16th century Dutch view gives the demons of hell an opposition party and a master accountant – that is, a treasurer in charge of the demonic kingdom’s finances.”

“In that system, the supposedly wild and vicious 👿s did ❌ have free use of 💷.”

“But no matter how many conceptions of hell you consider, you will never find one that is correct. Which is why you can’t exactly be angry about the inclusion of non-biblical ideas.”

In other words, anything goes.

In that case, why couldn’t this be a hell with a tiny silver-haired and horned goth loli demon lord seated in an oversized throne and full of succubi in the kind of sexy underwear that makes it look like they lost a bet? The Transcendents who cosplayed as gods and demons had the Bologna Succubus, didn’t they!? That meant the original sexy young woman she was based on had to exist as a “species” in some world myth! There, he had an excuse!! Now he could finally transform this horrific hell into a wonderful picnic!!!

“Boy, you assume the Western hell is crawling with demons, don’t you? In truth, hell is managed by angels like Uriel, Kushiel, Anafiel, and Mastema. Hell is not a lawless realm of demons – it is a part of the omniscient and omnipotent god’s plan for all parts of the world from heaven to hell. A place where humans have their souls removed and laundered after they make a deal with the devil? That is no more than an idea created by folklore and fiction.”

“…”

Had it already been influenced that much?

The majority of Kamijou’s knowledge came from video games, so he was completely out of luck.

He could at least pick up that he wasn’t going to find a tiny silver-haired and horned goth loli demon lord seated in an oversized throne or any succubi in the kind of sexy underwear that makes it look like they lost a bet. Apparently this was a place bound by more serious rules than that. Was he allowed to despair yet? What fun was a hell like this!? Supposedly this was what god had created as part of his plan, but what kind of loving god would create that bull-head minotaur instead of a busty loli in a cow print bikini (who was actually super strong)!!!???

Maybe it was wrong to be looking for fun in hell.

The idea of the good guys managing hell reminded Kamijou of Lord Enma.

Kingsford laughed.

“But this vagueness can be exploited. We can manipulate this hell with our 🧠 images.”

Manipulate hell.

Kamijou knew better than to think it was really that simple.

That was a miracle only possible with the help of monsters like Christian Rosencreutz and Anna Kingsford. If an ordinary person wandered into this undefined hell, they would wander endlessly through the nightmarish world without any hope of finding their bearings, until they were so worn down their soul itself was snuffed out.

(I need to be careful. Who knows what we could come across from here on.)

They had already seen a minotaur.

It was easy to overlook thanks to the two experts, but if Kamijou had been alone, he was certain he would have been helplessly pummeled to death.

As the three of them continued walking through the shadows while a wind blew through, two rising shapes came into view in the distance.

(Are those mountains?)

Kamijou tried to ask that aloud, but his throat suddenly went dry and the words never came out.

He had a bad feeling about this.

But what was it this time? A hell of precipitous mountains or a hell of fire and ice? Since this was hell, he doubted whatever it was would be any fun. He honestly wanted to stop and assess what they were approaching, but Rosencreutz and Kingsford plowed on ahead.

“Hey, wait…”

“Nothing good will come of 🛑ing.”

“This is hell, after all.”

The spiky-haired boy had no choice but to keep up with them. He wasn’t even remotely emotionally ready, but being left alone in these shadows would be far worse.

As Kamijou Touma reluctantly approached the two mystery mountains, their shape gradually came into view.

He was speechless.

The two towering shapes were a pair of enormous breasts.

“Um!?”

The spiky-haired boy collapsed on the spot.

Supposedly, their thoughts could influence hell, but it was obvious whose thoughts were at work here. Because the other two were serious, expert-level magicians! And while he really didn’t want to accept it, those colossal boobs were very clearly contained in a swimsuit!!

It couldn’t be more obvious what Kamijou Touma had been looking at to put that image in his mind.

That swimsuit was very familiar.

Plus, there was only one woman in the group.

The glasses woman walking right there was wearing a racing swimsuit! And she was more casual about it than the people at a Los Angeles beach! The shape, the firmness, and the way they seemed ready to swell right out of the swimsuit were all identical to that gentle woman!!

(This is hell.)

The teenager wanted to die of embarrassment, but he wasn’t even allowed that.

Because Kamijou Touma was already dead.

He felt like his spine was twisting and his entire body was itching, but all he could do was shed tears of blood and clench his teeth.

Intentionally manipulating hell was apparently ultra-high-level magic, but uncontrollably influencing it appeared to be a different story.

(This really is hell!! Just standing here is damaging me more than any demon ever could!!!)

“Oh, dear. Oh, my, my, my.”

Anna Kingsford placed a hand on her cheek and gave a wonderfully elegant smile. There was no bitterness in it. And even that action was enough to cause some jiggling. Kamijou would have preferred it if she yelled at him and zapped him. The unconcerned deflection of his teenage desire was far more painful. Why couldn’t she at least rebuke him?

Christian Rosencreutz stared into the middle distance.

He appeared to understand.

“If you ask this old man, the blame lies in the careless woman who chose to dress like that and jiggle everywhere.”

“N-now this is true misfortune. I can’t believe I’m getting pity from a weirdo like him…”

Kamijou hung his head and trembled with humiliation.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at the colossal boobs that symbolized his sin. He wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible. That was the only thing driving him as he somehow managed to get his legs moving again. They did choose to avoid the mystery boob mountains because they had no idea what kind of powerful enemies or traps might be waiting there.

Once Kamijou had finally shaken free of his past mistake, he managed to look out ahead again.

He saw a pair of mountains.

Of jiggling fruits.

Together, they formed a colossal butt.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………My ''what'' is colossal?”

She came to a stop.

While still smiling. The dense pressure radiating from the glasses woman was intense. Kamijou hung his head and couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye. Apparently Anna Kingsford was the type to overlook a first mistake but never a second. Her warmth with the boobs had vanished.

But this was the same.

The shape, the firmness, the way the swimsuit rode up into it.

She was wearing a pareo over it, but he could tell! Because it occasionally swept backwards or blew upwards!!

CRC came to the teenager’s defense.

He roared with unclouded eyes.

“Put some clothes on before you scold the boy!! This old man is taking the boy’s side. Heh heh, ha ha ha ha ha! Why are you wearing so little over your enormous breasts and butt when this isn’t even a midsummer beach!? Gweh heh heh! Are you so unsatisfied you felt the need to seduce the poor boy!!?”

“Stop pouring oil on the fire for your own entertainment!! I’m the one who will catch all the flak for it!!” shouted Kamijou, bristling.

He took it all back. Rosencreutz might be able to enjoy himself since he was a monster, but they were up against an expert like Kingsford here. What would that curvy woman do if she got mad? A single “eek, pervert!” slap would snap Kamijou’s neck and send his head flying from his shoulders. And what happened to him if he lost his head in hell where he was already dead!?

“Boy, if you let safe and peaceful sex appeal rule the conversation, you might just be able to prevent a truly dangerous threat from rearing its ugly head.”

“Don’t give me an out, CRC. I might try to take it.”

Then the boy tried to change the subject.

While looking up at the colossal swimsuit butt.

“So what do we do now?”

The terrain wasn’t going to change into a brutal dungeon whenever he got hungry or tired and wanted a break, was it? Kamijou was worried. He only had a vague understanding of it, but wasn’t gluttony one of the Seven Deadly Sins that often appeared as bosses in video games?”

===Part 3===

Hell continued on and on.

They kept trudging along.

The place was apparently shaped like a bowl, but how many levels did it have in all? The clear jigsaw puzzle-like pieces of CRC’s miniature model were still clinking against each other without fitting together, so they could see the overall shape but not their exact position.

“Phew.”

After walking for a while, an odd thought occurred to Kamijou.

Hell was a dark, unpleasant place crawling with dangerous monsters. But when he just stood there, he didn’t feel any strong rejection to being there, like the intense pain or suffering of being in a fire or underwater.

He more felt an emptiness or blandness.

He had a vague idea staying here for too long would be a bad idea, but there were times when he wondered if coming to stop was really such a big problem.

If there was no immediate danger, was there any need to hurry on like this?

“Not wanting to die is a perfectly normal thing for living people,” said Rosencreutz as he walked nimbly alongside Kamijou. “That is because their instincts bind them there as long as they remain alive. Like the proverbial drowning man grasping at straws, their instincts will generally overpower their rational mind. Even if they have no dreams or hopes for the future, everyone knows dying is painful and frightening. So even without a reason to live, they will not want to die. Living people are fixed in that state.”

“Fixed?”

“Indeed. But the same is not true of the dead,” continued CRC, viewing a few unsteady shadows passing by in the darkness up ahead. “Because once they lose their life, they are freed from the bonds – the instincts – of life. Boy, do you have a dream for the future? Or a hope? Now that you are dead, you cannot rely on the ordinary instincts of a living being. Which means if you are to live, you must find an answer with your rational mind.”

“You mean…?”

“You can no longer rely on the lazy delaying factor of ''not dying simply because you do not want to die''. Your values and definitions have changed since you were alive. For the dead, being dead is the default state, so it is a very painful thing to wish strongly to return to life ''no matter what it might take''. You must find a purpose equally strong to the purposes that motivate the living to accept death.”

Before, he hadn’t died because he hadn’t wanted to die.

To overcome that required the willpower to sit down below the water and keep yourself there until your breathing stopped and death arrived.

Now, he didn’t live because he didn’t want to live.

How much willpower would it require to overcome that?

Was the pain and suffering of fighting his current “state of being” what Kingsford had meant by making a jailbreak from hell?

“…”

Kamijou stopped breathing.

Nothing felt wrong.

It wasn’t pleasant. He felt the pain of not breathing, but nothing more than that. He wasn’t afraid. He felt like he could keep doing this indefinitely as long as he didn’t decide to stop.

Did he have a powerful enough purpose?

Did he have a dream for the future? Did he have any hopes he wanted to ensure came true? Of course he wasn’t going to find anything like that. He was a 1st year in high school, so he wouldn’t be preparing for college or trying to find a job anytime soon.

He had always thought he didn’t want to die.

But he had accepted death to save Alice Anotherbible.

He had pushed himself to the limit.

And he really had died.

…It all made perfect sense. So what was there to complain about? Sure, dying was normally considered a painful thing, but he had taken that journey to accomplish what had to be done. And he had done it. So why should he keep fighting, keep struggling, and cling to the material world now that he was a ghost or a soul?

Attachment?

:Regrets?

::Or a grudge even?

Did he really have something like that in his heart?

“Oh, dear. It seems this bland hell has affected you faster than I 💭.”

“Affected?”

“🎯.”

Kamijou frowned and Kingsford nodded without turning toward him.

She spoke casually.

“That is how hell works. It removes one’s regrets about and ⛓️ to the world of the living so they will eternally wander this world of punishment. Thus, what you are feeling was ❌ born within you. You must ❌ let this false resignation deceive you. That is only the great device known as hell externally manipulating you. In a most efficient and effective manner.”

“But…”

Kamijou was hesitant to speak.

Like he was ashamed by the emptiness within him.

“Rosencreutz was right. You will normally grasp at straws when drowning. Because you can’t breath. But what if you don’t breath? Do you need to grasp at the straws then? If you can remain below the water without issue, why would you need to swim up to the distant surface? I am dead. That’s a fact. I have no dreams for the future. I can’t think of any reason why I would want to go to such lengths to come back to life.”

“❌.”

Kamijou himself couldn’t come up with anything, but Kingsford had an answer immediately.

An expert never made mistakes.

“You do, Kamijou Touma. You must clench your 🦷, crawl through the mud, and do whatever else it takes to escape hell and return to the world of the living. You have an all too obvious reason.”

“?”

Kamijou didn’t understand.

Anna Kingsford pointed her index finger to the side and moved it in a circle.

What kind of trick was she using?

A girl sat below a spotlight there. A silver-haired green-eyed girl in a white nun’s habit with gold embroidery decorating it like a fancy teacup.

What had that expert just done!?

“Wha-? That’s…Index?”

Kamijou’s eyes widened, but Christian Rosencreutz simply looked bored. Apparently this wasn’t worthy of surprise for another expert.

“Hmph. ''Made a connection,'' did you? But it’s only a pinhole.”

“Well, yes. The Qliphoth is a 🗺️ of the entire realm of 👻s and curses, but it is also an access route from hell to earth.”

That didn’t explain much for Kamijou.

But below the unseen surface, some kind of rules and laws must have fit together. Hell hadn’t counted this as a violation, but it sure seemed like a cheat or a loophole to Kamijou.

More importantly, that was Index.

Kamijou and Rosencreutz’s presence made sense – they were dead. But what was she doing here? Hadn’t Kingsford said this was hell – a destination for the dead!?

“Index!!”

“She can ❌ hear you. This is much like 👁️ing out through your front 🚪’s peephole.”

“Also, she isn’t here. You’re only spying on another territory located far from here. The world is made up of countless overlapping phases, but the distance between each phase is unimaginably great.”

“This is a different place. If you wish to open the 🚪 to meet her, you must first escape from this hell.”

“…”

Index wasn’t in hell.

That was a relief, at least.

He hesitantly reached out for her slender shoulder with his right hand, but stopped partway through the action. He didn’t know whether or not he still had Imagine Breaker, but negating this image of Index would be more than his heart could bear.

Maybe it was only an image, but he had finally seen Index again.

After he wasn’t even able to say goodbye.

“Touma…”

It felt like forever since he had heard that voice.

He relished the sound for just a moment. Because he had thought he would never hear it again.

But…

“Why did you have to die?”

He froze.

Index was seated on the ground and didn’t raise her head.

She looked anything but happy.

But wait.

Kamijou could accept his own death, but what did this mean for Index? She had been living in his dorm room. So had Othinus. He hadn’t seen Anna Sprengel since that time in the hospital, but she hadn’t even had a temporary place to stay.

And this wasn’t limited to the magic side.

He also had friends on the science side – in Academy City.

“How could I just let him die like that? And I call myself Academy City’s #3? I never even thanked that idiot. Not even for saving all my sisters!!”

This time, the image was of Misaka Mikoto.

She was hanging her head and her voice had no strength to it.

And it wasn’t just that special Level 5. He should have started the third school term like normal after the final day of winter break, but now he wouldn’t be able to see any of his classmates.

What about New Board Chairman Accelerator? He had directed all of Academy City’s forces against CRC because he bet on Kamijou winning. He had apparently been defeated by Trismegistus and taken out of the fight when Alice arose as a threat afterwards, but he had still bet on the city prevailing. He had trusted the rest of the city could solve the problem without him.

How had all that turned out in the end?

“We were classmates. Of course I just assumed you’d be here. …What do you mean I can never see you ever again, Kami-yan?”

“Everyone, please gather in the gym first thing that day. Sob. We will be heading out to the funeral afterwards, so the opening ceremony is going to take up the full half day.”

The mood in the classroom was bleak.

One desk stood out from the rest by having no one sitting in it.

Those classmates were seeing each other for the first time since before the break. They had to have plenty they wanted to share, but not one of them was smiling. They were all turning emotionless eyes toward the empty seat.

“…”

This wasn’t right.

Kamijou had an extremely bad feeling. Like realizing he had buttoned his shirt up wrong. Or like he had turned in a test with supreme confidence, but then couldn’t remember if he had actually written his name on it.

He was satisfied with his death.

But…had he actually thought that through?

And.

And.

And.

The last person to appear in the spotlight was Alice Anotherbible. The girl who had used herself as the ingredients to remake herself. The girl Kamijou had risked his one and only life to save.

But something wasn’t right.

Her head was lowered. Her shoulders were slumped. She wasn’t looking out ahead. Left all alone in an uninteresting world, she couldn’t bring herself to go anywhere.

What had happened to her?

“Al-”

But Kamijou Touma couldn’t speak to her.

Just before he tried, she whispered to herself.

“Teacher died.”

Kamijou’s shoulders shook.

He froze in place.

Her voice was void of all emotion. She sounded worn down. Like her life, her soul, or some other intangible something had critically worn away. She seemed in an even worse state than Kamijou who had wound up in hell.

Something felt intensely wrong to Kamijou.

He had made the right choice…he thought.

He had saved Alice.

He had seen no option except to sacrifice his life.

And he had succeeded, hadn’t he?

Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling.

He looked back at his choice over and over, confirming he had done the right thing, but the anxiety wouldn’t leave him.

He felt like he had missed some crucial fact, like he thought he had followed the bungee jump instructor’s directions flawlessly, but then, just before he jumped, he saw the other end of his lifeline dangling down, not connected to anything.

“The girl killed him. She shouldn’t have hoped he would save her. If only she hadn’t thought about making up with him. If the girl didn’t exist, none of this would have happened.”

She burned with resentment.

But it wasn’t directed at Kamijou who had died and left the stage, satisfied.

That girl was pure, innocent, and honest.

So.

That resentment was directed entirely at Alice Anotherbible.

She could no longer forgive herself.

“It’s all the girl’s fault. She is a murderer. …The girl wishes she had never been born.”

There wasn’t even noise.

Only an endless span of pure silence.

“No…”

Kamijou was trembling.

He couldn’t believe what he had just seen.

“No!! Are you kidding me with this!? This isn’t what I gave up my life to see! Was it all a waste…? I sacrificed my life and it still wasn’t enough!? I mean, Alice did nothing wrong. I chose to sacrifice my life. I’m satisfied with my choice. So why should Alice blame herself!?”

“But your 🗣️ can ❌ reach her.”

With that simple statement, Kingsford shook her head.

“If you look at just the objective and mechanical facts, Alice Anotherbible gave a ☠️ly wound to Kamijou Touma. …That is the whole of it. She ☠️ed you. The truth has a way of being omitted. Without you there to 💬 it was your strong willpower that burned away your life, the feelings behind the event have no way of reaching anyone. They can ❌ reach the 🌍 at large which burns with misguided accusations and they can ❌ reach little Alice who you tried to save.”

“But…”

“As things are, the mechanical fact that Alice Anotherbible ☠️ed Kamijou Touma is all that will remain. There is ❌ time. And if she accepts the plain and simple abbreviation as the truth, Alice herself will be crushed under its weight. She will believe she is a ☠️er who is ❌ allowed happiness. She will 🪤 herself in that mistaken definition and reduce her own value.”

“…”

“''Do you want to 👁️ her carry the burden of your ☠️ and choose for herself to fall? A meaningless fall taking her all the way to these depths?''”

Of course not.

It was so easy for the one who died.

He could experience satisfaction in his accomplishment and die. End of story.

But what about the one who killed him?

Was it easier for the victim or the killer? Kamijou had no way of determining that. But at the very least, Kamijou Touma was the satisfied victim while Alice had been made into the killer against her will. He didn’t even need to wait for Kingsford to say more. Why had he been so smugly certain he had saved her all on his own? This wasn’t right at all!!

What exactly had he done?

He had discovered a girl who had been wandering for so long, unable to seek out help. But instead of saving her, he had bloodied her hands and placed the crime of murder on her head.

That wasn’t her crime.

It had been Kamijou’s plan.

He had made the choice all on his own. She had never agreed to any of it.

So…

So why did she have to be crushed by his selfish actions!?

Anna Kingsford was always correct.

Which was why she was known as an expert.

“What will you do?”

“…”

A dull thud rang out.

Kamijou Touma had slammed his right fist into his own cheek.

The boy used the back of his hand to wipe the taste of blood from his lips.

For the living, being alive was the default state. For the dead, being dead was the default state. A dead person trying to force themselves back to life required just as much willpower as a living person keeping themselves underwater until they drowned.

That was probably true.

Kamijou had no job he wanted in the future and no dream he wanted to achieve. He didn’t even know if he wanted to get a job after high school or continue on to college.

But this was wrong.

It was wrong.

“Are you kidding me?”

He had done everything he could to save Alice Anotherbible, the girl who had wandered the wide world all alone and decided to destroy it all. He had accepted that maybe he had no choice but to lose his one and only life to accomplish that goal.

But what if it didn’t end with his death?

What if he hadn’t actually saved anyone?

What if his death had been wasted, or even made things worse? What if his final choice had only dragged Alice even deeper down toward the depths of hell?

Then he had to start by destroying that illusion.

Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist as hard as he could.

He raised his lowered head to stare straight ahead. So he could accurately view the exit from hell.

He felt real strength once more.

===Part 4===

No compromise.

He would challenge reality, surpass reality, and return to reality.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Prologue|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume11_Chapter2}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter4

2024-04-27T13:34:45Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 5 */

==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 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!!!”

[[Image:GT Index v10 BW6.png|thumb]]

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 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.

[[Image:GT Index v10 BW7.png|thumb]]

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter4

2024-04-27T12:49:18Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 1 */

==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 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!!!”

[[Image:GT Index v10 BW6.png|thumb]]

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.

[[Image:GT Index v10 BW7.png|thumb]]

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume10 Chapter1

2024-04-26T02:42:04Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 1 */

==Chapter 1: The World is Not So Strong – the_End_of_Real.==

===Part 1===

It was January 6 at the District 7 hospital.

Furthermore, it was morning.

“Uhh…”

Kamijou Touma was zoning out in a bed that reeked of disinfectant. He was wearing his extremely lazy hospital clothes that were rapidly becoming his secondary pajamas. The look on his face said to let it slide since at least they weren’t a track suit.

His precious winter break was almost over, but he had nothing to do all morning.

“Winter break is ending. And then the new school term is starting. ...Is this really happening? And I thought for sure I wasn’t going to survive this time!!”

“Fool, don’t rewrite your own memories to tell yourself you got through this deathless. You needed Good, Old Mary’s resurrection, which is proof enough that you died. More than once, even.”

“Ugh,” groaned Kamijou in the bed.

Someone sat next to the bed on a simple folding chair.

She looked just like a small girl of around 10. Her long, strawberry blonde hair was done up in several flat fried shrimp shapes, creating a volume greater than her short, slender body. Her oversized, baggy red dress was forcibly held up against her chest, so it did very little to cover up most of her skin.

She was Anna Sprengel.

And true to the exasperation on her face, Kamijou’s current survival was not the result of a future he had acquired through his own work and choices. In his conflict against the Transcendents, Alice Anotherbible, and Rosencreutz, he had learned far too well what happened when he recklessly attempted something beyond his abilities.

His thoughts continued on from there.

But Anna was here. She was not an illusion and she would not suddenly disappear.

Also, this was a private hospital room.

...What was Anna Sprengel doing in his room? What was she doing in the men’s ward which smelled as much of sweat, tears, and unfulfilled desire as a baseball clubroom during the rainy season?

“You’re still recovering too, right? Why’d you slip out of your room to visit me?”

“To nurse you,” was her succinct response.

Kamijou blinked twice before responding.

“Ha ha ha. You were lonely without anyone to talk to, weren’t you? To think that wicked woman would end up like this. You never know what life has in store for-”

“This room reeks, fool. It smells like a lonely, loser male.”

“Really, why are you here?”

He even forgot to cry.

The high school boy had dried out to the point his mind went entirely blank, but Anna had an immediate response for him.

“Fool, is your head so defective it can’t remember what I told you three minutes ago? I am here to nurse you.”

Anna soaked a clean towel in a filled washtub and wrung out the towel with her little hands.

“First, I will wash you until you shine, so strip, fool.”

“Bff!?”

This came out of nowhere.

And it was apparently a foregone conclusion in Anna’s mind. She climbed onto the bed with the wet towel in hand. With a silent, catlike movement.

“N-n-now, wait just a second! Do you know what you’re saying!? As a girl!?”

“What’s this, fool? Are you embarrassed?”

“Don’t be silly, little kid! You’re 10 years – no, 15 years and 4 months – too young to do anything for Kamijou-san and his secret love of dorm managers!!”

Anna, who looked 10, blinked silently at first, but she eventually looked down at her own short and slender form.

And then…

“Oh? You aren’t into small bodies?”

She grinned wickedly.

And a moment later, she had grown into a fully grown woman.

“''Lucky for you, I can do this''.”

“Ahh!?”

“The choice is yours. I’m fine with either form.”

Anna crawled along the bed in a feline way, but this version of her was no kitty cat. She was a much bigger cat and her sweet scent was far more noticeable than before.

Something large swayed below her.

Anna chuckled with the wet towel in hand.

“Then again, now that I have taken this curvier form, it would take a lot of courage for you to come out and say you prefer the little form better, wouldn’t it?”

Could he defuse this situation faster by staying silent than by trying to correct her reasoning?

Asking himself that had been a mistake.

He was only avoiding the issue.

Because if he did nothing to actively put a stop to it, she would continue along her current course. No matter how misguided that course might be.

“Well, I probably should stick with the bigger form. It is more convenient for moving you and rolling you. But if you do get tired of it and want a change, just let me know, fool. I can change forms at any time.”

“The bigger form is more convenient? What, are you going to grab me and flip me over?”

“I am offering the noble service of washing you, so hurry up and get those clothes off, fool.”

“You’re not making any sense. Do have any idea what you’re asking!? This is as out of place as nikujaga made by a gyaru! Are you sure this is what you want to do, Anna-san!?”

Anna’s grin only grew.

Miss Sprengel apparently found his fluster to be most entertaining.

Such was the mysterious nature of that wicked woman.

“My, my. Is this one of those foolish adolescent rebellious phases? Only one day in the hospital and the forced abstinence is already too much for you? How depraved a life have you been living? Hee hee. Oh, I can practically hear a certain part of your anatomy sproinging up in response to my sinful body.”

Kamijou’s mind was driven to a stage beyond entirely blank.

He was in new territory here.

He averted his gaze and spoke up quietly.

“Um.”

“What, fool?”

“This is really awkward to bring up...but I know they use a ‘sproing’ sound effect in trashy comedies, but that’s only a metaphor and a guy’s body doesn’t actually make a noise like that.”

“Wha-!? It doesn’t?”

Anna Sprengel quaked while in oddly extreme contrast, like the portrait on a piece of paper money.

She had done a lot to come off as a wicked woman...but was it possible?

“Hey, but that’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Ha ha ha. For grownup Kamijou-san, this return to a more innocent age is honestly refreshing. Yes, it’s so nice to meet a pure young girl who isn’t ready for any of that kind of thing. Ha ha ha ha ha.”

Anna fell silent.

Eventually, she sighed.

“Fool. Maybe it would be better to spring it on you as a joke said in a wooden voice, but just so you know, girls don’t actually shout ‘I’m coming’ when they climax.”

“Eh? Wait, I didn’t want to know that. Is this you taking revenge for-”

“It’s the height of folly really. The screenwriters probably just aren’t used to putting together natural-sounding dialogue because even dramas rarely include sex scenes these days.”

“But!? It can’t be! Noooooo! ….Then how ''does'' the cosmos work? Wh-what are we supposed to believe in now!?”

“Not that this information has any relevance to a pure and upright fool who has decided to guard his virginity more fiercely than Joan of Arc despite literally no one asking him to.”

“…”

In this case, hanging his head in silence was definitely the wrong answer.

He did not know how to deal with a wicked woman like Anna.

Sensing something in the air, she grinned. That was the look of a bully who had found the perfect target.

“Well, if you do ever find the dorm manager of your dreams after journeying to some other dimension or something, let’s hope she’s the kind of person who let’s her emotions explode out in verbal form.”

“I notice you’ve taken the issue of your own ignorance and swept it under the rug like someone who doesn’t actually know how to clean.”

“What? You wanna fight, fool!?”

“––––––!!”

“!?”

===Part 2===

She was exhausted.

“Phew,” softly sighed 15cm Othinus.

As swift as the cat was, he didn’t have the stamina to cross a space as large as Academy City. While riding him, Othinus had held onto his collar with her little hands and given him directions. They had finally made it this far after hopping into the back of the trucks driving through the city during the night and early morning.

Still, they had made it safely.

Any knowledge of how monstrous H.T. Trismegistus and Alice Anotherbible were would tell you how miraculous that was.

There was more than just luck at play here.

This had only been possible thanks to someone else’s sacrifice.

This message had to get through.

Grimoire Library Index had let herself be captured by Alice in order to give Othinus this one and only chance. It was unclear how many screws had come loose in Alice’s little head, so it was impossible to predict when she would take a life ''due to a malfunction'' rather than any sensible reason. Index had known this but still gone through with it.

Othinus couldn’t let that be for nothing.

She would reward that effort.

This response was like an instinct for her as a god of war.

So she had traveled all the way to District 7.

She had finally arrived at the usual hospital.

“How many times...tell you...off your clothes, fool?”

“And how many...have to tell...that’s embarrassing!?”

With a big “?” in her head, Othinus gave the cat one more instruction.

Cats these days knew how to get into trouble by smoothly opening a sliding door.

The door opened, allowing the voices to reach Othinus more clearly.

“Why am I the one pinning you down to the bed, fool!?”

“Probably because you haven’t been looking after your common sense by making sure you get enough Vitamin C and coenzyme Q10!!”

The voices came from atop the hospital bed.

Kamijou Touma’s pajamas were partway removed.

Anna Sprengel had grown.

The boy had somehow gotten himself turned around while he struggled, so now his pointy-haired head was resting on adult-mode Anna’s lap who was forcibly placing her weight down on him like she had been sitting on her knees before collapsing forward.

Simply put, a human head was trapped between a pair of thighs and a pair of boobs.

Big Anna Sprengel had apparently turned herself into a human mousetrap because she needed her hands free for some other task. She had her face down near the boy’s navel and…

“Just settle down and let me wash you! I am too sexy and perfect to back down now, fool!!”

“Can’t...breathe! Boobs...too fat! Thighs...too- mgh!”

To sum up, it was one of Japan’s infamous fanservice festivals.

The exhausted god wobbled wearily.

Hatred filled her one eye.

Magic God Othinus passed judgment from atop her feline steed.

She lightly kicked the cat’s belly with her little legs to get the clawed and fanged beast to charge.

“I’m just killing you this time!!!”

“Bwah, what? At least give me a reason, Othinus!”

===Part 3===

Kamijou was being processed for release from the hospital.

The 1st floor lobby was busy. But was it really a good thing for business to be booming at a hospital? Not only were patients and doctors moving about, but there were workers up on metal scaffolding. A closer look revealed they were replacing the New Year’s decorations with new decorations to match the beginning of a new school term.

Winter break was ending.

He had heard Misaka Mikoto, Aradia, and some others were hospitalized here too, but he hadn’t had any chance to see them since men and women were kept in different wards. He was just glad to know they were okay.

He used the waiting time in the busy lobby to speak with Othinus.

“Rosencreutz is...dead?” he muttered.

“You must have had a peaceful night if that’s enough to surprise you. He is no longer the primary problem.”

He couldn’t see her while she sat on his shoulder, but he could tell Othinus had sighed with her arms crossed.

“Alice Anotherbible was hard enough to predict already, but I fear she may have gone completely off the rails. Even CRC may have been easier to deal with since he was only interested in malicious destruction.”

Alice Anotherbible.

Was she still alive? Even though he could still see the image of her small body tossed artlessly on the floor after Rosencreutz crushed her head?

“Hold on, this isn’t some tear jerking story,” sharply cut in Othinus. “Did you forget the part about her capturing the grimoire library?”

“…”

That chilled his excitement.

Now he couldn’t simply rejoice at the survival of someone he thought had died.

But what exactly had happened?

“It won’t be that simple with a monster like her. Christian Rosencreutz was only a detour. He was the Bridge Builders Cabal’s goal, not ours. This means we’re finally back on track and our true enemy has shown up.”

“Was...Alice mad?”

“Beats me.” Little Othinus sighed softly. “If she was acting based on a simple emotion like that, we might have a chance at predicting her, but that wasn’t the sense I got. I would find it more believable if I learned Alice’s mere presence is enough to destroy the world.”

“…”

“The fact remains that the grimoire library is missing. Because she acted as bait so I could escape. We have no idea what happened to her. An ordinary magician would spare her life and keep her around, but there’s no predicting what Alice might do.”

Index was missing.

And unlike before, Alice wouldn’t have just taken Index to her secret base to play. And even if she had done that, leaving someone in Alice’s care now was far too dangerous.

The girl had been decapitated.

But that hadn’t been enough to stop her.

She had killed CRC.

Even a monster on his level had lost his life when he angered Alice and made her take him even a little bit seriously. And now those same sharp claws were at someone else’s throat.

“But...I can’t believe Alice would threaten Index’s life.”

“I don’t think she’s killed the grimoire library yet. That’s fortunate, at least.”

“Hm? You sound certain of that. I mean, I hope it’s true, but how can you know?”

“Because Alice is still in Academy City. The only reason she hasn’t lost interest in this place and disappeared is because of her obsession with you, human. So in all likelihood, she will be hesitant to kill someone connected to you. But on the other hand, that means the grimoire library’s life comes to an end as soon as Alice loses interest in you.”

That was her prediction as a war god.

It was an analysis based on accurate data and an intuition based on a vast quantity of harsh experiences, so a simple high school boy couldn’t hope to argue with it.

Kamijou still refused to back down, perhaps because an irreplaceable life was on the line here.

“I still find it hard to believe she’s alive. Is she really still in the city?”

“It is endlessly tiresome that my word as a god isn’t enough for you and you require objective evidence for every little thing, but there is some indirect evidence you can see for yourself. Just take a look outside.”

“?”

Exasperated, Othinus elaborated from his shoulder.

“Do you remember the social phenomenon unique to Academy City that was linked to Alice Anotherbible’s presence?”

“Hm? Oh, you mean Kotatsu Syndrome?”

If he was being honest, he had completely forgotten. He had assumed that had just gone away once New Board Chairman Accelerator declared martial law.

That strange form of group psychology led people to passively protest their entrance exams and the new school term by lazing around instead.

It led people to shortsightedly seek peace and comfort without worrying about the later consequences.

“Let’s head outside,” was all Othinus said. “It may not be visible from here, but you will see soon enough.”

Skeptical, Kamijou walked to the hospital exit after his release process was complete.

The glass door was partially soundproofed, probably to make life in the hospital more comfortable for the patients.

Something was exploding outside.

At first, Kamijou had no idea what it was.

He really did think something was exploding in the distance.

But when he listened more closely, he realized it was an amalgam of voices.

“''I’m sick of this martial law! You can’t tell me what to do anymore!''”

“''They’re keeping down the little guy, as usual!!''”

“''Flip them!! Flip all those armored monstrosities!!''”

Was that a wave of people? Were those strange voices and noises being made by human beings?

“I already saw it all on the way here.”

Maybe the hospital was so busy because people were claiming to feel sick and hiding out there for safety.

“It probably began with the melancholy caused by winter break ending and the new school term beginning,” quietly explained Othinus. “Then the new Board Chairman declared martial law and banned them from leaving their homes, so their frustrations grew as their vacation passed them by under those restrictions. When Alice Anotherbible’s return triggered a resurgence of Kotatsu Syndrome, it pushed all the city’s residents’ minds in the opposite direction. ...This is entirely different from the gentle social phenomenon built on escapism. I get the sense that, whether it will help them or hurt them, they will yell at and ''physically attack'' anyone who tries to boss them around.”

This wasn’t Kamijou’s first time seeing a city-wide riot.

For example, he had seen Academy City during the Christmas season when Anna Sprengel had arranged the rise of R&C Occultics.

For example, he had seen Shibuya on December 31 flooded with the youths influenced by the Transcendents Aradia and the Bologna Succubus.

But this was different from those.

When it was caused by Alice Anotherbible, the nature of the riot changed.

“It’s beginning.”

“…”

“Acute Kotatsu Syndrome is a very different threat from CRC, who was the ultimate ''individual''. This is a new trend – a countdown toward destruction by a ''group''. If nothing is done about Alice, Academy City will be brought down by internal violence. Maybe it could be stopped by a military force, but that would require Anti-Skill, or whoever else, to fire live ammunition on the people of the city.”

===Part 4===

“You expect me to head home at night? Why is the school curfew in effect during winter break!?”

“Go to hell!! I’m not going back to school. We didn’t get a real break because your stupid martial law! Extend the break for as long as that was in effect and then we can talk!!”

“We’re free!! No one can tell us what to do!! Get them!!”

A large group of boys and girls shouted and climbed on top of an armored vehicle that was swallowed up by the crowd after its occupants tried to put a stop to the rioting but couldn’t actually fire their weapons.

Would you call this Acute Kotatsu Syndrome?

Human Aleister and Golden Retriever Kihara Noukan were also watching Academy City innocently fall apart.

“U-um, Fukiyose-chan? I know that’s supposed to be cosplay, but what are you thinking? What is that character even from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a character who’s naked except for a bunch of color-changing rainbow LED ribbons! So, um, I think it’s my duty as your teacher to tell you…”

“Eh!? What’s that!? It sure is loud out here! You’re going to have to speak up, Sensei!!”

“I have one piece of advice for today: I think that outfit shows off way too much of your boobs!!!!”

The children probably saw this as making use of their rights.

Whether they were flipping cars or throwing burning tabloids into the air, they may have been diluting the responsibility and guilt by acting as a group.

But more than any of that, this reckless behavior was caused by the subconscious influence of Alice Anotherbible’s powerful charisma.

They would do things they would normally never even consider yet not find it strange. They could go completely off the rails and simply laugh it off. This was a unique space, ruled by irrational thought processes even worse than “they were drunk, so they couldn’t help it”.

Had Kihara Noukan wanted him to see this state of the world?

Aleister wondered this and creased his brow as he followed the golden retriever around.

A severed head.

A bisected torso.

Anna Kingsford.

Another life lost. He was well aware of what his own inexperience had wrought.

“...me…”

Aleister clenched his teeth as a trembling voice spilled out.

“She died because of me…”

Once he got started, the rest came so easily.

Like a dam breaking.

That human was half howling as he cursed himself.

“It’s so obvious I used her in the wrong way! If I had more sense and if I was actually strong enough to fight by her side, Kingsford might not have died!! Maybe someone had to die, but it didn’t have to be her. If I had only stepped forward instead of abandoning her, she would be right here with us!!!”

But.

That was when Kihara Noukan saw something in Aleister’s blind spot.

Directly behind him, in fact.

Anna Kingsford had the most awkward smile on her face.

[[Image:GT Index v10 BW1.png|thumb]]

This was no ghost.

Kihara Noukan firmly rejected the existence of anything so unscientific.

She was unharmed. She was perfectly fine.

Eliminating all of the silly unscientific terms and logically assessing the situation led him to a single conclusion.

(Th-that bitch survived!)

This was not good.

A change came over Kihara Noukan’s round doggy eyes. They stared far, far into the distance. Extremely complex and advanced calculations rapidly unfolded in his mind. The relative locations of Aleister weeping and howling and of Kingsford blushing, smiling bashfully, and tapping her index fingers together was very bad indeed. It was a lot like a mother looking in her delinquent son’s closet and finding the knit scarf he had used as a small child stored with great care in the back. At any rate, their relative positions were at odds with romance. Depending how this turned out, Aleister’s very existence could explode in violation of all physical laws!!

...Was there any way of safely defusing this situation?

Kihara Noukan had to let his friend know.

It was too soon to give up. Romance’s doom had already approached within 5m of that human’s back.

“Are you listening, Kihara Noukan!? I am trying to tell you about my great sin!!”

“Um, yes. B-but everyone dies eventually, so shouldn’t you see all goodbyes as inevitable?”

“Maybe so! But my point is it didn’t have to be then and there!!”

“My advice as your friend is to take deep breaths to calm this swelling of emotion! When you learn the truth, it will be a great shock and you may curse the world, but I hope you can view it as a reason why this world has its positive side and that you can peaceably lower your raised hand!!”

“What are you talking about!? Hold on, why do you keep glancing behind me?”

“No, my old friend, do not turn around!! Do not, I said!!!”

Aleister ignored that advice.

This was a mistake that human continued to make again and again.

Then his eyes met hers.

Aleister saw it all and petrified.

“Ah.”

It took a full five seconds before that sound escaped his throat.

Kihara Noukan was so nervous he actually failed to get a new cigar in his mouth. The thick, fancy cigar that cost as much as a tenderloin fell to the ground unlit, but he didn’t even glance down at it.

The cat was out of the bag.

“Anna Kingsford?”

Aleister received bitter laughter in response. The glasses woman gave a little wave.

There was some bashfulness mixed in.

She must have heard everything he said.

Aleister squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

But this was not a ritual meant to calm his feelings.

Kingsford was an expert, so she immediately recognized this as preparations to refine life force into magic power.

“Hm, so should I 🏃 away now?”

As always, she was correct.

The magician who authored the Book of the Law unleashed all sorts of forbidden spells from his hands.

===Part 5===

This place was “somewhere else”.

But the distortion ''wasn’t yet'' great enough to call it another world.

“…”

Index was not dead.

Not yet, anyway.

Alice Anotherbible’s whims had just so happened to work out in her favor. But whether that would remain true a second from now was anyone’s guess.

“The Bridge Builders Cabal’s objective remains unchanged,” said H.T. Trismegistus with a composed expression. “Common sense says we only want universal salvation for the world.”

“You’re going to thoughtlessly repeat your mistake? Rosencreutz wasn’t the saint spoken of in legend. You should know that in your very bones after what happened!!”

Index was not one to be influenced by false appearances or records.

She had a perfect memory.

She had been born with that ability, so it had influenced her psychological development whether she liked it or not.

“''Touma and the others’ victory was a fluke.'' That rebirth ceremony was a type of magic, so it can be reproduced. That means you can try again after that one failure. But if CRC is brought back into this world, there really will be no stopping him!”

“Christian Rosencreutz was no more than a collection of his own desires and passions,” replied the young butler.

Calmly.

No, that wasn’t accurate.

“Yes, yes. Common sense says that can’t be true. I cannot accept that Christian Rosencreutz would bring violence and ruin. His true identity and name are of no consequence. He must have had a good reason for behaving that way. He did not save the world because we were not ready to understand his truth. Doesn’t that make far more sense!?”

“…”

Index said nothing.

H.T. Trismegistus appeared to stay true to his principles and keep his cool no matter the situation, but that was not without its problems.

Common sense.

That young butler had no way of handling unprecedented and abnormal situations. When an obvious mistake or error appeared before him, he would continue to attempt the “preexisting” solution that common sense provided him.

The common sense widely accepted by the world was not necessarily correct.

As an outcast who had worked to learn magic, he should have already known that.

“That method will fail.”

“Oh, I know.” The young butler nodded in a sarcastic way. “Of course I know. I am Transcendent H.T. Trismegistus, a regular-sized being who cannot move past that position. Which is why common sense tells me the best option is to leave the fate of the world in the hands of someone greater than I.”

===Part 6===

Kamijou Touma left the hospital and walked through the streets.

Aogami Pierce walked with him.

The other boy apparently rented out a room somewhere instead of living in the dorms (which was probably against the school rules), but their way home was the same for part of the trip.

“Man, we just barely got out of the hospital before winter break ended, huh?” said Aogami.

“What, are you happy you’re out? In the hospital, they serve you three meals a day and even clean the place for you.”

“Course I am. I’ll admit I’m sad to say goodbye to the intellectual lady doctors and the nurses, but school starts back on the 8th. The end of the break sucks, but I’ve gotta show up to school on the first day.”

“…”

“I mean, if I skipped the first day for a reason everyone in class accepted as legit, I’d make a habit of it and I’d never work up the motivation to go to school again. Hah hah!!”

Aogami laughed it off.

Even though they had no guarantee the new school term was going to start on schedule.

Was it called Acute Kotatsu Syndrome?

It seemed to have gotten even worse than what Othinus had seen.

The main street was packed full of costumed students like it was Halloween, so vehicles couldn’t get through. The boys and girls climbed on top of the stuck armored vehicles and some even climbed up on top of the wind turbines. It looked like they might even break the turbines down like the tower-toppling game during the Daihaseisai.

“Uh, oh. It’s as crowded as a rush hour train out here.”

“Then how about we charge headfirst into a zone with a high concentration of girls and all the plump boobs and butts that come with them?” suggested Aogami. “It wouldn’t be our fault! They’re the ones blocking our way and forcing us to push through, so we’re the victims really!!”

“Do you want to end up like the creepy guy who gets arrested at a fireworks show or on Halloween?”

The density of people was a lot like a solid wall. Kamijou did not have the courage to plunge in and try to part the crowd to get through.

So he and Aogami took a detour while complaining.

They ended up in a boxy area full of cheap artificial marble and greenery, making it a lot like a sanctuary for people who bring their lunch. But instead of a park, it was technically on the grounds of a trendy office building. The small pathway ran alongside the large building, but it was strangely void of people.

“None of those partiers here,” noted Kamijou.

“Phone GPS maps tend not to show private property. All the popular kids letting their phones guide them to the party don’t even know this kind of path exists. That’s what you get when you don’t think for yourself.”

On the main street, a taxi was being lifted like a mikoshi.

Without knowledge of paths like this, you couldn’t even get around on foot right now.

“Heh heh. The knowledge you pick up living as a Level 0 comes in handy sometimes,” said Aogami.

“Yeah, you can never have enough escape routes to use when some bored delinquents decide to chase you around.”

Now that they were out of the crowd, they found themselves able to observe it more objectively.

They watched the crowd after climbing the stairs to the top of an unnatural rise in the path, probably built up to avoid gas pipes and high-voltage lines.

People were even crowding the top of an elevated train track.

“A miniskirt, a bare midriff, and thigh armor? Hokaze-san, is that supposed to be an armored cheerleader?”

“No, Kobayashi-san, I am obviously the legendary Soaring Knight who flies through the sky and fights with a spear. The character is doing a collab with Gekota at a...I believe it is called a convenience store? Hee hee hee. These ringlets do come in handy from time to time☆”

“How is that supposed to be the ultimate gear? Is it one of those things where your strength grows the more of the heavy seals you remove!?”

“I really don’t want to hear that from the person dressed as a demon character who only wears black tape over her naked body yet has added an apron to try and pretend she is a wholesome homemaker. ...It’s probably just that the closed environment death game is so complicated people lose interest before you’re done explaining the basic rules, but I really wish they would find a less indecent way to sell the character merchandise.”

“Oh, dear. And the entrance exams are coming up soon.”

“I’m going to lie around in the kotatsu all day and no one can stop me!!”

It was honestly bad for his heart.

His distance from them didn’t really matter.

This space didn’t exist on the phone GPS maps, but it wasn’t actually a sanctuary protected by a thick wall. It simply hadn’t been discovered ''yet''. A great crowd could flood in at any moment.

“Wow, look at all the people on the tracks there. Even the trains must be stopped.”

“Wow is right. Check out all those cute little middle schoolers showing off their navels and thighs. If they’re gonna give me some delicious eye candy, they can stop the trains all day for all I care.”

Kamijou and Aogami descended the arch-like stairs to continue along the narrow private pathway.

But their safe zone did not last for long. Once they left the office grounds, they were out on another major street.

In place of fireworks, someone had ignited car smoke bombs and started twirling them through the air.

They weren’t low-temperature fireworks, so they made a lot of noise.

“Anyway, I had no idea you could ask at the hospital reception counter and they’d arrange to have your luggage sent to your dorm.”

“I was worried with the martial law and all, but the delivery industry still seems to be working. We need to thank those delivery drones that can get through even when the ground routes are blocked like this.”

But these life-or-death issues apparently didn’t matter much to the boy who lived for moe.

“More importantly, did you see that ultra-rare cosplayer dressed as Biritta-san? I’m ready to weep for joy. I can’t imagine how hard it was to get that right. I mean, that demon girl only has black tape to cover up her naughty bits. Or maybe the hard part is cleaning up after removing it? Now that I’d love to help with.”

“What are you talking about? Biritta-san?”

“She’s the girl in this year’s winter anime who dies in the first five minutes of the closed room death game. Her death was so unnecessarily well animated that she’s become the latest meme online. The animation team really poured their heart and soul into it since it was in the first episode, so she gets slaughtered with the smoothest animation you’ve ever seen. Seriously, don’t search for ‘Biritta Burrito’. The rest of us were traumatized, but you don’t have to be.”

Oh, so was she the character the show kills off right away to make it clear people know are actually going to die in the show? Kamijou stared into the distance. What a waste. He felt like there were better ways to shock the audience without actually reducing the number of characters, like having her brought back with CPR or revealing it was actually a human-sized hunk of raw meat thrown into the tiger’s cage.

“Okay, say cheese. My phone’s the newest, so I’ll share the photo with you all.”

“Wait a second, Saten-san. …Kongou-san, we’re taking a photo, so try to cover your chest more when you lean over like that. I can see something I shouldn’t!”

“Oh, this isn’t my areola – it’s a rash on my boob. I think it’s the costume’s material making the skin turn all pink. Maybe I have a metal allergy?”

“Um, I wouldn’t know.”

“Seriously though, say cheese! We’ve gotta get a photo of us with this VIP armored car we flipped when it tried to run off!! See, this is what we can do! We don’t need esper powers! With 20 of us together, flipping a 1ton car is nothing☆”

“Oh, no! But I’m supposed to be with Judgment!”

A bunch of girls in revealing costumes were gathered around a single phone to take a commemorative photo.

They wiped their faces with sports towels, drank tea from plastic bottles, and laughed cheerfully together.

Ordinarily, these girls would be chatting peacefully. And a lot of their costumes were about as revealing as a bikini, leaving a lot of skin and curves exposed, so Kamijou got the feeling he would get yelled at if he stared.

At the same time, he had also seen them shouting while they flipped Anti-Skill vehicles.

They were enjoying the freedom of their winter break, but they would also fiercely attack anyone who tried to interrupt them even a little.

Peaceful did not always mean harmless.

They may have been like a swarm of hornets guarding their large nest of peace.

“The world is ending.”

The 15cm war god hiding in Kamijou’s coat collar whispered that in his ear.

The partiers were bad, but the ones trying to stop them weren’t much better.

“Fweeeeet!! What are you doing, you uncivilized barbarians!? And why are you abandoning Academy City’s rules right along with them, Uihar-wahhh!!?”

“But, Shirai-san, a bunch of suspicious gold bars spilled out of that car’s trunk after we flipped it. We may have actually busted a crime.”

The Judgment members were dressed in strange costumes too. Like the busty glasses girl in bikini armor or the twintails girl dressed as a necromancer in a cloak with only thick chains worn below it. This wasn’t quite the same as the Dr. Police who showed up on that giant Shibuya Scramble Crossing during Halloween. The lines were blurry, like they were simply being influenced by the overall atmosphere.

Shirai Kuroko was still managing to resist thanks to her strong sense of justice, but the glasses girl with a high STR value was viewing the riot crippling the city’s ability to function with exasperation, like she had partially accepted the state of affairs already.

Othinus stared into the distance.

She was more bothered by the moral collapse than by the actual destruction.

“These people treating Academy City like their own secret base will bring down the city. And the world economy supported by science will go down with it. They can’t suppress this with force like they do with demonstrations. Not when it’s backed by Alice’s charisma. This is being fueled from the outside. Aiming a gun at these students will not stop them, nor will actually firing on them. So like I said, the only way to stop this is to slaughter every last Academy City resident with Academy City’s guns. Win or lose, the city is done for.”

It was a shift – a distortion – in morals.

Even if captured Index lost her life now, would it be caught up in this bizarre scenery and converted into something that was considered “for the best”?

If so, Kamijou had to settle this before that happened.

He had to draw on everything he had and face Alice.

He understood what had to be done.

“But…”

Misaka Mikoto had died. ******** ****** had died too. (''…? Why did I think there was someone else there?'')

Aradia and the Bologna Succubus had been killed before his eyes.

Mut Thebes had likely been killed instantly.

That had only been fixed thanks to Good, Old Mary’s resurrection and they were all staying in the frog-faced doctor’s hospital, but what had happened was still etched deep into Kamijou’s heart.

Talent, aptitude, skill, equipment, hierarchy, and rank were no guarantee.

Anyone could die at any time.

That was an obvious but absolute rule.

And this time he would be facing Alice Anotherbible, who had easily slaughtered Christian Rosencreutz, the very person who had caused all that death. That simple firepower was bad enough, but there was a more fundamental condition he had to keep in mind.

As a regular Transcendent, Good, Old Mary could not defeat an irregularity like Alice. That was plain as day from the fact that her resurrection had failed to save Anna from the Shrink Drink which had ''only'' contained a portion of Alice’s power.

They already had the proof.

The resurrection would not work on anyone killed by Alice.

''Or to put it in a simpler, more direct, way, if anyone died this time, it really was over for them.

“…”

Kamijou had to rethink this.

Could he really ask this of them under these circumstances?

Who would be eliminated from this unpredictable death game?

Mikoto and the others might decide they wanted to take part and the Transcendents might think it was their responsibility, but was getting them involved really the right thing to do? No, this wasn’t about right or wrong. The question was whether or not Kamijou himself could let it happen.

This wouldn’t be his own misfortune.

So many people he knew well would experience even greater misfortune than him. Could he really let that happen?

This wasn’t shogi – it was chess.

No matter how insignificant or crucial – no matter how it happened – the taken pieces were permanently gone.

===Part 7===

They were in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.

Specifically, they had snuck into a library closed for the night to search through the old books there.

Mina Mathers and Dion Fortune had been searching for the Licht Liebe Leben Temple, but the situation was changing rapidly.

Christian Rosencreutz was dead.

Baby Lilith was giggling happily and playing with the tarot cards on the table. Instead of the ordinary arcana, this was the Crowley-style Thoth Tarot which used some different symbols.

Something was unusual about the arrangements of cards she produced. They were clearly missing some of the major symbols.

The Tower, which meant doom.

The Art, which indicated the accomplishment of a phenomenon.

But at the same time, cards indicating danger kept showing up. Which meant nothing was over yet.

Like the Hanged Man, a symbol of defeat, and the Aeon, the final choice.

These cards kept gathering in concerning places.

It would actually have been a relief for to simply see Death.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers sighed expressionlessly.

“So CRC has left the game board after being defeated by Alice Anotherbible. That makes our trip to Nuremberg a waste of time.”

“I want to die… Look at this horrific amount of books we read through. Is this what I get for actually working hard for once?”

Dion Fortune collapsed into a heap on the same table.

If Christian Rosencreutz had been who the legends said, they would have had a hard time believing the news of his death. But from what they had heard, it sounded like that silver young man was in fact someone else entirely: Johann Valentin Andreae.

So the legend had been nothing more than a legend.

As people who were half legend themselves, that possibility could be easy to forget. The Golden cabal really did exist, so they had a tendency to believe other legends also existed.

Mina Mathers and Dion Fortune here were not the same as Aleister. They were not the same magicians who had been active during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but they could use nearly all the same thought processes and spells as the real ones.

So however he came to be, they had believed without evidence that anyone calling himself CRC would have the same specs.

Mina Mathers sighed softly.

“Then our next stop is England. The focus is now on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so there isn’t much more we can do here in Germany.”

“Ehh!? If we’ve finished our work, can’t we go get a hotel!? Here in Nuremberg!? I don’t expect much in the way of a hot spa culture here in Germany, but we’re in the country of local beers, sausages, and potatoes. Stuffing ourselves with local delicacies and diving into a huge bed sounds like the perfect luxury to end our day with!!”

“It isn’t too late to catch a plane. And work which did not result in anything can hardly be called ‘finished’, my idiot of a student.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one being smart here! The idiot here is you for letting Japan’s toxic work culture corrupt you! My stupid idiot of a teacher needs a lesson in keeping a healthy work-life bal- owww!? Did you really just s-scratch me with your claws!?”

===Part 8===

“You’re late, fool.”

When Kamijou finally made it back to his dorm, Anna Sprengel was waiting for him like she was supposed to be there. The mystery little girl without a passport or residency papers was sitting on his bed and she patted the space next to her with her little hand.

He decided it was best not to ask why.

“Left to your own devices, you’re going to get involved with this Alice stuff, aren’t you? Both to stop the way she’s distorting the world around her and to take back that nun. But instead of rushing in blindly, wouldn’t it be better to have the help of someone who knows a thing or two about the Bridge Builders Cabal and Alice herself?”

“Hey, I never said anything about taking you with me.”

“What, afraid I won’t be much help against Alice herself when the Shrink Drink that borrowed only a fraction of her power nearly killed me?”

“No, I’m worried about you.”

That shut Anna up.

But only briefly.

She soon resumed speaking.

“If you want to rescue the hostage, you should wait for the perfect time to act.”

“Eh? Hold on, you want me to wait? Can’t we at least discuss this first!? Index was captured and Alice could make her move at any time.”

“Fool, there’s no point in trying to include Alice’s capriciousness in your calculations. The grimoire library could be killed a second from now, or she and Alice could be the best of friends a year from now. The one thing we do know is that we only have one shot at making a rescue. Screw that up and there’s no ‘could be’ about it. The Index Librorum Prohibitorum will surely die. And in a way that prevents Good, Old Mary’s resurrection from working.”

“…”

“As a wicked woman who prefers to discard her ordinary emotions to think more rationally, I would weigh the time against the necessary work and recommend you focus on the greatest quality rescue. Aiming for speed will only cause the quality to drop below the minimum line. Are you sure you want to waste your one and only shot at this?”

“Hmph. You at least understands the basics of being a trickster.” Othinus sighed softly and crossed her arms atop the glass table. “Hey, human. Don’t look so lost. Stop assuming any lost time is exacerbating the situation. Rushing in fueled by righteous anger, kicking down the door, and rescuing the hostage only happens in the movies. Real special forces who can’t afford to let a single life be lost will build a set identical to the target location and spend hours practicing there before going for the real mission.”

All the information was accurate.

Yet as the data piled up, there was no hope to be found.

The farther they went, the deeper they sank.

Othinus cast an appraising look over at Anna.

“Do you have a concrete vision of how this rescue could play out?”

“We make our move during the night.” Miss Sprengel gave a wicked snort of laughter. “Around midnight would probably be best. Which means I would want us to finish gathering intel before then.”

“Won’t they suspect an attack in the night?”

“H.T. Trismegistus will of course, but Alice is essentially a small girl. I highly doubt she will still be awake at that hour.”

“Hm.”

“Needless to say, the ideal scenario is where we secure the site before Alice wakes up. But that might not work out, so we should also simulate who Alice will attack if she does wake up. Simply saying she’s in an unstable state and impossible to predict isn’t good enough to give the go-ahead on this rescue operation.”

“C’mon, you don’t have to hold back with this god of deception. What nasty trick are you actually considering, villain?”

“Really, you have to ask? I would like to manipulate grumpy Alice so she defeats H.T. Trismegistus for us. Did you think I would even attempt a direct confrontation? If you have more than one powerful foe to deal with, then pit them against each other so they wear each other down.”

“Yes, those probably are our best bet for Plans A and B, but I’d like a Plan C just in case.”

Kamijou got to thinking while listening to those two speaking and grinning wickedly.

A switch capable of destroying the entire world was being toyed with by a capricious girl too young to stay up late.

Humanity really could be destroyed by this.

Kamijou frowned.

“Okay, we know the time, but what about the place?”

“It will be somewhere linked to you, fool,” stated Anna.

Kamijou looked taken aback, but Anna wasn’t just guessing.

“That’s the only reason Alice would still be fixated on Academy City. And if she had gone elsewhere, the Acute Kotatsu Syndrome would be slowly destroying a city or country outside of Academy City. To be honest, I saw this dorm as a likely candidate. Not to mention the hospital you were recovering in. But Alice hasn’t shown at either place. What other candidates can you think of?”

“…”

“Where would Alice want to be, or where would she have dreamed of going at some point? She will be waiting for you there. If an idea occurred to you when I asked that question, that’s probably the answer.”

===Part 9===

The darkness of night covered the world.

The costumed crowds filled the main streets, but they did not reach the skyscraper rooftops.

Or, in this case, the narrow catwalk along the building’s front face allowing maintenance access to the giant sign.

Anna Kingsford was there smiling but also looking unusually beaten up.

Most notably, her retro glasses had cracked lenses.

“Good grief. You have improved your skills while I was gone, Aleister. Still, ⛽ing your creativity with 😡 and hatred will narrow your focus. It can be productive, but if you aren’t careful, you can end up developing self-centered 🪄 and eroding your 🔗 to the world around you.”

“You have some nerve saying that after getting yourself killed and then provoking me like that… Are all teachers untrustworthy garbage?”

“Not what I would expect to hear from the person who created Academy City,” said the golden retriever.

He pulled out a thick cigar with his thin metal arm only for it to be snatched away by Kingsford again. That kind of casual habit and mannerism helped convince Aleister she really was alive and this wasn’t some kind of bad joke.

Anna Kingsford was alive.

“Don’t get all 😢 on me.”

“There are no tears in my eyes.”

“Now, let’s get ⬇️ to business.”

The expert added a sharp edge to her words.

The mood changed.

For a true magician, was their interior identical to the world around them?

Anna replaced her broken glasses with a spare pair as she spoke.

“I am only a preserved corpse. If the great threat to the 🌍 has vanished and my service is ❌ longer necessary, I see ❌ really reason to stick around. I can return to being an ordinary corpse. Yet I have unnaturally remained in this city even if it meant reconnecting my severed torso and neck. That means something out there is worth my remaining.”

“Are you saying this didn’t end with Anna Sprengel and Christian Rosencreutz?”

“Rosencreutz was only a side issue. The 🌉 Builders Cabal dragged him out onto the stage as their savior, but he is ❌ the real threat. The center of that cabal has always been someone else: Alice Anotherbible. She has never even tried to hide it.”

“What are you saying is going to happen?”

“He will ☠️.”

Aleister nearly missed it.

Anna Kingsford stated it so naturally.

With sadness in her eyes.

But has that expert ever said anything wrong before?

“Do you think Kamijou Touma can overcome this because of who he is? Do you believe for ❌ good reason that he will find some way pull through yet again? But things are different this time. Because he is the one who chose the current conditions.”

“…”

“So I am sorry to say, he really will ☠️ this time. …And at the very least, he alone cannot change that. No matter what.”

===Part 10===

The plan was to attack Alice Anotherbible somewhere in Academy City.

The attack would happen at midnight tonight.

The location would be somewhere linked to Kamijou Touma. The pointy-haired boy’s own experience and knowledge would be more helpful there than any magical knowledge.

Anna Sprengel did not know how much existing magic could accomplish against the monster named Alice. Since the Rosicrucian founder, Christian Rosencreutz, had been killed so easily, it would be nearly impossible to defeat Alice with only Rosicrucian spells.

But if Alice was not stopped, Academy City would be overwhelmed by rioting crowds.

It didn’t matter if Alice meant for it to happen or not.

A day before, Miss Sprengel might have snorted with laughter and stirred up more trouble. She would have eliminated all thoughts of morals or good sense so no one on either side could predict her actions, allowing her to achieve results beyond her abilities. That was just how that wicked woman worked.

But things had changed.

“…”

It was January 6 at 10 PM.

A battle against Alice would be bad enough on its own, but needing to rescue a hostage too made it an exceedingly delicate matter. They had to gather intel and then finalize their plan before making their move, so it was about time to get started. Anna walked through the small room and knocked on the door to the bathroom the pointy-haired boy was using as a bed.

No response.

Puzzled, she called for him and then tore open the door, lock and all, with her small hand.

There was no one inside.

“Fool…?”

===Part 11===

Kamijou Touma walked through the city night.

He had come to a standstill less than 100m from his dorm.

“Who are you dressed as?”

“S.T.A.R.K.S. from Zombie Hazard! Bang, bang, kaboom!!”

“Is that the movie version of the uniform? Now that’s a deep cut!”

A cosplay group was dressed up all in black as some kind of special forces. They were laughing and aiming their weapons around, but those were probably real revolvers and grenade launchers they had stolen from Anti-Skill.

They were all smiling.

They meant no harm.

All of this would prevent Academy City from functioning, which would in turn cause the world economy to collapse.

The ones dooming the world had no idea they were doing it.

All of the streets were crammed full of crowds. The density was worse than a rush hour train, so if you tried to push through the crowd, it would take you all night to make it 50m. But occasionally, there were strange gaps. Those gaps usually meant the middle and high schoolers were riding around on massive tanks or armored vehicles like they were tourist carts. None of them had licenses, so they were running right over the guardrails and street signs.

Some of them must have swiped the backpack-sized communication equipment and then stolen the necessary sync settings to fly military drones around with their phones.

The bronze statue of some school’s principal had been dragged out to the center of the road where they lifted it up like a mikoshi.

“(If this is all due to Alice’s ''influence'', I can’t let her misbehave any more.)”

Charging in blindly would only get Kamijou repelled by the solid wall of people.

If the crowds grew violent or hit him with one of their vehicles, he would die.

Not all deaths were of the dramatic variety.

“(I can’t leave Index with her either. Dammit, they’re both just innocent gluttons. Is there really no way for them to get along and work together!?)”

The crowd parted as an armored vehicle moved out ahead on a joyride.

Kamijou ran out from behind cover to make use of that gap.

And…

“(I feel bad sneaking out on Anna and Othinus, but I have a really bad feeling about this one. It’d be one thing if this was shogi, but I can’t ask anyone to hep when it’s chess. Good, Old Mary’s resurrection doesn’t work on lethal injuries caused by Alice. I just can’t justify involving those two in-)”

“How stupid are you, human?”

“Gwah!?”

Kamijou was so surprised his feet got tangled up below him and he nearly fell to the cold ground.

The 15cm god gave him an exasperated look from her usual spot on his shoulder.

“I’ve been around you long enough to know what you’ll do. The real question is how you keep managing to sneak out on that nun when she’s supposed to have a perfect memory.”

“Y-you’re here to stop me?”

“From doing what?”

“From saving Alice.”

Silence followed.

Othinus didn’t immediately snap at him at times like this.

She used her silence to get him to continue talking.

“I mean, maybe Alice is causing all of this. And Index is in danger. Maybe these rioters will destroy the city if nothing is done and maybe Alice could destroy the entire world on a whim.”

“…”

“But is that really her fault? It isn’t, is it?”

Kamijou’s eyes dropped to his right hand.

He still felt a dull impact there. The feeling of punching Christian Rosencreutz with the giant Dragon Strike still lingered there.

That wasn’t the same as an ordinary fistfight. That power took lives. It gave up on people and robbed them of their future possibilities.

He didn’t want to do that to Alice.

Even if the world might end tonight.

Seeing Alice dead had left him an empty shell.

He hadn’t been able to think.

In a way, it had been his inability to overturn that death that had led him to pour everything he had into fighting CRC and saving Anna Sprengel.

But.

If she was still alive…

If he could still reach out his hand to her…

Alice Anotherbible’s story was not yet over. He could still correct her mistakes and save Index while he was at it.

He thought back to when Index and Alice had eaten breakfast in his dorm.

They could all be together like that again.

(And that’s worth risking my life for.)

“The Bridge Builders Cabal put Alice where she is, Rosencreutz killed her, and I gave up on her… You can find any number of other causes. Maybe I do have to settle things with Alice, but that doesn’t have to mean killing her. Whatever it takes, I will end this so Index is safe and Alice is smiling. She’s allowed to see no hope left in this world and want to do something about that and I’m allowed to feel some responsibility there! Because I’m the one who pushed Alice to this point!!”

“Sounds good to me.”

Othinus gave in surprisingly fast.

Kamijou was actually taken aback.

“What’s the confusion? I’m your understander. Alice Anotherbible is definitely the center point of all the trouble that started around Christmas last year. The way things are, the grimoire library will die at some point. No matter how stupid this current trouble looks, if we ignore it, there is no stopping Academy City from collapsing and world economy along with it. ...But does that mean killing Alice is the right move? As a war god, I won’t hesitate to say yes, but you don’t agree, do you, human?”

“…And you’re okay with that?”

“You caused me so much trouble over saving that villain Anna and ''now'' you ask if I’m okay with what you’re doing? This is well past discussing what I’m okay with and you know it.”

“…”

“The fate of the world hangs in the balance. Make the wrong move and you will never see the Index Librorum Prohibitorum again. Worse, tomorrow might never come. ...But all of that is between you and Alice...and that nun, I guess. So make your choice based on what you want to do. Nothing else is going to change what happens here.”

Kamijou smiled a little.

And then he resumed running.

“Where are you headed?” asked Othinus from his shoulder.

“School.”

That place was closely linked to Kamijou.

Anna had said his dorm was a likely candidate, but that was wrong.

Alice had already seen his dorm.

She would be more interested in visiting a place she hadn’t been before.

“I bet Alice wanted to go there at least once!!”

For some reason, this statement earned an exasperated sigh from Othinus.

“Who does she think she is, following the same logic as me?” griped the war god who had once fully destroyed the world.

Something had to be done.

He would save Index and he would stop Alice’s misbehavior.

He wouldn’t treat that girl like a monster.

He had to make sure someone he cared for did not harm someone else he cared for.

Whatever form it would take, the time had come to settle things with Alice Anotherbible.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Prologue|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume10_Chapter2}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter3

2023-12-20T16:06:27Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 3 */

==Chapter 3: Journey – Cut_a_Road_to_Allover_the_Goal.==

===Part 1===

Technically speaking, this was Yomikawa Aiho’s apartment.

But she was currently busy with work, so Yoshikawa Kikyou was looking after the small girl instead. Last Order, who looked to be about 10, was sorting something in her room.

“Cute.”

That was her judgment of a crane game doll.

“Not cute.”

That rejection was passed on a flat, ruler-shaped magnet.

But she still had plenty more to sort. The cat-shaped potholder and the Christmas tree floor lamp would be judged too. Some might have judged it all as junk.

Yoshikawa held a hand to her forehead.

“Can’t you just throw it all out? Listen, mere objects don’t actually have souls. If you hug each and every thing and refuse to throw it away, your room will be full in no time.”

“But this one is so cute! And so is this one! says Misaka as Misaka hugs them.”

Last Order shouted loud and hugged an (empty) water dispenser bottle the size of a daruma doll. She had a very wide range of what she considered cute and they all brought back memories that kept her from throwing them out. Yoshikawa sighed and wondered if it would be easier to just find a cheap storage unit for her.

That was when she heard a smooth artificial voice.

It came from outside the apartment’s front door. It was polite but quite loud.

“Martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Ordinary citizens are asked to remain indoors unless you have an urgent need. Also, this building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible.”

That had to be a drum-shaped cleaning robot and its instructions seemed contradictory.

But Last Order remained seated on the floor and made no move to get up. She didn’t even look in that direction.

“Not cute, says Misaka as Misaka presents a cruel truth.”

Apparently not all round things met her definition of cute.

Then something poked its head out from around the corner of the hallway inside the apartment.

It was a bipedal tanuki.

But instead of the mystical creature found in old folklore, this appeared to be a dance robot’s metal frame placed inside a stuffed animal.

This came as a shock to Last Order.

Yoshikawa vaguely recalled seeing something like this having fun on TV.

“That tanuki is…cute!!”

===Part 2===

From red to black.

The sun set and night fell.

The already chilly winter air had transformed into a wind that seemed to slash at Kamijou and the others’ cheeks. To be blunt, he wanted some way of protecting his ears.

District 23 was a unique district full of airfields and rocket launch sites. To keep the various aircraft safe, the district was usually surrounded by a tall fence and strictly guarded, but it was deserted now.

There was no earsplitting noise. Had the passenger planes been grounded due to the martial law, or for some other reason?

Kamijou could scarcely believe it.

“Did they really set their second defense line here? They thought Christian Rosencreutz would choose to pass through such a dangerous district?”

“That’s what they’re saying on the Anti-Skill radio channel. Do you think that Rosencreutz guy could rewrite those encrypted transmissions?” asked Mikoto while monitoring those transmissions.

But not even she was doing that directly through her head. She was using a radio she had picked up.

It was possible CRC wouldn’t change his route because security was strict here or laxer over there. If he took the shortest route to the District 7 hospital, he would end up crossing through Districts 23 and 18. In the worst case, it was even possible he would actively choose to cross a minefield and step on every mine along the way. Because he enjoyed the loud noises.

“Look over there. There’s light,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Sh! That’s Anti-Skill’s second defense line.”

There were a lot of tanks and armored vehicles there. Kamijou didn’t know much about military stuff, but even he recognized one vehicle type. The mobile combat vehicles resembling 8-wheel armored trucks with a tank gun on top were Predator Octopuses. Just the one had made things so much easier when fleeing with Anna, so seeing a whole line of them here sent a chill down his spine.

In addition to the vehicle headlights, Anti-Skill had gathered up the kind of big outdoor lightning used at construction sites. A maze of barricades had been set up with sandbags piled up in places to construct countless encampments of various sizes. Then there were the heavy machinegun and automatic grenade launcher emplacements set up by driving spikes into the asphalt using the power of pneumatics. Runways were supposed to be delicate areas where a single stray screw or nail could lead to disaster, so gathering all of this was quite something.

No, that had it backwards.

If you ignored the potential financial losses, the wide-open runway may have been the perfect spot for Anti-Skill to use their next-gen weaponry. It at least greatly reduced the risk of a student dorm being hit by a stray shot.

But was that their real reason?

If they were using the possibility of stray shots as an excuse for their helplessness at the first defense line, it meant they still hadn’t accurately judged the threat Rosencreutz presented.

“Oh? Misaka-san?”

“Wait a second. Onee-sama, what are you doing here!?”

“Ugh.” Mikoto uncharacteristically flinched.

She apparently knew some of the Judgment members working here. Kamijou recognized the girl with twintails. He knew her name was Shirai Kuroko. But the older girl in glasses was entirely unknown to him. Something about the super-serious glasses girl with black hair told him she would kill him if he cracked a joke here. She scared him. Her strict aura reminded him a lot of Fukiyose when she was in a bad mood. W-was she always like this? Didn’t it wear her out?

“Onee-sama, District 23 is off limits. What are you doing here?”

“Um, Kuroko? Hear me out before you chew me out. See, I am the #3 Level 5, so I thought I could lend a hand now that Academy City is in trouble.”

“Absolutely not! You don’t have the authority to just decide that! Wandering around an off-limits area is enough to have you taken into custody!! And when have I ever ‘chewed you out’!? Care to explain why you chose that phrasing in particular!?”

“Sigh, and there you go (sob).”

Meanwhile, Kamijou’s eyes were not drawn to the Predator Octopuses so like the one he had recently entrusted his life to. He saw a much more disturbing weapon.

“What…is that?”

It looked like a 70m steel snake, or like an enlarged version of the luggage carrier carts often used at airports. It was made up of 10 armored cars with ground-flattening metal wheels that might as well have been road rollers. They were linked in a long line by giant metal ball joints. Each one looked to be around 7m long, 3m wide, and 2m tall. That meant they were wide and flat, which made it look like a snake lying down on the ground.

Each car was armed with gun turrets on the sides, but these were very different from a tank or warship’s weapons. They looked more like antiair weapons. A self-destruct drone launcher and a Gatling gun rotated as a single set.

“You mean the XHsACV-15 Anaconda?”

Shirai Kuroko sounded more confused than exasperated.

Because…

“The X at the start means they’re sending prototypes out to the field.”

“It is an all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Two-car armored vehicles that can bend in the middle are already made in Finland and Singapore. You could view this as a more extreme version of that concept.”

The glasses Judgment girl held a hand to the temple of her glasses and seemed delighted to provide the explanation.

A prototype.

That would explain the green jungle camouflage that only made more conspicuous here.

That said, what was this city hoping to accomplish building that weird thing?

“Unlike a normal tank or armored truck, I doubt it’s supposed to fight while driving around.” Mikoto analyzed it with a sigh. “Is it more of a mobile barricade that can rush in when there’s a riot and use itself as a thick wall to protect one side of a school from the rioters? See how its turrets are on the sides? That means it’s designed to fight with its side to the enemy, not its front.”

“R-right.”

“But putting them on both sides doubles the cost, so no sensible designer would arrange them like that. A top-mounted turret with 360-degree rotation would be lighter and cheaper. The only reason to do it this way is if the weapons double as special armor to protect itself. So if a shell or missile hits it, it triggers an outward explosion to reduce the force of the enemy projectile trying to punch through the armor. And that’s a lot cheaper with a drone launcher than a big gun. It looks like the actual radar is split between the front and the rear. Unless you accurately shot between the weapons with something like my Railgun, the shot will be diverted at the cost of one of the modular, and thus replaceable, unmanned turrets.”

“Anything is fine as long as we have something defending us,” said the honey blonde girl.

She had a point.

After all, this was District 23. The flat runway gave a clear view out to the horizon in all directions, meaning there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t want CRC firing magic projectiles here. Having those five or ten units surrounding them to create a rough encampment would mean a lot.

Kamijou then listened in the two Judgment girls:

“It’s plenty long, but at only 2m tall, rioters can simply climb over it. But if they added rolls of barbed wire, I’d be afraid of injuring them. Well, those flaws are what make prototypes so cute.”

“Is that so? If they’re going to the trouble of using a computer for the complex calculations needed to sync the engine RPMs, I don’t see why they would bother with a giant snake that can’t even separate. Procuring 10 maneuverable armored vehicles would seem more convenient to me.”

“They must still be working out the kinks to discover its true charm as a product. Besides, don’t you love the sound of the phrase ‘mysterious prototype weapon’? Hee hee.”

“Not really. I don’t understand you biker girls who get all worked up whenever you see a mech that doesn’t even cover you up.”

That conversation hinted at a lot of effort going on behind the scenes, but the thick wall still felt unshakable to Kamijou.

But then another thought occurred to him.

(Can this traditional weaponry really stop Rosencreutz?)

It was a vague, meaningless question.

His thoughts never reached the part where he figured out what else to do.

Because he was interrupted by something floating down from the night sky.

It was colored a hot pink.

Since this was the second time, Kamijou felt more relief than surprise.

“You’re alive, Bologna Succubus!”

“Natch.”

The blonde demon smiled as she spread her large batlike wings. While Kamijou’s honest reaction made her feel a touch bashful.

This time, she managed to land on the runway without running into anyone’s face with her crotch.

What had happened to Aradia and Good, Old Mary? The latter in particular had been knocked out by an attack from Christian Rosencreutz last Kamijou knew.

“Having a Transcendent with you should expand your strategic options. My Cold Mistress spell will probably only work on him once. It swaps out a human’s pleasure with pain no matter how physically tough they are, so it should work on someone ''who only acts out of passion and playfulness''. Still, it won’t work once he comes up with a countermeasure, so when to make use of that limited opportunity is the real key.”

And…

“A-a succubus?”

“Oui. You got a problem with that, mademoiselle middle schooler who still has a lot of growing up to do?”

Someone was trembling a short distance away.

The honey blonde girl ''whose name Kamijou didn’t know'' seemed to take issue with something about this.

Kamijou just wished those two with such nice bodies would avoid glaring at each other from so close together their big boobs were pushed together. Where was a high school boy supposed to look!?

“A sexy young woman with long blonde hair, an amazing figure, and a mysterious sparkle ability in the eyes who specializes in nonphysical attacks? A-am I a joke to her? She just copied everything about me! And you’re telling me she’s gotten to know him behind my back!? That’s as aggressive a move as building a big-name convenience store right next to a privately run shop!!”

“You missed ‘talks weird’ on that list of similarities,” said Mikoto.

“Talks weird?” “Talks weird?”

The blondes joined forces(?) to both glare at Mikoto.

“Anyway, who do you think you are? A young doll like you needs to wait at least a decade before she can call herself ‘sexy’. And historically and traditionally, a succubus is the orthodox choice for sexy, not a middle schooler. Seriously though, I really do recommend you wait ten years so you can truly fulfill that high school boy’s dream of a dorm manager lady.”

“Why am I getting advice from an exhibitionist pervert who walks around outside in her underwear!?”

It sounded like the Bologna Succubus had won the squishy battle.

This must have been quite a shock because the mystery honey blonde girl simply stood in place with tears in her eyes. …And had Kamijou ever told that demon about his dorm manager dream? Kamijou couldn’t remember in enough detail to be sure. He had legitimately died and passed out a few times during his December 31 in Shibuya, so had he mentioned it in his sleep at some point? He wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information, but he really wished she wouldn’t spread it around to other people. Because it was embarrassing!!!

And for some reason, Mikoto looked glum.

She was hanging her head with a look of belated realization.

“(Eh? Do I not even have the honor of participating in that battle? Because of the gap in chest size?)”

“?”

Kamijou got the feeling anything he said would make her want to die, so he opted to leave her be.

Just then, a pale-faced Anti-Skill officer began showing around her tablet without knowing who to ask for further instructions.

“W-we have footage from the drone… He’s coming!! He’s head straight here! Wh-wh-what do we do!?”

“We need to set all our complaints aside. Everyone, to your posts! You don’t want to let him cross this defense line without putting up a fight, do you!?”

The busty glasses Judgment girl clapped her hands and provided instructions. She was so good at it the adults of Anti-Skill were taken aback and simply obeyed. Anti-Skill was generally made up of the muscular gym teachers and guidance counselors, so how did that girl have the upper hand?

He had only been spotted by drone, but if they knew he was close enough to judge that he was headed this way, he couldn’t be that far away.

Christian Rosencreutz was coming.

Kamijou recalled how extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had been.

Nothing was going to just “work out for the best” here.

''If he lost this time, he really would die. As would the other people here. He wouldn’t be able to speak with any of them again.

The battle at the second defense line would soon begin.

===Part 3===

Mut Thebes stood alone in District 18.

The place was completely dark thanks to the martial law.

(This iron sand hand warmer is nice. Nothing can beat the classics.)

That pointy-haired boy had given her the item before they parted.

So now the chilly girl warmed herself with that modern convenience.

Anti-Skill referred to this as the third defense line, but the District 7 hospital where Anna Sprengel slept wasn’t far from here. For that boy, this had to be the last line.

Mut Thebes was a special Transcendent who could absorb people’s and objects’ shadows using her own white shadow and then use them as she saw fit. The next-gen weapons belonged to the science side, but once she absorbed them, she could use them as part of her magic.

And she had discovered a fascinating weapon here.

The 41cm Trebuchet linear artillery.

The cannon replaced the power of explosives with electromagnets, but the shells it launched in a large arc like a long throw in baseball would reach the ozone layer before accurately striking a target 20 thousand meters away. In addition to targeting a single point and piercing deep underground, it could be switched to a secondary mode that used the great air friction to intentionally destroy the metal shell in the air above the target, blasting it into plasma that could obliterate an aircraft carrier fleet in the ocean, assuming they were packed in close enough. The result could be thought of as an artificial Tunguska event.

With the main weapon, the spare shells, the targeting unit, the antiair weaponry set up nearby to defend it, and everything else, it took up an entire schoolyard.

One of the Anti-Skill officers working in the schoolyard noticed her and yelled at her.

“You there! Martial law is in effect. Get back to your dorm immediately!”

“?”

“Wh-why do you look so confused?”

She had a shootout with them just yesterday, but had they not distributed an accurate photo of her? That was the real source of her confusion, but she knew correcting him would only make things worse, so she kept quiet.

The schoolyard artillery looked like it had been set up in a hurry and a lot of Anti-Skill officers were moving all around it, but it didn’t appear to be ready to fire yet. If Rosencreutz wasn’t delayed at the second defense line, he would probably arrive here at the third before they were ready putting it together.

But that changed if Mut Thebes absorbed it.

(Although it will take me some time to absorb such a large shadow.)

She only needed contact the long shadow formed by the bright outdoor lights, so she didn’t even need to cross the fence surrounding the schoolyard.

She waited on the side of the road and thought in silence.

It would take some time to absorb it into her white shadow, but she had nothing to fear once that was done. Because she didn’t actually need to operate the weapon as it was designed to be used. In a recent battle, she had even shined lights on a warship from multiple angles and absorbed each of its shadows to create a giant monster out of them and march across Academy City.

“Hm. Which would mean…”

Mut Thebes nodded silently to herself.

With this, she could fortify the third defense line while also using the long-range artillery to participate in the battle being fought at the second defense line.

“Interesting.”

===Part 4===

Christian Rosencreutz strolled leisurely through District 12.

There were no people or cars here. That made it a strange alternate world.

“Oops.”

He stopped his foot in midair.

Something was pouring all its strength into running across the cold ground just below his shoe.

CRC’s eyes crinkled in a smile at the rat crossing the crosswalk on the deserted street.

Thanks to the martial law, the train station’s ticket gates were all closed. The convenience store and other shops were also deserted. But that wasn’t the small children he saw were interested in.

They were gathered around the capsule toy machines lined up in front of the train station convenience store.

“What are you kids doing?”

“Wah!?”

The way they jumped made it clear the children knew they weren’t supposed to sneak out of their dorms during the martial law. And it was nighttime.

“H-he’s a grownup.”

“But he doesn’t look like Anti-Skill.”

“If this old guy is out here, he’s breaking the rules as much as we are. So it’s fine.”

Fascinating. He hadn’t called himself “this old man” to them, so did they simply consider anyone to be “old” if they had a beard?

He stroked his silver beard.

Based on his observations, these capsule toy machines had you put coins inside to test your luck on what toy you would receive.

(I see. But why do people flock to these systems that give you no guarantee you will get what you want?)

Perhaps because they were morons.

Tears welled up in Rosencreutz’s eyes as he recalled the many forms of human foolishness he had witnessed in his far-from-short history.

He was quick to tears.

The children didn’t seem to care.

“I’m doing it! I’m getting a super rare one today!”

“But is there even a super rare Gekota color plane in here? I can’t tell looking in from the side.”

“I have heard rumors there isn’t a winner inside.”

Large tears spilled from CRC’s eyes.

He was quick to tears!!

“Is this a despicable machine designed to scam young children out of the limited allowance they worked so hard to save up? No, this old man must know the true odds!! How does it really work!? Urah!!”

A loud crash rang out.

The capsule toy machine itself had shattered.

Christian Rosencreutz lined the round capsules up on the hard tile floor.

“One, two, three, four, five…there it is. So there really is a Gekota color plane inside! Hah hah hah. Good, it wasn’t a-”

He paused midsentence.

The small children were nowhere to be found. Every last one.

They must have run away.

He scratched his head and sighed, stroking his silver beard.

If he wanted to, he could have quickly located them and attacked them, but…

“No reason to chase them down, I suppose.”

With that arbitrary decision, he abandoned the search.

He held the super rare Gekota color plane between two fingers.

He knew which route to take now.

“Yes.”

It had always been the shortest route anyway.

He turned toward District 23, which specialized in aerospace.

He casually chose that destination because now he wanted to see a real one.

He did not find a life-size Gekota color plane there.

He did find several bright lights shining out from the darkness. Were they headlights and roadwork lights?

Those Anti-Skill people must have built a second defense line. And as part of that, they must have removed all the passenger planes and tanker trucks packed full of highly flammable fuel.

Christian Rosencreutz squeezed the small toy in his hand and muttered to himself.

“You are in my way.”

===Part 5===

An Anti-Skill officer leaned out from behind cover and shouted with special binoculars in hand.

“Visual confirmation of top-priority target!!”

Thanks to the martial law, the runway was not properly lit. That allowed Anti-Skill and Judgment to take action before Kamijou got a clear view of the figure in question.

A battle broke out at the second defense line.

“Begin!!”

Frist, they launched mortars from the ground. To Kamijou, they seemed like bigger versions of the fireworks available at convenience stores and discount stores. And they were used in much the same way. The projectiles were launched into the sky above, but instead of falling back to the ground, they decelerated above the target’s head and scattered light even brighter than a car’s headlights. These were parachute-equipped flares. Anti-Skill wasn’t showering the enemy with explosives right away – they were first ensuring a clear view.

This allowed Kamijou Touma to see the small figure more than 500m away.

It was Christian Rosencreutz.

That confirmation froze his spine and legs with fear. This was someone who made him wish the veil of darkness had not been swept away.

And the initial flares had a secondary purpose.

Anti-Skill and Judgment were meant to preserve order in the city, so they had a process to follow.

“Warning shot achieved.”

Yes, no matter what the type of projectile, ''they would fire the first shot above the enemy instead of directly at him.

And since the target continued walking and did not put his hands up…

“The suspect is not surrendering! Repeat, the suspect is not surrendering! Conditions for use of force have been met! Open fire!!!”

The heavy machineguns and automatic grenade launchers began to fire, held in place by the metal stakes driven into the asphalt. Needless to say, Anti-Skill was holding nothing back. They fired in the enemy’s general direction while adjusting their aim to hold him in place before taking careful aim with their tank guns and mortars that could not fire quite so rapidly. If this wasn’t Academy City where they were trained to handle espers, they might have known this was the most efficient method, but they would have been hesitant to use it against a human.

Kamijou himself ''felt somehow relieved.

Because he knew Christian Rosencreutz could take this kind of attack.

Although that thinking may have meant he had begun to accept how strong the man was.

With such a dense barrage underway, Kamijou couldn’t rush in with fist clenched. His Imagine Breaker could not block fragments of everyday(?) bullets and shells, so a careless approach would only get him blown away by friendly fire.

Kamijou wasn’t the only one irritated by having to stand around.

“Argh, 500m? I can see him, but I can’t reach him. My Railgun would burn away in the air before it got there!!”

And.

Kamijou heard chuckling laughter coming from among the explosions and shockwaves.

CRC was mocking them.

While on the receiving end of such a concentrated attack.

More sandbags were piled up to reinforce their defenses. This robbed the tanks of their mobility and their guns creaked as if intimidated. Kamijou understood not wanting to die, but now the tanks were no more than 120mm gun emplacements.

Christian Rosencreutz’s face showed only scorn.

“Do you really think that can defeat this old man?”

“They’re risking their lives because they do, halfwit.”

A blonde demon interrupted.

Something else happened at the same time.

The Bologna Succubus’s spell was called Cold Mistress.

It did not produce any bright lights or loud sounds. It apparently replaced the target’s pleasure signals with excruciating pain.

But what did this attack mean for Christian Rosencreutz ''who was only motivated by passion and playfulness?

A tank gun scored a direct hit.

Even CRC’s body had to be made of protein and calcium. He couldn’t stop shells because his body was unusually tough – he activated spells to repel them.

So.

What if he was stopped from activating those defense spells, even for a split second?

The explosive boom erupted a moment later and a cloud of gray dust swelled out.

But Anti-Skill was not foolish enough to celebrate quite yet.

“Not yet!!” shouted an adult holding special binoculars that used electronics to expand their functionality “He’s still in one piece and standing on his own two feet!!”

(Damn monster.)

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

He could only pray CRC had survived but had taken damage. The tank guns and grenade launchers fired again and again, not waiting for the dust to clear. This showed Anti-Skill’s fear that he would attack the instant they stopped firing.

“Kyahhhhh!!”

The honey blonde girl shrieked. Something other than deafening gunshots and sparks had grazed her at high speed. Probably a stray shot or a ricochet.

But Kamijou couldn’t do the obvious thing and duck down behind cover.

He was too worried.

The inability to see what was happening was wearing at his patience,.

He was intensely anxious that all of this was ultimately meaningless.

Ordinarily, they would have the upper hand here, but he was finding it harder and harder to trust that kind of judgment. Christian Rosencreutz was too much of a monster.

They were on the attack, yet they were the ones running out of options. Unable to bear this any longer, Kamijou shouted out loud.

“Is it still not over? Still!?”

“Damn, the target is walking. His shoulders are shaking… Is he laughing? He’s headed here! The dust is clearing! Wahhh!?”

The Anti-Skill officer sweatily peering through the binoculars screamed like he was having a nightmare.

With the “snap!!” of breaking metal, the heavy machinegun providing a dense barrage was suddenly destroyed and stopped moving.

It all happened in an instant.

Rosencreutz rushed in. Once he was inside the defense formation surrounded by the sandbag walls and barricades, their bullet-and-shell-based strategy would cease to function.

But Rosencreutz may have questioned what he found.

He had eliminated their optimal strategy and begun the hunt, but despite the terror on their faces, Anti-Skill and Judgment had not frozen up in fear.

“Everyone down!!” shouted a tough-looking Anti-Skill officer with something in his hand.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what he meant.

So he was slow to react.

The group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles all exploded ''from within''.

Kamijou hadn’t been anywhere near them, but his feet were still lifted from the runway.

And he was knocked backwards.

“Boy…………………!!”

The Bologna Succubus’s voice was too distorted to understand. It was so bad he couldn’t even judge how close she was.

But what had happened to CRC who had moved deep within the group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles?

The 8-wheel Predator Octopus and the rest of the military vehicles were designed to be operated remotely as ground drones. After the first defense line was destroyed so badly, no one thought CRC could be repelled with ordinary firepower. Which led to this strategy: triggering the self-destruct only after he had easily broken through the defense line and entered the defense formation.

They probably hadn’t used your average explosive either.

“Ah…gah?”

Kamijou’s retinas were scorched by a flash of light as white as welding.

Most likely, they had made use of a special reaction using aluminum or iron powder. At more than 3000 degrees, the blast could literally melt steel and it had hit the man at point-blank range.

Shirai Kuroko shouted over the boom while lying down on the runway, protecting her head.

“Did they really have to go this far!?”

“Seems that way. The suspect is still standing. He didn’t even duck!!”

The busty glasses Judgment girl must have had Clairvoyance or a similar power because she was directing her wide eyes toward the dust cloud.

“You’re…kidding.”

Mikoto had also frozen stiff. She may have detected something with her radar produced by reflecting weak microwaves off of things.

But Kamijou didn’t have time to see the truth for himself.

He heard a deafening tearing sound.

The XHsACV-15 Anaconda, the snakelike chain of armored vehicles, had started to move. It looked like the three units were going to run over Rosencreutz, but instead they formed the three sides of an equilateral triangle and came to a rapid stop.

First, they trapped him.

That 70m giant surrounded the same area as a schoolyard.

But it was not just a thick wall. The mobility to deploy as the situation demanded was the Anaconda’s greatest strength.

Down on the ground, an Anti-Skill officer shouted into a radio.

“Fire!!”

The guns on the sides of each unit opened fire on the interior of the giant triangle. Self-destruct drones were launched sharply out and 20mm Gatling guns sprayed bullets. The noise alone was terrifying. The barrage was so dense an ordinary human would have been turned into a bloody mist and splattered across the ground in less than a second.

But only an ordinary human.

And it didn’t end there.

Something fell from heaven to earth like a bolt of lightning. 120mm shells and 20mm Gatling guns were combined to create a manmade divine punishment of lead and powder.

Kamijou had seen this before.

A large transport plane had been converted into a mobile aerial gun platform called a gunship.

It flew in a large circle overhead, raining down a massive number of bullets.

An Anti-Skill officer shouted while crawling slowly along the ground.

“So the HsAC-03 Spotlight got here. 200m around the target point is a fragment warning zone! Fall back! Everyone fall back!”

“A 200m radius? That’s bigger than your average school or stadium. Which means it covers all of us here!” protested the honey blonde girl.

Several explosions erupted in quick succession.

The Anaconda’s wall was meaningless if the metal fragments and pieces of asphalt flew up in the air and poured down on their heads. This might as well have been a volcanic eruption on the surface.

Even with the martial law, they couldn’t have carried out a bombing this large in the more urban part of the city. This all-out firepower was only possible here in District 23 with its vast expanse of runways and not a school or dorm to be found.

Again, it didn’t end there.

Even higher up than the gunship ruling the skies, a star twinkled.

Or so it seemed just before a cylinder of ultra-heavy tungsten alloy dropped straight down from outside the atmosphere. It was 10m long and 80cm in diameter. It had been launched from Academy City’s giant satellite. The heavy metal pillar just barely missed the gunship circling overhead, nearly stalling out the 50m craft with the mass of air it brought with it, and dropped straight toward Christian Rosencreutz.

Sound was compressed.

Even light was trapped, unable to escape, before everything burst outward from a single point.

An artificial comet had struck. If the blast had been unmanaged and free to spread, it might have obliterated District 23 itself. Instead, the special grooves and angular points on the pillar’s side and the angle of its tip gathered the kinetic energy together, sending it piercing straight down into the ground. It easily dug up the experimental nuclear shelter spread out below the asphalt runway.

“!?”

While the vectors were concentrated to an extent, it wasn’t perfect.

The force that did escape was enough to twist and flip the 70m Anaconda all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Kamijou was nearly crushed by it, but it could easily have been worse. Without that wall there, the thick shockwave would have hit him directly and converted him into a clump of meat.

After gathering scrap metal into a giant shield, Mikoto muttered in a somewhat dazed way.

“Could they have dropped that on my head any time they wanted…?”

Rolling on the ground, Kamijou didn’t even have time for questions like that.

His aching head felt like it was going to split open.

But instead of a blow from the outside, it felt more like the pressure inside his skull had risen.

Just watching made him feel like his eardrums were going to burst.

In a subconscious urge to find anything at all to rely on, he ended up grabbing onto the Bologna Succubus who happened to be nearby. He looked a lot like a small child clinging to his mother in fear after a nearby lightning strike.

What did it matter if they weren’t special?

So what if they were all individuals and had no legends to their name?

These people had gathered for no other reason than to protect Academy City and they had demonstrated enough power to bring Kamijou to the ground just from watching.

The strange sticky sensation coming from his right ear scared him, but he managed a trembling voice.

“What happened…to Rosencreutz? After all this, he’s got to at least be limping, right?”

“''No,''” said an icily certain voice. It belonged to the Bologna Succubus as she held the boy close. “Remove your rose-tinted glasses and you’ll see. He can still move.”

His breath caught.

Was Christian Rosencreutz really this powerful? He was entirely unscathed after an attack so ferocious it literally altered the terrain? Then what could a measly right fist do?

Just then, a distorted voice came from an emergency speaker directly installed in the runway rather than a metal pole so it would be out of the way of takeoffs and landings.

Kamijou recognized the voice.

“Outta the way, third-rates. That was only the opening act meant to keep the bastard still for a second.”

===Part 6===

It had originally been a piece of research infrastructure built directly below the wall surrounding Academy City’s perimeter.

The giant facility used a massive amount of magnetism to trap a stream of electrons and protons, send them out at nearly the speed of light, and collide different particles to create a variety of phenomena, including the creation of brand new elements that do not exist in the natural world.

The Hula Hoop.

The world’s largest particle accelerator had just unleashed and launched a tremendously powerful electron beam.

It cut a straight line from District 3 in the north to District 10 in the south.

This was New Board Chairman Accelerator’s true trump card that he had been setting up ever since the Bridge Builders Cabal had suddenly constructed a consulate in District 12 and strutted around the city like they owned the place.

The intended target had been Alice Anotherbible.

This superweapon had been adjusted to kill her in a single shot if that became necessary, but now it had struck Christian Rosencreutz. This one shot was all it had. The circular particle accelerator’s forcibly-linked container-sized capacitors and transformers blew up one after another as the giant devices were fried by the massive energy they had gathered, but the deadly spear still accurately bisected Academy City north to south.

The light swept away the night and all the moisture in the air was vaporized. The heat melted the asphalt pavement back into a liquid and the remaining small abandoned jets exploded one after another. The twisted and flipped Anaconda half vaporized while it was burned apart.

And none of that had been directly hit.

Christian Rosencreutz had been, so how much damage had he taken?

Kamijou choked on the stench of melted asphalt. It took him a while to realize he was curled up on the ground. He must have thought a thick lightning bolt had struck nearby and reflexively moved to protect himself. Similar to a stun grenade blast.

So much preparation had gone into this single attack.

New Board Director Accelerator had remotely operated the city’s cleaning and security robots to search for anyone still in the predicted line of fire. If he found anyone, he had of course guided them to safety. His plans had hit a brief snag when Last Order hadn’t obeyed the robot, but he had solved that by drawing her attention with a tanuki pet robot.

So in this one moment, he had created a singular opportunity when all that energy could cut across Academy City without causing any human damage.

The #1 wasn’t soft enough to let a chance like that go to waste.

The already world-class Hula Hoop was pushed past its power limits to accelerate the electrons to more than 99.99% the speed of light, where they tore through the scenery and rushed toward Rosencreutz.

In a perfectly straight line, the asphalt runway was boiled orange.

Even the elements making up the air must have been rewritten because the beam’s wake was electrified and sparking.

“Ugh,” groaned the honey blonde girl. “I do not want to breathe that in. That air cannot be good for your health ability.”

Kamijou had bigger concerns.

A direct hit barely seemed necessary when just carelessly looking at that could blind you.

At this level, it felt like a scientifically-created form of the occult.

“Damn…it,” said Kamijou, somehow managing to get some air in his lungs and sweating in the midwinter night. “Did that…finally get him?”

The answer did not come from Anti-Skill, Judgment, Mikoto, or the Bologna Succubus.

But he did hear a voice.

“''You mean this old man''?”

Kamijou’s vision fell into darkness.

He regretted asking the question.

===Part 7===

“We were too late,” whispered Witch Goddess Aradia, watching from outside the range of the blinding beam.

“How are they?” asked a breathless voice.

That was Good, Old Mary. As the only person who could, albeit imperfectly, defend against Christian Rosencreutz’s attacks, a battlefield without her may have looked to her like an extra-large helping of suicide.

Her own sacrifice was of secondary importance.

She was a Transcendent who, more than anything, hated ordinary people being harmed by special miracles.

“Joining them blindly would only eliminate what little chance we have left.”

“I know that.” Good, Old Mary forcibly steadied her breathing and continued. “But holding cards in reserve is pointless if the people guarding the second defense line are slaughtered in the meantime. Mama doesn’t even need to use her sacrificial defense. My very presence on the battlefield will force Rosencreutz to be cautious, thus restricting his actions.”

Running away apparently wasn’t even an option as far as she was concerned.

Not that Aradia was one to talk there.

They got to work.

===Part 8===

The result was in.

All that effort had amounted to nothing.

Shirai Kuroko and the glasses girl from Judgment were speechless.

They had destroyed the barricades themselves.

Flat District 23 was the only place in Academy City where the horizon was visible. There was nowhere to hide and thoughtless running would only expose their backs to this nemesis. In real war, retreating from a disadvantageous position was the most difficult thing.

“Oh?”

Christian Rosencreutz made a quiet noise.

Past his outstretched palm, his spell failed to hit Kamijou’s head and tore harmlessly into the air next to it.

Kamijou Touma had not moved. Then why had CRC missed?

He sounded amused.

“Did you rotate the ground itself? The same way an illusionist causes large objects to disappear.”

“You have unexpectedly worldly tastes, Rosencreutz.”

Since she had set this up, she knew she couldn’t remain hidden.

The witch goddess slowly walked over and positioned herself to guard Kamijou Touma.

“Did you think a witch who lives with nature can’t manipulate asphalt? Nonsense. We can manipulate soil and minerals as easily as trees and flowers. Process and harm them as much as you like, a single touch of a witch’s finger is enough for them to respond.”

A 100m circle of the melted asphalt underfoot had rotated.

Just like a grand illusion where an idling passenger plane vanished before an audience’s eyes.

Rosencreutz’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“Did you think this secret talent of yours would continue to serve you?”

“Of course not. It only had to work once,” spat Aradia. “The point wasn’t for your deadly attack to miss Kamijou Touma. ''You didn’t bother checking what the attack did hit, did you''?”

Christian Rosencreutz briefly paused.

It took him less than three seconds to realize something.

“''I see.''”

He looked up.

A tremor ran through the ground like a kaiju stomping across the city.

The towering monster looked like a stadium-sized container supported by a trio of pylon-sized legs.

That was the Tribikos.

Good, Old Mary’s experimental tool was said to contain an entire universe inside and thus carried the possibility of producing anything. That ultimate container could produce nonexistent forms of death and destruction as simple playthings.

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz mimed loosely holding something like a brandy glass.

But his hand remained empty.

“The paternal cross and the maternal flower are a little too convenient, so people have a tendency to rely too much on the red secret art and cease to work at coming up with their own plans.”

His corpse had remained unchanged for 120 years. He had created a perfect miniature world where he could reach any answer by recreating the past, present, and future. That sage among sages had produced the secret art that could heal the entire world.

''Which meant he was exceedingly similar to this experimental tool that had mastered the art of kitchen alchemy.'' The only real difference was that Good, Old Mary kept the miracle sealed inside like it was Pandora’s box while CRC let it out in his strong desire to interfere with the larger world. Alternatively, this would mean Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos was so powerful that she feared what would happen if the red secret art were released from it.

“One rule applies to the entire world,” whispered Good, Old Mary. “''When one person attacks, another takes revenge.'' This rule applies even to that which slumbers in the secret territories. Be destroyed by the divine punishment triggered by your own decision as per the law of action and reaction, CRC.”

===Part 9===

A sticky sound enveloped the world.

What…was it?

Cracks raced across the stadium-like Tribikos and it shattered just before filthy gray bubbles burst from within. But these bubbles did not have the cleansing feel of detergent or soap. These were small, hideous bubbles, reminiscent of human torment and death. They engulfed Rosencreutz like a deluge.

The bubbles lost force and momentum before vanishing altogether.

Were they suppose to be the foam coming from the mouth of someone who had drunk poison, or were they supposed to be fire extinguisher foam?

No one wanted to see what happened if even one of those popping bubbles touched them. What this all meant was a mystery, but doing that had to be as suicidal as a slug fascinated by salt.

“Eeeeek!”

The honey blonde girl paled.

It was written plain on her face that being swallowed up by those bubbles was the very last thing she wanted to do.

And…

“We need to run away,” was Good, Old Mary’s immediate decision.

She was not shortsighted enough to determine her strategy based on a momentary advantage.

“It is miracle enough to have bought 600 seconds against CRC. If you do not escape through the sea I have parted, none of you will survive.”

“Hey, if you could do all this…?” said Kamijou, still in a daze.

“CRC’s world model is more accurate than mine, which creates a discrepancy between the two. I caught him off guard here, but he will break through as soon as he manages to calm down and respond. Then we will be caught by an even greater calamity.”

Something like a sandstorm obstructed the view.

The sand was yellow.

That was the color of defeat. Was time already up? Was the second defense line and District 23 about to be buried in Citrinitas just like District 12 had been? The Transcendents working together could only stop one of Rosencreutz’s attacks, but not repel him?

(If we run from here, are we supposed to go to the third defense line? And if District 18 falls, we’ll be back in District 7, where that hospital is. We can only fall back one more time!!)

Kamijou’s thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the mountain of bubbles even more horrific than the foam spilling from the corner of a human mouth.

Something flashed.

“More of the same? You bore me.”

This was not aimed at Kamijou or the others in front of him.

The massive deadly force flew over their heads like a long throw in baseball.

They felt a tremor below their feet.

“No…way,” muttered Kamijou.

Something had exploded in the distance and that had shaken the asphalt here.

The third defense line, where Mut Thebes waited, had been destroyed in the blink of an eye.

But the immediate threat wasn’t gone either.

“Kh!!”

Misaka Mikoto immediately placed an arcade coin on her thumbnail.

She had to already know the truth.

This was CRC.

''Even a direct hit at thrice the speed of sound wouldn’t kill him. Which was why she didn’t hesitate to ready this attack.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!!”

She screamed to shake free of her own fear.

An explosive boom compressed the air.

Mikoto didn’t bother viewing the result.

“Go now!! Hurry!! Waste this chance and we really can’t get away!!”

The younger girl grabbed Kamijou’s hand and pulled him away.

What was happening over there?

The third defense line in District 18…was gone.

They weren’t even allowed a final chance.

From here, it was a straight shot to District 7. If they couldn’t find some other plan, Rosencreutz would reach the hospital!!

===Part 10===

And so.

No one could stop Christian Rosencreutz’s march across the city.

===Part 11===

The footsteps could not have sounded more normal.

The glass automatic doors were not meant to keep out intruders.

They opened with ridiculous ease.

The machine did not discriminate. It welcomed Christian Rosencreutz inside with no thought to the severity of the situation.

“Now, where did they put the Transcendent who was sent here? Was her name Anna Sprengel?” he said offhand.

Was that the extent of his thoughts about her? Despite being the inheritor of the Rosicrucian cabal he had started, she was not special to him. She was no more than one of the many Transcendents – another life to kill in the game he had defined.

“Hello, you there.”

CRC called out to a nurse.

Even though he could have read the residual thoughts easily enough if he wanted to.

He was clearly enjoying this.

“Is ICU the right term? Regardless, Anna Sprengel, or possibly an unidentified Girl A, should have arrived here. Where should I go to find her?”

“E-eek!”

The young male nurse fell onto his rear, pressed his back against the hallway door, and desperately shook his head in refusal, so he had to be a consummate medical professional.

Christian Rosencreutz viewed him in amusement.

And he slowly held out his palm.

“Heh heh. Believe me, you want as little to do with this old man as possible. Irritate me too much, ''and I might just take an interest in you''.”

“Enough,” said a new voice.

Something sat on the edge of one of the sofas lined up in the waiting room positioned in front of the hospital pharmacy. The translucent figure took a sip of the shiruko can he held in both hands.

That mysterious being had been called a Holy Guardian Angel and an extraterrestrial.

As well as a Secret Chief.

He was known as Aiwass.

“That man has done nothing wrong. If you have business related to the modern Western magic that spans the Rose and the Golden, then stay focused on that, CRC.”

“I truly do not envy you Secret Chiefs. That priestess’s lungs and heart are no longer functioning, but do those machines really prevent you from calling her dead? If she were fully killed, your contract would be null and void and you would be free once more.”

A strange cracking sound came from empty space.

Almost like hard plastic breaking.

“''Is that supposed to be a joke''?”

“The fate of the world exists to fulfill our playfulness and curiosity. A boring world where the jokers cannot joke would only sink into darkness.”

“You claim to have despaired of the world and now choose destruction purely to satisfy your passions without forcing the blame onto anyone else, CRC, but you are surprisingly unobservant. Fortunately, that gives us some hope.”

“?”

“As the Secret Chief who guards the First Temple, it is true only one official priestess can contact me, but that does not mean ''she is the only one with a personal interest in me''.”

A solid footstep sounded.

This was the sound of someone who, unlike Aiwass, had a physical body.

Christian Rosencreutz turned around and smiled.

“Oh?”

He showed great interest. Like he had just found a shred of amusement still remaining in this dreary world.

He saw a beige habit and blonde hair cut to shoulder length.

He saw a magician who had clung to the world of the living after his own death by hijacking a great demon’s body.

Human Aleister Crowley blocked his path.

===Part 12===

Shortly before the clash, the frog-faced doctor noted a mood of mounting tension.

(I take it this person isn’t the type to spare a hospital or a school.)

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He was a doctor.

And the patient lying before him was on the verge of death – in fact, her breathing and pulse would cease without the help of the life support devices. Every last form of modern examination had failed to determine the cause and none of his thick medical texts or the disease research database had turned up a previous example, but he wasn’t sensible enough to give up because of that.

Without a doubt, throwing in the towel was the frog-faced doctor’s least favorite phrase. If someone felt it was acceptable for a medical expert to abandon their patient’s possibilities based on their own emotions or mood, he thought they had no business working in the medical field.

“Now, then.”

None of his test devices could identify the cause.

So he decided to focus on the records of those failures.

“I assume the blood sample tests found nothing?”

“Y-yes. All 5.”

The young technician glanced over at the test tubes sealed with different colors of rubber cap. Finding nothing was not a cause for celebration here. They had a patient on the verge of death. It was like running a malware scan and receiving zero detections despite the computer very obviously behaving strangely.

(Something is clearly wrong, but nothing turns up in the numbers.)

They hadn’t found anything in the blood sealed in the test tubes. Then what was happening inside that small girl(?) and how far had it progressed?

But something else caught his interest as well.

“Hm?”

With a patient in critical condition, there wasn’t time to wipe them down with ethanol to disinfect them. In some cases, they were transferred directly in from the emergency arrivals treatment room where the ambulance dropped them off. That meant an ICU could not be kept as sterile as an operating room. Instead, drum-shaped cleaning robots frequently moved through, keeping the space as clean as possible.

The frog-faced doctor held out a hand to stop one, opened the lid, and checked inside.

He found a long, strawberry blonde hair.

He touched it to find it unusually stiff. Its surface was badly damaged for having recently fallen out, almost like it had been left on the floor for years.

“…”

Nutrients and oxygen were supplied to the hair and the nails.

But as can be seen from the lack of bleeding when cutting your hair, the capillaries were connected to the roots and didn’t continue on through the rest of the hair.

He knew what to focus on now.

He wasn’t one to stop here just because he couldn’t prove anything scientifically.

“Wh-what do we do?”

“Prepare her for dialysis,” calmly instructed the frog-faced doctor.

Bacteria and toxins harmed people through a wide variety of methods. But one common method was to have a nature very similar to a component necessary for human life. For example, carbon monoxide. Its similar structure to oxygen allowed it to bond with the red blood cells, keeping out the oxygen that was meant to be carried through the bloodstream. And because humans needed oxygen, they would eventually collapse.

The cause was invisible and it was similar to a normal bodily function.

The connotations of the word “curse” had distracted them.

The culprit was a lot closer to home. You can think of it like a form of fatal pollen allergy that shows symptoms in response to “something thought of as occult” like a face, a name, hair, or nails.

Then how could it be prevented?

What could they block with a mask? Was there a preventative or a cure? Use whatever terminology you like.

By swapping out the words in his head, his thoughts began to race. No matter how strange it seemed, someone’s life was at risk. So how could he, as a doctor, stop working?

“History tells of someone who ate deadly potassium cyanide but didn’t die.”

“?”

“Rasputin. There are many dubious legends about the man, but the official records say he ate cakes laced with cyanide without dying. A normal person would have a 100% chance of death when it reacted with their gastric acid, so some theorize he survived because his gastric acid was extremely weak.”

That was one example of escaping certain death.

Even when the result appeared to be a miracle or nightmare, the method of cheating death could sometimes be explained scientifically.

What did it matter if this illness could not be scientifically explained?

All he had to do was remove the conditions causing it and science could handle that.

In other words…

“This illness appears to identify an individual based on their blood and attack their bodily tissue. So ''if we artificially replace all of her blood and temporarily change her blood type'', this ‘curse’ disease will lose its target. We will remove its ability to identify her. Got that?”

Many different devices were hurried into the ICU. The frog-faced doctor temporarily stepped out of the ICU to give them space.

He sighed.

Someone was standing there: Aleister Crowley.

They were old friends, so the frog-faced doctor didn’t bother turning around in surprise. He didn’t know how or why that human was here. He simply accepted that that human could do things he couldn’t explain.

With a golden retriever by his side, Aleister asked a simple question.

Everything was packed into so few words.

“What are you going to do?”

“As long as the patient wants to live, I will lend them every skill and resource available to me.”

“How did you ask Anna Sprengel if she wants to live? You can’t converse with her just by reading the pulses of her brain waves.”

“True. But someone risked his life to leave her in my care and bowed to me. I haven’t heard from her herself and it is possible she doesn’t even have the strength left to want anything. But I know that boy will draw it out of her. Maybe she has no more reason to want to live, but I know he will give her a new one. Not a bad possibility to bet on, don’t you think?”

The frog-faced doctor knew Christian Rosencreutz was on his way here. But no matter how many of this city’s secrets he knew, he was still just a doctor. Unlike the monsters of the former dark side, he did not have the power to fight and protect his sanctuary here.

So.

“Are you interested in lending a hand?”

“…”

“You’re just dying to finally use your full strength for someone other than yourself, aren’t you?”

They did not hold a lengthy or grand conversation This was not a sketchy politician’s speech or a TV informercial pressuring you to call by saying the deal only lasted for half an hour after it aired. These two understood each other well enough that theatrical gestures and the like would only get in the way.

Aleister spoke quietly, his head still lowered.

It was possible his question had not actually been directed at the frog-faced doctor in front of him.

“I created this city, but it is no longer mine. Why should I pour all my efforts into Academy City at this point?”

He received a single response.

The frog-faced doctor’s answer was a simple one.

As old friends, he knew exactly what words would stab him deepest.

“How about because it would make ''him'' happy?”

===Part 13===

And so.

Two magicians stood face to face.

After failing to work up the courage to fight or even to run away, the human was finally crossing the start line.

And once he made up his mind, the rest happened quick.

History proved how effective he was at taking action.

“Aleister.”

“Stay back. And don’t let anything that happens here surprise you.”

That was the extent of the human and golden retriever’s conversation.

Space itself vibrated.

Christian Rosencreutz looked to the space around him instead of at Aleister.

Everything looked the same.

“Did you shift the phase?” asked CRC, amused.

“Is that so surprising? Even Mathers and his lot played with the phases. They would use astral projection to spy on other phases or extract power from those other phases and give them temporary mass. …It all created so many unnecessary sparks and innocent people had to pay the price.”

This was already another world.

The golden retriever standing by his side was eternally cut off from him.

Now two magicians this powerful could directly clash without any fear of the hospital collapsing or the working doctors and immobilized patients coming to harm.

“I am the fool who attempted to suppress the creation of sparks by creating a new mythology as ''cushioning'' between the many phases. Unfortunately, it didn’t work because the Christian church wanted to protect their monopoly on the concept of god and sent their billions of followers against me. But since the theory itself was sound, I can at least spirit someone away.”

The stage had been set.

Aleister and Rosencreutz both took a step forward.

Space was compressed and light was distorted.

Christian Rosencreutz held an old lamp made of glass. It contained a collection of energy said to be ''an inextinguishable light''. Releasing only the smallest amount from the glass case transformed the gentle glow into a crimson serpent consuming all the oxygen in the air.

Aleister responded with two simple words.

“''Great demon.''”

“Kee hee hee! Ee hee hee hee hee, hee ha ha ha ha ha hah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The red was twisted and bent.

It crashed into an invisible wall in front of Aleister and melted the concrete wall to the side.

The human did not bat an eye.

The initial clue had come from Kingsford. He knew how to control it.

“Do not rely on your past legends, CRC. Your true colors are showing.”

Rosencreutz sighed and tossed the eternal lamp over his shoulder like a child with a toy he had lost interest in.

Batlike wings flapped behind Aleister’s back and a deadly gale blew through the world.

It swept through every nook and cranny and everything it touched grew black and rotten.

The wind itself was colorless. The floor, walls, and ceiling gradually blackened, peeled away, and pursued Rosencreutz.

At some point, a flask of powder had appeared in CRC’s hand. No, it wasn’t clear if it truly was there. His mimicry of holding it may have been so perfect it created the illusion. Either way, the silver young man popped off the lid with his thumb and scattered the red powder. The legendary Rosicrucian cabal had not been pursuing anything as trivial as eternal life.

“Revolution.”

The world at large really did change.

The black color vanished. The air grew clean and full of negative ions, like deep in the forest. Control of this world repeatedly changed hands, like a tennis rally.

It was a casual thing.

A simple thing.

If this were in the outside world, the entire city would have rotted apart and then been buried in verdant trees.

“I see. You are not fighting on your own – you are boosting yourself by borrowing the power of another. Is that the source of the false confidence allowing you to speak so arrogantly to this old man?”

“''Holy Guardian Angel.''”

“And you have more than one helper. …But don’t you feel ashamed? This does not mean you have conquered anything. You have only hid behind the backs of those stronger than you while you fling rocks at me from safety.”

“What, you didn’t know?”

“?”

“Fine by me. Because that is what gives this conflict meaning.”

After a short pause, Christian Rosencreutz moved his eyes.

To view his own fingertip.

The pointer finger’s nail had split and it was bleeding.

“You claim to only need yourself, but you worked with your seven disciples to build the House of the Holy Spirit and you were placed in that special grave. So in the end, you were a magician who had to pay attention to symbols and colors with their origins in the land.”

Aleister didn’t hesitate to explain this.

Because it wasn’t worth hiding.

“So all I had to do was transport you to another world. You don’t have the land’s support anymore, CRC. You might as well be trying to use your phone’s GPS map on Mars. The rules change outside of the world you’re used to.”

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz nodded. He honestly accepted his opponent’s claim.

But he didn’t stop there.

“But removing some of my functions does nothing at all to boost your strength, does it?”

Something exploded.

Rosencreutz had not moved a step. He only held his palm out. That was enough for something to go wrong inside Aleister’s chest. A rusty flavor rose up his throat, he couldn’t stop himself from coughing up red, and the female feet below the beige habit lifted from the floor.

It happened too fast for human senses and even for great demon and Holy Guardian Angel senses to follow. Aleister bounced several times down the hospital waiting room, knocking over the sofas and making a racket of destructive noises.

CRC looked at the back of his hand and his nail.

“Do you know what I did to you?”

This was not a cheap trick.

The very foundation was different.

Christian Rosencreutz blew boredly on his fingertip.

“Masters of the Rose never use a spell or magic circle as is. They extract whatever form of the mystical they require from the symbols hidden in the scene around them. The Rod of Asclepius, the cross, the Hippocratic Oath – hospitals are a treasure trove of miraculous symbols and elements.”

“I doubt…that’s what you really did.”

‘Heh heh. Because true experts do not talk at length? Why should I follow the rules set forth by that dead girl – Kingsford?”

The air was permeated by a flammability even more frightening than a dust explosion.

But nothing more happened. Aleister lacked the strength to fight back even when someone else was being ridiculed.

Something in the air changed.

The shifted phase had returned to normal. Christian Rosencreutz stood in an ordinary hospital waiting room – in an ordinary space where the swing of an arm would destroy a pillar or wall and kill someone.

Aleister was soaked with blood. He had been thrown across the waiting room, where he crashed through the sofas, rolled along the floor, and ended up seated with his back against a column.

“You fool! Just because you admire Kingsford’s way of life is no reason to let yourself meet the same end as her!”

Hearing Kihara Noukan’s voice told Aleister that his phase shift had been reverted. The human once known as the world’s wickedest man smiled weakly, unable to even get up.

CRC did not bother looking in his direction.

“Is that all the magicians of this era can do?”

But Aleister’s face showed no sign of panic or frustration.

Still collapsed among several broken sofas, the human smiled thinly and spoke.

“Did you forget why you’re here, CRC?”

“?”

After Kingsford, he was the second to place that look on CRC’s face.

Which meant those words were not for his own benefit.

He was leaving everything in the hands of the next challenger.

He had admired that expert and her way of life.

If he really did remind Kihara Noukan of her here, then he was honored.

“You want to kill time? You’re going to slaughter all of the Transcendents as punishment for reviving you into such a boring world?”

So he gave a snort of laughter.

Bloody Aleister’s eyes displayed obvious mockery.

Viewing anything greater than himself with skepticism had always been that human’s most defining trait. Even if it got him branded an eccentric and ostracized by the majority of the world.

And while people called him a lord of devils, he had discovered a truth no one else could understand.

In other words…

“I don’t know if you’re giving a plausible excuse to hide your true intentions or if you’re trying not to think about it yourself, but you’re afraid of the parents who brought you into this world, aren’t you? The Bridge Builders Cabal used a special method to revive you, so it’s entirely possible they could ''rearrange the ceremony’s process and symbols'' to instantly kill you again. You feared having your newfound freedom taken away, so you chose to attack your parents the instant you were reborn. You moved quick so you could catch those Transcendents off guard.”

Magical astral projection existed as a single spell with two processes: one that separated the mind from the body and another that returned the mind to the body. So by rearranging the separation process, one could achieve the return process. Necromancy and doll-based curses worked much the same. Very little magic only worked in one direction. It was much the same as an explosives technician placing as much emphasis on knowing how to cause explosions as on how to safely prevent them.

In an extreme example, the Anglican Church had created a grimoire library as a countermeasure against any and all magicians.

“The means of defeating you already existed. It was there from the beginning.”

“…”

“But you didn’t want to be bound once more, so you started by eliminating that. You wanted to avoid being a world-saving bike courier who had to listen to everything the Transcendents said and save a great multitude of strangers at their behest.”

His surprise attack on Alice Anotherbible, the greatest threat, had successfully killed her and the Bridge Builders Cabal had broken apart without her to hold it together. Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, or any of the others could never gather all of those Transcendents in one place again.

Exactly as CRC had hoped.

Peel away the theatric gestures and meaningless words and that was all he was.

Aleister could state it with such confidence because he always made sure to question the gods and charismatic leaders that the people of the world heaped so much unconditional praise on.

“I was never here to prove myself. My own survival isn’t even part of my win condition. You set the rules yourself, remember? Simply put, ''this is a battle over whether or not we can protect Anna Sprengel''.”

“You mean…?”

The human was calmly approaching the territory of a true expert.

He had approached the very entrance of the stairway available only to magicians that led to being a powerful individual while also respecting others and pouring all your efforts into helping someone else.

The great goddess of wisdom had left this task with him.

So the bloody human smiled and made his point.

“I win as long as the illusion slayer boy arrives in time.”

===Part 14===

And.

Kamijou Touma was frozen with fear.

He had just taken the first step into the front entrance of the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

He found himself in an alternate world of red and black.

He had seen it all before. Everything around him was destroyed, someone he knew lay in a pool of blood, and only Christian Rosencreutz stood tall and unconcerned.

“He expects a lot out of you.”

“…”

“So what will you do? After all your losses, surely you do not think you can win this all on your own. Will you seek the help of your Transcendent companions? Will you stand back and play at being their commander to wear this old man down? Heh heh. This old man has no problem with that. None at all. My goal is to kill all of the Transcendents anyway. If you will send them to the front line – kee hee hee – I will gratefully accept the gift.”

“Don’t listen,” said Aradia, holding out a slender arm to stop Kamijou. “CRC would never say anything that benefits us.”

Kamijou didn’t even have time to glance over at her.

But he could sense the powerful aura of “don’t rise to the bait” radiating from her.

Mut Thebes was out of the fight, possibly dead.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and Good, Old Mary were the only Transcendents here now. If they didn’t make full use of everything they had, there was no winning this. In a way, Imagine Breaker was an even rarer trait than the Transcendents, so they couldn’t afford to have it taken out here.

“Kee hee hee. Ee hee, kee hee hee hee hee.”

He approached.

Christian Rosencreutz approached them from head on.

His fingers stroked through his silver beard.

“What, done already? No new options? No trump cards? No hopes that you will discover a power beyond all your known limits when backed into a corner while guarding someone behind you?”

This was not the action of someone fighting on the same level. It was a simple slaughter with a clear line drawn between predator and prey.

In those extreme circumstances, everything Kamijou had seen flashed before his eyes.

Was there no clue there?

Had he left any stone unturned?

He knew it was no use, but his instinct to never give up kept the gears of his mind fruitlessly turning.

*Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford were dead.

*Anti-Skill and Judgment had accomplished nothing.

*The unmanned tanks with self-destruct drones and the mobile combat vehicles hadn’t stood a chance.

*The massive gunship hadn’t done any real damage.

*Index’s knowledge as a grimoire library and Othinus’s tactics as a Magic God weren’t enough to keep up.

*Academy City’s #3 Railgun and #5 Mental Out hadn’t worked either.

*The tungsten alloy bombing from satellite orbit and the particle accelerator cannon using the Hula Hoop hadn’t stopped him.

*The Transcendents’ biggest attacks, like the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress and Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos, had failed to eliminate him.

*So had Aleister.

Even though it was just this one man.

Even though the monster named Christian Rosencreutz was only marching across the city on his own.

Run away, regroup, try again.

That was the most Kamijou’s group had managed. They had lost all three defense lines and now the battle had moved inside the hospital in District 7. There was no more room to fall back. They were right next to the ICU where Anna Sprengel was clinging to life thanks to all the medical equipment. If the silver young man set foot inside there, it was all over.

But.

Even so.

The boy realized something while viewing this nightmarish result.

Had he really, truly given this his all?

It was true this was on a larger scale than normal.

If he clenched his right fist and rushed onto the storm of bullets and bombs on the battlefield, he wouldn’t be any help and might even get shot in the back by friendly fire. Wielding the power to destroy illusions would do no good here.

However…

(What can I do?)

He pondered that.

Driven to the very edge, Kamijou Touma truly thought about it this time.

Could he really accept this?

Could he step out of CRC’s way and give up on Anna Sprengel because he couldn’t win this? They weren’t doing it because he had bowed his head or because they were only defending themselves. Anna was a villain, but those people had still stood back up because they could believe in her future. Was he going to stand here and watch them be slaughtered because he was out of cards and couldn’t stop CRC?

Kamijou sensed something deep in his chest.

It was his pulse.

He couldn’t do that.

Like hell he could.

So he had to lay the unfair methods out on the table too. He had to look to the options he wasn’t supposed to use. If he hadn’t done that, then he hadn’t really given this his all. He had only been watching. He hadn’t reached out his hand, so he didn’t know what cards were left in his deck. That wasn’t good enough. Kamijou, the one who had wanted to fight all alone for Anna, had strayed the furthest from that goal. He couldn’t let it end that way. No matter what.

(That’s right.)

He had to struggle.

Struggle harder!!

(''There is one more thing.'')

He wanted to save Anna Sprengel. He wanted to prevent innocent people from being killed along with her. The only way of making those things happen was to defeat Christian Rosencreutz here. He knew that. He didn’t see any errors in those premises. But what exactly could he do? What had he himself done up to this point?

He had the power to destroy any and all illusions.

But that was all his power could do.

He could do nothing against a harsh reality. Could he really accept that?

Wasn’t he still holding one option in reserve?

“…”

Kamijou Touma knew that this world was really and truly cruel and that people would die if a bad situation was left unfixed. Alice Anotherbible’s merciless death was proof enough of that.

So many people would die if things continued like this.

Aogami Pierce, who knew nothing of what was happening.

The frog-faced doctor who was working to save the unconscious wicked woman.

Human Aleister who had fought with all his might for nothing in return.

And.

Anna Sprengel who could no longer move her own lungs and heart.

''So.

“Misaka.”

Kamijou grabbed his phone and spoke into it.

Witch Goddess Aradia looked up in sudden realization.

“Stop, Kamijou Touma! You mustn’t do that!!”

“Fire on this GPS signal. Fire through the window to the left of the 1st floor’s front entrance. Do that and we can defeat Rosencreutz!!”

He got exactly what he wanted.

Outside the hospital’s walls, Misaka Mikoto likely had no idea what was going on in there.

But Aradia saw it all.

She saw the beam, heard the boom, felt the shockwave.

It blasted straight through the wall and it struck its intended target.

Everything played out as Kamijou had wanted.

The color red splattered out.

Kamijou Touma’s right arm was torn off at the shoulder and flew through the air.

Christian Rosencreutz raised his palm and turned his gaze toward the arm to obliterate it. A little thing like Imagine Breaker could never fully defend against his attack. In fact, its presence had limited Kamijou’s options.

So.

Kamijou clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

And he used his own willpower to force them back open.

At the same time, something shot from his right shoulder with a dull thud. The translucent mass was very obviously something other than blood. After grasping the concept of up and down, it audibly took shape. It became a great maw lined with ferocious fangs.

“Fine.”

In other words, a dragon.

Kamijou heard a voice from somewhere. It came from inside his own head.

''Another boy spoke clearly.

“I was just about fed up with him myself. No more holding back. If you didn’t do it, I was about to come out on my own!!!”

The boy spoke softly, the whites of his eyes dyed red from burst capillaries.

He sounded like he was casting a curse on someone.

“''I only needed that right hand gone.''”

===Part 15===

He had summoned it himself.

Just once in his life, he chose to cheat.

In that instant, the ordinary high school boy ceased to be a mere Level 0.

===Between the Lines 3===

Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.

“Mistress, can’t we stop for lunch? It’s well past noon… And how do you plan a trip to Germany without including a chance to eat a Hamburg or a Frankfurt!?”

“What do you think we are here to do? And are you planning to tear up a map and eat it? Here, Lilith, your bottle.”

Dion Fortune complained about her empty stomach, but Mina Mathers only gave her an icy look while soothing the baby in the baby carrier.

The black cat witch was here to track down Anna Sprengel’s footprints, but she had known the answer before the investigation even began.

“If you look to the accepted knowledge in modern Western magic, the answer is obvious. Miss Sprengel was a nonexistent magician. At the time of the Golden cabal’s founding, Westcott wanted to give the new cabal greater history and legitimacy, so he invented the fictional magician so he could create the legend of receiving permission from a secret cabal. It was all a one-man show put on through the medium of letters.”

“And when they searched Europe in the usual way, they never could find the First Temple, right?”

“Felkin and others wanted to see the Secret Chiefs so bad they threw money around to wander all across Europe before finally traveling as far as New Zealand.”

“Why do men love endless adventures so much? Not that I like the idea of giving up before even attempting a search and concluding the legendary First Temple doesn’t physically exist and only existed in the hearts of everyone involved in the Golden cabal.”

“It’s just like how it’s far easier to write off paranormal phenomena as neurological or psychological illusions than to try to prove them as something physical. Just goes to show that people have always fallen back on the same excuses when presented with a challenging problem. But at the time, most members thought there was no point in searching out the physical address when they could simply astral project themselves to another phase and receive messages from the Secret Chiefs and their priestess there. Just like thinking remote work is good enough as long as you’re connected with your coworkers by a fiber optic network. All the while, they had no idea who that vague, faceless shadow really was.”

That was their starting point.

And with that in mind…

“Useless student. In that case, ''what is this''?”

“That’s a really good question, mistress.”

There was no building there.

Only stone blocks lined up on the ground in an L-shape. It was a portion of a building’s foundation. The supposedly nonexistent Licht Liebe Leben Temple had left behind physical evidence, just like any historical ruins.

“Mistress, what does this mean? I just want to drink a local beer already. One of those first-rate dark beers the Germans pride themselves in and are legendary for being cheaper than water.”

“We are not here to drink. Aren’t you supposed to be investigating at the British people’s expense?”

“Ehh? Why should you care about British finances?”

“Because Mina Mathers was originally a magician in London, my foolish student.”

The First Temple really did exist.

Or some remnant of it did.

What purpose was hidden behind this contradiction?

“Ugh. The Anna Sprengel in the secret letters was basically ''Westcott talking with his own sockpuppet, right?'' We aren’t going to discover that coroner was parading around Germany in women’s clothing, are we?”

“I honestly think that would be the funniest possible explanation, but I doubt it.”

Mina Mathers crouched down for a closer inspection of the L-shaped foundation.

Testing the carbon isotopes in the materials would provide their accurate age.

Just because they looked old didn’t mean they couldn’t be quite new.

And there were things that only showed up in a very detailed deception.

“Most likely, there was a magician called Anna who specialized in Rosicrucian magic. Anna isn’t exactly a rare name, after all.”

“Bweh? But if she was using a fake name, surely she could have come up with something better than Anna.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Dion Fortune? Or should I say-”

“Cough, cough! How about we stay on topic, mistress? There’s no reason to bring that up!!”

“Violet Firth. It seems like a perfectly cute name to me.”

“Why would you go ahead and say my real name when I made it so obvious I didn’t want you too!?”

The girl who normally went by her super cool screenname was blushing, tearful, and upset. She must not have liked her name for some reason.

But ultimately, this may not have been a rare occurrence in the world of magicians where powerful individuals determined their own value.

If you worried too much what others would think of you and tried to correct yourself to their liking, you would never excel as a magician.

(If you want to go there, my husband was basically unemployed and claimed to be Scottish nobility. He got so obsessed with it he named his own bloodline and invented all sorts of other details to go along with it. He was living proof that if you have the passion, you can continue your teenage cringe well into adulthood.)

“Sigh…”

“Mistress, that was a heavy sigh. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how tiring it is to be the only sensible person around.”

“Mercilessly delivering kitty claw attacks the instant you lose your temper is your idea of ‘sensible’?”

“I do not punch and I do not use the kitchen knives. That puts me well on the side of sensible.”

“I notice you didn’t mention palette knives. You’re always swinging those metal weapons around.”

“What makes you think you can criticize your own teacher, my hopeless student? Some gentle punishment is in order to swiftly correct such an unfortunately mistaken soror.”

“You’re proving my point! How is this ‘gentle’!? Ow, owww!?”

Mina Mathers immediately began some corporal punishment by shoving a metal spatula against Dion Fortune’s navel and rubbing it over her clothes, but the concept of a healthy educational environment was still a work in progress from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

“Hee hee. This is only a wife finally reaching the end of her patience and making an adorable scratching attack with only her wrist. Meow, meow☆”

“Stop trying to pass your violence off as adorable! I was the primary victim and my back looked like a tiger had clawed it! Big cats are not the same as housecats! Your student nearly died!!”

The (according to the teacher) nonsensible student’s testimony was thrown out.

Before scraping off a sample, Mina Mathers made an accurate sketch rather than snapping a photo with her phone. All while she soothed Lilith in the baby carrier.

“But if we don’t know what Anna this Anna is, that means she is not a major magician. And not many people would have listened to what a no-name magician said. Even if this mystery Anna had proper Rosicrucian knowledge, she wouldn’t have had a way to pass it on.”

“That would explain why everyone looked down on her, decided to do things their own way, took shortcuts, and skipped pages in the thick grimoires.”

What happened afterwards went without saying.

What would happen if someone got bored after the first few pages of reading a flight manual more than 8cm thick, shut the book, and climbed into the cockpit? It didn’t take much thought to imagine the tragedy that would unfold.

The Rosicrucian cabal was also known as the unseen university.

All that knowledge was lined up in the way calculated to best foster learning, so you could not just cherry pick which parts interested you. But the hobbyists had grabbed only the most impactful and exciting terms and started using the magic without knowing what the incantations and symbols would actually do. They didn’t want to study, but they did want a degree and an academic history. The desire was understandable, but granting it would not make anyone happy. In some cases, it could even put lives at risk.

She must have despaired.

Both at the ignorant masses who refused to learn things in the proper order and at herself for being too unimportant to guide them properly.

The accuracy of her knowledge was not the issue.

No one trusted in her enough to think what she was saying was accurate.

So they looked down on her, so they failed spectacularly, so they suffered meaningless deaths and mental destruction. Again and again. When none of it would have happened if they had just listened.

And….

“She wanted a name for herself. The problem wasn’t her foolish students. Her own lack of fame had ultimately led to all the deaths and destroyed minds. If she were only someone important, she thought she could correctly guide the students who arrived in search of wisdom.”

“…”

“At the same time in England, Westcott wanted a fictional legend behind the creation of the Golden cabal, so he began his faked exchange of letters. It must have come as a shock to him when he sent a letter to an arbitrary address to help create his fictional persona and then received a real reply from someone claiming to be Anna Sprengel.”

“Yeah, that’d scare you.”

“To say the least. His face would also have been burning with embarrassment.”

In modern times, it would be like the ideal wife he had imagined in his head, or the girl he had created on the character creation screen, suddenly coming to life.

Had he felt fear, or joy? Westcott had not discussed the truth of the letters with anyone until the day he died. Not even with the other Golden magicians.

“Was it automatic writing or sleepwalking? Had another Golden magician peeked at his letter and responded as a joke? Or had the ceremonial act of writing fictional letters so many times ''created'' Miss Sprengel in distant Germany? As a magician and a coroner, he must have come up with several possible explanations.”

“Yeah, it was smart of him not to go to the church to confess or go running to a mental hospital.”

“Confessing involvement in magic to an Anglican priest would never end well and you can guess the quality of 19th century mental healthcare. He was one of the few sensible members of the eccentric Golden cabal. He cared about keeping up appearances. If he had confided with anyone, the talk of magic cabals and writing letters to himself would have made them think the man had never left his teenage fantasies behind.”

That explained why the foundation of the First Temple remained in Nuremberg.

Miss Sprengel was a role Anna had borrowed to put real weight behind her name.

Traveling all the way to Nuremberg and fabricating these ruins would have been a simple enough task to that end. She had created a surprise for any Golden magician who might travel all the way from England to southern Germany to check.

Dion Fortune sounded disgusted by it all.

“So you’re suggesting Anna read through Westcott’s letters and then altered a part of Nuremberg just to match his fictional story? That seems like a lot.”

“She must have wanted to be thorough. Westcott, Mathers, and the others believed in and respected this Miss Sprengel who appeared out of nowhere, but for Anna, the rise of the world’s largest cabal in London ''was no more than advertisement for her'' as a magician said to have played a role in its founding. The end of the 19th century was before World War One, so the center of the world at the time was the UK, not America. London would have been the best possible location for that kind of advertisement.”

However, this puzzle had proved too difficult and the Golden magicians who traveled Europe to meet the Secret Chiefs and their priestess never did find the trick set up in Nuremberg.

“Miss Sprengel was a complete lie,” whispered Mina Mathers. No matter what they found, that remained unchanged. “Even if she was named Anna, she was no more than a half-baked magician who could never hope to defeat Kingsford. But it is true she worried over her problems and poured her heart and soul into preserving and expanding the Rosicrucian cabal. And ultimately, that led to the creation of the Golden cabal in distant England. Most likely, Kingsford recognized Miss Sprengel as a true magician who had accomplished something she could not. No matter how it might have happened.”

Anna Kingsford was real.

Anna Sprengel was also real.

With those two facts established, Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers muttered under her breath.

“Then who exactly is the Christian Rosencreutz both of those legendary women believed in and dedicated themselves to?”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter3

2023-12-20T16:05:01Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 3 */

==Chapter 3: Journey – Cut_a_Road_to_Allover_the_Goal.==

===Part 1===

Technically speaking, this was Yomikawa Aiho’s apartment.

But she was currently busy with work, so Yoshikawa Kikyou was looking after the small girl instead. Last Order, who looked to be about 10, was sorting something in her room.

“Cute.”

That was her judgment of a crane game doll.

“Not cute.”

That rejection was passed on a flat, ruler-shaped magnet.

But she still had plenty more to sort. The cat-shaped potholder and the Christmas tree floor lamp would be judged too. Some might have judged it all as junk.

Yoshikawa held a hand to her forehead.

“Can’t you just throw it all out? Listen, mere objects don’t actually have souls. If you hug each and every thing and refuse to throw it away, your room will be full in no time.”

“But this one is so cute! And so is this one! says Misaka as Misaka hugs them.”

Last Order shouted loud and hugged an (empty) water dispenser bottle the size of a daruma doll. She had a very wide range of what she considered cute and they all brought back memories that kept her from throwing them out. Yoshikawa sighed and wondered if it would be easier to just find a cheap storage unit for her.

That was when she heard a smooth artificial voice.

It came from outside the apartment’s front door. It was polite but quite loud.

“Martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Ordinary citizens are asked to remain indoors unless you have an urgent need. Also, this building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible.”

That had to be a drum-shaped cleaning robot and its instructions seemed contradictory.

But Last Order remained seated on the floor and made no move to get up. She didn’t even look in that direction.

“Not cute, says Misaka as Misaka presents a cruel truth.”

Apparently not all round things met her definition of cute.

Then something poked its head out from around the corner of the hallway inside the apartment.

It was a bipedal tanuki.

But instead of the mystical creature found in old folklore, this appeared to be a dance robot’s metal frame placed inside a stuffed animal.

This came as a shock to Last Order.

Yoshikawa vaguely recalled seeing something like this having fun on TV.

“That tanuki is…cute!!”

===Part 2===

From red to black.

The sun set and night fell.

The already chilly winter air had transformed into a wind that seemed to slash at Kamijou and the others’ cheeks. To be blunt, he wanted some way of protecting his ears.

District 23 was a unique district full of airfields and rocket launch sites. To keep the various aircraft safe, the district was usually surrounded by a tall fence and strictly guarded, but it was deserted now.

There was no earsplitting noise. Had the passenger planes been grounded due to the martial law, or for some other reason?

Kamijou could scarcely believe it.

“Did they really set their second defense line here? They thought Christian Rosencreutz would choose to pass through such a dangerous district?”

“That’s what they’re saying on the Anti-Skill radio channel. Do you think that Rosencreutz guy could rewrite those encrypted transmissions?” asked Mikoto while monitoring those transmissions.

But not even she was doing that directly through her head. She was using a radio she had picked up.

It was possible CRC wouldn’t change his route because security was strict here or laxer over there. If he took the shortest route to the District 7 hospital, he would end up crossing through Districts 23 and 18. In the worst case, it was even possible he would actively choose to cross a minefield and step on every mine along the way. Because he enjoyed the loud noises.

“Look over there. There’s light,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Sh! That’s Anti-Skill’s second defense line.”

There were a lot of tanks and armored vehicles there. Kamijou didn’t know much about military stuff, but even he recognized one vehicle type. The mobile combat vehicles resembling 8-wheel armored trucks with a tank gun on top were Predator Octopuses. Just the one had made things so much easier when fleeing with Anna, so seeing a whole line of them here sent a chill down his spine.

In addition to the vehicle headlights, Anti-Skill had gathered up the kind of big outdoor lightning used at construction sites. A maze of barricades had been set up with sandbags piled up in places to construct countless encampments of various sizes. Then there were the heavy machinegun and automatic grenade launcher emplacements set up by driving spikes into the asphalt using the power of pneumatics. Runways were supposed to be delicate areas where a single stray screw or nail could lead to disaster, so gathering all of this was quite something.

No, that had it backwards.

If you ignored the potential financial losses, the wide-open runway may have been the perfect spot for Anti-Skill to use their next-gen weaponry. It at least greatly reduced the risk of a student dorm being hit by a stray shot.

But was that their real reason?

If they were using the possibility of stray shots as an excuse for their helplessness at the first defense line, it meant they still hadn’t accurately judged the threat Rosencreutz presented.

“Oh? Misaka-san?”

“Wait a second. Onee-sama, what are you doing here!?”

“Ugh.” Mikoto uncharacteristically flinched.

She apparently knew some of the Judgment members working here. Kamijou recognized the girl with twintails. He knew her name was Shirai Kuroko. But the older girl in glasses was entirely unknown to him. Something about the super-serious glasses girl with black hair told him she would kill him if he cracked a joke here. She scared him. Her strict aura reminded him a lot of Fukiyose when she was in a bad mood. W-was she always like this? Didn’t it wear her out?

“Onee-sama, District 23 is off limits. What are you doing here?”

“Um, Kuroko? Hear me out before you chew me out. See, I am the #3 Level 5, so I thought I could lend a hand now that Academy City is in trouble.”

“Absolutely not! You don’t have the authority to just decide that! Wandering around an off-limits area is enough to have you taken into custody!! And when have I ever ‘chewed you out’!? Care to explain why you chose that phrasing in particular!?”

“Sigh, and there you go (sob).”

Meanwhile, Kamijou’s eyes were not drawn to the Predator Octopuses so like the one he had recently entrusted his life to. He saw a much more disturbing weapon.

“What…is that?”

It looked like a 70m steel snake, or like an enlarged version of the luggage carrier carts often used at airports. It was made up of 10 armored cars with ground-flattening metal wheels that might as well have been road rollers. They were linked in a long line by giant metal ball joints. Each one looked to be around 7m long, 3m wide, and 2m tall. That meant they were wide and flat, which made it look like a snake lying down on the ground.

Each car was armed with gun turrets on the sides, but these were very different from a tank or warship’s weapons. They looked more like antiair weapons. A self-destruct drone launcher and a Gatling gun rotated as a single set.

“You mean the XHsACV-15 Anaconda?”

Shirai Kuroko sounded more confused than exasperated.

Because…

“The X at the start means they’re sending prototypes out to the field.”

“It is an all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Two-car armored vehicles that can bend in the middle are already made in Finland and Singapore. You could view this as a more extreme version of that concept.”

The glasses Judgment girl held a hand to the temple of her glasses and seemed delighted to provide the explanation.

A prototype.

That would explain the green jungle camouflage that only made more conspicuous here.

That said, what was this city hoping to accomplish building that weird thing?

“Unlike a normal tank or armored truck, I doubt it’s supposed to fight while driving around.” Mikoto analyzed it with a sigh. “Is it more of a mobile barricade that can rush in when there’s a riot and use itself as a thick wall to protect one side of a school from the rioters? See how its turrets are on the sides? That means it’s designed to fight with its side to the enemy, not its front.”

“R-right.”

“But putting them on both sides doubles the cost, so no sensible designer would arrange them like that. A top-mounted turret with 360-degree rotation would be lighter and cheaper. The only reason to do it this way is if the weapons double as special armor to protect itself. So if a shell or missile hits it, it triggers an outward explosion to reduce the force of the enemy projectile trying to punch through the armor. And that’s a lot cheaper with a drone launcher than a big gun. It looks like the actual radar is split between the front and the rear. Unless you accurately shot between the weapons with something like my Railgun, the shot will be diverted at the cost of one of the modular, and thus replaceable, unmanned turrets.”

“Anything is fine as long as we have something defending us,” said the honey blonde girl.

She had a point.

After all, this was District 23. The flat runway gave a clear view out to the horizon in all directions, meaning there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t want CRC firing magic projectiles here. Having those five or ten units surrounding them to create a rough encampment would mean a lot.

Kamijou then listened in the two Judgment girls:

“It’s plenty long, but at only 2m tall, rioters can simply climb over it. But if they added rolls of barbed wire, I’d be afraid of injuring them. Well, those flaws are what make prototypes so cute.”

“Is that so? If they’re going to the trouble of using a computer for the complex calculations needed to sync the engine RPMs, I don’t see why they would bother with a giant snake that can’t even separate. Procuring 10 maneuverable armored vehicles would seem more convenient to me.”

“They must still be working out the kinks to discover its true charm as a product. Besides, don’t you love the sound of the phrase ‘mysterious prototype weapon’? Hee hee.”

“Not really. I don’t understand you biker girls who get all worked up whenever you see a mech that doesn’t even cover you up.”

That conversation hinted at a lot of effort going on behind the scenes, but the thick wall still felt unshakable to Kamijou.

But then another thought occurred to him.

(Can this traditional weaponry really stop Rosencreutz?)

It was a vague, meaningless question.

His thoughts never reached the part where he figured out what else to do.

Because he was interrupted by something floating down from the night sky.

It was colored a hot pink.

Since this was the second time, Kamijou felt more relief than surprise.

“You’re alive, Bologna Succubus!”

“Natch.”

The blonde demon smiled as she spread her large batlike wings. While Kamijou’s honest reaction made her feel a touch bashful.

This time, she managed to land on the runway without running into anyone’s face with her crotch.

What had happened to Aradia and Good, Old Mary? The latter in particular had been knocked out by an attack from Christian Rosencreutz last Kamijou knew.

“Having a Transcendent with you should expand your strategic options. My Cold Mistress spell will probably only work on him once. It swaps out a human’s pleasure with pain no matter how physically tough they are, so it should work on someone ''who only acts out of passion and playfulness''. Still, it won’t work once he comes up with a countermeasure, so when to make use of that limited opportunity is the real key.”

And…

“A-a succubus?”

“Oui. You got a problem with that, mademoiselle middle schooler who still has a lot of growing up to do?”

Someone was trembling a short distance away.

The honey blonde girl ''whose name Kamijou didn’t know'' seemed to take issue with something about this.

Kamijou just wished those two with such nice bodies would avoid glaring at each other from so close together their big boobs were pushed together. Where was a high school boy supposed to look!?

“A sexy young woman with long blonde hair, an amazing figure, and a mysterious sparkle ability in the eyes who specializes in nonphysical attacks? A-am I a joke to her? She just copied everything about me! And you’re telling me she’s gotten to know him behind my back!? That’s as aggressive a move as building a big-name convenience store right next to a privately run shop!!”

“You missed ‘talks weird’ on that list of similarities,” said Mikoto.

“Talks weird?” “Talks weird?”

The blondes joined forces(?) to both glare at Mikoto.

“Anyway, who do you think you are? A young doll like you needs to wait at least a decade before she can call herself ‘sexy’. And historically and traditionally, a succubus is the orthodox choice for sexy, not a middle schooler. Seriously though, I really do recommend you wait ten years so you can truly fulfill that high school boy’s dream of a dorm manager lady.”

“Why am I getting advice from an exhibitionist pervert who walks around outside in her underwear!?”

It sounded like the Bologna Succubus had won the squishy battle.

This must have been quite a shock because the mystery honey blonde girl simply stood in place with tears in her eyes. …And had Kamijou ever told that demon about his dorm manager dream? Kamijou couldn’t remember in enough detail to be sure. He had legitimately died and passed out a few times during his December 31 in Shibuya, so had he mentioned it in his sleep at some point? He wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information, but he really wished she wouldn’t spread it around to other people. Because it was embarrassing!!!

And for some reason, Mikoto looked glum.

She was hanging her head with a look of belated realization.

“(Eh? Do I not even have the honor of participating in that battle? Because of the gap in chest size?)”

“?”

Kamijou got the feeling anything he said would make her want to die, so he opted to leave her be.

Just then, a pale-faced Anti-Skill officer began showing around her tablet without knowing who to ask for further instructions.

“W-we have footage from the drone… He’s coming!! He’s head straight here! Wh-wh-what do we do!?”

“We need to set all our complaints aside. Everyone, to your posts! You don’t want to let him cross this defense line without putting up a fight, do you!?”

The busty glasses Judgment girl clapped her hands and provided instructions. She was so good at it the adults of Anti-Skill were taken aback and simply obeyed. Anti-Skill was generally made up of the muscular gym teachers and guidance counselors, so how did that girl have the upper hand?

He had only been spotted by drone, but if they knew he was close enough to judge that he was headed this way, he couldn’t be that far away.

Christian Rosencreutz was coming.

Kamijou recalled how extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had been.

Nothing was going to just “work out for the best” here.

''If he lost this time, he really would die. As would the other people here. He wouldn’t be able to speak with any of them again.

The battle at the second defense line would soon begin.

===Part 3===

Mut Thebes stood alone in District 18.

The place was completely dark thanks to the martial law.

(This iron sand hand warmer is nice. Nothing can beat the classics.)

That pointy-haired boy had given her the item before they parted.

So now the chilly girl warmed herself with that modern convenience.

Anti-Skill referred to this as the third defense line, but the District 7 hospital where Anna Sprengel slept wasn’t far from here. For that boy, this had to be the last line.

Mut Thebes was a special Transcendent who could absorb people’s and objects’ shadows using her own white shadow and then use them as she saw fit. The next-gen weapons belonged to the science side, but once she absorbed them, she could use them as part of her magic.

And she had discovered a fascinating weapon here.

The 41cm Trebuchet linear artillery.

The cannon replaced the power of explosives with electromagnets, but the shells it launched in a large arc like a long throw in baseball would reach the ozone layer before accurately striking a target 20 thousand meters away. In addition to targeting a single point and piercing deep underground, it could be switched to a secondary mode that used the great air friction to intentionally destroy the metal shell in the air above the target, blasting it into plasma that could obliterate an aircraft carrier fleet in the ocean, assuming they were packed in close enough. The result could be thought of as an artificial Tunguska event.

With the main weapon, the spare shells, the targeting unit, the antiair weaponry set up nearby to defend it, and everything else, it took up an entire schoolyard.

One of the Anti-Skill officers working in the schoolyard noticed her and yelled at her.

“You there! Martial law is in effect. Get back to your dorm immediately!”

“?”

“Wh-why do you look so confused?”

She had had a shootout with them just yesterday, but had they not distributed an accurate photo of her? That was the real source of her confusion, but she knew correcting him would only make things worse, so she kept quiet.

The schoolyard artillery looked like it had been set up in a hurry and a lot of Anti-Skill officers were moving all around it, but it didn’t appear to be ready to fire yet. If Rosencreutz wasn’t delayed at the second defense line, he would probably arrive here at the third before they were ready putting it together.

But that changed if Mut Thebes absorbed it.

(Although it will take me some time to absorb such a large shadow.)

She only needed contact the long shadow formed by the bright outdoor lights, so she didn’t even need to cross the fence surrounding the schoolyard.

She waited on the side of the road and thought in silence.

It would take some time to absorb it into her white shadow, but she had nothing to fear once that was done. Because she didn’t actually need to operate the weapon as it was designed to be used. In a recent battle, she had even shined lights on a warship from multiple angles and absorbed each of its shadows to create a giant monster out of them and march across Academy City.

“Hm. Which would mean…”

Mut Thebes nodded silently to herself.

With this, she could fortify the third defense line while also using the long-range artillery to participate in the battle being fought at the second defense line.

“Interesting.”

===Part 4===

Christian Rosencreutz strolled leisurely through District 12.

There were no people or cars here. That made it a strange alternate world.

“Oops.”

He stopped his foot in midair.

Something was pouring all its strength into running across the cold ground just below his shoe.

CRC’s eyes crinkled in a smile at the rat crossing the crosswalk on the deserted street.

Thanks to the martial law, the train station’s ticket gates were all closed. The convenience store and other shops were also deserted. But that wasn’t the small children he saw were interested in.

They were gathered around the capsule toy machines lined up in front of the train station convenience store.

“What are you kids doing?”

“Wah!?”

The way they jumped made it clear the children knew they weren’t supposed to sneak out of their dorms during the martial law. And it was nighttime.

“H-he’s a grownup.”

“But he doesn’t look like Anti-Skill.”

“If this old guy is out here, he’s breaking the rules as much as we are. So it’s fine.”

Fascinating. He hadn’t called himself “this old man” to them, so did they simply consider anyone to be “old” if they had a beard?

He stroked his silver beard.

Based on his observations, these capsule toy machines had you put coins inside to test your luck on what toy you would receive.

(I see. But why do people flock to these systems that give you no guarantee you will get what you want?)

Perhaps because they were morons.

Tears welled up in Rosencreutz’s eyes as he recalled the many forms of human foolishness he had witnessed in his far-from-short history.

He was quick to tears.

The children didn’t seem to care.

“I’m doing it! I’m getting a super rare one today!”

“But is there even a super rare Gekota color plane in here? I can’t tell looking in from the side.”

“I have heard rumors there isn’t a winner inside.”

Large tears spilled from CRC’s eyes.

He was quick to tears!!

“Is this a despicable machine designed to scam young children out of the limited allowance they worked so hard to save up? No, this old man must know the true odds!! How does it really work!? Urah!!”

A loud crash rang out.

The capsule toy machine itself had shattered.

Christian Rosencreutz lined the round capsules up on the hard tile floor.

“One, two, three, four, five…there it is. So there really is a Gekota color plane inside! Hah hah hah. Good, it wasn’t a-”

He paused midsentence.

The small children were nowhere to be found. Every last one.

They must have run away.

He scratched his head and sighed, stroking his silver beard.

If he wanted to, he could have quickly located them and attacked them, but…

“No reason to chase them down, I suppose.”

With that arbitrary decision, he abandoned the search.

He held the super rare Gekota color plane between two fingers.

He knew which route to take now.

“Yes.”

It had always been the shortest route anyway.

He turned toward District 23, which specialized in aerospace.

He casually chose that destination because now he wanted to see a real one.

He did not find a life-size Gekota color plane there.

He did find several bright lights shining out from the darkness. Were they headlights and roadwork lights?

Those Anti-Skill people must have built a second defense line. And as part of that, they must have removed all the passenger planes and tanker trucks packed full of highly flammable fuel.

Christian Rosencreutz squeezed the small toy in his hand and muttered to himself.

“You are in my way.”

===Part 5===

An Anti-Skill officer leaned out from behind cover and shouted with special binoculars in hand.

“Visual confirmation of top-priority target!!”

Thanks to the martial law, the runway was not properly lit. That allowed Anti-Skill and Judgment to take action before Kamijou got a clear view of the figure in question.

A battle broke out at the second defense line.

“Begin!!”

Frist, they launched mortars from the ground. To Kamijou, they seemed like bigger versions of the fireworks available at convenience stores and discount stores. And they were used in much the same way. The projectiles were launched into the sky above, but instead of falling back to the ground, they decelerated above the target’s head and scattered light even brighter than a car’s headlights. These were parachute-equipped flares. Anti-Skill wasn’t showering the enemy with explosives right away – they were first ensuring a clear view.

This allowed Kamijou Touma to see the small figure more than 500m away.

It was Christian Rosencreutz.

That confirmation froze his spine and legs with fear. This was someone who made him wish the veil of darkness had not been swept away.

And the initial flares had a secondary purpose.

Anti-Skill and Judgment were meant to preserve order in the city, so they had a process to follow.

“Warning shot achieved.”

Yes, no matter what the type of projectile, ''they would fire the first shot above the enemy instead of directly at him.

And since the target continued walking and did not put his hands up…

“The suspect is not surrendering! Repeat, the suspect is not surrendering! Conditions for use of force have been met! Open fire!!!”

The heavy machineguns and automatic grenade launchers began to fire, held in place by the metal stakes driven into the asphalt. Needless to say, Anti-Skill was holding nothing back. They fired in the enemy’s general direction while adjusting their aim to hold him in place before taking careful aim with their tank guns and mortars that could not fire quite so rapidly. If this wasn’t Academy City where they were trained to handle espers, they might have known this was the most efficient method, but they would have been hesitant to use it against a human.

Kamijou himself ''felt somehow relieved.

Because he knew Christian Rosencreutz could take this kind of attack.

Although that thinking may have meant he had begun to accept how strong the man was.

With such a dense barrage underway, Kamijou couldn’t rush in with fist clenched. His Imagine Breaker could not block fragments of everyday(?) bullets and shells, so a careless approach would only get him blown away by friendly fire.

Kamijou wasn’t the only one irritated by having to stand around.

“Argh, 500m? I can see him, but I can’t reach him. My Railgun would burn away in the air before it got there!!”

And.

Kamijou heard chuckling laughter coming from among the explosions and shockwaves.

CRC was mocking them.

While on the receiving end of such a concentrated attack.

More sandbags were piled up to reinforce their defenses. This robbed the tanks of their mobility and their guns creaked as if intimidated. Kamijou understood not wanting to die, but now the tanks were no more than 120mm gun emplacements.

Christian Rosencreutz’s face showed only scorn.

“Do you really think that can defeat this old man?”

“They’re risking their lives because they do, halfwit.”

A blonde demon interrupted.

Something else happened at the same time.

The Bologna Succubus’s spell was called Cold Mistress.

It did not produce any bright lights or loud sounds. It apparently replaced the target’s pleasure signals with excruciating pain.

But what did this attack mean for Christian Rosencreutz ''who was only motivated by passion and playfulness?

A tank gun scored a direct hit.

Even CRC’s body had to be made of protein and calcium. He couldn’t stop shells because his body was unusually tough – he activated spells to repel them.

So.

What if he was stopped from activating those defense spells, even for a split second?

The explosive boom erupted a moment later and a cloud of gray dust swelled out.

But Anti-Skill was not foolish enough to celebrate quite yet.

“Not yet!!” shouted an adult holding special binoculars that used electronics to expand their functionality “He’s still in one piece and standing on his own two feet!!”

(Damn monster.)

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

He could only pray CRC had survived but had taken damage. The tank guns and grenade launchers fired again and again, not waiting for the dust to clear. This showed Anti-Skill’s fear that he would attack the instant they stopped firing.

“Kyahhhhh!!”

The honey blonde girl shrieked. Something other than deafening gunshots and sparks had grazed her at high speed. Probably a stray shot or a ricochet.

But Kamijou couldn’t do the obvious thing and duck down behind cover.

He was too worried.

The inability to see what was happening was wearing at his patience,.

He was intensely anxious that all of this was ultimately meaningless.

Ordinarily, they would have the upper hand here, but he was finding it harder and harder to trust that kind of judgment. Christian Rosencreutz was too much of a monster.

They were on the attack, yet they were the ones running out of options. Unable to bear this any longer, Kamijou shouted out loud.

“Is it still not over? Still!?”

“Damn, the target is walking. His shoulders are shaking… Is he laughing? He’s headed here! The dust is clearing! Wahhh!?”

The Anti-Skill officer sweatily peering through the binoculars screamed like he was having a nightmare.

With the “snap!!” of breaking metal, the heavy machinegun providing a dense barrage was suddenly destroyed and stopped moving.

It all happened in an instant.

Rosencreutz rushed in. Once he was inside the defense formation surrounded by the sandbag walls and barricades, their bullet-and-shell-based strategy would cease to function.

But Rosencreutz may have questioned what he found.

He had eliminated their optimal strategy and begun the hunt, but despite the terror on their faces, Anti-Skill and Judgment had not frozen up in fear.

“Everyone down!!” shouted a tough-looking Anti-Skill officer with something in his hand.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what he meant.

So he was slow to react.

The group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles all exploded ''from within''.

Kamijou hadn’t been anywhere near them, but his feet were still lifted from the runway.

And he was knocked backwards.

“Boy…………………!!”

The Bologna Succubus’s voice was too distorted to understand. It was so bad he couldn’t even judge how close she was.

But what had happened to CRC who had moved deep within the group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles?

The 8-wheel Predator Octopus and the rest of the military vehicles were designed to be operated remotely as ground drones. After the first defense line was destroyed so badly, no one thought CRC could be repelled with ordinary firepower. Which led to this strategy: triggering the self-destruct only after he had easily broken through the defense line and entered the defense formation.

They probably hadn’t used your average explosive either.

“Ah…gah?”

Kamijou’s retinas were scorched by a flash of light as white as welding.

Most likely, they had made use of a special reaction using aluminum or iron powder. At more than 3000 degrees, the blast could literally melt steel and it had hit the man at point-blank range.

Shirai Kuroko shouted over the boom while lying down on the runway, protecting her head.

“Did they really have to go this far!?”

“Seems that way. The suspect is still standing. He didn’t even duck!!”

The busty glasses Judgment girl must have had Clairvoyance or a similar power because she was directing her wide eyes toward the dust cloud.

“You’re…kidding.”

Mikoto had also frozen stiff. She may have detected something with her radar produced by reflecting weak microwaves off of things.

But Kamijou didn’t have time to see the truth for himself.

He heard a deafening tearing sound.

The XHsACV-15 Anaconda, the snakelike chain of armored vehicles, had started to move. It looked like the three units were going to run over Rosencreutz, but instead they formed the three sides of an equilateral triangle and came to a rapid stop.

First, they trapped him.

That 70m giant surrounded the same area as a schoolyard.

But it was not just a thick wall. The mobility to deploy as the situation demanded was the Anaconda’s greatest strength.

Down on the ground, an Anti-Skill officer shouted into a radio.

“Fire!!”

The guns on the sides of each unit opened fire on the interior of the giant triangle. Self-destruct drones were launched sharply out and 20mm Gatling guns sprayed bullets. The noise alone was terrifying. The barrage was so dense an ordinary human would have been turned into a bloody mist and splattered across the ground in less than a second.

But only an ordinary human.

And it didn’t end there.

Something fell from heaven to earth like a bolt of lightning. 120mm shells and 20mm Gatling guns were combined to create a manmade divine punishment of lead and powder.

Kamijou had seen this before.

A large transport plane had been converted into a mobile aerial gun platform called a gunship.

It flew in a large circle overhead, raining down a massive number of bullets.

An Anti-Skill officer shouted while crawling slowly along the ground.

“So the HsAC-03 Spotlight got here. 200m around the target point is a fragment warning zone! Fall back! Everyone fall back!”

“A 200m radius? That’s bigger than your average school or stadium. Which means it covers all of us here!” protested the honey blonde girl.

Several explosions erupted in quick succession.

The Anaconda’s wall was meaningless if the metal fragments and pieces of asphalt flew up in the air and poured down on their heads. This might as well have been a volcanic eruption on the surface.

Even with the martial law, they couldn’t have carried out a bombing this large in the more urban part of the city. This all-out firepower was only possible here in District 23 with its vast expanse of runways and not a school or dorm to be found.

Again, it didn’t end there.

Even higher up than the gunship ruling the skies, a star twinkled.

Or so it seemed just before a cylinder of ultra-heavy tungsten alloy dropped straight down from outside the atmosphere. It was 10m long and 80cm in diameter. It had been launched from Academy City’s giant satellite. The heavy metal pillar just barely missed the gunship circling overhead, nearly stalling out the 50m craft with the mass of air it brought with it, and dropped straight toward Christian Rosencreutz.

Sound was compressed.

Even light was trapped, unable to escape, before everything burst outward from a single point.

An artificial comet had struck. If the blast had been unmanaged and free to spread, it might have obliterated District 23 itself. Instead, the special grooves and angular points on the pillar’s side and the angle of its tip gathered the kinetic energy together, sending it piercing straight down into the ground. It easily dug up the experimental nuclear shelter spread out below the asphalt runway.

“!?”

While the vectors were concentrated to an extent, it wasn’t perfect.

The force that did escape was enough to twist and flip the 70m Anaconda all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Kamijou was nearly crushed by it, but it could easily have been worse. Without that wall there, the thick shockwave would have hit him directly and converted him into a clump of meat.

After gathering scrap metal into a giant shield, Mikoto muttered in a somewhat dazed way.

“Could they have dropped that on my head any time they wanted…?”

Rolling on the ground, Kamijou didn’t even have time for questions like that.

His aching head felt like it was going to split open.

But instead of a blow from the outside, it felt more like the pressure inside his skull had risen.

Just watching made him feel like his eardrums were going to burst.

In a subconscious urge to find anything at all to rely on, he ended up grabbing onto the Bologna Succubus who happened to be nearby. He looked a lot like a small child clinging to his mother in fear after a nearby lightning strike.

What did it matter if they weren’t special?

So what if they were all individuals and had no legends to their name?

These people had gathered for no other reason than to protect Academy City and they had demonstrated enough power to bring Kamijou to the ground just from watching.

The strange sticky sensation coming from his right ear scared him, but he managed a trembling voice.

“What happened…to Rosencreutz? After all this, he’s got to at least be limping, right?”

“''No,''” said an icily certain voice. It belonged to the Bologna Succubus as she held the boy close. “Remove your rose-tinted glasses and you’ll see. He can still move.”

His breath caught.

Was Christian Rosencreutz really this powerful? He was entirely unscathed after an attack so ferocious it literally altered the terrain? Then what could a measly right fist do?

Just then, a distorted voice came from an emergency speaker directly installed in the runway rather than a metal pole so it would be out of the way of takeoffs and landings.

Kamijou recognized the voice.

“Outta the way, third-rates. That was only the opening act meant to keep the bastard still for a second.”

===Part 6===

It had originally been a piece of research infrastructure built directly below the wall surrounding Academy City’s perimeter.

The giant facility used a massive amount of magnetism to trap a stream of electrons and protons, send them out at nearly the speed of light, and collide different particles to create a variety of phenomena, including the creation of brand new elements that do not exist in the natural world.

The Hula Hoop.

The world’s largest particle accelerator had just unleashed and launched a tremendously powerful electron beam.

It cut a straight line from District 3 in the north to District 10 in the south.

This was New Board Chairman Accelerator’s true trump card that he had been setting up ever since the Bridge Builders Cabal had suddenly constructed a consulate in District 12 and strutted around the city like they owned the place.

The intended target had been Alice Anotherbible.

This superweapon had been adjusted to kill her in a single shot if that became necessary, but now it had struck Christian Rosencreutz. This one shot was all it had. The circular particle accelerator’s forcibly-linked container-sized capacitors and transformers blew up one after another as the giant devices were fried by the massive energy they had gathered, but the deadly spear still accurately bisected Academy City north to south.

The light swept away the night and all the moisture in the air was vaporized. The heat melted the asphalt pavement back into a liquid and the remaining small abandoned jets exploded one after another. The twisted and flipped Anaconda half vaporized while it was burned apart.

And none of that had been directly hit.

Christian Rosencreutz had been, so how much damage had he taken?

Kamijou choked on the stench of melted asphalt. It took him a while to realize he was curled up on the ground. He must have thought a thick lightning bolt had struck nearby and reflexively moved to protect himself. Similar to a stun grenade blast.

So much preparation had gone into this single attack.

New Board Director Accelerator had remotely operated the city’s cleaning and security robots to search for anyone still in the predicted line of fire. If he found anyone, he had of course guided them to safety. His plans had hit a brief snag when Last Order hadn’t obeyed the robot, but he had solved that by drawing her attention with a tanuki pet robot.

So in this one moment, he had created a singular opportunity when all that energy could cut across Academy City without causing any human damage.

The #1 wasn’t soft enough to let a chance like that go to waste.

The already world-class Hula Hoop was pushed past its power limits to accelerate the electrons to more than 99.99% the speed of light, where they tore through the scenery and rushed toward Rosencreutz.

In a perfectly straight line, the asphalt runway was boiled orange.

Even the elements making up the air must have been rewritten because the beam’s wake was electrified and sparking.

“Ugh,” groaned the honey blonde girl. “I do not want to breathe that in. That air cannot be good for your health ability.”

Kamijou had bigger concerns.

A direct hit barely seemed necessary when just carelessly looking at that could blind you.

At this level, it felt like a scientifically-created form of the occult.

“Damn…it,” said Kamijou, somehow managing to get some air in his lungs and sweating in the midwinter night. “Did that…finally get him?”

The answer did not come from Anti-Skill, Judgment, Mikoto, or the Bologna Succubus.

But he did hear a voice.

“''You mean this old man''?”

Kamijou’s vision fell into darkness.

He regretted asking the question.

===Part 7===

“We were too late,” whispered Witch Goddess Aradia, watching from outside the range of the blinding beam.

“How are they?” asked a breathless voice.

That was Good, Old Mary. As the only person who could, albeit imperfectly, defend against Christian Rosencreutz’s attacks, a battlefield without her may have looked to her like an extra-large helping of suicide.

Her own sacrifice was of secondary importance.

She was a Transcendent who, more than anything, hated ordinary people being harmed by special miracles.

“Joining them blindly would only eliminate what little chance we have left.”

“I know that.” Good, Old Mary forcibly steadied her breathing and continued. “But holding cards in reserve is pointless if the people guarding the second defense line are slaughtered in the meantime. Mama doesn’t even need to use her sacrificial defense. My very presence on the battlefield will force Rosencreutz to be cautious, thus restricting his actions.”

Running away apparently wasn’t even an option as far as she was concerned.

Not that Aradia was one to talk there.

They got to work.

===Part 8===

The result was in.

All that effort had amounted to nothing.

Shirai Kuroko and the glasses girl from Judgment were speechless.

They had destroyed the barricades themselves.

Flat District 23 was the only place in Academy City where the horizon was visible. There was nowhere to hide and thoughtless running would only expose their backs to this nemesis. In real war, retreating from a disadvantageous position was the most difficult thing.

“Oh?”

Christian Rosencreutz made a quiet noise.

Past his outstretched palm, his spell failed to hit Kamijou’s head and tore harmlessly into the air next to it.

Kamijou Touma had not moved. Then why had CRC missed?

He sounded amused.

“Did you rotate the ground itself? The same way an illusionist causes large objects to disappear.”

“You have unexpectedly worldly tastes, Rosencreutz.”

Since she had set this up, she knew she couldn’t remain hidden.

The witch goddess slowly walked over and positioned herself to guard Kamijou Touma.

“Did you think a witch who lives with nature can’t manipulate asphalt? Nonsense. We can manipulate soil and minerals as easily as trees and flowers. Process and harm them as much as you like, a single touch of a witch’s finger is enough for them to respond.”

A 100m circle of the melted asphalt underfoot had rotated.

Just like a grand illusion where an idling passenger plane vanished before an audience’s eyes.

Rosencreutz’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“Did you think this secret talent of yours would continue to serve you?”

“Of course not. It only had to work once,” spat Aradia. “The point wasn’t for your deadly attack to miss Kamijou Touma. ''You didn’t bother checking what the attack did hit, did you''?”

Christian Rosencreutz briefly paused.

It took him less than three seconds to realize something.

“''I see.''”

He looked up.

A tremor ran through the ground like a kaiju stomping across the city.

The towering monster looked like a stadium-sized container supported by a trio of pylon-sized legs.

That was the Tribikos.

Good, Old Mary’s experimental tool was said to contain an entire universe inside and thus carried the possibility of producing anything. That ultimate container could produce nonexistent forms of death and destruction as simple playthings.

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz mimed loosely holding something like a brandy glass.

But his hand remained empty.

“The paternal cross and the maternal flower are a little too convenient, so people have a tendency to rely too much on the red secret art and cease to work at coming up with their own plans.”

His corpse had remained unchanged for 120 years. He had created a perfect miniature world where he could reach any answer by recreating the past, present, and future. That sage among sages had produced the secret art that could heal the entire world.

''Which meant he was exceedingly similar to this experimental tool that had mastered the art of kitchen alchemy.'' The only real difference was that Good, Old Mary kept the miracle sealed inside like it was Pandora’s box while CRC let it out in his strong desire to interfere with the larger world. Alternatively, this would mean Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos was so powerful that she feared what would happen if the red secret art were released from it.

“One rule applies to the entire world,” whispered Good, Old Mary. “''When one person attacks, another takes revenge.'' This rule applies even to that which slumbers in the secret territories. Be destroyed by the divine punishment triggered by your own decision as per the law of action and reaction, CRC.”

===Part 9===

A sticky sound enveloped the world.

What…was it?

Cracks raced across the stadium-like Tribikos and it shattered just before filthy gray bubbles burst from within. But these bubbles did not have the cleansing feel of detergent or soap. These were small, hideous bubbles, reminiscent of human torment and death. They engulfed Rosencreutz like a deluge.

The bubbles lost force and momentum before vanishing altogether.

Were they suppose to be the foam coming from the mouth of someone who had drunk poison, or were they supposed to be fire extinguisher foam?

No one wanted to see what happened if even one of those popping bubbles touched them. What this all meant was a mystery, but doing that had to be as suicidal as a slug fascinated by salt.

“Eeeeek!”

The honey blonde girl paled.

It was written plain on her face that being swallowed up by those bubbles was the very last thing she wanted to do.

And…

“We need to run away,” was Good, Old Mary’s immediate decision.

She was not shortsighted enough to determine her strategy based on a momentary advantage.

“It is miracle enough to have bought 600 seconds against CRC. If you do not escape through the sea I have parted, none of you will survive.”

“Hey, if you could do all this…?” said Kamijou, still in a daze.

“CRC’s world model is more accurate than mine, which creates a discrepancy between the two. I caught him off guard here, but he will break through as soon as he manages to calm down and respond. Then we will be caught by an even greater calamity.”

Something like a sandstorm obstructed the view.

The sand was yellow.

That was the color of defeat. Was time already up? Was the second defense line and District 23 about to be buried in Citrinitas just like District 12 had been? The Transcendents working together could only stop one of Rosencreutz’s attacks, but not repel him?

(If we run from here, are we supposed to go to the third defense line? And if District 18 falls, we’ll be back in District 7, where that hospital is. We can only fall back one more time!!)

Kamijou’s thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the mountain of bubbles even more horrific than the foam spilling from the corner of a human mouth.

Something flashed.

“More of the same? You bore me.”

This was not aimed at Kamijou or the others in front of him.

The massive deadly force flew over their heads like a long throw in baseball.

They felt a tremor below their feet.

“No…way,” muttered Kamijou.

Something had exploded in the distance and that had shaken the asphalt here.

The third defense line, where Mut Thebes waited, had been destroyed in the blink of an eye.

But the immediate threat wasn’t gone either.

“Kh!!”

Misaka Mikoto immediately placed an arcade coin on her thumbnail.

She had to already know the truth.

This was CRC.

''Even a direct hit at thrice the speed of sound wouldn’t kill him. Which was why she didn’t hesitate to ready this attack.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!!”

She screamed to shake free of her own fear.

An explosive boom compressed the air.

Mikoto didn’t bother viewing the result.

“Go now!! Hurry!! Waste this chance and we really can’t get away!!”

The younger girl grabbed Kamijou’s hand and pulled him away.

What was happening over there?

The third defense line in District 18…was gone.

They weren’t even allowed a final chance.

From here, it was a straight shot to District 7. If they couldn’t find some other plan, Rosencreutz would reach the hospital!!

===Part 10===

And so.

No one could stop Christian Rosencreutz’s march across the city.

===Part 11===

The footsteps could not have sounded more normal.

The glass automatic doors were not meant to keep out intruders.

They opened with ridiculous ease.

The machine did not discriminate. It welcomed Christian Rosencreutz inside with no thought to the severity of the situation.

“Now, where did they put the Transcendent who was sent here? Was her name Anna Sprengel?” he said offhand.

Was that the extent of his thoughts about her? Despite being the inheritor of the Rosicrucian cabal he had started, she was not special to him. She was no more than one of the many Transcendents – another life to kill in the game he had defined.

“Hello, you there.”

CRC called out to a nurse.

Even though he could have read the residual thoughts easily enough if he wanted to.

He was clearly enjoying this.

“Is ICU the right term? Regardless, Anna Sprengel, or possibly an unidentified Girl A, should have arrived here. Where should I go to find her?”

“E-eek!”

The young male nurse fell onto his rear, pressed his back against the hallway door, and desperately shook his head in refusal, so he had to be a consummate medical professional.

Christian Rosencreutz viewed him in amusement.

And he slowly held out his palm.

“Heh heh. Believe me, you want as little to do with this old man as possible. Irritate me too much, ''and I might just take an interest in you''.”

“Enough,” said a new voice.

Something sat on the edge of one of the sofas lined up in the waiting room positioned in front of the hospital pharmacy. The translucent figure took a sip of the shiruko can he held in both hands.

That mysterious being had been called a Holy Guardian Angel and an extraterrestrial.

As well as a Secret Chief.

He was known as Aiwass.

“That man has done nothing wrong. If you have business related to the modern Western magic that spans the Rose and the Golden, then stay focused on that, CRC.”

“I truly do not envy you Secret Chiefs. That priestess’s lungs and heart are no longer functioning, but do those machines really prevent you from calling her dead? If she were fully killed, your contract would be null and void and you would be free once more.”

A strange cracking sound came from empty space.

Almost like hard plastic breaking.

“''Is that supposed to be a joke''?”

“The fate of the world exists to fulfill our playfulness and curiosity. A boring world where the jokers cannot joke would only sink into darkness.”

“You claim to have despaired of the world and now choose destruction purely to satisfy your passions without forcing the blame onto anyone else, CRC, but you are surprisingly unobservant. Fortunately, that gives us some hope.”

“?”

“As the Secret Chief who guards the First Temple, it is true only one official priestess can contact me, but that does not mean ''she is the only one with a personal interest in me''.”

A solid footstep sounded.

This was the sound of someone who, unlike Aiwass, had a physical body.

Christian Rosencreutz turned around and smiled.

“Oh?”

He showed great interest. Like he had just found a shred of amusement still remaining in this dreary world.

He saw a beige habit and blonde hair cut to shoulder length.

He saw a magician who had clung to the world of the living after his own death by hijacking a great demon’s body.

Human Aleister Crowley blocked his path.

===Part 12===

Shortly before the clash, the frog-faced doctor noted a mood of mounting tension.

(I take it this person isn’t the type to spare a hospital or a school.)

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He was a doctor.

And the patient lying before him was on the verge of death – in fact, her breathing and pulse would cease without the help of the life support devices. Every last form of modern examination had failed to determine the cause and none of his thick medical texts or the disease research database had turned up a previous example, but he wasn’t sensible enough to give up because of that.

Without a doubt, throwing in the towel was the frog-faced doctor’s least favorite phrase. If someone felt it was acceptable for a medical expert to abandon their patient’s possibilities based on their own emotions or mood, he thought they had no business working in the medical field.

“Now, then.”

None of his test devices could identify the cause.

So he decided to focus on the records of those failures.

“I assume the blood sample tests found nothing?”

“Y-yes. All 5.”

The young technician glanced over at the test tubes sealed with different colors of rubber cap. Finding nothing was not a cause for celebration here. They had a patient on the verge of death. It was like running a malware scan and receiving zero detections despite the computer very obviously behaving strangely.

(Something is clearly wrong, but nothing turns up in the numbers.)

They hadn’t found anything in the blood sealed in the test tubes. Then what was happening inside that small girl(?) and how far had it progressed?

But something else caught his interest as well.

“Hm?”

With a patient in critical condition, there wasn’t time to wipe them down with ethanol to disinfect them. In some cases, they were transferred directly in from the emergency arrivals treatment room where the ambulance dropped them off. That meant an ICU could not be kept as sterile as an operating room. Instead, drum-shaped cleaning robots frequently moved through, keeping the space as clean as possible.

The frog-faced doctor held out a hand to stop one, opened the lid, and checked inside.

He found a long, strawberry blonde hair.

He touched it to find it unusually stiff. Its surface was badly damaged for having recently fallen out, almost like it had been left on the floor for years.

“…”

Nutrients and oxygen were supplied to the hair and the nails.

But as can be seen from the lack of bleeding when cutting your hair, the capillaries were connected to the roots and didn’t continue on through the rest of the hair.

He knew what to focus on now.

He wasn’t one to stop here just because he couldn’t prove anything scientifically.

“Wh-what do we do?”

“Prepare her for dialysis,” calmly instructed the frog-faced doctor.

Bacteria and toxins harmed people through a wide variety of methods. But one common method was to have a nature very similar to a component necessary for human life. For example, carbon monoxide. Its similar structure to oxygen allowed it to bond with the red blood cells, keeping out the oxygen that was meant to be carried through the bloodstream. And because humans needed oxygen, they would eventually collapse.

The cause was invisible and it was similar to a normal bodily function.

The connotations of the word “curse” had distracted them.

The culprit was a lot closer to home. You can think of it like a form of fatal pollen allergy that shows symptoms in response to “something thought of as occult” like a face, a name, hair, or nails.

Then how could it be prevented?

What could they block with a mask? Was there a preventative or a cure? Use whatever terminology you like.

By swapping out the words in his head, his thoughts began to race. No matter how strange it seemed, someone’s life was at risk. So how could he, as a doctor, stop working?

“History tells of someone who ate deadly potassium cyanide but didn’t die.”

“?”

“Rasputin. There are many dubious legends about the man, but the official records say he ate cakes laced with cyanide without dying. A normal person would have a 100% chance of death when it reacted with their gastric acid, so some theorize he survived because his gastric acid was extremely weak.”

That was one example of escaping certain death.

Even when the result appeared to be a miracle or nightmare, the method of cheating death could sometimes be explained scientifically.

What did it matter if this illness could not be scientifically explained?

All he had to do was remove the conditions causing it and science could handle that.

In other words…

“This illness appears to identify an individual based on their blood and attack their bodily tissue. So ''if we artificially replace all of her blood and temporarily change her blood type'', this ‘curse’ disease will lose its target. We will remove its ability to identify her. Got that?”

Many different devices were hurried into the ICU. The frog-faced doctor temporarily stepped out of the ICU to give them space.

He sighed.

Someone was standing there: Aleister Crowley.

They were old friends, so the frog-faced doctor didn’t bother turning around in surprise. He didn’t know how or why that human was here. He simply accepted that that human could do things he couldn’t explain.

With a golden retriever by his side, Aleister asked a simple question.

Everything was packed into so few words.

“What are you going to do?”

“As long as the patient wants to live, I will lend them every skill and resource available to me.”

“How did you ask Anna Sprengel if she wants to live? You can’t converse with her just by reading the pulses of her brain waves.”

“True. But someone risked his life to leave her in my care and bowed to me. I haven’t heard from her herself and it is possible she doesn’t even have the strength left to want anything. But I know that boy will draw it out of her. Maybe she has no more reason to want to live, but I know he will give her a new one. Not a bad possibility to bet on, don’t you think?”

The frog-faced doctor knew Christian Rosencreutz was on his way here. But no matter how many of this city’s secrets he knew, he was still just a doctor. Unlike the monsters of the former dark side, he did not have the power to fight and protect his sanctuary here.

So.

“Are you interested in lending a hand?”

“…”

“You’re just dying to finally use your full strength for someone other than yourself, aren’t you?”

They did not hold a lengthy or grand conversation This was not a sketchy politician’s speech or a TV informercial pressuring you to call by saying the deal only lasted for half an hour after it aired. These two understood each other well enough that theatrical gestures and the like would only get in the way.

Aleister spoke quietly, his head still lowered.

It was possible his question had not actually been directed at the frog-faced doctor in front of him.

“I created this city, but it is no longer mine. Why should I pour all my efforts into Academy City at this point?”

He received a single response.

The frog-faced doctor’s answer was a simple one.

As old friends, he knew exactly what words would stab him deepest.

“How about because it would make ''him'' happy?”

===Part 13===

And so.

Two magicians stood face to face.

After failing to work up the courage to fight or even to run away, the human was finally crossing the start line.

And once he made up his mind, the rest happened quick.

History proved how effective he was at taking action.

“Aleister.”

“Stay back. And don’t let anything that happens here surprise you.”

That was the extent of the human and golden retriever’s conversation.

Space itself vibrated.

Christian Rosencreutz looked to the space around him instead of at Aleister.

Everything looked the same.

“Did you shift the phase?” asked CRC, amused.

“Is that so surprising? Even Mathers and his lot played with the phases. They would use astral projection to spy on other phases or extract power from those other phases and give them temporary mass. …It all created so many unnecessary sparks and innocent people had to pay the price.”

This was already another world.

The golden retriever standing by his side was eternally cut off from him.

Now two magicians this powerful could directly clash without any fear of the hospital collapsing or the working doctors and immobilized patients coming to harm.

“I am the fool who attempted to suppress the creation of sparks by creating a new mythology as ''cushioning'' between the many phases. Unfortunately, it didn’t work because the Christian church wanted to protect their monopoly on the concept of god and sent their billions of followers against me. But since the theory itself was sound, I can at least spirit someone away.”

The stage had been set.

Aleister and Rosencreutz both took a step forward.

Space was compressed and light was distorted.

Christian Rosencreutz held an old lamp made of glass. It contained a collection of energy said to be ''an inextinguishable light''. Releasing only the smallest amount from the glass case transformed the gentle glow into a crimson serpent consuming all the oxygen in the air.

Aleister responded with two simple words.

“''Great demon.''”

“Kee hee hee! Ee hee hee hee hee, hee ha ha ha ha ha hah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The red was twisted and bent.

It crashed into an invisible wall in front of Aleister and melted the concrete wall to the side.

The human did not bat an eye.

The initial clue had come from Kingsford. He knew how to control it.

“Do not rely on your past legends, CRC. Your true colors are showing.”

Rosencreutz sighed and tossed the eternal lamp over his shoulder like a child with a toy he had lost interest in.

Batlike wings flapped behind Aleister’s back and a deadly gale blew through the world.

It swept through every nook and cranny and everything it touched grew black and rotten.

The wind itself was colorless. The floor, walls, and ceiling gradually blackened, peeled away, and pursued Rosencreutz.

At some point, a flask of powder had appeared in CRC’s hand. No, it wasn’t clear if it truly was there. His mimicry of holding it may have been so perfect it created the illusion. Either way, the silver young man popped off the lid with his thumb and scattered the red powder. The legendary Rosicrucian cabal had not been pursuing anything as trivial as eternal life.

“Revolution.”

The world at large really did change.

The black color vanished. The air grew clean and full of negative ions, like deep in the forest. Control of this world repeatedly changed hands, like a tennis rally.

It was a casual thing.

A simple thing.

If this were in the outside world, the entire city would have rotted apart and then been buried in verdant trees.

“I see. You are not fighting on your own – you are boosting yourself by borrowing the power of another. Is that the source of the false confidence allowing you to speak so arrogantly to this old man?”

“''Holy Guardian Angel.''”

“And you have more than one helper. …But don’t you feel ashamed? This does not mean you have conquered anything. You have only hid behind the backs of those stronger than you while you fling rocks at me from safety.”

“What, you didn’t know?”

“?”

“Fine by me. Because that is what gives this conflict meaning.”

After a short pause, Christian Rosencreutz moved his eyes.

To view his own fingertip.

The pointer finger’s nail had split and it was bleeding.

“You claim to only need yourself, but you worked with your seven disciples to build the House of the Holy Spirit and you were placed in that special grave. So in the end, you were a magician who had to pay attention to symbols and colors with their origins in the land.”

Aleister didn’t hesitate to explain this.

Because it wasn’t worth hiding.

“So all I had to do was transport you to another world. You don’t have the land’s support anymore, CRC. You might as well be trying to use your phone’s GPS map on Mars. The rules change outside of the world you’re used to.”

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz nodded. He honestly accepted his opponent’s claim.

But he didn’t stop there.

“But removing some of my functions does nothing at all to boost your strength, does it?”

Something exploded.

Rosencreutz had not moved a step. He only held his palm out. That was enough for something to go wrong inside Aleister’s chest. A rusty flavor rose up his throat, he couldn’t stop himself from coughing up red, and the female feet below the beige habit lifted from the floor.

It happened too fast for human senses and even for great demon and Holy Guardian Angel senses to follow. Aleister bounced several times down the hospital waiting room, knocking over the sofas and making a racket of destructive noises.

CRC looked at the back of his hand and his nail.

“Do you know what I did to you?”

This was not a cheap trick.

The very foundation was different.

Christian Rosencreutz blew boredly on his fingertip.

“Masters of the Rose never use a spell or magic circle as is. They extract whatever form of the mystical they require from the symbols hidden in the scene around them. The Rod of Asclepius, the cross, the Hippocratic Oath – hospitals are a treasure trove of miraculous symbols and elements.”

“I doubt…that’s what you really did.”

‘Heh heh. Because true experts do not talk at length? Why should I follow the rules set forth by that dead girl – Kingsford?”

The air was permeated by a flammability even more frightening than a dust explosion.

But nothing more happened. Aleister lacked the strength to fight back even when someone else was being ridiculed.

Something in the air changed.

The shifted phase had returned to normal. Christian Rosencreutz stood in an ordinary hospital waiting room – in an ordinary space where the swing of an arm would destroy a pillar or wall and kill someone.

Aleister was soaked with blood. He had been thrown across the waiting room, where he crashed through the sofas, rolled along the floor, and ended up seated with his back against a column.

“You fool! Just because you admire Kingsford’s way of life is no reason to let yourself meet the same end as her!”

Hearing Kihara Noukan’s voice told Aleister that his phase shift had been reverted. The human once known as the world’s wickedest man smiled weakly, unable to even get up.

CRC did not bother looking in his direction.

“Is that all the magicians of this era can do?”

But Aleister’s face showed no sign of panic or frustration.

Still collapsed among several broken sofas, the human smiled thinly and spoke.

“Did you forget why you’re here, CRC?”

“?”

After Kingsford, he was the second to place that look on CRC’s face.

Which meant those words were not for his own benefit.

He was leaving everything in the hands of the next challenger.

He had admired that expert and her way of life.

If he really did remind Kihara Noukan of her here, then he was honored.

“You want to kill time? You’re going to slaughter all of the Transcendents as punishment for reviving you into such a boring world?”

So he gave a snort of laughter.

Bloody Aleister’s eyes displayed obvious mockery.

Viewing anything greater than himself with skepticism had always been that human’s most defining trait. Even if it got him branded an eccentric and ostracized by the majority of the world.

And while people called him a lord of devils, he had discovered a truth no one else could understand.

In other words…

“I don’t know if you’re giving a plausible excuse to hide your true intentions or if you’re trying not to think about it yourself, but you’re afraid of the parents who brought you into this world, aren’t you? The Bridge Builders Cabal used a special method to revive you, so it’s entirely possible they could ''rearrange the ceremony’s process and symbols'' to instantly kill you again. You feared having your newfound freedom taken away, so you chose to attack your parents the instant you were reborn. You moved quick so you could catch those Transcendents off guard.”

Magical astral projection existed as a single spell with two processes: one that separated the mind from the body and another that returned the mind to the body. So by rearranging the separation process, one could achieve the return process. Necromancy and doll-based curses worked much the same. Very little magic only worked in one direction. It was much the same as an explosives technician placing as much emphasis on knowing how to cause explosions as on how to safely prevent them.

In an extreme example, the Anglican Church had created a grimoire library as a countermeasure against any and all magicians.

“The means of defeating you already existed. It was there from the beginning.”

“…”

“But you didn’t want to be bound once more, so you started by eliminating that. You wanted to avoid being a world-saving bike courier who had to listen to everything the Transcendents said and save a great multitude of strangers at their behest.”

His surprise attack on Alice Anotherbible, the greatest threat, had successfully killed her and the Bridge Builders Cabal had broken apart without her to hold it together. Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, or any of the others could never gather all of those Transcendents in one place again.

Exactly as CRC had hoped.

Peel away the theatric gestures and meaningless words and that was all he was.

Aleister could state it with such confidence because he always made sure to question the gods and charismatic leaders that the people of the world heaped so much unconditional praise on.

“I was never here to prove myself. My own survival isn’t even part of my win condition. You set the rules yourself, remember? Simply put, ''this is a battle over whether or not we can protect Anna Sprengel''.”

“You mean…?”

The human was calmly approaching the territory of a true expert.

He had approached the very entrance of the stairway available only to magicians that led to being a powerful individual while also respecting others and pouring all your efforts into helping someone else.

The great goddess of wisdom had left this task with him.

So the bloody human smiled and made his point.

“I win as long as the illusion slayer boy arrives in time.”

===Part 14===

And.

Kamijou Touma was frozen with fear.

He had just taken the first step into the front entrance of the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

He found himself in an alternate world of red and black.

He had seen it all before. Everything around him was destroyed, someone he knew lay in a pool of blood, and only Christian Rosencreutz stood tall and unconcerned.

“He expects a lot out of you.”

“…”

“So what will you do? After all your losses, surely you do not think you can win this all on your own. Will you seek the help of your Transcendent companions? Will you stand back and play at being their commander to wear this old man down? Heh heh. This old man has no problem with that. None at all. My goal is to kill all of the Transcendents anyway. If you will send them to the front line – kee hee hee – I will gratefully accept the gift.”

“Don’t listen,” said Aradia, holding out a slender arm to stop Kamijou. “CRC would never say anything that benefits us.”

Kamijou didn’t even have time to glance over at her.

But he could sense the powerful aura of “don’t rise to the bait” radiating from her.

Mut Thebes was out of the fight, possibly dead.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and Good, Old Mary were the only Transcendents here now. If they didn’t make full use of everything they had, there was no winning this. In a way, Imagine Breaker was an even rarer trait than the Transcendents, so they couldn’t afford to have it taken out here.

“Kee hee hee. Ee hee, kee hee hee hee hee.”

He approached.

Christian Rosencreutz approached them from head on.

His fingers stroked through his silver beard.

“What, done already? No new options? No trump cards? No hopes that you will discover a power beyond all your known limits when backed into a corner while guarding someone behind you?”

This was not the action of someone fighting on the same level. It was a simple slaughter with a clear line drawn between predator and prey.

In those extreme circumstances, everything Kamijou had seen flashed before his eyes.

Was there no clue there?

Had he left any stone unturned?

He knew it was no use, but his instinct to never give up kept the gears of his mind fruitlessly turning.

*Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford were dead.

*Anti-Skill and Judgment had accomplished nothing.

*The unmanned tanks with self-destruct drones and the mobile combat vehicles hadn’t stood a chance.

*The massive gunship hadn’t done any real damage.

*Index’s knowledge as a grimoire library and Othinus’s tactics as a Magic God weren’t enough to keep up.

*Academy City’s #3 Railgun and #5 Mental Out hadn’t worked either.

*The tungsten alloy bombing from satellite orbit and the particle accelerator cannon using the Hula Hoop hadn’t stopped him.

*The Transcendents’ biggest attacks, like the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress and Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos, had failed to eliminate him.

*So had Aleister.

Even though it was just this one man.

Even though the monster named Christian Rosencreutz was only marching across the city on his own.

Run away, regroup, try again.

That was the most Kamijou’s group had managed. They had lost all three defense lines and now the battle had moved inside the hospital in District 7. There was no more room to fall back. They were right next to the ICU where Anna Sprengel was clinging to life thanks to all the medical equipment. If the silver young man set foot inside there, it was all over.

But.

Even so.

The boy realized something while viewing this nightmarish result.

Had he really, truly given this his all?

It was true this was on a larger scale than normal.

If he clenched his right fist and rushed onto the storm of bullets and bombs on the battlefield, he wouldn’t be any help and might even get shot in the back by friendly fire. Wielding the power to destroy illusions would do no good here.

However…

(What can I do?)

He pondered that.

Driven to the very edge, Kamijou Touma truly thought about it this time.

Could he really accept this?

Could he step out of CRC’s way and give up on Anna Sprengel because he couldn’t win this? They weren’t doing it because he had bowed his head or because they were only defending themselves. Anna was a villain, but those people had still stood back up because they could believe in her future. Was he going to stand here and watch them be slaughtered because he was out of cards and couldn’t stop CRC?

Kamijou sensed something deep in his chest.

It was his pulse.

He couldn’t do that.

Like hell he could.

So he had to lay the unfair methods out on the table too. He had to look to the options he wasn’t supposed to use. If he hadn’t done that, then he hadn’t really given this his all. He had only been watching. He hadn’t reached out his hand, so he didn’t know what cards were left in his deck. That wasn’t good enough. Kamijou, the one who had wanted to fight all alone for Anna, had strayed the furthest from that goal. He couldn’t let it end that way. No matter what.

(That’s right.)

He had to struggle.

Struggle harder!!

(''There is one more thing.'')

He wanted to save Anna Sprengel. He wanted to prevent innocent people from being killed along with her. The only way of making those things happen was to defeat Christian Rosencreutz here. He knew that. He didn’t see any errors in those premises. But what exactly could he do? What had he himself done up to this point?

He had the power to destroy any and all illusions.

But that was all his power could do.

He could do nothing against a harsh reality. Could he really accept that?

Wasn’t he still holding one option in reserve?

“…”

Kamijou Touma knew that this world was really and truly cruel and that people would die if a bad situation was left unfixed. Alice Anotherbible’s merciless death was proof enough of that.

So many people would die if things continued like this.

Aogami Pierce, who knew nothing of what was happening.

The frog-faced doctor who was working to save the unconscious wicked woman.

Human Aleister who had fought with all his might for nothing in return.

And.

Anna Sprengel who could no longer move her own lungs and heart.

''So.

“Misaka.”

Kamijou grabbed his phone and spoke into it.

Witch Goddess Aradia looked up in sudden realization.

“Stop, Kamijou Touma! You mustn’t do that!!”

“Fire on this GPS signal. Fire through the window to the left of the 1st floor’s front entrance. Do that and we can defeat Rosencreutz!!”

He got exactly what he wanted.

Outside the hospital’s walls, Misaka Mikoto likely had no idea what was going on in there.

But Aradia saw it all.

She saw the beam, heard the boom, felt the shockwave.

It blasted straight through the wall and it struck its intended target.

Everything played out as Kamijou had wanted.

The color red splattered out.

Kamijou Touma’s right arm was torn off at the shoulder and flew through the air.

Christian Rosencreutz raised his palm and turned his gaze toward the arm to obliterate it. A little thing like Imagine Breaker could never fully defend against his attack. In fact, its presence had limited Kamijou’s options.

So.

Kamijou clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

And he used his own willpower to force them back open.

At the same time, something shot from his right shoulder with a dull thud. The translucent mass was very obviously something other than blood. After grasping the concept of up and down, it audibly took shape. It became a great maw lined with ferocious fangs.

“Fine.”

In other words, a dragon.

Kamijou heard a voice from somewhere. It came from inside his own head.

''Another boy spoke clearly.

“I was just about fed up with him myself. No more holding back. If you didn’t do it, I was about to come out on my own!!!”

The boy spoke softly, the whites of his eyes dyed red from burst capillaries.

He sounded like he was casting a curse on someone.

“''I only needed that right hand gone.''”

===Part 15===

He had summoned it himself.

Just once in his life, he chose to cheat.

In that instant, the ordinary high school boy ceased to be a mere Level 0.

===Between the Lines 3===

Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.

“Mistress, can’t we stop for lunch? It’s well past noon… And how do you plan a trip to Germany without including a chance to eat a Hamburg or a Frankfurt!?”

“What do you think we are here to do? And are you planning to tear up a map and eat it? Here, Lilith, your bottle.”

Dion Fortune complained about her empty stomach, but Mina Mathers only gave her an icy look while soothing the baby in the baby carrier.

The black cat witch was here to track down Anna Sprengel’s footprints, but she had known the answer before the investigation even began.

“If you look to the accepted knowledge in modern Western magic, the answer is obvious. Miss Sprengel was a nonexistent magician. At the time of the Golden cabal’s founding, Westcott wanted to give the new cabal greater history and legitimacy, so he invented the fictional magician so he could create the legend of receiving permission from a secret cabal. It was all a one-man show put on through the medium of letters.”

“And when they searched Europe in the usual way, they never could find the First Temple, right?”

“Felkin and others wanted to see the Secret Chiefs so bad they threw money around to wander all across Europe before finally traveling as far as New Zealand.”

“Why do men love endless adventures so much? Not that I like the idea of giving up before even attempting a search and concluding the legendary First Temple doesn’t physically exist and only existed in the hearts of everyone involved in the Golden cabal.”

“It’s just like how it’s far easier to write off paranormal phenomena as neurological or psychological illusions than to try to prove them as something physical. Just goes to show that people have always fallen back on the same excuses when presented with a challenging problem. But at the time, most members thought there was no point in searching out the physical address when they could simply astral project themselves to another phase and receive messages from the Secret Chiefs and their priestess there. Just like thinking remote work is good enough as long as you’re connected with your coworkers by a fiber optic network. All the while, they had no idea who that vague, faceless shadow really was.”

That was their starting point.

And with that in mind…

“Useless student. In that case, ''what is this''?”

“That’s a really good question, mistress.”

There was no building there.

Only stone blocks lined up on the ground in an L-shape. It was a portion of a building’s foundation. The supposedly nonexistent Licht Liebe Leben Temple had left behind physical evidence, just like any historical ruins.

“Mistress, what does this mean? I just want to drink a local beer already. One of those first-rate dark beers the Germans pride themselves in and are legendary for being cheaper than water.”

“We are not here to drink. Aren’t you supposed to be investigating at the British people’s expense?”

“Ehh? Why should you care about British finances?”

“Because Mina Mathers was originally a magician in London, my foolish student.”

The First Temple really did exist.

Or some remnant of it did.

What purpose was hidden behind this contradiction?

“Ugh. The Anna Sprengel in the secret letters was basically ''Westcott talking with his own sockpuppet, right?'' We aren’t going to discover that coroner was parading around Germany in women’s clothing, are we?”

“I honestly think that would be the funniest possible explanation, but I doubt it.”

Mina Mathers crouched down for a closer inspection of the L-shaped foundation.

Testing the carbon isotopes in the materials would provide their accurate age.

Just because they looked old didn’t mean they couldn’t be quite new.

And there were things that only showed up in a very detailed deception.

“Most likely, there was a magician called Anna who specialized in Rosicrucian magic. Anna isn’t exactly a rare name, after all.”

“Bweh? But if she was using a fake name, surely she could have come up with something better than Anna.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Dion Fortune? Or should I say-”

“Cough, cough! How about we stay on topic, mistress? There’s no reason to bring that up!!”

“Violet Firth. It seems like a perfectly cute name to me.”

“Why would you go ahead and say my real name when I made it so obvious I didn’t want you too!?”

The girl who normally went by her super cool screenname was blushing, tearful, and upset. She must not have liked her name for some reason.

But ultimately, this may not have been a rare occurrence in the world of magicians where powerful individuals determined their own value.

If you worried too much what others would think of you and tried to correct yourself to their liking, you would never excel as a magician.

(If you want to go there, my husband was basically unemployed and claimed to be Scottish nobility. He got so obsessed with it he named his own bloodline and invented all sorts of other details to go along with it. He was living proof that if you have the passion, you can continue your teenage cringe well into adulthood.)

“Sigh…”

“Mistress, that was a heavy sigh. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how tiring it is to be the only sensible person around.”

“Mercilessly delivering kitty claw attacks the instant you lose your temper is your idea of ‘sensible’?”

“I do not punch and I do not use the kitchen knives. That puts me well on the side of sensible.”

“I notice you didn’t mention palette knives. You’re always swinging those metal weapons around.”

“What makes you think you can criticize your own teacher, my hopeless student? Some gentle punishment is in order to swiftly correct such an unfortunately mistaken soror.”

“You’re proving my point! How is this ‘gentle’!? Ow, owww!?”

Mina Mathers immediately began some corporal punishment by shoving a metal spatula against Dion Fortune’s navel and rubbing it over her clothes, but the concept of a healthy educational environment was still a work in progress from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

“Hee hee. This is only a wife finally reaching the end of her patience and making an adorable scratching attack with only her wrist. Meow, meow☆”

“Stop trying to pass your violence off as adorable! I was the primary victim and my back looked like a tiger had clawed it! Big cats are not the same as housecats! Your student nearly died!!”

The (according to the teacher) nonsensible student’s testimony was thrown out.

Before scraping off a sample, Mina Mathers made an accurate sketch rather than snapping a photo with her phone. All while she soothed Lilith in the baby carrier.

“But if we don’t know what Anna this Anna is, that means she is not a major magician. And not many people would have listened to what a no-name magician said. Even if this mystery Anna had proper Rosicrucian knowledge, she wouldn’t have had a way to pass it on.”

“That would explain why everyone looked down on her, decided to do things their own way, took shortcuts, and skipped pages in the thick grimoires.”

What happened afterwards went without saying.

What would happen if someone got bored after the first few pages of reading a flight manual more than 8cm thick, shut the book, and climbed into the cockpit? It didn’t take much thought to imagine the tragedy that would unfold.

The Rosicrucian cabal was also known as the unseen university.

All that knowledge was lined up in the way calculated to best foster learning, so you could not just cherry pick which parts interested you. But the hobbyists had grabbed only the most impactful and exciting terms and started using the magic without knowing what the incantations and symbols would actually do. They didn’t want to study, but they did want a degree and an academic history. The desire was understandable, but granting it would not make anyone happy. In some cases, it could even put lives at risk.

She must have despaired.

Both at the ignorant masses who refused to learn things in the proper order and at herself for being too unimportant to guide them properly.

The accuracy of her knowledge was not the issue.

No one trusted in her enough to think what she was saying was accurate.

So they looked down on her, so they failed spectacularly, so they suffered meaningless deaths and mental destruction. Again and again. When none of it would have happened if they had just listened.

And….

“She wanted a name for herself. The problem wasn’t her foolish students. Her own lack of fame had ultimately led to all the deaths and destroyed minds. If she were only someone important, she thought she could correctly guide the students who arrived in search of wisdom.”

“…”

“At the same time in England, Westcott wanted a fictional legend behind the creation of the Golden cabal, so he began his faked exchange of letters. It must have come as a shock to him when he sent a letter to an arbitrary address to help create his fictional persona and then received a real reply from someone claiming to be Anna Sprengel.”

“Yeah, that’d scare you.”

“To say the least. His face would also have been burning with embarrassment.”

In modern times, it would be like the ideal wife he had imagined in his head, or the girl he had created on the character creation screen, suddenly coming to life.

Had he felt fear, or joy? Westcott had not discussed the truth of the letters with anyone until the day he died. Not even with the other Golden magicians.

“Was it automatic writing or sleepwalking? Had another Golden magician peeked at his letter and responded as a joke? Or had the ceremonial act of writing fictional letters so many times ''created'' Miss Sprengel in distant Germany? As a magician and a coroner, he must have come up with several possible explanations.”

“Yeah, it was smart of him not to go to the church to confess or go running to a mental hospital.”

“Confessing involvement in magic to an Anglican priest would never end well and you can guess the quality of 19th century mental healthcare. He was one of the few sensible members of the eccentric Golden cabal. He cared about keeping up appearances. If he had confided with anyone, the talk of magic cabals and writing letters to himself would have made them think the man had never left his teenage fantasies behind.”

That explained why the foundation of the First Temple remained in Nuremberg.

Miss Sprengel was a role Anna had borrowed to put real weight behind her name.

Traveling all the way to Nuremberg and fabricating these ruins would have been a simple enough task to that end. She had created a surprise for any Golden magician who might travel all the way from England to southern Germany to check.

Dion Fortune sounded disgusted by it all.

“So you’re suggesting Anna read through Westcott’s letters and then altered a part of Nuremberg just to match his fictional story? That seems like a lot.”

“She must have wanted to be thorough. Westcott, Mathers, and the others believed in and respected this Miss Sprengel who appeared out of nowhere, but for Anna, the rise of the world’s largest cabal in London ''was no more than advertisement for her'' as a magician said to have played a role in its founding. The end of the 19th century was before World War One, so the center of the world at the time was the UK, not America. London would have been the best possible location for that kind of advertisement.”

However, this puzzle had proved too difficult and the Golden magicians who traveled Europe to meet the Secret Chiefs and their priestess never did find the trick set up in Nuremberg.

“Miss Sprengel was a complete lie,” whispered Mina Mathers. No matter what they found, that remained unchanged. “Even if she was named Anna, she was no more than a half-baked magician who could never hope to defeat Kingsford. But it is true she worried over her problems and poured her heart and soul into preserving and expanding the Rosicrucian cabal. And ultimately, that led to the creation of the Golden cabal in distant England. Most likely, Kingsford recognized Miss Sprengel as a true magician who had accomplished something she could not. No matter how it might have happened.”

Anna Kingsford was real.

Anna Sprengel was also real.

With those two facts established, Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers muttered under her breath.

“Then who exactly is the Christian Rosencreutz both of those legendary women believed in and dedicated themselves to?”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter3

2023-12-20T16:02:15Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 3: Journey – Cut_a_Road_to_Allover_the_Goal.==

===Part 1===

Technically speaking, this was Yomikawa Aiho’s apartment.

But she was currently busy with work, so Yoshikawa Kikyou was looking after the small girl instead. Last Order, who looked to be about 10, was sorting something in her room.

“Cute.”

That was her judgment of a crane game doll.

“Not cute.”

That rejection was passed on a flat, ruler-shaped magnet.

But she still had plenty more to sort. The cat-shaped potholder and the Christmas tree floor lamp would be judged too. Some might have judged it all as junk.

Yoshikawa held a hand to her forehead.

“Can’t you just throw it all out? Listen, mere objects don’t actually have souls. If you hug each and every thing and refuse to throw it away, your room will be full in no time.”

“But this one is so cute! And so is this one! says Misaka as Misaka hugs them.”

Last Order shouted loud and hugged an (empty) water dispenser bottle the size of a daruma doll. She had a very wide range of what she considered cute and they all brought back memories that kept her from throwing them out. Yoshikawa sighed and wondered if it would be easier to just find a cheap storage unit for her.

That was when she heard a smooth artificial voice.

It came from outside the apartment’s front door. It was polite but quite loud.

“Martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Ordinary citizens are asked to remain indoors unless you have an urgent need. Also, this building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible.”

That had to be a drum-shaped cleaning robot and its instructions seemed contradictory.

But Last Order remained seated on the floor and made no move to get up. She didn’t even look in that direction.

“Not cute, says Misaka as Misaka presents a cruel truth.”

Apparently not all round things met her definition of cute.

Then something poked its head out from around the corner of the hallway inside the apartment.

It was a bipedal tanuki.

But instead of the mystical creature found in old folklore, this appeared to be a dance robot’s metal frame placed inside a stuffed animal.

This came as a shock to Last Order.

Yoshikawa vaguely recalled seeing something like this having fun on TV.

“That tanuki is…cute!!”

===Part 2===

From red to black.

The sun set and night fell.

The already chilly winter air had transformed into a wind that seemed to slash at Kamijou and the others’ cheeks. To be blunt, he wanted some way of protecting his ears.

District 23 was a unique district full of airfields and rocket launch sites. To keep the various aircraft safe, the district was usually surrounded by a tall fence and strictly guarded, but it was deserted now.

There was no earsplitting noise. Had the passenger planes been grounded due to the martial law, or for some other reason?

Kamijou could scarcely believe it.

“Did they really set their second defense line here? They thought Christian Rosencreutz would choose to pass through such a dangerous district?”

“That’s what they’re saying on the Anti-Skill radio channel. Do you think that Rosencreutz guy could rewrite those encrypted transmissions?” asked Mikoto while monitoring those transmissions.

But not even she was doing that directly through her head. She was using a radio she had picked up.

It was possible CRC wouldn’t change his route because security was strict here or laxer over there. If he took the shortest route to the District 7 hospital, he would end up crossing through Districts 23 and 18. In the worst case, it was even possible he would actively choose to cross a minefield and step on every mine along the way. Because he enjoyed the loud noises.

“Look over there. There’s light,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Sh! That’s Anti-Skill’s second defense line.”

There were a lot of tanks and armored vehicles there. Kamijou didn’t know much about military stuff, but even he recognized one vehicle type. The mobile combat vehicles resembling 8-wheel armored trucks with a tank gun on top were Predator Octopuses. Just the one had made things so much easier when fleeing with Anna, so seeing a whole line of them here sent a chill down his spine.

In addition to the vehicle headlights, Anti-Skill had gathered up the kind of big outdoor lightning used at construction sites. A maze of barricades had been set up with sandbags piled up in places to construct countless encampments of various sizes. Then there were the heavy machinegun and automatic grenade launcher emplacements set up by driving spikes into the asphalt using the power of pneumatics. Runways were supposed to be delicate areas where a single stray screw or nail could lead to disaster, so gathering all of this was quite something.

No, that had it backwards.

If you ignored the potential financial losses, the wide-open runway may have been the perfect spot for Anti-Skill to use their next-gen weaponry. It at least greatly reduced the risk of a student dorm being hit by a stray shot.

But was that their real reason?

If they were using the possibility of stray shots as an excuse for their helplessness at the first defense line, it meant they still hadn’t accurately judged the threat Rosencreutz presented.

“Oh? Misaka-san?”

“Wait a second. Onee-sama, what are you doing here!?”

“Ugh.” Mikoto uncharacteristically flinched.

She apparently knew some of the Judgment members working here. Kamijou recognized the girl with twintails. He knew her name was Shirai Kuroko. But the older girl in glasses was entirely unknown to him. Something about the super-serious glasses girl with black hair told him she would kill him if he cracked a joke here. She scared him. Her strict aura reminded him a lot of Fukiyose when she was in a bad mood. W-was she always like this? Didn’t it wear her out?

“Onee-sama, District 23 is off limits. What are you doing here?”

“Um, Kuroko? Hear me out before you chew me out. See, I am the #3 Level 5, so I thought I could lend a hand now that Academy City is in trouble.”

“Absolutely not! You don’t have the authority to just decide that! Wandering around an off-limits area is enough to have you taken into custody!! And when have I ever ‘chewed you out’!? Care to explain why you chose that phrasing in particular!?”

“Sigh, and there you go (sob).”

Meanwhile, Kamijou’s eyes were not drawn to the Predator Octopuses so like the one he had recently entrusted his life to. He saw a much more disturbing weapon.

“What…is that?”

It looked like a 70m steel snake, or like an enlarged version of the luggage carrier carts often used at airports. It was made up of 10 armored cars with ground-flattening metal wheels that might as well have been road rollers. They were linked in a long line by giant metal ball joints. Each one looked to be around 7m long, 3m wide, and 2m tall. That meant they were wide and flat, which made it look like a snake lying down on the ground.

Each car was armed with gun turrets on the sides, but these were very different from a tank or warship’s weapons. They looked more like antiair weapons. A self-destruct drone launcher and a Gatling gun rotated as a single set.

“You mean the XHsACV-15 Anaconda?”

Shirai Kuroko sounded more confused than exasperated.

Because…

“The X at the start means they’re sending prototypes out to the field.”

“It is an all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Two-car armored vehicles that can bend in the middle are already made in Finland and Singapore. You could view this as a more extreme version of that concept.”

The glasses Judgment girl held a hand to the temple of her glasses and seemed delighted to provide the explanation.

A prototype.

That would explain the green jungle camouflage that only made more conspicuous here.

That said, what was this city hoping to accomplish building that weird thing?

“Unlike a normal tank or armored truck, I doubt it’s supposed to fight while driving around.” Mikoto analyzed it with a sigh. “Is it more of a mobile barricade that can rush in when there’s a riot and use itself as a thick wall to protect one side of a school from the rioters? See how its turrets are on the sides? That means it’s designed to fight with its side to the enemy, not its front.”

“R-right.”

“But putting them on both sides doubles the cost, so no sensible designer would arrange them like that. A top-mounted turret with 360-degree rotation would be lighter and cheaper. The only reason to do it this way is if the weapons double as special armor to protect itself. So if a shell or missile hits it, it triggers an outward explosion to reduce the force of the enemy projectile trying to punch through the armor. And that’s a lot cheaper with a drone launcher than a big gun. It looks like the actual radar is split between the front and the rear. Unless you accurately shot between the weapons with something like my Railgun, the shot will be diverted at the cost of one of the modular, and thus replaceable, unmanned turrets.”

“Anything is fine as long as we have something defending us,” said the honey blonde girl.

She had a point.

After all, this was District 23. The flat runway gave a clear view out to the horizon in all directions, meaning there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t want CRC firing magic projectiles here. Having those five or ten units surrounding them to create a rough encampment would mean a lot.

Kamijou then listened in the two Judgment girls:

“It’s plenty long, but at only 2m tall, rioters can simply climb over it. But if they added rolls of barbed wire, I’d be afraid of injuring them. Well, those flaws are what make prototypes so cute.”

“Is that so? If they’re going to the trouble of using a computer for the complex calculations needed to sync the engine RPMs, I don’t see why they would bother with a giant snake that can’t even separate. Procuring 10 maneuverable armored vehicles would seem more convenient to me.”

“They must still be working out the kinks to discover its true charm as a product. Besides, don’t you love the sound of the phrase ‘mysterious prototype weapon’? Hee hee.”

“Not really. I don’t understand you biker girls who get all worked up whenever you see a mech that doesn’t even cover you up.”

That conversation hinted at a lot of effort going on behind the scenes, but the thick wall still felt unshakable to Kamijou.

But then another thought occurred to him.

(Can this traditional weaponry really stop Rosencreutz?)

It was a vague, meaningless question.

His thoughts never reached the part where he figured out what else to do.

Because he was interrupted by something floating down from the night sky.

It was colored a hot pink.

Since this was the second time, Kamijou felt more relief than surprise.

“You’re alive, Bologna Succubus!”

“Natch.”

The blonde demon smiled as she spread her large batlike wings. While Kamijou’s honest reaction made her feel a touch bashful.

This time, she managed to land on the runway without running into anyone’s face with her crotch.

What had happened to Aradia and Good, Old Mary? The latter in particular had been knocked out by an attack from Christian Rosencreutz last Kamijou knew.

“Having a Transcendent with you should expand your strategic options. My Cold Mistress spell will probably only work on him once. It swaps out a human’s pleasure with pain no matter how physically tough they are, so it should work on someone ''who only acts out of passion and playfulness''. Still, it won’t work once he comes up with a countermeasure, so when to make use of that limited opportunity is the real key.”

And…

“A-a succubus?”

“Oui. You got a problem with that, mademoiselle middle schooler who still has a lot of growing up to do?”

Someone was trembling a short distance away.

The honey blonde girl ''whose name Kamijou didn’t know'' seemed to take issue with something about this.

Kamijou just wished those two with such nice bodies would avoid glaring at each other from so close together their big boobs were pushed together. Where was a high school boy supposed to look!?

“A sexy young woman with long blonde hair, an amazing figure, and a mysterious sparkle ability in the eyes who specializes in nonphysical attacks? A-am I a joke to her? She just copied everything about me! And you’re telling me she’s gotten to know him behind my back!? That’s as aggressive a move as building a big-name convenience store right next to a privately run shop!!”

“You missed ‘talks weird’ on that list of similarities,” said Mikoto.

“Talks weird?” “Talks weird?”

The blondes joined forces(?) to both glare at Mikoto.

“Anyway, who do you think you are? A young doll like you needs to wait at least a decade before she can call herself ‘sexy’. And historically and traditionally, a succubus is the orthodox choice for sexy, not a middle schooler. Seriously though, I really do recommend you wait ten years so you can truly fulfill that high school boy’s dream of a dorm manager lady.”

“Why am I getting advice from an exhibitionist pervert who walks around outside in her underwear!?”

It sounded like the Bologna Succubus had won the squishy battle.

This must have been quite a shock because the mystery honey blonde girl simply stood in place with tears in her eyes. …And had Kamijou ever told that demon about his dorm manager dream? Kamijou couldn’t remember in enough detail to be sure. He had legitimately died and passed out a few times during his December 31 in Shibuya, so had he mentioned it in his sleep at some point? He wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information, but he really wished she wouldn’t spread it around to other people. Because it was embarrassing!!!

And for some reason, Mikoto looked glum.

She was hanging her head with a look of belated realization.

“(Eh? Do I not even have the honor of participating in that battle? Because of the gap in chest size?)”

“?”

Kamijou got the feeling anything he said would make her want to die, so he opted to leave her be.

Just then, a pale-faced Anti-Skill officer began showing around her tablet without knowing who to ask for further instructions.

“W-we have footage from the drone… He’s coming!! He’s head straight here! Wh-wh-what do we do!?”

“We need to set all our complaints aside. Everyone, to your posts! You don’t want to let him cross this defense line without putting up a fight, do you!?”

The busty glasses Judgment girl clapped her hands and provided instructions. She was so good at it the adults of Anti-Skill were taken aback and simply obeyed. Anti-Skill was generally made up of the muscular gym teachers and guidance counselors, so how did that girl have the upper hand?

He had only been spotted by drone, but if they knew he was close enough to judge that he was headed this way, he couldn’t be that far away.

Christian Rosencreutz was coming.

Kamijou recalled how extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had been.

Nothing was going to just “work out for the best” here.

''If he lost this time, he really would die. As would the other people here. He wouldn’t be able to speak with any of them again.

The battle at the second defense line would soon begin.

===Part 3===

Mut Thebes stood alone in District 18.

The place was completely dark thanks to the martial law.

(This iron sand hand warmer is nice. Nothing can beat the classics.)

That pointy-haired boy had given her the item before they parted.

So now the chilly girl warmed herself with that modern convenience.

Anti-Skill referred to this as the third defense line, but the District 7 hospital where Anna Sprengel slept wasn’t far from here. For that boy, this had to be the last line.

Mut Thebes was a special Transcendent who could absorb people’s and objects’ shadows using her own white shadow and then use them as she saw fit. The next-gen weapons belonged to the science side, but once she absorbed them, she could use them as part of her magic.

And she had discovered a fascinating weapon here.

The 41cm Trebuchet linear artillery.

The cannon replaced the power of explosives with electromagnets, but the shells it launched in a large arc like a long throw in baseball would reach the ozone layer before accurately striking a target 20 thousand meters away. In addition to targeting a single point and piercing deep underground, it could be switched a secondary mode that used the great air friction to intentionally destroy the metal shell in the air above the target, blasting it into plasma that could obliterate an aircraft carrier fleet in the ocean, assuming they were packed in close enough. The result could be thought of as an artificial Tunguska event.

With the main weapon, the spare shells, the targeting unit, the antiair weaponry set up nearby to defend it, and everything else, it took up an entire schoolyard.

One of the Anti-Skill officers working in the schoolyard noticed her and yelled at her.

“You there! Martial law is in effect. Get back to your dorm immediately!”

“?”

“Wh-why do you look so confused?”

She had had a shootout with them just yesterday, but had they not distributed an accurate photo of her? That was the real source of her confusion, but she knew correcting him would only make things worse, so she kept quiet.

The schoolyard artillery looked like it had been set up in a hurry and a lot of Anti-Skill officers were moving all around it, but it didn’t appear to be ready to fire yet. If Rosencreutz wasn’t delayed at the second defense line, he would probably arrive here at the third before they were ready putting it together.

But that changed if Mut Thebes absorbed it.

(Although it will take me some time to absorb such a large shadow.)

She only needed contact the long shadow formed by the bright outdoor lights, so she didn’t even need to cross the fence surrounding the schoolyard.

She waited on the side of the road and thought in silence.

It would take some time to absorb it into her white shadow, but she had nothing to fear once that was done. Because she didn’t actually need to operate the weapon as it was designed to be used. In a recent battle, she had even shined lights on a warship from multiple angles and absorbed each of its shadows to create a giant monster out of them and march across Academy City.

“Hm. Which would mean…”

Mut Thebes nodded silently to herself.

With this, she could fortify the third defense line while also using the long-range artillery to participate in the battle being fought at the second defense line.

“Interesting.”

===Part 4===

Christian Rosencreutz strolled leisurely through District 12.

There were no people or cars here. That made it a strange alternate world.

“Oops.”

He stopped his foot in midair.

Something was pouring all its strength into running across the cold ground just below his shoe.

CRC’s eyes crinkled in a smile at the rat crossing the crosswalk on the deserted street.

Thanks to the martial law, the train station’s ticket gates were all closed. The convenience store and other shops were also deserted. But that wasn’t the small children he saw were interested in.

They were gathered around the capsule toy machines lined up in front of the train station convenience store.

“What are you kids doing?”

“Wah!?”

The way they jumped made it clear the children knew they weren’t supposed to sneak out of their dorms during the martial law. And it was nighttime.

“H-he’s a grownup.”

“But he doesn’t look like Anti-Skill.”

“If this old guy is out here, he’s breaking the rules as much as we are. So it’s fine.”

Fascinating. He hadn’t called himself “this old man” to them, so did they simply consider anyone to be “old” if they had a beard?

He stroked his silver beard.

Based on his observations, these capsule toy machines had you put coins inside to test your luck on what toy you would receive.

(I see. But why do people flock to these systems that give you no guarantee you will get what you want?)

Perhaps because they were morons.

Tears welled up in Rosencreutz’s eyes as he recalled the many forms of human foolishness he had witnessed in his far-from-short history.

He was quick to tears.

The children didn’t seem to care.

“I’m doing it! I’m getting a super rare one today!”

“But is there even a super rare Gekota color plane in here? I can’t tell looking in from the side.”

“I have heard rumors there isn’t a winner inside.”

Large tears spilled from CRC’s eyes.

He was quick to tears!!

“Is this a despicable machine designed to scam young children out of the limited allowance they worked so hard to save up? No, this old man must know the true odds!! How does it really work!? Urah!!”

A loud crash rang out.

The capsule toy machine itself had shattered.

Christian Rosencreutz lined the round capsules up on the hard tile floor.

“One, two, three, four, five…there it is. So there really is a Gekota color plane inside! Hah hah hah. Good, it wasn’t a-”

He paused midsentence.

The small children were nowhere to be found. Every last one.

They must have run away.

He scratched his head and sighed, stroking his silver beard.

If he wanted to, he could have quickly located them and attacked them, but…

“No reason to chase them down, I suppose.”

With that arbitrary decision, he abandoned the search.

He held the super rare Gekota color plane between two fingers.

He knew which route to take now.

“Yes.”

It had always been the shortest route anyway.

He turned toward District 23, which specialized in aerospace.

He casually chose that destination because now he wanted to see a real one.

He did not find a life-size Gekota color plane there.

He did find several bright lights shining out from the darkness. Were they headlights and roadwork lights?

Those Anti-Skill people must have built a second defense line. And as part of that, they must have removed all the passenger planes and tanker trucks packed full of highly flammable fuel.

Christian Rosencreutz squeezed the small toy in his hand and muttered to himself.

“You are in my way.”

===Part 5===

An Anti-Skill officer leaned out from behind cover and shouted with special binoculars in hand.

“Visual confirmation of top-priority target!!”

Thanks to the martial law, the runway was not properly lit. That allowed Anti-Skill and Judgment to take action before Kamijou got a clear view of the figure in question.

A battle broke out at the second defense line.

“Begin!!”

Frist, they launched mortars from the ground. To Kamijou, they seemed like bigger versions of the fireworks available at convenience stores and discount stores. And they were used in much the same way. The projectiles were launched into the sky above, but instead of falling back to the ground, they decelerated above the target’s head and scattered light even brighter than a car’s headlights. These were parachute-equipped flares. Anti-Skill wasn’t showering the enemy with explosives right away – they were first ensuring a clear view.

This allowed Kamijou Touma to see the small figure more than 500m away.

It was Christian Rosencreutz.

That confirmation froze his spine and legs with fear. This was someone who made him wish the veil of darkness had not been swept away.

And the initial flares had a secondary purpose.

Anti-Skill and Judgment were meant to preserve order in the city, so they had a process to follow.

“Warning shot achieved.”

Yes, no matter what the type of projectile, ''they would fire the first shot above the enemy instead of directly at him.

And since the target continued walking and did not put his hands up…

“The suspect is not surrendering! Repeat, the suspect is not surrendering! Conditions for use of force have been met! Open fire!!!”

The heavy machineguns and automatic grenade launchers began to fire, held in place by the metal stakes driven into the asphalt. Needless to say, Anti-Skill was holding nothing back. They fired in the enemy’s general direction while adjusting their aim to hold him in place before taking careful aim with their tank guns and mortars that could not fire quite so rapidly. If this wasn’t Academy City where they were trained to handle espers, they might have known this was the most efficient method, but they would have been hesitant to use it against a human.

Kamijou himself ''felt somehow relieved.

Because he knew Christian Rosencreutz could take this kind of attack.

Although that thinking may have meant he had begun to accept how strong the man was.

With such a dense barrage underway, Kamijou couldn’t rush in with fist clenched. His Imagine Breaker could not block fragments of everyday(?) bullets and shells, so a careless approach would only get him blown away by friendly fire.

Kamijou wasn’t the only one irritated by having to stand around.

“Argh, 500m? I can see him, but I can’t reach him. My Railgun would burn away in the air before it got there!!”

And.

Kamijou heard chuckling laughter coming from among the explosions and shockwaves.

CRC was mocking them.

While on the receiving end of such a concentrated attack.

More sandbags were piled up to reinforce their defenses. This robbed the tanks of their mobility and their guns creaked as if intimidated. Kamijou understood not wanting to die, but now the tanks were no more than 120mm gun emplacements.

Christian Rosencreutz’s face showed only scorn.

“Do you really think that can defeat this old man?”

“They’re risking their lives because they do, halfwit.”

A blonde demon interrupted.

Something else happened at the same time.

The Bologna Succubus’s spell was called Cold Mistress.

It did not produce any bright lights or loud sounds. It apparently replaced the target’s pleasure signals with excruciating pain.

But what did this attack mean for Christian Rosencreutz ''who was only motivated by passion and playfulness?

A tank gun scored a direct hit.

Even CRC’s body had to be made of protein and calcium. He couldn’t stop shells because his body was unusually tough – he activated spells to repel them.

So.

What if he was stopped from activating those defense spells, even for a split second?

The explosive boom erupted a moment later and a cloud of gray dust swelled out.

But Anti-Skill was not foolish enough to celebrate quite yet.

“Not yet!!” shouted an adult holding special binoculars that used electronics to expand their functionality “He’s still in one piece and standing on his own two feet!!”

(Damn monster.)

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

He could only pray CRC had survived but had taken damage. The tank guns and grenade launchers fired again and again, not waiting for the dust to clear. This showed Anti-Skill’s fear that he would attack the instant they stopped firing.

“Kyahhhhh!!”

The honey blonde girl shrieked. Something other than deafening gunshots and sparks had grazed her at high speed. Probably a stray shot or a ricochet.

But Kamijou couldn’t do the obvious thing and duck down behind cover.

He was too worried.

The inability to see what was happening was wearing at his patience,.

He was intensely anxious that all of this was ultimately meaningless.

Ordinarily, they would have the upper hand here, but he was finding it harder and harder to trust that kind of judgment. Christian Rosencreutz was too much of a monster.

They were on the attack, yet they were the ones running out of options. Unable to bear this any longer, Kamijou shouted out loud.

“Is it still not over? Still!?”

“Damn, the target is walking. His shoulders are shaking… Is he laughing? He’s headed here! The dust is clearing! Wahhh!?”

The Anti-Skill officer sweatily peering through the binoculars screamed like he was having a nightmare.

With the “snap!!” of breaking metal, the heavy machinegun providing a dense barrage was suddenly destroyed and stopped moving.

It all happened in an instant.

Rosencreutz rushed in. Once he was inside the defense formation surrounded by the sandbag walls and barricades, their bullet-and-shell-based strategy would cease to function.

But Rosencreutz may have questioned what he found.

He had eliminated their optimal strategy and begun the hunt, but despite the terror on their faces, Anti-Skill and Judgment had not frozen up in fear.

“Everyone down!!” shouted a tough-looking Anti-Skill officer with something in his hand.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what he meant.

So he was slow to react.

The group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles all exploded ''from within''.

Kamijou hadn’t been anywhere near them, but his feet were still lifted from the runway.

And he was knocked backwards.

“Boy…………………!!”

The Bologna Succubus’s voice was too distorted to understand. It was so bad he couldn’t even judge how close she was.

But what had happened to CRC who had moved deep within the group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles?

The 8-wheel Predator Octopus and the rest of the military vehicles were designed to be operated remotely as ground drones. After the first defense line was destroyed so badly, no one thought CRC could be repelled with ordinary firepower. Which led to this strategy: triggering the self-destruct only after he had easily broken through the defense line and entered the defense formation.

They probably hadn’t used your average explosive either.

“Ah…gah?”

Kamijou’s retinas were scorched by a flash of light as white as welding.

Most likely, they had made use of a special reaction using aluminum or iron powder. At more than 3000 degrees, the blast could literally melt steel and it had hit the man at point-blank range.

Shirai Kuroko shouted over the boom while lying down on the runway, protecting her head.

“Did they really have to go this far!?”

“Seems that way. The suspect is still standing. He didn’t even duck!!”

The busty glasses Judgment girl must have had Clairvoyance or a similar power because she was directing her wide eyes toward the dust cloud.

“You’re…kidding.”

Mikoto had also frozen stiff. She may have detected something with her radar produced by reflecting weak microwaves off of things.

But Kamijou didn’t have time to see the truth for himself.

He heard a deafening tearing sound.

The XHsACV-15 Anaconda, the snakelike chain of armored vehicles, had started to move. It looked like the three units were going to run over Rosencreutz, but instead they formed the three sides of an equilateral triangle and came to a rapid stop.

First, they trapped him.

That 70m giant surrounded the same area as a schoolyard.

But it was not just a thick wall. The mobility to deploy as the situation demanded was the Anaconda’s greatest strength.

Down on the ground, an Anti-Skill officer shouted into a radio.

“Fire!!”

The guns on the sides of each unit opened fire on the interior of the giant triangle. Self-destruct drones were launched sharply out and 20mm Gatling guns sprayed bullets. The noise alone was terrifying. The barrage was so dense an ordinary human would have been turned into a bloody mist and splattered across the ground in less than a second.

But only an ordinary human.

And it didn’t end there.

Something fell from heaven to earth like a bolt of lightning. 120mm shells and 20mm Gatling guns were combined to create a manmade divine punishment of lead and powder.

Kamijou had seen this before.

A large transport plane had been converted into a mobile aerial gun platform called a gunship.

It flew in a large circle overhead, raining down a massive number of bullets.

An Anti-Skill officer shouted while crawling slowly along the ground.

“So the HsAC-03 Spotlight got here. 200m around the target point is a fragment warning zone! Fall back! Everyone fall back!”

“A 200m radius? That’s bigger than your average school or stadium. Which means it covers all of us here!” protested the honey blonde girl.

Several explosions erupted in quick succession.

The Anaconda’s wall was meaningless if the metal fragments and pieces of asphalt flew up in the air and poured down on their heads. This might as well have been a volcanic eruption on the surface.

Even with the martial law, they couldn’t have carried out a bombing this large in the more urban part of the city. This all-out firepower was only possible here in District 23 with its vast expanse of runways and not a school or dorm to be found.

Again, it didn’t end there.

Even higher up than the gunship ruling the skies, a star twinkled.

Or so it seemed just before a cylinder of ultra-heavy tungsten alloy dropped straight down from outside the atmosphere. It was 10m long and 80cm in diameter. It had been launched from Academy City’s giant satellite. The heavy metal pillar just barely missed the gunship circling overhead, nearly stalling out the 50m craft with the mass of air it brought with it, and dropped straight toward Christian Rosencreutz.

Sound was compressed.

Even light was trapped, unable to escape, before everything burst outward from a single point.

An artificial comet had struck. If the blast had been unmanaged and free to spread, it might have obliterated District 23 itself. Instead, the special grooves and angular points on the pillar’s side and the angle of its tip gathered the kinetic energy together, sending it piercing straight down into the ground. It easily dug up the experimental nuclear shelter spread out below the asphalt runway.

“!?”

While the vectors were concentrated to an extent, it wasn’t perfect.

The force that did escape was enough to twist and flip the 70m Anaconda all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Kamijou was nearly crushed by it, but it could easily have been worse. Without that wall there, the thick shockwave would have hit him directly and converted him into a clump of meat.

After gathering scrap metal into a giant shield, Mikoto muttered in a somewhat dazed way.

“Could they have dropped that on my head any time they wanted…?”

Rolling on the ground, Kamijou didn’t even have time for questions like that.

His aching head felt like it was going to split open.

But instead of a blow from the outside, it felt more like the pressure inside his skull had risen.

Just watching made him feel like his eardrums were going to burst.

In a subconscious urge to find anything at all to rely on, he ended up grabbing onto the Bologna Succubus who happened to be nearby. He looked a lot like a small child clinging to his mother in fear after a nearby lightning strike.

What did it matter if they weren’t special?

So what if they were all individuals and had no legends to their name?

These people had gathered for no other reason than to protect Academy City and they had demonstrated enough power to bring Kamijou to the ground just from watching.

The strange sticky sensation coming from his right ear scared him, but he managed a trembling voice.

“What happened…to Rosencreutz? After all this, he’s got to at least be limping, right?”

“''No,''” said an icily certain voice. It belonged to the Bologna Succubus as she held the boy close. “Remove your rose-tinted glasses and you’ll see. He can still move.”

His breath caught.

Was Christian Rosencreutz really this powerful? He was entirely unscathed after an attack so ferocious it literally altered the terrain? Then what could a measly right fist do?

Just then, a distorted voice came from an emergency speaker directly installed in the runway rather than a metal pole so it would be out of the way of takeoffs and landings.

Kamijou recognized the voice.

“Outta the way, third-rates. That was only the opening act meant to keep the bastard still for a second.”

===Part 6===

It had originally been a piece of research infrastructure built directly below the wall surrounding Academy City’s perimeter.

The giant facility used a massive amount of magnetism to trap a stream of electrons and protons, send them out at nearly the speed of light, and collide different particles to create a variety of phenomena, including the creation of brand new elements that do not exist in the natural world.

The Hula Hoop.

The world’s largest particle accelerator had just unleashed and launched a tremendously powerful electron beam.

It cut a straight line from District 3 in the north to District 10 in the south.

This was New Board Chairman Accelerator’s true trump card that he had been setting up ever since the Bridge Builders Cabal had suddenly constructed a consulate in District 12 and strutted around the city like they owned the place.

The intended target had been Alice Anotherbible.

This superweapon had been adjusted to kill her in a single shot if that became necessary, but now it had struck Christian Rosencreutz. This one shot was all it had. The circular particle accelerator’s forcibly-linked container-sized capacitors and transformers blew up one after another as the giant devices were fried by the massive energy they had gathered, but the deadly spear still accurately bisected Academy City north to south.

The light swept away the night and all the moisture in the air was vaporized. The heat melted the asphalt pavement back into a liquid and the remaining small abandoned jets exploded one after another. The twisted and flipped Anaconda half vaporized while it was burned apart.

And none of that had been directly hit.

Christian Rosencreutz had been, so how much damage had he taken?

Kamijou choked on the stench of melted asphalt. It took him a while to realize he was curled up on the ground. He must have thought a thick lightning bolt had struck nearby and reflexively moved to protect himself. Similar to a stun grenade blast.

So much preparation had gone into this single attack.

New Board Director Accelerator had remotely operated the city’s cleaning and security robots to search for anyone still in the predicted line of fire. If he found anyone, he had of course guided them to safety. His plans had hit a brief snag when Last Order hadn’t obeyed the robot, but he had solved that by drawing her attention with a tanuki pet robot.

So in this one moment, he had created a singular opportunity when all that energy could cut across Academy City without causing any human damage.

The #1 wasn’t soft enough to let a chance like that go to waste.

The already world-class Hula Hoop was pushed past its power limits to accelerate the electrons to more than 99.99% the speed of light, where they tore through the scenery and rushed toward Rosencreutz.

In a perfectly straight line, the asphalt runway was boiled orange.

Even the elements making up the air must have been rewritten because the beam’s wake was electrified and sparking.

“Ugh,” groaned the honey blonde girl. “I do not want to breathe that in. That air cannot be good for your health ability.”

Kamijou had bigger concerns.

A direct hit barely seemed necessary when just carelessly looking at that could blind you.

At this level, it felt like a scientifically-created form of the occult.

“Damn…it,” said Kamijou, somehow managing to get some air in his lungs and sweating in the midwinter night. “Did that…finally get him?”

The answer did not come from Anti-Skill, Judgment, Mikoto, or the Bologna Succubus.

But he did hear a voice.

“''You mean this old man''?”

Kamijou’s vision fell into darkness.

He regretted asking the question.

===Part 7===

“We were too late,” whispered Witch Goddess Aradia, watching from outside the range of the blinding beam.

“How are they?” asked a breathless voice.

That was Good, Old Mary. As the only person who could, albeit imperfectly, defend against Christian Rosencreutz’s attacks, a battlefield without her may have looked to her like an extra-large helping of suicide.

Her own sacrifice was of secondary importance.

She was a Transcendent who, more than anything, hated ordinary people being harmed by special miracles.

“Joining them blindly would only eliminate what little chance we have left.”

“I know that.” Good, Old Mary forcibly steadied her breathing and continued. “But holding cards in reserve is pointless if the people guarding the second defense line are slaughtered in the meantime. Mama doesn’t even need to use her sacrificial defense. My very presence on the battlefield will force Rosencreutz to be cautious, thus restricting his actions.”

Running away apparently wasn’t even an option as far as she was concerned.

Not that Aradia was one to talk there.

They got to work.

===Part 8===

The result was in.

All that effort had amounted to nothing.

Shirai Kuroko and the glasses girl from Judgment were speechless.

They had destroyed the barricades themselves.

Flat District 23 was the only place in Academy City where the horizon was visible. There was nowhere to hide and thoughtless running would only expose their backs to this nemesis. In real war, retreating from a disadvantageous position was the most difficult thing.

“Oh?”

Christian Rosencreutz made a quiet noise.

Past his outstretched palm, his spell failed to hit Kamijou’s head and tore harmlessly into the air next to it.

Kamijou Touma had not moved. Then why had CRC missed?

He sounded amused.

“Did you rotate the ground itself? The same way an illusionist causes large objects to disappear.”

“You have unexpectedly worldly tastes, Rosencreutz.”

Since she had set this up, she knew she couldn’t remain hidden.

The witch goddess slowly walked over and positioned herself to guard Kamijou Touma.

“Did you think a witch who lives with nature can’t manipulate asphalt? Nonsense. We can manipulate soil and minerals as easily as trees and flowers. Process and harm them as much as you like, a single touch of a witch’s finger is enough for them to respond.”

A 100m circle of the melted asphalt underfoot had rotated.

Just like a grand illusion where an idling passenger plane vanished before an audience’s eyes.

Rosencreutz’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“Did you think this secret talent of yours would continue to serve you?”

“Of course not. It only had to work once,” spat Aradia. “The point wasn’t for your deadly attack to miss Kamijou Touma. ''You didn’t bother checking what the attack did hit, did you''?”

Christian Rosencreutz briefly paused.

It took him less than three seconds to realize something.

“''I see.''”

He looked up.

A tremor ran through the ground like a kaiju stomping across the city.

The towering monster looked like a stadium-sized container supported by a trio of pylon-sized legs.

That was the Tribikos.

Good, Old Mary’s experimental tool was said to contain an entire universe inside and thus carried the possibility of producing anything. That ultimate container could produce nonexistent forms of death and destruction as simple playthings.

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz mimed loosely holding something like a brandy glass.

But his hand remained empty.

“The paternal cross and the maternal flower are a little too convenient, so people have a tendency to rely too much on the red secret art and cease to work at coming up with their own plans.”

His corpse had remained unchanged for 120 years. He had created a perfect miniature world where he could reach any answer by recreating the past, present, and future. That sage among sages had produced the secret art that could heal the entire world.

''Which meant he was exceedingly similar to this experimental tool that had mastered the art of kitchen alchemy.'' The only real difference was that Good, Old Mary kept the miracle sealed inside like it was Pandora’s box while CRC let it out in his strong desire to interfere with the larger world. Alternatively, this would mean Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos was so powerful that she feared what would happen if the red secret art were released from it.

“One rule applies to the entire world,” whispered Good, Old Mary. “''When one person attacks, another takes revenge.'' This rule applies even to that which slumbers in the secret territories. Be destroyed by the divine punishment triggered by your own decision as per the law of action and reaction, CRC.”

===Part 9===

A sticky sound enveloped the world.

What…was it?

Cracks raced across the stadium-like Tribikos and it shattered just before filthy gray bubbles burst from within. But these bubbles did not have the cleansing feel of detergent or soap. These were small, hideous bubbles, reminiscent of human torment and death. They engulfed Rosencreutz like a deluge.

The bubbles lost force and momentum before vanishing altogether.

Were they suppose to be the foam coming from the mouth of someone who had drunk poison, or were they supposed to be fire extinguisher foam?

No one wanted to see what happened if even one of those popping bubbles touched them. What this all meant was a mystery, but doing that had to be as suicidal as a slug fascinated by salt.

“Eeeeek!”

The honey blonde girl paled.

It was written plain on her face that being swallowed up by those bubbles was the very last thing she wanted to do.

And…

“We need to run away,” was Good, Old Mary’s immediate decision.

She was not shortsighted enough to determine her strategy based on a momentary advantage.

“It is miracle enough to have bought 600 seconds against CRC. If you do not escape through the sea I have parted, none of you will survive.”

“Hey, if you could do all this…?” said Kamijou, still in a daze.

“CRC’s world model is more accurate than mine, which creates a discrepancy between the two. I caught him off guard here, but he will break through as soon as he manages to calm down and respond. Then we will be caught by an even greater calamity.”

Something like a sandstorm obstructed the view.

The sand was yellow.

That was the color of defeat. Was time already up? Was the second defense line and District 23 about to be buried in Citrinitas just like District 12 had been? The Transcendents working together could only stop one of Rosencreutz’s attacks, but not repel him?

(If we run from here, are we supposed to go to the third defense line? And if District 18 falls, we’ll be back in District 7, where that hospital is. We can only fall back one more time!!)

Kamijou’s thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the mountain of bubbles even more horrific than the foam spilling from the corner of a human mouth.

Something flashed.

“More of the same? You bore me.”

This was not aimed at Kamijou or the others in front of him.

The massive deadly force flew over their heads like a long throw in baseball.

They felt a tremor below their feet.

“No…way,” muttered Kamijou.

Something had exploded in the distance and that had shaken the asphalt here.

The third defense line, where Mut Thebes waited, had been destroyed in the blink of an eye.

But the immediate threat wasn’t gone either.

“Kh!!”

Misaka Mikoto immediately placed an arcade coin on her thumbnail.

She had to already know the truth.

This was CRC.

''Even a direct hit at thrice the speed of sound wouldn’t kill him. Which was why she didn’t hesitate to ready this attack.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!!”

She screamed to shake free of her own fear.

An explosive boom compressed the air.

Mikoto didn’t bother viewing the result.

“Go now!! Hurry!! Waste this chance and we really can’t get away!!”

The younger girl grabbed Kamijou’s hand and pulled him away.

What was happening over there?

The third defense line in District 18…was gone.

They weren’t even allowed a final chance.

From here, it was a straight shot to District 7. If they couldn’t find some other plan, Rosencreutz would reach the hospital!!

===Part 10===

And so.

No one could stop Christian Rosencreutz’s march across the city.

===Part 11===

The footsteps could not have sounded more normal.

The glass automatic doors were not meant to keep out intruders.

They opened with ridiculous ease.

The machine did not discriminate. It welcomed Christian Rosencreutz inside with no thought to the severity of the situation.

“Now, where did they put the Transcendent who was sent here? Was her name Anna Sprengel?” he said offhand.

Was that the extent of his thoughts about her? Despite being the inheritor of the Rosicrucian cabal he had started, she was not special to him. She was no more than one of the many Transcendents – another life to kill in the game he had defined.

“Hello, you there.”

CRC called out to a nurse.

Even though he could have read the residual thoughts easily enough if he wanted to.

He was clearly enjoying this.

“Is ICU the right term? Regardless, Anna Sprengel, or possibly an unidentified Girl A, should have arrived here. Where should I go to find her?”

“E-eek!”

The young male nurse fell onto his rear, pressed his back against the hallway door, and desperately shook his head in refusal, so he had to be a consummate medical professional.

Christian Rosencreutz viewed him in amusement.

And he slowly held out his palm.

“Heh heh. Believe me, you want as little to do with this old man as possible. Irritate me too much, ''and I might just take an interest in you''.”

“Enough,” said a new voice.

Something sat on the edge of one of the sofas lined up in the waiting room positioned in front of the hospital pharmacy. The translucent figure took a sip of the shiruko can he held in both hands.

That mysterious being had been called a Holy Guardian Angel and an extraterrestrial.

As well as a Secret Chief.

He was known as Aiwass.

“That man has done nothing wrong. If you have business related to the modern Western magic that spans the Rose and the Golden, then stay focused on that, CRC.”

“I truly do not envy you Secret Chiefs. That priestess’s lungs and heart are no longer functioning, but do those machines really prevent you from calling her dead? If she were fully killed, your contract would be null and void and you would be free once more.”

A strange cracking sound came from empty space.

Almost like hard plastic breaking.

“''Is that supposed to be a joke''?”

“The fate of the world exists to fulfill our playfulness and curiosity. A boring world where the jokers cannot joke would only sink into darkness.”

“You claim to have despaired of the world and now choose destruction purely to satisfy your passions without forcing the blame onto anyone else, CRC, but you are surprisingly unobservant. Fortunately, that gives us some hope.”

“?”

“As the Secret Chief who guards the First Temple, it is true only one official priestess can contact me, but that does not mean ''she is the only one with a personal interest in me''.”

A solid footstep sounded.

This was the sound of someone who, unlike Aiwass, had a physical body.

Christian Rosencreutz turned around and smiled.

“Oh?”

He showed great interest. Like he had just found a shred of amusement still remaining in this dreary world.

He saw a beige habit and blonde hair cut to shoulder length.

He saw a magician who had clung to the world of the living after his own death by hijacking a great demon’s body.

Human Aleister Crowley blocked his path.

===Part 12===

Shortly before the clash, the frog-faced doctor noted a mood of mounting tension.

(I take it this person isn’t the type to spare a hospital or a school.)

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He was a doctor.

And the patient lying before him was on the verge of death – in fact, her breathing and pulse would cease without the help of the life support devices. Every last form of modern examination had failed to determine the cause and none of his thick medical texts or the disease research database had turned up a previous example, but he wasn’t sensible enough to give up because of that.

Without a doubt, throwing in the towel was the frog-faced doctor’s least favorite phrase. If someone felt it was acceptable for a medical expert to abandon their patient’s possibilities based on their own emotions or mood, he thought they had no business working in the medical field.

“Now, then.”

None of his test devices could identify the cause.

So he decided to focus on the records of those failures.

“I assume the blood sample tests found nothing?”

“Y-yes. All 5.”

The young technician glanced over at the test tubes sealed with different colors of rubber cap. Finding nothing was not a cause for celebration here. They had a patient on the verge of death. It was like running a malware scan and receiving zero detections despite the computer very obviously behaving strangely.

(Something is clearly wrong, but nothing turns up in the numbers.)

They hadn’t found anything in the blood sealed in the test tubes. Then what was happening inside that small girl(?) and how far had it progressed?

But something else caught his interest as well.

“Hm?”

With a patient in critical condition, there wasn’t time to wipe them down with ethanol to disinfect them. In some cases, they were transferred directly in from the emergency arrivals treatment room where the ambulance dropped them off. That meant an ICU could not be kept as sterile as an operating room. Instead, drum-shaped cleaning robots frequently moved through, keeping the space as clean as possible.

The frog-faced doctor held out a hand to stop one, opened the lid, and checked inside.

He found a long, strawberry blonde hair.

He touched it to find it unusually stiff. Its surface was badly damaged for having recently fallen out, almost like it had been left on the floor for years.

“…”

Nutrients and oxygen were supplied to the hair and the nails.

But as can be seen from the lack of bleeding when cutting your hair, the capillaries were connected to the roots and didn’t continue on through the rest of the hair.

He knew what to focus on now.

He wasn’t one to stop here just because he couldn’t prove anything scientifically.

“Wh-what do we do?”

“Prepare her for dialysis,” calmly instructed the frog-faced doctor.

Bacteria and toxins harmed people through a wide variety of methods. But one common method was to have a nature very similar to a component necessary for human life. For example, carbon monoxide. Its similar structure to oxygen allowed it to bond with the red blood cells, keeping out the oxygen that was meant to be carried through the bloodstream. And because humans needed oxygen, they would eventually collapse.

The cause was invisible and it was similar to a normal bodily function.

The connotations of the word “curse” had distracted them.

The culprit was a lot closer to home. You can think of it like a form of fatal pollen allergy that shows symptoms in response to “something thought of as occult” like a face, a name, hair, or nails.

Then how could it be prevented?

What could they block with a mask? Was there a preventative or a cure? Use whatever terminology you like.

By swapping out the words in his head, his thoughts began to race. No matter how strange it seemed, someone’s life was at risk. So how could he, as a doctor, stop working?

“History tells of someone who ate deadly potassium cyanide but didn’t die.”

“?”

“Rasputin. There are many dubious legends about the man, but the official records say he ate cakes laced with cyanide without dying. A normal person would have a 100% chance of death when it reacted with their gastric acid, so some theorize he survived because his gastric acid was extremely weak.”

That was one example of escaping certain death.

Even when the result appeared to be a miracle or nightmare, the method of cheating death could sometimes be explained scientifically.

What did it matter if this illness could not be scientifically explained?

All he had to do was remove the conditions causing it and science could handle that.

In other words…

“This illness appears to identify an individual based on their blood and attack their bodily tissue. So ''if we artificially replace all of her blood and temporarily change her blood type'', this ‘curse’ disease will lose its target. We will remove its ability to identify her. Got that?”

Many different devices were hurried into the ICU. The frog-faced doctor temporarily stepped out of the ICU to give them space.

He sighed.

Someone was standing there: Aleister Crowley.

They were old friends, so the frog-faced doctor didn’t bother turning around in surprise. He didn’t know how or why that human was here. He simply accepted that that human could do things he couldn’t explain.

With a golden retriever by his side, Aleister asked a simple question.

Everything was packed into so few words.

“What are you going to do?”

“As long as the patient wants to live, I will lend them every skill and resource available to me.”

“How did you ask Anna Sprengel if she wants to live? You can’t converse with her just by reading the pulses of her brain waves.”

“True. But someone risked his life to leave her in my care and bowed to me. I haven’t heard from her herself and it is possible she doesn’t even have the strength left to want anything. But I know that boy will draw it out of her. Maybe she has no more reason to want to live, but I know he will give her a new one. Not a bad possibility to bet on, don’t you think?”

The frog-faced doctor knew Christian Rosencreutz was on his way here. But no matter how many of this city’s secrets he knew, he was still just a doctor. Unlike the monsters of the former dark side, he did not have the power to fight and protect his sanctuary here.

So.

“Are you interested in lending a hand?”

“…”

“You’re just dying to finally use your full strength for someone other than yourself, aren’t you?”

They did not hold a lengthy or grand conversation This was not a sketchy politician’s speech or a TV informercial pressuring you to call by saying the deal only lasted for half an hour after it aired. These two understood each other well enough that theatrical gestures and the like would only get in the way.

Aleister spoke quietly, his head still lowered.

It was possible his question had not actually been directed at the frog-faced doctor in front of him.

“I created this city, but it is no longer mine. Why should I pour all my efforts into Academy City at this point?”

He received a single response.

The frog-faced doctor’s answer was a simple one.

As old friends, he knew exactly what words would stab him deepest.

“How about because it would make ''him'' happy?”

===Part 13===

And so.

Two magicians stood face to face.

After failing to work up the courage to fight or even to run away, the human was finally crossing the start line.

And once he made up his mind, the rest happened quick.

History proved how effective he was at taking action.

“Aleister.”

“Stay back. And don’t let anything that happens here surprise you.”

That was the extent of the human and golden retriever’s conversation.

Space itself vibrated.

Christian Rosencreutz looked to the space around him instead of at Aleister.

Everything looked the same.

“Did you shift the phase?” asked CRC, amused.

“Is that so surprising? Even Mathers and his lot played with the phases. They would use astral projection to spy on other phases or extract power from those other phases and give them temporary mass. …It all created so many unnecessary sparks and innocent people had to pay the price.”

This was already another world.

The golden retriever standing by his side was eternally cut off from him.

Now two magicians this powerful could directly clash without any fear of the hospital collapsing or the working doctors and immobilized patients coming to harm.

“I am the fool who attempted to suppress the creation of sparks by creating a new mythology as ''cushioning'' between the many phases. Unfortunately, it didn’t work because the Christian church wanted to protect their monopoly on the concept of god and sent their billions of followers against me. But since the theory itself was sound, I can at least spirit someone away.”

The stage had been set.

Aleister and Rosencreutz both took a step forward.

Space was compressed and light was distorted.

Christian Rosencreutz held an old lamp made of glass. It contained a collection of energy said to be ''an inextinguishable light''. Releasing only the smallest amount from the glass case transformed the gentle glow into a crimson serpent consuming all the oxygen in the air.

Aleister responded with two simple words.

“''Great demon.''”

“Kee hee hee! Ee hee hee hee hee, hee ha ha ha ha ha hah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The red was twisted and bent.

It crashed into an invisible wall in front of Aleister and melted the concrete wall to the side.

The human did not bat an eye.

The initial clue had come from Kingsford. He knew how to control it.

“Do not rely on your past legends, CRC. Your true colors are showing.”

Rosencreutz sighed and tossed the eternal lamp over his shoulder like a child with a toy he had lost interest in.

Batlike wings flapped behind Aleister’s back and a deadly gale blew through the world.

It swept through every nook and cranny and everything it touched grew black and rotten.

The wind itself was colorless. The floor, walls, and ceiling gradually blackened, peeled away, and pursued Rosencreutz.

At some point, a flask of powder had appeared in CRC’s hand. No, it wasn’t clear if it truly was there. His mimicry of holding it may have been so perfect it created the illusion. Either way, the silver young man popped off the lid with his thumb and scattered the red powder. The legendary Rosicrucian cabal had not been pursuing anything as trivial as eternal life.

“Revolution.”

The world at large really did change.

The black color vanished. The air grew clean and full of negative ions, like deep in the forest. Control of this world repeatedly changed hands, like a tennis rally.

It was a casual thing.

A simple thing.

If this were in the outside world, the entire city would have rotted apart and then been buried in verdant trees.

“I see. You are not fighting on your own – you are boosting yourself by borrowing the power of another. Is that the source of the false confidence allowing you to speak so arrogantly to this old man?”

“''Holy Guardian Angel.''”

“And you have more than one helper. …But don’t you feel ashamed? This does not mean you have conquered anything. You have only hid behind the backs of those stronger than you while you fling rocks at me from safety.”

“What, you didn’t know?”

“?”

“Fine by me. Because that is what gives this conflict meaning.”

After a short pause, Christian Rosencreutz moved his eyes.

To view his own fingertip.

The pointer finger’s nail had split and it was bleeding.

“You claim to only need yourself, but you worked with your seven disciples to build the House of the Holy Spirit and you were placed in that special grave. So in the end, you were a magician who had to pay attention to symbols and colors with their origins in the land.”

Aleister didn’t hesitate to explain this.

Because it wasn’t worth hiding.

“So all I had to do was transport you to another world. You don’t have the land’s support anymore, CRC. You might as well be trying to use your phone’s GPS map on Mars. The rules change outside of the world you’re used to.”

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz nodded. He honestly accepted his opponent’s claim.

But he didn’t stop there.

“But removing some of my functions does nothing at all to boost your strength, does it?”

Something exploded.

Rosencreutz had not moved a step. He only held his palm out. That was enough for something to go wrong inside Aleister’s chest. A rusty flavor rose up his throat, he couldn’t stop himself from coughing up red, and the female feet below the beige habit lifted from the floor.

It happened too fast for human senses and even for great demon and Holy Guardian Angel senses to follow. Aleister bounced several times down the hospital waiting room, knocking over the sofas and making a racket of destructive noises.

CRC looked at the back of his hand and his nail.

“Do you know what I did to you?”

This was not a cheap trick.

The very foundation was different.

Christian Rosencreutz blew boredly on his fingertip.

“Masters of the Rose never use a spell or magic circle as is. They extract whatever form of the mystical they require from the symbols hidden in the scene around them. The Rod of Asclepius, the cross, the Hippocratic Oath – hospitals are a treasure trove of miraculous symbols and elements.”

“I doubt…that’s what you really did.”

‘Heh heh. Because true experts do not talk at length? Why should I follow the rules set forth by that dead girl – Kingsford?”

The air was permeated by a flammability even more frightening than a dust explosion.

But nothing more happened. Aleister lacked the strength to fight back even when someone else was being ridiculed.

Something in the air changed.

The shifted phase had returned to normal. Christian Rosencreutz stood in an ordinary hospital waiting room – in an ordinary space where the swing of an arm would destroy a pillar or wall and kill someone.

Aleister was soaked with blood. He had been thrown across the waiting room, where he crashed through the sofas, rolled along the floor, and ended up seated with his back against a column.

“You fool! Just because you admire Kingsford’s way of life is no reason to let yourself meet the same end as her!”

Hearing Kihara Noukan’s voice told Aleister that his phase shift had been reverted. The human once known as the world’s wickedest man smiled weakly, unable to even get up.

CRC did not bother looking in his direction.

“Is that all the magicians of this era can do?”

But Aleister’s face showed no sign of panic or frustration.

Still collapsed among several broken sofas, the human smiled thinly and spoke.

“Did you forget why you’re here, CRC?”

“?”

After Kingsford, he was the second to place that look on CRC’s face.

Which meant those words were not for his own benefit.

He was leaving everything in the hands of the next challenger.

He had admired that expert and her way of life.

If he really did remind Kihara Noukan of her here, then he was honored.

“You want to kill time? You’re going to slaughter all of the Transcendents as punishment for reviving you into such a boring world?”

So he gave a snort of laughter.

Bloody Aleister’s eyes displayed obvious mockery.

Viewing anything greater than himself with skepticism had always been that human’s most defining trait. Even if it got him branded an eccentric and ostracized by the majority of the world.

And while people called him a lord of devils, he had discovered a truth no one else could understand.

In other words…

“I don’t know if you’re giving a plausible excuse to hide your true intentions or if you’re trying not to think about it yourself, but you’re afraid of the parents who brought you into this world, aren’t you? The Bridge Builders Cabal used a special method to revive you, so it’s entirely possible they could ''rearrange the ceremony’s process and symbols'' to instantly kill you again. You feared having your newfound freedom taken away, so you chose to attack your parents the instant you were reborn. You moved quick so you could catch those Transcendents off guard.”

Magical astral projection existed as a single spell with two processes: one that separated the mind from the body and another that returned the mind to the body. So by rearranging the separation process, one could achieve the return process. Necromancy and doll-based curses worked much the same. Very little magic only worked in one direction. It was much the same as an explosives technician placing as much emphasis on knowing how to cause explosions as on how to safely prevent them.

In an extreme example, the Anglican Church had created a grimoire library as a countermeasure against any and all magicians.

“The means of defeating you already existed. It was there from the beginning.”

“…”

“But you didn’t want to be bound once more, so you started by eliminating that. You wanted to avoid being a world-saving bike courier who had to listen to everything the Transcendents said and save a great multitude of strangers at their behest.”

His surprise attack on Alice Anotherbible, the greatest threat, had successfully killed her and the Bridge Builders Cabal had broken apart without her to hold it together. Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, or any of the others could never gather all of those Transcendents in one place again.

Exactly as CRC had hoped.

Peel away the theatric gestures and meaningless words and that was all he was.

Aleister could state it with such confidence because he always made sure to question the gods and charismatic leaders that the people of the world heaped so much unconditional praise on.

“I was never here to prove myself. My own survival isn’t even part of my win condition. You set the rules yourself, remember? Simply put, ''this is a battle over whether or not we can protect Anna Sprengel''.”

“You mean…?”

The human was calmly approaching the territory of a true expert.

He had approached the very entrance of the stairway available only to magicians that led to being a powerful individual while also respecting others and pouring all your efforts into helping someone else.

The great goddess of wisdom had left this task with him.

So the bloody human smiled and made his point.

“I win as long as the illusion slayer boy arrives in time.”

===Part 14===

And.

Kamijou Touma was frozen with fear.

He had just taken the first step into the front entrance of the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

He found himself in an alternate world of red and black.

He had seen it all before. Everything around him was destroyed, someone he knew lay in a pool of blood, and only Christian Rosencreutz stood tall and unconcerned.

“He expects a lot out of you.”

“…”

“So what will you do? After all your losses, surely you do not think you can win this all on your own. Will you seek the help of your Transcendent companions? Will you stand back and play at being their commander to wear this old man down? Heh heh. This old man has no problem with that. None at all. My goal is to kill all of the Transcendents anyway. If you will send them to the front line – kee hee hee – I will gratefully accept the gift.”

“Don’t listen,” said Aradia, holding out a slender arm to stop Kamijou. “CRC would never say anything that benefits us.”

Kamijou didn’t even have time to glance over at her.

But he could sense the powerful aura of “don’t rise to the bait” radiating from her.

Mut Thebes was out of the fight, possibly dead.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and Good, Old Mary were the only Transcendents here now. If they didn’t make full use of everything they had, there was no winning this. In a way, Imagine Breaker was an even rarer trait than the Transcendents, so they couldn’t afford to have it taken out here.

“Kee hee hee. Ee hee, kee hee hee hee hee.”

He approached.

Christian Rosencreutz approached them from head on.

His fingers stroked through his silver beard.

“What, done already? No new options? No trump cards? No hopes that you will discover a power beyond all your known limits when backed into a corner while guarding someone behind you?”

This was not the action of someone fighting on the same level. It was a simple slaughter with a clear line drawn between predator and prey.

In those extreme circumstances, everything Kamijou had seen flashed before his eyes.

Was there no clue there?

Had he left any stone unturned?

He knew it was no use, but his instinct to never give up kept the gears of his mind fruitlessly turning.

*Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford were dead.

*Anti-Skill and Judgment had accomplished nothing.

*The unmanned tanks with self-destruct drones and the mobile combat vehicles hadn’t stood a chance.

*The massive gunship hadn’t done any real damage.

*Index’s knowledge as a grimoire library and Othinus’s tactics as a Magic God weren’t enough to keep up.

*Academy City’s #3 Railgun and #5 Mental Out hadn’t worked either.

*The tungsten alloy bombing from satellite orbit and the particle accelerator cannon using the Hula Hoop hadn’t stopped him.

*The Transcendents’ biggest attacks, like the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress and Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos, had failed to eliminate him.

*So had Aleister.

Even though it was just this one man.

Even though the monster named Christian Rosencreutz was only marching across the city on his own.

Run away, regroup, try again.

That was the most Kamijou’s group had managed. They had lost all three defense lines and now the battle had moved inside the hospital in District 7. There was no more room to fall back. They were right next to the ICU where Anna Sprengel was clinging to life thanks to all the medical equipment. If the silver young man set foot inside there, it was all over.

But.

Even so.

The boy realized something while viewing this nightmarish result.

Had he really, truly given this his all?

It was true this was on a larger scale than normal.

If he clenched his right fist and rushed onto the storm of bullets and bombs on the battlefield, he wouldn’t be any help and might even get shot in the back by friendly fire. Wielding the power to destroy illusions would do no good here.

However…

(What can I do?)

He pondered that.

Driven to the very edge, Kamijou Touma truly thought about it this time.

Could he really accept this?

Could he step out of CRC’s way and give up on Anna Sprengel because he couldn’t win this? They weren’t doing it because he had bowed his head or because they were only defending themselves. Anna was a villain, but those people had still stood back up because they could believe in her future. Was he going to stand here and watch them be slaughtered because he was out of cards and couldn’t stop CRC?

Kamijou sensed something deep in his chest.

It was his pulse.

He couldn’t do that.

Like hell he could.

So he had to lay the unfair methods out on the table too. He had to look to the options he wasn’t supposed to use. If he hadn’t done that, then he hadn’t really given this his all. He had only been watching. He hadn’t reached out his hand, so he didn’t know what cards were left in his deck. That wasn’t good enough. Kamijou, the one who had wanted to fight all alone for Anna, had strayed the furthest from that goal. He couldn’t let it end that way. No matter what.

(That’s right.)

He had to struggle.

Struggle harder!!

(''There is one more thing.'')

He wanted to save Anna Sprengel. He wanted to prevent innocent people from being killed along with her. The only way of making those things happen was to defeat Christian Rosencreutz here. He knew that. He didn’t see any errors in those premises. But what exactly could he do? What had he himself done up to this point?

He had the power to destroy any and all illusions.

But that was all his power could do.

He could do nothing against a harsh reality. Could he really accept that?

Wasn’t he still holding one option in reserve?

“…”

Kamijou Touma knew that this world was really and truly cruel and that people would die if a bad situation was left unfixed. Alice Anotherbible’s merciless death was proof enough of that.

So many people would die if things continued like this.

Aogami Pierce, who knew nothing of what was happening.

The frog-faced doctor who was working to save the unconscious wicked woman.

Human Aleister who had fought with all his might for nothing in return.

And.

Anna Sprengel who could no longer move her own lungs and heart.

''So.

“Misaka.”

Kamijou grabbed his phone and spoke into it.

Witch Goddess Aradia looked up in sudden realization.

“Stop, Kamijou Touma! You mustn’t do that!!”

“Fire on this GPS signal. Fire through the window to the left of the 1st floor’s front entrance. Do that and we can defeat Rosencreutz!!”

He got exactly what he wanted.

Outside the hospital’s walls, Misaka Mikoto likely had no idea what was going on in there.

But Aradia saw it all.

She saw the beam, heard the boom, felt the shockwave.

It blasted straight through the wall and it struck its intended target.

Everything played out as Kamijou had wanted.

The color red splattered out.

Kamijou Touma’s right arm was torn off at the shoulder and flew through the air.

Christian Rosencreutz raised his palm and turned his gaze toward the arm to obliterate it. A little thing like Imagine Breaker could never fully defend against his attack. In fact, its presence had limited Kamijou’s options.

So.

Kamijou clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

And he used his own willpower to force them back open.

At the same time, something shot from his right shoulder with a dull thud. The translucent mass was very obviously something other than blood. After grasping the concept of up and down, it audibly took shape. It became a great maw lined with ferocious fangs.

“Fine.”

In other words, a dragon.

Kamijou heard a voice from somewhere. It came from inside his own head.

''Another boy spoke clearly.

“I was just about fed up with him myself. No more holding back. If you didn’t do it, I was about to come out on my own!!!”

The boy spoke softly, the whites of his eyes dyed red from burst capillaries.

He sounded like he was casting a curse on someone.

“''I only needed that right hand gone.''”

===Part 15===

He had summoned it himself.

Just once in his life, he chose to cheat.

In that instant, the ordinary high school boy ceased to be a mere Level 0.

===Between the Lines 3===

Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.

“Mistress, can’t we stop for lunch? It’s well past noon… And how do you plan a trip to Germany without including a chance to eat a Hamburg or a Frankfurt!?”

“What do you think we are here to do? And are you planning to tear up a map and eat it? Here, Lilith, your bottle.”

Dion Fortune complained about her empty stomach, but Mina Mathers only gave her an icy look while soothing the baby in the baby carrier.

The black cat witch was here to track down Anna Sprengel’s footprints, but she had known the answer before the investigation even began.

“If you look to the accepted knowledge in modern Western magic, the answer is obvious. Miss Sprengel was a nonexistent magician. At the time of the Golden cabal’s founding, Westcott wanted to give the new cabal greater history and legitimacy, so he invented the fictional magician so he could create the legend of receiving permission from a secret cabal. It was all a one-man show put on through the medium of letters.”

“And when they searched Europe in the usual way, they never could find the First Temple, right?”

“Felkin and others wanted to see the Secret Chiefs so bad they threw money around to wander all across Europe before finally traveling as far as New Zealand.”

“Why do men love endless adventures so much? Not that I like the idea of giving up before even attempting a search and concluding the legendary First Temple doesn’t physically exist and only existed in the hearts of everyone involved in the Golden cabal.”

“It’s just like how it’s far easier to write off paranormal phenomena as neurological or psychological illusions than to try to prove them as something physical. Just goes to show that people have always fallen back on the same excuses when presented with a challenging problem. But at the time, most members thought there was no point in searching out the physical address when they could simply astral project themselves to another phase and receive messages from the Secret Chiefs and their priestess there. Just like thinking remote work is good enough as long as you’re connected with your coworkers by a fiber optic network. All the while, they had no idea who that vague, faceless shadow really was.”

That was their starting point.

And with that in mind…

“Useless student. In that case, ''what is this''?”

“That’s a really good question, mistress.”

There was no building there.

Only stone blocks lined up on the ground in an L-shape. It was a portion of a building’s foundation. The supposedly nonexistent Licht Liebe Leben Temple had left behind physical evidence, just like any historical ruins.

“Mistress, what does this mean? I just want to drink a local beer already. One of those first-rate dark beers the Germans pride themselves in and are legendary for being cheaper than water.”

“We are not here to drink. Aren’t you supposed to be investigating at the British people’s expense?”

“Ehh? Why should you care about British finances?”

“Because Mina Mathers was originally a magician in London, my foolish student.”

The First Temple really did exist.

Or some remnant of it did.

What purpose was hidden behind this contradiction?

“Ugh. The Anna Sprengel in the secret letters was basically ''Westcott talking with his own sockpuppet, right?'' We aren’t going to discover that coroner was parading around Germany in women’s clothing, are we?”

“I honestly think that would be the funniest possible explanation, but I doubt it.”

Mina Mathers crouched down for a closer inspection of the L-shaped foundation.

Testing the carbon isotopes in the materials would provide their accurate age.

Just because they looked old didn’t mean they couldn’t be quite new.

And there were things that only showed up in a very detailed deception.

“Most likely, there was a magician called Anna who specialized in Rosicrucian magic. Anna isn’t exactly a rare name, after all.”

“Bweh? But if she was using a fake name, surely she could have come up with something better than Anna.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Dion Fortune? Or should I say-”

“Cough, cough! How about we stay on topic, mistress? There’s no reason to bring that up!!”

“Violet Firth. It seems like a perfectly cute name to me.”

“Why would you go ahead and say my real name when I made it so obvious I didn’t want you too!?”

The girl who normally went by her super cool screenname was blushing, tearful, and upset. She must not have liked her name for some reason.

But ultimately, this may not have been a rare occurrence in the world of magicians where powerful individuals determined their own value.

If you worried too much what others would think of you and tried to correct yourself to their liking, you would never excel as a magician.

(If you want to go there, my husband was basically unemployed and claimed to be Scottish nobility. He got so obsessed with it he named his own bloodline and invented all sorts of other details to go along with it. He was living proof that if you have the passion, you can continue your teenage cringe well into adulthood.)

“Sigh…”

“Mistress, that was a heavy sigh. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how tiring it is to be the only sensible person around.”

“Mercilessly delivering kitty claw attacks the instant you lose your temper is your idea of ‘sensible’?”

“I do not punch and I do not use the kitchen knives. That puts me well on the side of sensible.”

“I notice you didn’t mention palette knives. You’re always swinging those metal weapons around.”

“What makes you think you can criticize your own teacher, my hopeless student? Some gentle punishment is in order to swiftly correct such an unfortunately mistaken soror.”

“You’re proving my point! How is this ‘gentle’!? Ow, owww!?”

Mina Mathers immediately began some corporal punishment by shoving a metal spatula against Dion Fortune’s navel and rubbing it over her clothes, but the concept of a healthy educational environment was still a work in progress from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

“Hee hee. This is only a wife finally reaching the end of her patience and making an adorable scratching attack with only her wrist. Meow, meow☆”

“Stop trying to pass your violence off as adorable! I was the primary victim and my back looked like a tiger had clawed it! Big cats are not the same as housecats! Your student nearly died!!”

The (according to the teacher) nonsensible student’s testimony was thrown out.

Before scraping off a sample, Mina Mathers made an accurate sketch rather than snapping a photo with her phone. All while she soothed Lilith in the baby carrier.

“But if we don’t know what Anna this Anna is, that means she is not a major magician. And not many people would have listened to what a no-name magician said. Even if this mystery Anna had proper Rosicrucian knowledge, she wouldn’t have had a way to pass it on.”

“That would explain why everyone looked down on her, decided to do things their own way, took shortcuts, and skipped pages in the thick grimoires.”

What happened afterwards went without saying.

What would happen if someone got bored after the first few pages of reading a flight manual more than 8cm thick, shut the book, and climbed into the cockpit? It didn’t take much thought to imagine the tragedy that would unfold.

The Rosicrucian cabal was also known as the unseen university.

All that knowledge was lined up in the way calculated to best foster learning, so you could not just cherry pick which parts interested you. But the hobbyists had grabbed only the most impactful and exciting terms and started using the magic without knowing what the incantations and symbols would actually do. They didn’t want to study, but they did want a degree and an academic history. The desire was understandable, but granting it would not make anyone happy. In some cases, it could even put lives at risk.

She must have despaired.

Both at the ignorant masses who refused to learn things in the proper order and at herself for being too unimportant to guide them properly.

The accuracy of her knowledge was not the issue.

No one trusted in her enough to think what she was saying was accurate.

So they looked down on her, so they failed spectacularly, so they suffered meaningless deaths and mental destruction. Again and again. When none of it would have happened if they had just listened.

And….

“She wanted a name for herself. The problem wasn’t her foolish students. Her own lack of fame had ultimately led to all the deaths and destroyed minds. If she were only someone important, she thought she could correctly guide the students who arrived in search of wisdom.”

“…”

“At the same time in England, Westcott wanted a fictional legend behind the creation of the Golden cabal, so he began his faked exchange of letters. It must have come as a shock to him when he sent a letter to an arbitrary address to help create his fictional persona and then received a real reply from someone claiming to be Anna Sprengel.”

“Yeah, that’d scare you.”

“To say the least. His face would also have been burning with embarrassment.”

In modern times, it would be like the ideal wife he had imagined in his head, or the girl he had created on the character creation screen, suddenly coming to life.

Had he felt fear, or joy? Westcott had not discussed the truth of the letters with anyone until the day he died. Not even with the other Golden magicians.

“Was it automatic writing or sleepwalking? Had another Golden magician peeked at his letter and responded as a joke? Or had the ceremonial act of writing fictional letters so many times ''created'' Miss Sprengel in distant Germany? As a magician and a coroner, he must have come up with several possible explanations.”

“Yeah, it was smart of him not to go to the church to confess or go running to a mental hospital.”

“Confessing involvement in magic to an Anglican priest would never end well and you can guess the quality of 19th century mental healthcare. He was one of the few sensible members of the eccentric Golden cabal. He cared about keeping up appearances. If he had confided with anyone, the talk of magic cabals and writing letters to himself would have made them think the man had never left his teenage fantasies behind.”

That explained why the foundation of the First Temple remained in Nuremberg.

Miss Sprengel was a role Anna had borrowed to put real weight behind her name.

Traveling all the way to Nuremberg and fabricating these ruins would have been a simple enough task to that end. She had created a surprise for any Golden magician who might travel all the way from England to southern Germany to check.

Dion Fortune sounded disgusted by it all.

“So you’re suggesting Anna read through Westcott’s letters and then altered a part of Nuremberg just to match his fictional story? That seems like a lot.”

“She must have wanted to be thorough. Westcott, Mathers, and the others believed in and respected this Miss Sprengel who appeared out of nowhere, but for Anna, the rise of the world’s largest cabal in London ''was no more than advertisement for her'' as a magician said to have played a role in its founding. The end of the 19th century was before World War One, so the center of the world at the time was the UK, not America. London would have been the best possible location for that kind of advertisement.”

However, this puzzle had proved too difficult and the Golden magicians who traveled Europe to meet the Secret Chiefs and their priestess never did find the trick set up in Nuremberg.

“Miss Sprengel was a complete lie,” whispered Mina Mathers. No matter what they found, that remained unchanged. “Even if she was named Anna, she was no more than a half-baked magician who could never hope to defeat Kingsford. But it is true she worried over her problems and poured her heart and soul into preserving and expanding the Rosicrucian cabal. And ultimately, that led to the creation of the Golden cabal in distant England. Most likely, Kingsford recognized Miss Sprengel as a true magician who had accomplished something she could not. No matter how it might have happened.”

Anna Kingsford was real.

Anna Sprengel was also real.

With those two facts established, Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers muttered under her breath.

“Then who exactly is the Christian Rosencreutz both of those legendary women believed in and dedicated themselves to?”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter2

2023-12-20T13:34:27Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 4 */

==Chapter 2: So Much Like Tree Rings – Open_War,1st_Defense_Line.==

===Part 1===

Sunset came early in the winter.

It was 5PM.

The first to notice the oddity in the red-dyed city was Anti-Skill.

The martial law declared across Academy City had yet to be removed. That meant Anti-Skill had established an alert network stricter than normal, so even the smallest oddity was immediately reported back to them.

The oddity was detected at the far eastern side of the city, in the strongly religious (by Academy City’s standards) District 11.

“Hey…what’s that?”

And.

Christian Rosencreutz, the silver-haired monster, wasn’t concerned with any minefields that might be in his path.

If he had somewhere to go, he would walk right on through, stepping on all the mines along the way.

“Ohh, oh, ohh?”

Presently, the silver-haired young man clad in red was focused on a plastic bottle.

Specifically, he was staring at the side where he had peeled away a small sticker.

“Hmm. This promises a gift of magic gems, but how do you claim this generous offer? I do not see any kind of contact information.”

“You there!! Show me your ID or residency permit!! Right now!!”

“Oh, I see. You must hold up one of those cleverphones, or whatever you call them, to read this square code here.”

A wet splat rang out.

Rosencreutz never even looked toward the Anti-Skill officer. He didn’t move a finger, but the shouting officer and his gun went spinning up into the air.

In this case, managing to hold onto his gun worked against him.

Because the bullets sprayed against his will struck the fellow officer standing nearby.

“Byah!!”

“Wahhhhhh!?”

The color red and a rusty scent created a brutal scene, but Christian Rosencreutz still ignored it all. With the sticker in hand, he tossed aside the bottle and folded his other hand’s fingers to count something.

“Acquire an ultra-rare trading card – check. Eat that restaurant’s frozen hamburger steak said to have a ‘new and improved flavor’ – check. Worn a heated napping eye mask – check. Tried that simple homemade mochi kit – check. Drank the new chemical pink flavor of energy drink – check. Oh, you there, could you lend me some fingers? Let’s see, where was I?”

“Ah, gah?”

“Won a stuffed toy poodle in the crane game – check. Tried the recommended shark fin cheese dumpling, hit a homerun in the batting cage – check and check. Scored a perfect 100 at karaoke – hm, that’s a check too. Which leaves…”

“Gghghghaghyghagyghagyhgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Unrestrained cracking noises burst out again and again.

Rosencreutz had not laid a finger on him, but despite his desperate resistance, the Anti-Skill officer’s fingers bent in time with the list. The gun’s grip was crushed by unthinkable force and his index finger pulled the trigger against his will.

“~ ~ ~! Everyone, get down!!”

Something exploded.

Anti-Skill was finally making their counterattack. Snakehead self-destruct drones, which looked like isosceles triangles flying around like a flock of starlings, dropped straight down. Each Snakehead rivalled a shoulder-fired rocket and, when a group of them attacked as sharply as lightning strikes, they had enough firepower to wipe out a group of tanks.

But still Christian Rosencreutz ignored them.

Not a single hair on his head was singed.

“Hm.”

It was the same with him no matter what happened.

He obeyed only his desires when choosing what to do.

Nearly half a day had passed since Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford’s deaths, but he remained in District 12 where he had been reborn.

He had a simple reason for this.

“I’ve tried everything that caught my interest, so maybe I should get moving now.”

CRC’s eyeballs rolled in his head. Everyone present could tell he was focusing on the outside world for the first time.

“''You had better entertain me.''”

Light was compressed.

Sound vanished.

All of a sudden, a 60ton tank was blasted straight up. Anti-Skill had no idea what had happened. Their most well-defended tank had been destroyed in the blink of an eye, so they knew their weaker armored trucks and powered suits wouldn’t stand a chance. The officers wearing military jackets meant to stop bullets and blades would be torn through like paper.

His gaze seemed to pierce right through them.

They knew every spot he turned his attention to would explode.

That wasn’t a logical conclusion.

It was more like a superstition. They were sure that was the rule and anyone who took the rule lightly would be blasted into the air. That was the world they lived in now.

An armored truck was squashed flat, pieces scattering in every direction and knocking over an armored prisoner transport bus being used as a barricade. After taking some kind of destructive damage, an attack helicopter fell toward the Anti-Skill officers fleeing in a panic. There were explosions, screams, and bestial growls.

But Anti-Skill was not broken.

“Surround him!! All units: the current coordinates are designated a max level risk zone, so set up multiple defense lines. This is your top priority!!”

By this point, Anti-Skill viewed the person before them as connected to a wanted criminal. Because they were already aware of another immensely powerful individual who had made fools of them with a supernatural power.

Something tore through the asphalt.

Their tank had been destroyed in an instant, but they weren’t through yet. They had 155mm field artillery, heavy mortars, and even shoulder-fired missiles. The ordinary Anti-Skill officers fired them with teeth gritted.

Orders were given.

“Calculate your line of fire! Keep the danger zone to a minimum!! Fire!!!”

Christian Rosencreutz responded with an exasperated sigh.

“How dull.”

He was hit by explosions from several directions at once.

Moments after massive shells were launched at supersonic speed, most of them was stripped away, focusing all the kinetic energy on the tungsten core. Those special warheads were designed to melt and break a hole through thick composite armor. Each one possessed enough force to punch through and blast apart a flesh-and-bone human, leaving only their collapsing lower body behind.

''But…

“I said you bore me.”

He was unscathed.

That image broke the spirits of everyone watching. The silver young man did not hold back. Explosion after explosion blasted them into the air. The Anti-Skill officers screamed and couldn’t even continue the cycle of dragging their collapsed comrades to safety.

“…”

So.

That young Anti-Skill officer had not been abandoned.

No one around him was capable of moving any longer.

Christian Rosencreutz leisurely strolled through the world of screams, red, and explosive flames.

He stopped when he saw the young officer.

And this was in a world where anywhere that drew his attention would explode.

“Do you want me to stop? But what here could be more entertaining than crushing everyone in my path? If you know of something, I would love to hear about it.”

It all came down to that.

In his world, the mobile game sticker on a drink bottle was just as valuable as a human life.

For a brief moment, the smile vanished from CRC’s face.

“But if you do not, then this is the end for you.”

He slowly held out his hand.

The same hand that had easily blown up a tank and brought down an attack helicopter.

“Ah…ahh.”

There was nothing the Anti-Skill officer could do.

He tried to speak while trembling and unable to move, but…

“Not so fast,” someone else said.

A boy had arrived.

===Part 2===

There may have been one thing that gave Kamijou an advantage. He stood before an exceedingly powerful foe, so focusing on that problem helped distract him from his sorrow. Without that, the shock of losing Alice Anotherbible may have devasted him.

So should he be thankful?

''Hell no.

“…”

The sunset dyed the city red.

Kamijou Touma vs. Christian Rosencreutz.

The collapsed Anti-Skill officers didn’t seem cognizant of the fact that a perfectly ordinary high school boy was confronting that silver monster one-on-one. Their minds had already yielded to the idea that such a thing wasn’t possible.

Kamijou kept his eyes on Rosencreutz but spoke to a nearby Anti-Skill officer.

“You can still move, right? Then drag the others to safety and get out of here. You need to move now if you don’t want to regret this.”

“Oh? And why should this old man just let him do that?”

“Because I won’t give you time to focus on them.”

The Anti-Skill officer got moving despite being weak in the knees. But not to run away – to find some way to get his injured and unmoving colleagues out of danger.

Christian Rosencreutz grinned.

It looked like Kamijou had successfully captured his attention.

“You cannot hold this old man’s attention if all you do is charge at me the same as before.”

“Don’t you worry. That won’t be happening.”

“How exciting☆ Simply killing you would be so ''boring''.”

Hearing that, Kamijou Touma took a step forward.

Faint surprise showed on Christian Rosencreutz’s face.

He may have thought he would always be the one moving in first.

He too approached in amusement.

Now that they were both in motion, there was no stopping them.

Or so Kamijou thought.

“La la la la♪ To all you gentle cat lovers out there, we know you think your cat is cute, but don’t let them create lots of little kittens. Once you have too many to properly care for, it is the cats who will suffer.”

There was a pet shop nearby. It wasn’t actually open thanks to the martial law and the lack of animal cries suggested the employees had taken the animals home with them, but the LCD advertisement screen was still functioning. It may have been set to activate whenever someone walked by.

And a moment after it did…

Tears spilled from Rosencreutz’s eyes.

This was no mistake.

Kamijou watched as the tears joined together to form a line down each cheek and then dripped down from his slender chin like a waterfall.

“Hey, wait, what is with you!?”

“Didn’t you hear? The cats…and the cute kittens. Don’t you feel so sorry for them?”

Kamijou’s eyes opened wide.

Did that man not remember injuring Anti-Skill just a minute ago? How could someone wield that much violence and still feel sorry for some cats!?

He was terrifyingly distractable.

Legendary Magician Christian Rosencreutz sniffled like he had completely forgotten where he was.

''But he hadn’t.

He did not have some grand goal related to the fate of the world or the future of humanity. He had no plan at all. He poured all of his energy into whatever drew his attention at the time.

But his power was immense.

He had enough power to one-shot Alice Anotherbible, yet there was no predicting where he would direct it next.

“The humans must die! Every last one of them!! If they can’t be trusted to keep their promises, the only solution is to go around slaughtering them all. Hwa ha ha! And then all the cats can be happy!!!”

“What the hell is wrong with- shit!?”

Kamijou started to shout back on reflex, but he quickly swung his head to the side.

He felt something wet on his temple: his own blood.

He could guess it was some kind of magic, but he couldn’t analyze it even after being hit by it. If he hadn’t moved at the last second, it would have taken off his head.

Still weeping, Rosencreutz shouted out loud.

He had not reduced his deadly strength.

“Death to all humans!!”

“~ ~ ~! Give a thought to how powerful you are, you dumbass!!!”

Kamijou clenched his right fist, but he couldn’t reach.

They were too far apart.

And his opponent was slightly faster.

With a “crash!!”, something heavy fell behind Rosencreutz.

It was a 2m silver orb.

At first, the sensible part of Kamijou’s brain identified it as a wrecking ball meant to tear down skyscrapers, but it wasn’t. This orb had a round handle just like on a submarine’s watertight doors.

“The Pneuma-less Shell…sniff, sob.”

CRC smiled even as he cried. He was full of emotion.

He moved his feet as if performing dance steps.

But this had nothing to do with magic.

He was simply avoiding the small flowers blooming on the ground.

“Uhh, sob. You may have encountered this when battling a magician who takes after me. It is a Rosicrucian spiritual item, after all. Stones and sharp blades will stab or slash. Plant ropes will strangle or squeeze. Not even this old man can control the random fluctuations that produce the world’s oldest tools related to each cause of death and they will produce the greatest attack based on that origin!”

(Tch!! So is he really at a more advanced level than Anna!?)

Kamijou could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but this was also his chance.

If Anna Sprengel and Christian Rosencreutz were the same sort of magician, then their spells would be similar, even if the scale was different. That meant he only had to remain calm and observe. He already knew this man’s attacks. CRC wasn’t from a completely unknown legend. Kamijou had already defeated Anna who had long ruled over and protected the Rosicrucian cabal, so he might notice some familiar magic in this fight. That would be his greatest opportunity. Rosencreutz had realized this and thus produced the randomized Pneuma-less Shell to prevent Kamijou from predicting what would happen next. That could mean the man was subconsciously afrai-

Kamijou’s optimism was shattered by a dull wrenching sound.

His right shoulder had become a solid mass of agony.

Rosencreutz smiled.

He gave a twisted smile while holding his palm out from a short distance away.

He had indeed summoned the Pneuma-less Shell, but he hadn’t laid a finger on its round handle.

The possibility of recognizing the attack – and the relief that thought brought – had been part of his strategy.

In other words…

(Spoilers aren’t enough to weaken him. He knew I would recognize that and used it against me!?)

“Gahhh!!”

The distance between them was irrelevant. CRC had only needed to hold his palm out toward Kamijou. That was all it took to tear into his right shoulder and produce scorching pain. Kamijou’s legs refused to support him. Unable to fight the force of the blow, his feet left the rubble-strewn ground and he spun through the air.

What was this? He didn’t know, but what was even happening to him!?

A second time.

And a third time the same attack assaulted him.

Since he had failed to resist the first impact, Kamijou let himself to be knocked backwards to try and avoid any further attacks, but it wasn’t enough. CRC corrected his aim for each new attack.

“Hm?”

The onslaught of destruction suddenly stopped.

CRC took a single step to the side.

Kamijou blinked in confusion even as he grimaced from the pain coming more from his bones than his skin.

Why had that man suddenly dodged? It didn’t make sense.

Was it based on some kind of rule? More importantly, was there some way of taking advantage of it?

The only thing on the road there was an old abandoned civilian car. The two round headlights and the plain bumper looked something like a smiling man.

(Really? It was that? It was really nothing more than that!?)

“Oh, how cute. Oops. I do have a bad habit of getting emotionally invested in things like this. I wonder if it was a habit I picked up from using hidden symbolism to interpret secret instructions and messages.”

Kamijou shuddered.

Logic and tactics came second. He really did do everything on a whim.

The next attack would arrive before long.

“Kh.”

Kamijou focused his mind on his right hand.

What was Imagine Breaker good for?

He clenched his teeth and his fist as tight as could be.

“Don’t try to defend, Touma!! Dodge by falling to the right!!”

Hearing a shout, Kamijou immediately swung his right fist.

But to the side, not the front. That shifted his center of gravity just enough to let him roll to the side and out of the way of the deadly attack.

It was a close thing.

He belatedly realized that, if he had relied on Imagine Breaker out of habit, he probably would have failed to fully negate the immense torrent of magic and his arm would have been twisted off at the shoulder or elbow.

And.

He recognized that voice.

“I-Index?”

Index was there with 15cm Othinus on her shoulder.

Kamijou forgot all about his pain and looked up from the ground.

Those two had no reason at all to risk their lives to save a villain like Anna Sprengel. Yet here they were.

No warm light had descended from heaven and no great sea had parted before his eyes.

But what was this if not a miracle?

“Do you think we have time to explain why we’re here or how we got here? Get back on your feet already!”

“Sorry, CRC, but I have too much pride as a god to quake in fear of your legend. I am the Norse war god, so my magic is not built with your rules at the foundation.”

And those two weren’t alone. Kamijou had trouble believing the next person he saw: Misaka Mikoto.

He was speechless.

She may have read the question in his eyes.

Mikoto averted her eyes a bit as she spoke.

“I-I never said I wouldn’t help. I only presented the problem from a different viewpoint. So don’t get all excited about this, idiot.”

Something else drew his attention.

“?”

For some reason, ''a complete stranger'' had shown up too.

Why had that middle school girl with long blonde hair come to this dangerous place?

“Don’t worry about me. Even if I explained my reason ability for risking my life here, you would forget it all soon enough anyway☆”

For some reason, Christian Rosencreutz waited for all of this to play out.

In fact, his eyes were sparkling.

A bad sign.

“Fascinating!!!”

“Watch out, everyone!! That idiot is about to attack!!”

They all scattered.

Whatever happened, the air in a straight line out from CRC rapidly heated and scorched. A pedestrian bridge far behind them was sliced apart and soared through the sky.

Apparently he wasn’t guaranteed a hit whenever he held out his palm.

Gathering his attention was far too dangerous.

That alone could mean death.

Even if the silver young man himself didn’t intend for it.

After all, not even Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker could fully negate CRC’s magic. Defense was out of the question. Evasion was the only option. If your legs froze up in fear of the approaching deadly attack, you would be instantly consumed.

And it wasn’t just dumb luck that there were no victims from Kamijou’s group.

Kamijou had experienced too much misfortune to believe in that.

There had to be a real reason they had been saved.

“TBSR – TCKU (Thy body shifts right – thou cannot keep up)!!”

“Oh?”

Index had folded her hands and raised her voice in what sounded like a song, but it wasn’t.

That was Spell Intercept.

By analyzing the structure of the enemy magician’s spell and randomly rearranging the incantation or symbols into something extremely similar but with an entirely different meaning, Index could throw off the enemy’s focus.

She had only diverted his aim by the smallest amount this time.

But when she really worked at it, she could cause the magic to malfunction or even harm the enemy magician.

“Kee hee hee. Oh, how delightful! Such fun!! Is this what modern magic is like? It is missing a lot, but I see you have made a number of changes to make up for that. You could even call it a brand new genre of original recipes. This type of creativity is far more interesting than Kingsford who continued to use the musty old secret arts!!”

Christian Rosencreutz was probably being entirely honest.

But Index still clenched her teeth.

He was saying she had insufficient data and that all her knowledge was a distorted version of the original. She had dedicated her life to memorizing more than 103,000 grimoires, so his words were a humiliating insult to her.

He might as well have tried the finest dish of a chef who had worked his ass of training in French cuisine and then scoffed, calling it an amusing Japanese twist on the dish.

That man had to be well versed in ways to make people suffer.

And he used them for no more than his own amusement.

But reality could not keep up.

“Gh!?” groaned Mikoto.

She had magnetically pulled over an electric car as a shield, but now it exploded. The whitish explosion of the giant lithium-ion battery slammed into her, throwing her backwards.

Index’s instructions weren’t enough to avoid this.

Her Spell Intercept wasn’t enough to throw off Rosencreutz’s aim!?

“Hm? Weird. This doesn’t match my grimoires!?”

“Kee hee hee. Of course it doesn’t.”

CRC cackled gleefully.

He looked like he was resisting the urge to hold his sides.

“Does flipping through a recipe book make you a chef? You are a library, a collection of book knowledge, while this old man is steeped from head to toe in real knowledge and skill. We may be drawing on the same wisdom, but there is a vast gulf between what we can actually use. Hee hee ha ha ha. Did you think your lines of text on paper could outdo what this old man truly performs!?”

“''Shokuhou''!!!”

Collapsed on the ground, Misaka Mikoto called a name that had a terribly familiar ring to it.

The honey blonde girl immediately pulled a TV remote from her handbag. But then she froze. Not even her widened eyes blinked.

Something inside her had suddenly broken.

“What? No…way.”

“''Did you really think that child’s play would work on this old man''?”

He didn’t provide any further explanation.

But everyone could tell that was an absolute truth that brooked no objection. The result was plain to see. The #5’s power did not work on him and that was all that mattered.

With their attack stopped, it was Rosencreutz’s turn.

The negative trend would not stop.

“Kh!!”

Kamijou stepped out in front of the girls and held out his right hand.

But a chill ran down his spine.

Hadn’t he done this exact thing after Alice Anotherbible died and his mind went blank? Index had used the full knowledge of all her grimoires and told him not to use Imagine Breaker here. It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – she had concluded that method wouldn’t work here.

Christian Rosencreutz slowly held his palm out toward Kamijou.

“Ahhhh!!” roared dusty Misaka Mikoto.

She must have harnessed a great magnetic force because the highway overpass crossing the road collapsed and a skyscraper on either side collapsed to block the road. An artificial gale blew through. How many people would have died if everyone hadn’t been evacuated from the area by the martial law?

But Kamijou didn’t even consider that question.

The world quaked. A single attack caused the towering pile of rubble to crumble away. Hearing the cacophony was enough to know it would soon no longer function as a barrier.

The original rule stood before him.

''Evasion was the only option.

''It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – he must not think of trying defense this time.

A pair of eyes shined bright beyond the collapsing pile.

''He'' was smiling with amusement.

“Is that all you can do? You gather all your strength and it buys you a measly 10 seconds?”

“!!??”

Terror squeezed at Kamijou’s stomach.

Before they could try anything else, that abnormal joy pinned Kamijou and the girls’ feet to the ground.

Rosencreutz’s approach could not be stopped.

He was coming to them!?

“Heh heh. No, no. Surely you can do more than that. You bothered to stand in this old man’s path, so you had better entertain me a while longer!!!”

===Part 3===

When Christian Rosencreutz shouted, the color white filled the world.

===Part 4===

For a moment, Kamijou’s memories refused to link together.

Like film cut apart with scissors that wouldn’t fit together again.

Had CRC’s great attack influenced him mentally as well as physically?

''No.

“Gh,” Kamijou groaned, a dull ache in his temples. Yes, this reminded him of the pain felt when looking at the sun for too long.

In other words…

(A powerful flash of light? Did Misaka produce some powerful sparks to try and dazzle Rosencreutz’s eyes?)

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

This move didn’t violate that rule. And since Kamijou wasn’t dead, it must have been effective in this battle against Rosencreutz. But now that Rosencreutz had seen it, Kamijou seriously doubted it would work a second time.

He didn’t see Index, Mikoto, or the others.

He felt a strange weight in his clothing. He looked down the neck of his shirt to see a metal plate larger than his hand. Had Mikoto used that to magnetically fling him as far away as she could?

He hadn’t had time to do anything on his own.

That was fine.

Feeling fear wasn’t a bad thing. Because the fear motivated him to observe as much as he could, think through it all on a deeper level, and find an opportunity. True defeat was only found if he stopped analyzing that fear and let the trembling take over.

“But where am I?”

Still curled up in a ball, Kamijou slowly turned his head.

Had this originally been a trendy laundromat that doubled as a café? He must have subconsciously hidden himself behind the collapsed building.

He didn’t know his exact location.

But it seemed like Rosencreutz had lost track of him.

That didn’t mean he could relax, however.

With no one left to stop him, that man would resume his march toward the District 7 hospital. That endangered Anna Sprengel and the hospital staff who were working so hard to save her even though they knew she was a villain.

Kamijou couldn’t place that burden on their shoulders.

This was his selfish desire. He should carry the burden and the risk. He clenched his teeth, placed a hand on the wall, and slowly stood up.

He could still do this.

(Where are Index, Mikoto, and the rest? I just hope Rosencreutz didn’t go after them.)

Just then…

“Hey. I can’t help but notice you’re risking your life by repeatedly throwing yourself against an unrivaled monster, so I’m here to help out, laddie.”

He heard an oddly relaxed female voice. And it came from the open sky overhead.

And a moment later…

“Oops, botched my landing.”

“Bwahh!?”

Kamijou went blind. It took him several seconds to realize the Transcendent Bologna Succubus had descended from the sky above with her batlike wings and then caught his face between her two thighs and something else. I’d rather not explain what exactly that something else is. Simply put, it was like a backward and upside-down piggyback ride. Using the alphabet, it was something like an S.

“Bwbhbh, get, bhbhj, off of, bhehb, me!?”

“Nhh… Don’t breathe on me there, you jackaninny.”

“Agh, I said get off!!”

While the succubus was being extremely succubus-like, more sets of footsteps approached. After somehow extricating himself from the crotch trap(!?), Kamijou observed the new arrivals with his recovered vision.

“Is it in a demon’s nature to act so inappropriately? Or was the boy responsible for this one?”

“I think they’re having fun.”

Good, Old Mary and Mut Thebes were here.

So was Witch Goddess Aradia.

“Did you call them here?”

“Those of us with nowhere to go gathered together on our own,” simply stated Aradia, not looking him in the eye.

But these Transcendents were not like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Sprengel. They did not act on a whim. They would mechanically list out their salvation conditions and only save whoever met them. Since they were all acting together, these survivors must have been working toward a single goal, which would have required untangling the many threads and solving a challenging puzzle.

For example, there was Mut Thebes.

It seemed like a fundamental contradiction for that punishment expert to be fighting for Anna Sprengel. She was the very person who had chased Anna down before.

Although Mut Thebes herself only quizzically tilted her head.

“My Shrink Drink attack on Anna Sprengel is complete.”

“Kh.”

Those words seemed to tear sharply into Kamijou Touma’s heart.

They stated a fact that could never be overturned.

But she wasn’t done there.

“''Which means my task as a punishment expert has concluded.'' Whatever happens to her now is none of my concern – even if she does find a way to live happily ever after. She is no threat to the Bridge Builders Cabal with her cardiopulmonary function ceased and I doubt she can leak information as H. T. Trismegistus and the others feared she might. I use punishment to protect the group I have chosen for myself. And at the moment, the much greater and more direct threat to the cabal is Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Y-you mean you’ll help us for now?”

“No? You do not fit my salvation conditions.”

So whose side was Mut Thebes really on?

But Kamijou truly felt he would be spared her deadly blade no matter how many times he failed to meet her mechanical search conditions.

However, that it was impossible to know where all that power would be directed was frightening in a different way from a capricious beast that simply obeyed its instincts. There was no chance of escaping her interest by playing dead or taming her so she wouldn’t attack. If anything, she was even more inhuman – like a drone weapon. He felt like he was being followed around by a faint chill that carried great power but could kill based on a ''sensor error'' no matter what her personal feelings might be.

In this case, a neutral stance was someone who might shoot you in the back at any time.

Mut Thebes-chan had effectively come running to his aid, but she still scared him.

However, she ''hadn’t malfunctioned yet'', so she only looked confused.

Mut Thebes was the Transcendents’ punishment expert.

They probably had the least in common and convincing her would be challenging, but there wasn’t time for Kamijou to let that scare him into being more withdrawn.

Rosencreutz wanted to slaughter all of the Transcendents.

And only as a way of entertaining himself because he was bored.

If Kamijou failed to tell that girl some critical information, he would be responsible if she lost her life as a result. So as scared and nervous as he was, they had to work together and share their information for now.

“A-are you aware Christian Rosencreutz is wandering around somewhere nearby?”

“More or less.”

“He isn’t someone you can beat in a normal fight. But that’s your specialty as Transcendents, right? Mut Thebes, having you here is especially important. I want you to immediately fall back to District 18. You at least need to head to the second…no, the third defense line.”

Kamijou was beginning to sound like a weather forecaster during a typhoon.

“His shortest route will take him through Districts 12, 23, 18, and 7. Even if he does go through Districts 12, 6, 5, and 7 instead, you can still blast him from District 18. Your Dead Phoenix lets you absorb the shadows of people and things, converting them into your own power, so you have a lot more options than the rest of us. It would be better for you to fire on him from a safe distance than to attempt a close-range battle with that monster!!”

Mut Thebes displayed no malice.

Her head tilt came from pure confusion.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you’re the strongest here when it comes to pure firepower. Dead Phoenix lets you absorb any shadow and make its power your own, so you can use all the next-gen weaponry you want. That’s perfect for being in Academy City. You’re the only one I can rely on here!!”

She froze in place for a moment.

After blinking twice she puffed out her flat chest.

And for some reason, she looked not to Kamijou in front of her but to the Transcendents to her side.

“Heh heh. I’m the strongest. I shine the brightest. Heh heh heh♪”

“Hmph☆” “Hmph☆” “Hmph☆”

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and even the usually composed Good, Old Mary reacted. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why the opinion of a high schooler like him would matter. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, did they have some kind of strength ranking within their cabal? They seemed to have a rivalry in the same vein as Yarou web novels or VRTubers.

Mut Thebes-chan’s eyes were as emotionless as ever, but she couldn’t keep the grin off of her lips.

“If you want me to deliver an effective blow to CRC, then I’m willing to help. My current salvation conditions are to protect the Bridge Builders Cabal as a separate entity from the rest of the world. If CRC is after the Transcendents, then defeating him would be the fastest way to accomplish my goal.”

“Huh? Hold on. Are you saying I bowed down for no reason?”

“If you don’t ask me properly, I will launch my own attack.”

Kamijou Touma went past 45 degrees and bowed to a full 90 degrees. The salaryman spirit carried by his Japanese blood had suddenly awoken within him.

Mut Thebes put her hands on her slender hips and gave a satisfied snort from her little nose.

“I will fall back to the third defense line, but absorbing a large weapon will take time. And if it is unwieldy enough, it would be more efficient for me to act as a stationary turret rather than try to lug it around.”

“And?”

Kamijou had to admit he didn’t want her to be stompnig along with something hundreds of meters tall like she had before. She would become the real threat to the city then.

“The question is what I do about targeting. Either I will need to absorb a targeting device capable of tracking CRC, or you will have to instruct me from the front line while you- brr, it’s freezing.”

She gave up before finishing her thought.

And she started tugging at him. He looked down to see what that was about and saw her wrap herself in his coat to warm herself.

The Bologna Succubus’s eyes widened at this display of even more brazenness than an ill-behaved high school girl unplugging the electric display in front of a convenience store to charge her phone.

“What’s this, are you his girlfriend now? I’m a lewd succubus and even I resisted the urge to steal his coat!”

But if the Japanese winter was too cold for Mut Thebes, why had she skipped right past a bikini (difficulty level: normal) and worn that even more revealing costume (difficulty level: hara-kiri crazy nightmare)? Since Magic God Nephthys had walked around outside in nothing but bandages, did ancient Egyptians have something against wearing sufficient clothing?

Mut Thebes had nerves of steel.

The cold girl was entirely unbothered by sharing someone else’s coat without asking.

“I do not dress this way because I enjoy it. I can only activate my spell by casting my own shadow on the ground, so this is merely the logical choice. Do not confuse me with those exhibitionists who have chosen to take off most of their clothing in this frigid January weather for no good reason.”

“Mama would prefer if you did not place her in the same category as the witch goddess and the horny demon. Mama dresses perfectly normally. She has never stooped to cheap exhibitionism or sex appeal.”

“Huh? How can you say that when we all bathed together back at the consulate?”

Sparking tension grew between the Transcendents.

From multiple directions.

“She pretends to be the only one who knows how to behave, but I bet she’s wearing some really sexy underwear below that chaste long skirt! Keeping that composed look when she’s secretly wearing the naughtiest panties you’ve ever seen makes her way more of a pervert than us!!”

“Stop it with the baseless speculation. Mama is nothing like you superhuman perverts; she is just as pure and adorable as she looks.”

“If you take a gander at everything from my one-piece corset to the leather outfit of Alice’s punishment mode, it doesn’t take long to notice what all us Transcendent women have in common.”

“Oh? And have you ever seen below mama’s skirt? You have not, so your words are powerless. Accusations made without solid evidence can only lead to the false accusations you despise.”

“Gh!?” The Bologna Succubus flinched back for once.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance, worried this group was going to tear itself apart before they even fought CRC.

“I never said I would save Anna. The accusations against her aren’t false. She is the villain everyone says she is,” said the Bologna Succubus, with the bluntness of a Transcendent. She laid out her conditions with frightening precision. “But if we focus on Christian Rosencreutz’s attempt to kill all the Transcendents, ''then I have no issue with helping.'' …It turns out he isn’t going to save the world. If nothing is done, it’s obvious he will destroy the entire world along with all of our salvation conditions. So I’m willing to give my all to this fight.”

Salvation conditions.

It worried Kamijou that she still hadn’t removed that self-imposed constraint, but he needed as many allies as he could get right now.

She would give her all to fight for those weaker than her.

If that was all it was, she may have been a greater example of justice than the puny boy.

Then Kamijou’s attention turned toward another Transcendent: Good, Old Mary.

It happened suddenly.

“What about Alice? Can you-”

He left the question unfinished, realizing too late that it was a meaningless question.

She silently shook her head.

Her big hat wobbled sadly.

Not even Good, Old Mary could save Anna from the Shrink Drink’s effects. Because a mere Transcendent could not resist even a fragment of Alice Anotherbible’s power.

He doubted she would be able to interfere with Alice herself so easily, especially to overturn the girl’s death.

Was there any crueler irony than her own great strength preventing her from being saved?

“I see,” said Kamijou Touma.

He had already known it, but having it stated by someone else was like a knife to the heart. Good, Old Mary’s resurrection could revert the dead to the exact moment of their death, providing a chance for CPR. But not even that could save Alice. Or Anna.

The row of falling dominos had suddenly stopped.

The frog-faced doctor was fighting to save Anna’s life.

Kamijou had his own task to complete. He could not allow Christian Rosencreutz to reach the hospital.

He noted that H. T. Trismegistus was not here.

Had he been killed when Rosencreutz first appeared? Or did he no longer see any purpose in the Bridge Builders Cabal now that he had lost his master Alice Anotherbible?

For that matter, there were so few Transcendents here given that Good, Old Mary could resurrect people. The Bridge Builders Cabal had pooled their combined strength into that ceremony. Kamijou didn’t know how many there were in all, but there had to have been a large number of Transcendents in Academy City.

Had the CPR failed after their bodies were returned to the moment of death?

Or had the CPR succeeded but they had lost the will to fight and fled?

He had no way of knowing.

“We’ve already lost to him once, so we know just how much of a threat Christian Rosencreutz is,” said the Bologna Succubus.

“But we can’t just let him go free.”

“We are aware,” said Good, Old Mary. “And since we know a direct attack will not work, what we need is observation and preparation. We must make ourselves disappear, find safety, and get a fresh start. So before Rosencreutz notices us, we must leave here, keep our distance, and find cover.”

Their argument was logical.

They had not given in to their fear.

The Transcendents were not like Kamijou. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They had lost and they had experienced the fear of death, but they still used their reason and knowledge as weapons to challenge their greatest enemy.

“Mut Thebes. You too.”

Aradia spoke to the most dangerous of the bunch.

But maybe being known as the most dangerous actually made her the safest one when it came to the problem of a malfunction in her salvation conditions.

Good, Old Mary looked like the gentlest and calmest, so if she suddenly shot him in the back, Kamijou wouldn’t know what to believe anymore.

“What kind of weapon shadows should I absorb? Or ''should I absorb your Transcendent shadows now as insurance in case something happens?'' Given this battle’s difficulty level, it would be best if we had multiple copies of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection.”

Just then, Kamijou felt a chill.

He turned toward it without even thinking. But that didn’t mean looking left, right, or even behind. He looked up.

He was speechless.

And a voice responded to his unvoiced question.

“Found you☆”

“Dammit!!!”

The voice was peering down from the top of a wall still standing among the rubble.

Kamijou immediately rolled away just before the entire scene was obliterated. Christian Rosencreutz dropped like a meteor, blowing away the unnaturally-standing concrete wall.

The silver young man stood at the center of the resultant crater.

He displayed a joyful smile at discovering new prey.

They needed a fresh start.

They had to escape before he found them.

It was the thinnest of threads, but they had finally found a definite chance they could reach for.

It had shattered from a single blow.

“Kh.”

Fear clutched Kamijou’s heart.

But he wasn’t even given time to freeze up.

Kamijou glared at red-clad Christian Rosencreutz and swept a hand out to the side to protect Mut Thebes standing by his side. Then he shouted to her.

“Hurry to the third defense line and stock up on as many next-gen weapons as you can! A simple close-quarters battle will only wear you out, so we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get away!!”

“Kyun☆”

He heard a strange sound.

No, was it a voice? Kamijou looked over in shock to see the girl clasping her hands in front of her flat chest. And for some reason her cheeks were flushed pink.

What had happened?

The Bologna Succubus snapped at Mut Thebes whose eyes were wavering on her otherwise expressionless face.

“Now is not the time to let the suspension bridge effect pierce your heart! I know this is basically your first time speaking with a boy, but how about you get to know him a little before you fall for him!?”

“Wait, is that what this is? I’m flatt-”

“Mut Thebes’s specialty is hunting people down, so if she is in love with you, she’ll probably pursue you to the ends of the earth. Lucky you, if you’re into that. And with a passionate stalker loaded with a limitless supply of blades and firearms, you never have to worry about her cheating on you and you know she’ll accept your love.”

This clarification by Big Sis Aradia (whose eyes looked unnecessarily icy for some reason) made Kamijou’s shoulders jump. The gravity of Mut Thebes’s love was apparently on par with a black hole. If you got too close and let it catch you in its pull, time and space would lose all meaning and you would find escape to be impossible.

Also, based on the way they had phrased some things, he got the feeling H. T. Trismegistus didn’t count as a boy in the eyes of the female Transcendents. That young butler was getting caught in the crossfire despite having gone missing.

How did this all look to Christian Rosencreutz who wielded violence on a whim?

At the very least, he didn’t interrupt their conversation with an attack.

“The Transcendents, hm? The group that lost sight of their own selves through excessive and mistaken ''roleplaying''. I have already defeated the lot of you once. …A repeat of that would be a disappointment. You had better have developed some new special attack now that you have chosen to stand in this old man’s way again.”

There were multiple Transcendents here.

As hard as Kamijou found it to believe, CRC did not appear to view them as a threat.

“Why?” asked Witch Goddess Aradia. “Why dedicate yourself so thoroughly to violence? Our Bridge Builders Cabal has chosen to abandon the self to take up roles that will help others and we even completed a major spell through that. Even for us, ''we had to define our values to wield our power without causing collateral damage''.”

He was not someone to hold an ordinary conversation.

She had to know that, but she couldn’t help but ask.

And.

He gave a response.

“''Passion.''”

A sharp explosion erupted and Kamijou’s group each rolled in their own direction to distance themselves from it.

The blast must have hit a jeweler’s shop because lots of gold and jewelry rained from the sky.

Christian Rosencreutz traced his fingers through empty space.

He displayed no interest in the sparkling precious metal.

He delicately used two fingers to catch a small white flower carried in by a crosswind and gently inserted its stem in the gap on the door of a crushed and twisted luxury car.

He prioritized appreciating nature over strategy or his own interests.

“Playfulness, whims, letting off steam – call it what you like. Kee hee hee. This old man is well aware how great a power I hold in my hands. So I will never blame its results on anyone else. I will not say I did it for justice, for an individual, to save someone, or even to save the world. With power this great, shifting the blame onto someone else could very well break them. No matter what anyone might say, only I am capable of bearing the burden of this power. And I wield my power only to fulfill my passion and my playfulness. ''Because that is ultimately the kindest option for the world at large.''”

“That’s all?”

This question came not from Aradia herself but from Kamijou.

He couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s your only reason!? It isn’t about right or wrong? It really is all about your own momentary whims? So you don’t even hate the Transcendents who brought you into this world? It isn’t that you can’t bear to see what the world has become!?”

“''When did this old man say a single word about hating the world''? The world remains as immature as it was millennia ago and its people continue to attempt a deeply flawed but adorable resistance against it. Heh heh. You thought I would solve everything for you? Ah hah hah hah!! Oh, how adorable. What other word is there for it!? This old man is only choosing who to fight based on how much they amuse me. Which is why I want in!!!”

Sordid emotion erupted from the silver young man.

He could kill because he liked the person.

He could destroy out of pure playfulness.

He was not a stalker who grew violent when the target of his affections didn’t do what he wanted. Did he threaten the world a lot like a sadistic killer who had been handed the nuclear launch controls?

“…”

Aradia fell silent.

As did the rest of the Transcendents.

They really did think only of saving the world. The Bridge Builders Cabal had resurrected someone it turned out they wanted nothing to do with. A great monster who could only be sealed by a vast span of time had been revived in the modern world.

The Transcendents understood this on a deep level because they were the ones responsible.

What had they prayed for and how much had they hoped to leave in his care?

He had trampled on all of that, but they hadn’t let that stop them. Because they needed to bring an end to the foolishness they had caused. So that this disaster could not reach the people they had vowed to protect. That was Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rests’ reason for fighting.

“That too is just another silly passion,” said Rosencreutz, chuckling and holding his own body. He had seen right through them. “All this old man is doing is consciously making use of those passions. Which is why I will not say you are wrong. Ah ha hya. Because it would bore me if you tried to make excuses and shift the blame onto someone else!!!”

The silver young man took action while laughing.

He casually held out his palm.

A deadly attack that ignored the concept of distance was coming!!

With a solid clang, the air glowed bluish-white.

There was a barrier there.

Good, Old Mary held her hands together and crushed a 500mL glass container. It was an aroma water maker that extracted the scents of herbs using evaporation and cooling.

“A still contains an entire world within. Whether the life of the homunculus created in the transparent bottle or the enchanting potion that can dissolve all materials, it is all contained within. So by preparing one side and then defining the seen and the unseen – the interior and the exterior – your attack cannot reach us, CRC.”

“Oh, really? I take it you are a kitchen alchemist?”

“CRC. To a master of a single path like you, this may appear a simple and unrefined ceremony, but that is what makes it of a system older even than your own. Its influence on you is imperfect, but mama can still remove a portion of your magic and receive it from head on.”

“An alchemist wife? Heh heh. How very interesting!! All magic is an illusion, so it would be a shame to strip it of all dreams and comedy!!”

“Listen to me. Mama is unmarried, so you should address her with Ms., you imbecile.”

For the very first time, a Transcendent did not flee from Christian Rosencreutz’s outstretched palm. She received the attack head on and deflected it away.

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

That rule crumbled away and their possibilities seemed to spread out infinitely.

“''But.''”

Rosencreutz scoffed.

Good, Old Mary wobbled to the side. The color red stained her mouth.

“''You can only remove a portion. That is not nearly enough to repel this old man.''”

“Dammit!!!”

The rule remained unbroken.

Evasion was still the only option. There were no exceptions for those who attempted defense.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

(But even if it was just once and incomplete, she still stepped off of the rails he set up for us. There really is something different about the Transcendents. But he knows that, which is why he’s targeting them first. That’s all the more reason I can’t let him do that!!)

“Aradia!! And Bologna Succubus!!!”

The boy addressed those two because of something they had in common: they could both fly.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to take flight. While carrying Good, Old Mary after snatching her up before she could fall unconscious to the ground. Aradia grabbed the sign leaning diagonally against an electric car charging station, placed blankly-standing Mut Thebes on that makeshift broom, and then soared up higher than the skyscraper roofs.

“Oh, I wanted to absorb Good, Old Mary’s shadow to have her resurrection on hand.”

“Now isn’t the time. That kind of greed will get you killed!!”

Evasion was the only option.

They had to stick to their best option.

Absorbing CRC’s shadow might have turned everything around, but that kind of greed probably would also have gotten her killed. There seemed to be a short lag before Mut Thebes could lay claim to something as her white shadow, so she would have to stand ''defenseless'' before their nemesis for a few seconds. He was sure to kill her in that time. Death was closer than ever before, so they didn’t even have those few seconds to spare.

Rosencreutz did not even look up into the sky.

The look on his face said he wasn’t interested in such a poor plan.

But it seemed unlikely he was going to just let them escape either.

“Flying is a simple task for a magician, but so is bringing them back down to Earth. Surely you know that.”

“Do you think we’ll give you the time?”

“You said that last time. You bore me.”

Even as he said that, the silver young man chuckled and stared straight ahead.

He was apparently interested in Kamijou.

“Thought up any new special moves?”

Kamijou’s vision exploded.

===Part 5===

District 7.

In the frog-faced doctor’s hospital, Anna Sprengel’s clinical records were finally ready.

This included CT and MRI scans.

An ultrasound.

And blood tests using a variety of reagents.

“You didn’t find anything?”

“Weird, isn’t it? Even an electric shock would leave burn marks on her skin.”

The lead medical technician tilted her head.

She would have simply looked puzzled if not for the tension of fear in her cheek.

This wasn’t surprising.

An attack using toxins or chemicals, drowning, and even carbon monoxide poisoning would have caused abnormalities somewhere in the girl’s body. It might be invisible damage to blood vessels or organs and it might be a microscopic change, but some part of her body had to be broken. If there really wasn’t any detectable harm to her skin or her organs, then there was only one diagnosis a doctor could give: ''natural causes''.

Even though no patient had ever been more unnatural.

“…”

There had to be a cause somewhere.

But the doctor couldn’t spot it despite his thorough understanding of the human body.

That had to mean…

“Are we looking at this wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“We are all medical practitioners here, which means we all hold the same worldview. ''What if that worldview is blinding us to something here''?”

===Part 6===

The term “martial law” gained greater weight within Hamazura Shiage.

Not long ago, he had been able to stop by the local discount store, but now it took courage to even open the front door. This was different from Anti-Skill or Judgment lecturing him. He most feared the watchful eyes of their neighbors in this same apartment building.

Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai were self-centered enough to just walk on out regardless, but they weren’t around at the moment.

What were they even doing out there when everything was so dangerous?

Knowing them, they may have seen value in that danger itself.

“I keep tapping, but the video always stops a second or two in… The phone network has really slowed down, hasn’t it?”

“Hamazura, I think everyone is messing around on their phones and tablets because they don’t have anything else to do.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a connection at all, but even a slight slowdown was frustrating when he was so used to more comfortable speeds. Thanks to that, he had left the old-fashioned TV on. As long as you didn’t use any of the net-connected channels, the TV always ran smoothly.

If only there was any useful information there.

When the city was under martial law, it didn’t do anyone any good to tease the audience with a special on the top 10 restaurants in the city. He understood they were just using up all their stockpiled shows, but it still felt so out of place. Didn’t they know no one could head out to visit these places?

What all was happening out there while he was stuck in here?

He was caught in the middle of it, but he could barely find any information.

“Will we be okay staying here?” asked track suit girl Takitsubo with an absentminded tilt of her head.

“It was whoever’s in charge that told us to stay in here. I’m all for having an officially-sanctioned excuse to keep the lazy holiday going.”

“Do we have enough food?”

“If not, the government will bring us some. They started this, so it’s on them.”

As soon as Hamazura said that, he heard a gentle electronic bell.

He checked the intercom screen and saw a drum-shaped cleaning robot slowly crossing the path. The machine spoke with an artificial feminine voice.

“This building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible. Remaining here would be exceedingly dangerous to your lives and your property.”

“Ehhh!? But they’re the ones who told us to stay at home! They could at least run an emergency news broadcast telling us what’s going on out there!!”

“Let’s hope there are no hordes of zombies wandering around, Hamazura.”

===Part 7===

Kamijou couldn’t steady his wobbly vision.

The color beige seemed to have taken over the world. He was seeing a Tokiwadai duffel coat.

That was enough to guess he was being dragged along by Mikoto.

But when had she picked him up?

“What are you doing, Shokuhou?”

“You can’t tell? I’m only cleaning myself off with the wet tissues I found in here. I had concrete dust dumped over my head, so it’s all inside my clothes. You really are a wild thing to not even bother with basic cleanliness, Misaka-san. You might as well live up on the fences with the alley cats☆”

“There is a boy here, you know?”

“Bfgwah!!? Cough, cough!! You could have told me sooner he was with you!!”

Kamijou thought he had caught a glimpse of something, but he was still too woozy to comprehend what he was seeing.

It took a while, but he finally realized where he was. It was partially collapsed and dust filled the air, but this was…

“Ugh, a convenience store?”

“Are you awake now?” quickly asked Mikoto.

She looked as bad as he felt. She had gray dust covering her head on down and her cheeks and uniform were covered in mud.

(Where’s Index and Othinus? What happened to everyone else?)

''A stranger'' was here too.

The girl with long blonde hair wore a Tokiwadai uniform, so was she Mikoto’s friend?

“You can see now that facing him head on isn’t going to work, I hope. It’s a miracle ability you weren’t torn to bits and strewn across the city.”

Why ''was'' he alive?

He knew it wasn’t his own doing.

Mikoto and this stranger must have been fighting hard too. These people had reduced their own lifespans to save him from his own reckless actions.

He understood that.

He was intensely thankful, but the situation didn’t allow him to stop here.

What had happened to Christian Rosencreutz?

“But how does that man’s brain ability work if my Mental Out doesn’t work at all? You aren’t going to tell me he actually wasn’t human to begin with, are you?”

Mental Out.

Kamijou had heard that esper name before.

It belonged to Academy City’s #5.

''But he didn’t know who used that power or what they looked like.

He did wonder if a psychological esper power would work on the Transcendents like Anna and Alice.

A high school boy like Kamijou didn’t know even a fraction of the legends surrounding Christian Rosencreutz, but if he really was the kind of person found in a children’s book, then he would have gone through intense training and obtained near inhuman power. That process could have altered his mind to an extent that not even the #5 Level 5 could control it.

That playful magician was only interested in fulfilling his passions and blowing off some steam. It was only by chance he had been depicted as a wielder of benevolent miracles like someone from a children’s book.

He had explained all that with a smile, but could this really be described using the familiar emotions that Kamijou and the others knew so well?

Deep tremors shook the area even now.

Staticky voices spoke within the partially broken store.

Wherever she had gotten it, Misaka Mikoto held a small Anti-Skill radio.

“Ksh! Escape route Cv1 secured using B2 as a decoy. Make sure Judgment gets away first! Also that military clone staring blankly into space over there! However she was born, she’s still a child!!”

“Wait! I can still fight. If you check the Bank, you will see I am a Level 4 Teleporter, so I can help rescue- argh, listen to me!”

Christian Rosencreutz had not simply lost sight of Kamijou’s group. When Kamijou wasn’t fighting, it meant Rosencreutz was fighting someone else somewhere else.

That could mean Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rest of the Transcendents.

Or it could mean Index and Othinus.

“Damn.”

“Rushing in without a plan won’t help them.”

With that exasperated comment, Mikoto tossed him something.

He caught it to find it was a jelly drink.

“Hey, I hope you paid for this.”

“Idiot. There aren’t any employees here, but the phone-based self-checkout still works.”

Mikoto breathed a long sigh and grabbed a matcha iced latte from the drink section. People’s personalities showed through at times like this. With the store partially destroyed and the power out, she had chosen a drink that would give her an immediate energy boost and didn’t need to be cold to taste good. Kamijou understood why she would avoid the jelly drink since its chemical flavor got a lot more noticeable at room temperature. And yet that was still what she’d given him, dammit.

The honey blonde girl gave Mikoto an icy look.

She had opted to go without a drink.

“Misaka-san, how can you rummage through these convenience store shelves? The place is nearly destroyed and the cooling systems are down, but none of this food has gathered any bugs. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“It’s early January, so all the little critters are hibernating. Kuroko runs a major convenience store chain, so she’s told me all the actual facts about the additives and preservatives they put in their food. How net illiterate do you have to be to actually believe all the sensationalized stories passed around online?”

After purchasing her drink, Mikoto stuck the straw into the drink box and took a sip.

“It’s not just the artificial things you have to worry about, though. How about this, Misaka-san? Do you know where they get the matcha green coloring for lattes and chocolates?”

“Hm? That smug look on your face is enough to know it isn’t tea leaves. So what, is it some kind of chemi-”

“Caterpillar dung☆”

They really did get into a fight with hair-pulling and everything.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance. It seemed to him health nuts like that were only torturing themselves by looking up all that unnecessary information. It sounded like a difficult life, but maybe it was a trial meant to bolster themselves mentally.

Something urgent and worsening was playing out on the radio.

“We can’t waste our forces like this! All remaining forces, fall back to the 2nd line!”

“Got it. We won’t let this end here. This isn’t about our pride. The fate of the city rests on our shoulders!!”

They hadn’t given up yet.

But if they thoughtlessly challenged CRC again, it would all happen again.

(Damn, not even a professional magician or a group of Transcendents could defeat him. I just hope Anti-Skill realized magic exists during the business with R&C Occultics.)

It really sounded to Kamijou like it would be best if he went back out there.

He doubted Imagine Breaker would work against Rosencreutz, but it had to give him a major advantage over anyone else out there.

“So if you do save that Anna Sprengel, what then?” asked Mikoto, unsure what to do with her opened maccha iced latte. “I mean, if she’s connected to that Rosen-whatever guy, she might know his weak point. But she nearly killed you with those mysterious microbes called…St. Germain, was it? Then she toyed with me using that giant capsule machine full of execution items she called the Pneuma-less Shell. And it wasn’t just in Academy City. Didn’t she nearly destroy the entire city of Los Angeles? Was there some secret in common between all of that? Wouldn’t surprise me if there was, but do you really think that wicked woman will give you accurate information?”

What then?

What was his goal? The boy considered the battle he had begun out of necessity.

Eventually, Kamijou responded.

He kept his head lowered, but he spoke clearly.

“Anna says she’s searching for a king.”

“?”

“A king who will protect her without asking why she does what she does. She said she had spent so much time protecting and guiding other people, but no one ever lived up to her expectations and she has grown sick of it all. So she said it’s time she got someone to protect her instead.”

Kamijou didn’t know what exactly had happened during that process.

Something had had caused the immensely arrogant Anna Sprengel to turn away from the world and give up on life. Had it been some shocking event, or had it been a complete lack of change? The puny boy couldn’t even imagine what it might have been.

However.

“But I don’t think she really needs that. She doesn’t need a king. So I want to tell her she can open up and be a part of the world without relying on someone special. I want to tell her no one’s going to hurt her.”

Silence fell for a while.

Both girls sighed.

But those sighs carried something subtly different from exasperation.

“Telling us who she is as a person is hardly fair,” said Mikoto. “It would be nice if she could just be ‘a villain’ – nothing more than a symbol. But once I know her as a person, it’s not so easy to abandon her.”

Misaka Mikoto and the honey blonde girl exchanged a glance.

The resignation was written plain on their faces.

They heard a strange noise.

It resembled raindrops on glass, but the individual sounds were quieter than that. It was more like static on an old TV.

Something flowed in from the broken glass door.

It was the kind of fine sand found in a desert or on a beach.

Instead of pure white, it was colored a faint yellow that stimulated Kamijou’s memory. He recognized this.

The voices on Mikoto’s radio grew a lot more disordered. They were dyed in confusion and panic.

“Dammit, is this the yellow sand from the reports on Los Angeles!?”

“Fall back!! Don’t let it capture you!! Fall back to the 2nd line!!”

“I can’t agree to that. There are still quite a few civilians left in District 12!!”

“Get back here, idiot! …Dammit!!!”

“Citrinitas!” exclaimed Kamijou.

“You can’t reach them in time.”

Unsteady Kamijou was stopped by the honey blonde girl ''whose name he didn’t know''.

“District 12 is a big place, so the distance ability is too great. It would be too late by the time you arrived.”

“…”

“And the rest of Anti-Skill and Judgment have already withdrawn from District 12. These are the facts. And the martial law means no ordinary people will be out on the streets anyway.”

This wasn’t just about the official fighting force.

This would also affect Index, Othinus, Aradia, Mut Thebes, and the rest of those fighting to stop CRC.

''District 12 was a lost cause.

''With the Citrinitas here, it was best to assume no one was left moving.

“You could see this as a stroke of good luck,” said the honey blond girl.

“How is this-?”

Kamijou reached the answer before finishing his question.

If this was the same as in Los Angeles, then the people who had disappeared into the yellow sand were essentially trapped within it. This was still checkmate against them, but that was better than being killed with their bodies split apart like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Kingsford. It was possible Christian Rosencreutz had decided going around killing all of the unresisting people would be a boring waste of his time.

If they stayed put, he might let them live.

But that gave them no way of stopping his march across the city. Then he would make his way to District 7 and arrive at the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

Once that happened, there was no saving Anna Sprengel.

The monster who only ever obeyed his own playfulness and intellectual curiosity would tear it all apart and take her life.

“Sorry. We don’t have many people left, but I still let you die for nothing. I don’t think I can get any closer…”

“Don’t worry about it. If you’d come running here, you’d have met the same fate.”

“Take care of the rest. If this is like in LA, then you should be able to drag the survivors from the yellow sand once the source is defeated.”

“Fall back!! The fight continues at the 2nd line!! Do not forget the words of those fools who joined the sand!!!”

Kamijou and the girls silently listened to the radio.

No.

Was silently observing really all they could do?

They heard an explosive sound from somewhere.

“?”

The wet explosion was different from one caused by explosives or gas. Kamijou hesitantly poked his head out from the destroyed convenience store and found the street covered by yellow sand. Furthermore, something was pushing in from the distance.

“What…is that?”

“Water,” said the honey blonde girl. “It’s water. District 12 is known for all its religious facilities, so it has more firefighting equipment than most districts. Instead of each building having its own, it has a Central Firefighting Tank managed by the district as a whole. That must have ruptured!”

Kamijou looked puzzled. He couldn’t figure out why Christian Rosencreutz would attack there. Wasn’t that basically a giant pool buried underground? He wondered if the man was eliminating all means of extinguishing a fire before starting a great conflagration.

But that wasn’t it.

“We need to get out of here. Immediately,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Why?”

“Did you forget it’s January!? Getting soaked by that sherbet-cold water is enough to kill!!”

Rosencreutz had used the Citrinitas to dissolve District 12’s survivors in the sand. And after that, he was attacking every last alley to ensure he didn’t miss anyone.

Getting caught in that would never end well.

If they were drenched and then exposed to the biting wind, they might just freeze into pillars of ice.

“Run!” shouted Mikoto. “Before it reaches us!!”

The water covered a wide area, but it fortunately wasn’t very deep. If they were caught in the watery zone and their shoes got soaked, they might lose a toe to frostbite, but they could escape the invasion of frigid water by jumping onto a higher ledge or onto a car. It helped that the yellow sand had created a lot of small dunes.

“Pant, pant. Wait…wait for me, Misaka-saaan.”

All the ups and downs quickly wore out ''the stranger'' and left her out of breath. The soft sand below their feet made it all the more challenging. Kamijou would have felt bad leaving her behind, so he took the honey blonde girl’s hand to pull her along with him. For some reason, that immediately silenced her complaints. She was surprisingly meek.

“What now!?” bluntly asked Mikoto, inexplicably irritated all of a sudden.

Kamijou Touma had only one answer to give.

“We fall back.”

It didn’t matter how hopeless the situation was.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t have a single idea of how to defeat Christian Rosencreutz and rescue the people dissolved by the sand.

The hospital was still a long way off.

“We attack him at the next defense line.”

The Transcendents had said the first thing they needed to turn things around and strike back was observation and preparation. That meant slipping away without him noticing, keeping their distance, hiding behind cover, and ensuring they could observe him from safety.

So with the right mindset, this was their chance.

“We lost this round, but it was a meaningful loss.”

The honey blonde girl gasped and looked up.

She was their brainpower and Kamijou had muttered something that had caught her attention.

This was undoubtedly a retreat.

But they could transform it into the first step toward victory.

Their resistance wasn’t over yet.

“If you use up all your trump cards this early, you’ll regret it later on, Rosencreutz.”

===Part 8===

Don’t underestimate the weeds.

If you fail to eliminate that last thin root growing deep into the dirt, your guaranteed victory has already begun to collapse.

===Between the Lines 2===

A trip from England to Germany could be done as a daytrip.

Of course, that was only if you weren’t interested in taking time to enjoy the trip.

“Pant, pant, gasp. W-wait, mistress. Please have mercy…”

“Just hurry up with the luggage, Fortune. This should have been a leisurely railroad trip, but you used British tax money to fly here. It would be rude to the British people if you didn’t do enough work to justify the expense.”

This was how it began that morning as soon as the two met up at Nuremberg’s international airport.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers spoke icily to Dion Fortune whose silhouette was swollen by multiple suitcases, a backpack, and sling bag.

Mina Mathers had a story involving her friend Annie Horniman that could easily be interpreted as belonging to the world of lilies and she was the legendary wife who had supported her (eccentric and brilliant) husband MacGregor Mathers. Dion Fortune also had her relationship with her female teacher, so even for the otherworldly lives of the Golden magicians, those two’s lives were especially rife with 2D-sounding stories. …Which made it strange that Mina alone didn’t have a particularly strange personality and even came off as a kindhearted and sensible person.

“Lies. It’s all lies. Pant, gasp. In what world can that violent back-slasher of a teacher be called kindhearted or sensible? Bleh, the winner of the war has been rewriting the history books again…”

“Did you say something Soror Fortune, my hopeless student?”

Over half of the luggage was Mina’s, so Dion chose to ignore that.

At the very least, Mina Mathers and Dion Fortune were perfectly decent and sensible magicians when compared to MacGregor, the unemployed man who one day began ranting about being a legitimate descendent of Scottish nobility based on precisely zero evidence, or Aleister, the handsome gentleman with the troubling habit of crashing high society parties with a metal butterfly attached to the crotch of his pants.

Mina Mathers had already been separated from Academy City, but she could still choose for herself to support Aleister as the transformed Thoth Tarot.

Nuremberg was an inland industrial city in southern Germany. At this time of year, the low was around -3 degrees. Since it was January, everything was covered by a light dusting of snow, but this wasn’t that far from Denmark where the story of the Little Match Girl was born. While not as large as Munich, which was also in the south, it was a large city with a population in the hundreds of thousands. It had water transportation using the canal connected to the Danube, which flowed through multiple countries, and it provided direct air transportation from its international airport. This was also proof of just how active the city was in producing semiconductors and mechanical components for cars and aircraft.

It was also a historical city.

For better and for worse.

For example, anyone with even a little knowledge of torture and executions would know what the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg referred to. That strange legend had gained a life of its own in different parts of the world, but this city was home to the world’s only extant iron maiden (in the publicly available official records, anyway).

Dion Fortune, who had spread Golden spells across the world with her remote learning correspondence courses, looked curious even through her exhaustion.

“Phew. By the way, mistress, since when did you manufacture a child? Those mourning clothes must only be for show because it looks like you’ve really been quite busy, you lewd funeral beauty.”

“Do not refer to living people as being ‘manufactured’. Besides, she is not mine.”

“?”

“Good girl. If you’re hungry, you can drink this bottle. Do not turn away because you are sick of that flavor. I know you can actually speak.”

A delighted “goo-goo ga-ga” came from the baby carrier.

Mina Mathers was keeping a baby fed. That showed an extreme evolution from when she was so hungry while wandering Academy City that she stuck a power cable in her mouth.

The cat ears mourning clothes woman(?) had used her skill as an artist to design a ceremonial ground and most of the props that complemented the texts and formulas of a magician’s logic, so Dion Fortune skeptically viewed the baby the other woman was holding and soothing. “Then where did that baby come from?” was written plain on her face.

She might have fainted if she were told that was Aleister’s daughter Lilith, though.

To reiterate, Nuremberg was a rare city that perfectly blended a dark history with cutting-edge tech. That may have been why the Rosicrucians had built their largest base there. The old phonographs and silver halide cameras people feared could record the voices and faces of the dead had once been ordinary scientific inventions. Until natural science usurped the throne of the world’s common knowledge by replacing the geocentric model with the heliocentric model and proving that objects consumed oxygen as they burned, magic had been an ordinary field of study.

“Now. Where is Anna Sprengel’s base, the Licht Liebe Leben Temple?”

“How about we check into a hotel first? P-please? Nooo! I’d rather die than begin this lengthy investigation dragging all this luggage around, mistress!!”

Mina Mathers brushed her tearful student away with an annoyed hand and calmly continued.

“We should agree on a plan before we get started, Fortune.”

“Ugh. Can’t our plan be to check into a hotel and leave the luggage there first? Sob.”

“Do I need to scratch you? Dion Fortune, as a Golden magician, you must understand the Rosicrucian ideology at our cabal’s foundation. With that in mind, which side do you take?”

“?”

“I mean.” Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers paused while holding the baby. “Do you believe the legends of the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal as literal stories, or do you think they are some kind of metaphor or code? I am asking what your stance you take as a magician regarding the rose, the cross, the ruby, and the gold.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter2

2023-12-20T13:02:57Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 4 */

==Chapter 2: So Much Like Tree Rings – Open_War,1st_Defense_Line.==

===Part 1===

Sunset came early in the winter.

It was 5PM.

The first to notice the oddity in the red-dyed city was Anti-Skill.

The martial law declared across Academy City had yet to be removed. That meant Anti-Skill had established an alert network stricter than normal, so even the smallest oddity was immediately reported back to them.

The oddity was detected at the far eastern side of the city, in the strongly religious (by Academy City’s standards) District 11.

“Hey…what’s that?”

And.

Christian Rosencreutz, the silver-haired monster, wasn’t concerned with any minefields that might be in his path.

If he had somewhere to go, he would walk right on through, stepping on all the mines along the way.

“Ohh, oh, ohh?”

Presently, the silver-haired young man clad in red was focused on a plastic bottle.

Specifically, he was staring at the side where he had peeled away a small sticker.

“Hmm. This promises a gift of magic gems, but how do you claim this generous offer? I do not see any kind of contact information.”

“You there!! Show me your ID or residency permit!! Right now!!”

“Oh, I see. You must hold up one of those cleverphones, or whatever you call them, to read this square code here.”

A wet splat rang out.

Rosencreutz never even looked toward the Anti-Skill officer. He didn’t move a finger, but the shouting officer and his gun went spinning up into the air.

In this case, managing to hold onto his gun worked against him.

Because the bullets sprayed against his will struck the fellow officer standing nearby.

“Byah!!”

“Wahhhhhh!?”

The color red and a rusty scent created a brutal scene, but Christian Rosencreutz still ignored it all. With the sticker in hand, he tossed aside the bottle and folded his other hand’s fingers to count something.

“Acquire an ultra-rare trading card – check. Eat that restaurant’s frozen hamburger steak said to have a ‘new and improved flavor’ – check. Worn a heated napping eye mask – check. Tried that simple homemade mochi kit – check. Drank the new chemical pink flavor of energy drink – check. Oh, you there, could you lend me some fingers? Let’s see, where was I?”

“Ah, gah?”

“Won a stuffed toy poodle in the crane game – check. Tried the recommended shark fin cheese dumpling, hit a homerun in the batting cage – check and check. Scored a perfect 100 at karaoke – hm, that’s a check too. Which leaves…”

“Gghghghaghyghagyghagyhgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Unrestrained cracking noises burst out again and again.

Rosencreutz had not laid a finger on him, but despite his desperate resistance, the Anti-Skill officer’s fingers bent in time with the list. The gun’s grip was crushed by unthinkable force and his index finger pulled the trigger against his will.

“~ ~ ~! Everyone, get down!!”

Something exploded.

Anti-Skill was finally making their counterattack. Snakehead self-destruct drones, which looked like isosceles triangles flying around like a flock of starlings, dropped straight down. Each Snakehead rivalled a shoulder-fired rocket and, when a group of them attacked as sharply as lightning strikes, they had enough firepower to wipe out a group of tanks.

But still Christian Rosencreutz ignored them.

Not a single hair on his head was singed.

“Hm.”

It was the same with him no matter what happened.

He obeyed only his desires when choosing what to do.

Nearly half a day had passed since Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford’s deaths, but he remained in District 12 where he had been reborn.

He had a simple reason for this.

“I’ve tried everything that caught my interest, so maybe I should get moving now.”

CRC’s eyeballs rolled in his head. Everyone present could tell he was focusing on the outside world for the first time.

“''You had better entertain me.''”

Light was compressed.

Sound vanished.

All of a sudden, a 60ton tank was blasted straight up. Anti-Skill had no idea what had happened. Their most well-defended tank had been destroyed in the blink of an eye, so they knew their weaker armored trucks and powered suits wouldn’t stand a chance. The officers wearing military jackets meant to stop bullets and blades would be torn through like paper.

His gaze seemed to pierce right through them.

They knew every spot he turned his attention to would explode.

That wasn’t a logical conclusion.

It was more like a superstition. They were sure that was the rule and anyone who took the rule lightly would be blasted into the air. That was the world they lived in now.

An armored truck was squashed flat, pieces scattering in every direction and knocking over an armored prisoner transport bus being used as a barricade. After taking some kind of destructive damage, an attack helicopter fell toward the Anti-Skill officers fleeing in a panic. There were explosions, screams, and bestial growls.

But Anti-Skill was not broken.

“Surround him!! All units: the current coordinates are designated a max level risk zone, so set up multiple defense lines. This is your top priority!!”

By this point, Anti-Skill viewed the person before them as connected to a wanted criminal. Because they were already aware of another immensely powerful individual who had made fools of them with a supernatural power.

Something tore through the asphalt.

Their tank had been destroyed in an instant, but they weren’t through yet. They had 155mm field artillery, heavy mortars, and even shoulder-fired missiles. The ordinary Anti-Skill officers fired them with teeth gritted.

Orders were given.

“Calculate your line of fire! Keep the danger zone to a minimum!! Fire!!!”

Christian Rosencreutz responded with an exasperated sigh.

“How dull.”

He was hit by explosions from several directions at once.

Moments after massive shells were launched at supersonic speed, most of them was stripped away, focusing all the kinetic energy on the tungsten core. Those special warheads were designed to melt and break a hole through thick composite armor. Each one possessed enough force to punch through and blast apart a flesh-and-bone human, leaving only their collapsing lower body behind.

''But…

“I said you bore me.”

He was unscathed.

That image broke the spirits of everyone watching. The silver young man did not hold back. Explosion after explosion blasted them into the air. The Anti-Skill officers screamed and couldn’t even continue the cycle of dragging their collapsed comrades to safety.

“…”

So.

That young Anti-Skill officer had not been abandoned.

No one around him was capable of moving any longer.

Christian Rosencreutz leisurely strolled through the world of screams, red, and explosive flames.

He stopped when he saw the young officer.

And this was in a world where anywhere that drew his attention would explode.

“Do you want me to stop? But what here could be more entertaining than crushing everyone in my path? If you know of something, I would love to hear about it.”

It all came down to that.

In his world, the mobile game sticker on a drink bottle was just as valuable as a human life.

For a brief moment, the smile vanished from CRC’s face.

“But if you do not, then this is the end for you.”

He slowly held out his hand.

The same hand that had easily blown up a tank and brought down an attack helicopter.

“Ah…ahh.”

There was nothing the Anti-Skill officer could do.

He tried to speak while trembling and unable to move, but…

“Not so fast,” someone else said.

A boy had arrived.

===Part 2===

There may have been one thing that gave Kamijou an advantage. He stood before an exceedingly powerful foe, so focusing on that problem helped distract him from his sorrow. Without that, the shock of losing Alice Anotherbible may have devasted him.

So should he be thankful?

''Hell no.

“…”

The sunset dyed the city red.

Kamijou Touma vs. Christian Rosencreutz.

The collapsed Anti-Skill officers didn’t seem cognizant of the fact that a perfectly ordinary high school boy was confronting that silver monster one-on-one. Their minds had already yielded to the idea that such a thing wasn’t possible.

Kamijou kept his eyes on Rosencreutz but spoke to a nearby Anti-Skill officer.

“You can still move, right? Then drag the others to safety and get out of here. You need to move now if you don’t want to regret this.”

“Oh? And why should this old man just let him do that?”

“Because I won’t give you time to focus on them.”

The Anti-Skill officer got moving despite being weak in the knees. But not to run away – to find some way to get his injured and unmoving colleagues out of danger.

Christian Rosencreutz grinned.

It looked like Kamijou had successfully captured his attention.

“You cannot hold this old man’s attention if all you do is charge at me the same as before.”

“Don’t you worry. That won’t be happening.”

“How exciting☆ Simply killing you would be so ''boring''.”

Hearing that, Kamijou Touma took a step forward.

Faint surprise showed on Christian Rosencreutz’s face.

He may have thought he would always be the one moving in first.

He too approached in amusement.

Now that they were both in motion, there was no stopping them.

Or so Kamijou thought.

“La la la la♪ To all you gentle cat lovers out there, we know you think your cat is cute, but don’t let them create lots of little kittens. Once you have too many to properly care for, it is the cats who will suffer.”

There was a pet shop nearby. It wasn’t actually open thanks to the martial law and the lack of animal cries suggested the employees had taken the animals home with them, but the LCD advertisement screen was still functioning. It may have been set to activate whenever someone walked by.

And a moment after it did…

Tears spilled from Rosencreutz’s eyes.

This was no mistake.

Kamijou watched as the tears joined together to form a line down each cheek and then dripped down from his slender chin like a waterfall.

“Hey, wait, what is with you!?”

“Didn’t you hear? The cats…and the cute kittens. Don’t you feel so sorry for them?”

Kamijou’s eyes opened wide.

Did that man not remember injuring Anti-Skill just a minute ago? How could someone wield that much violence and still feel sorry for some cats!?

He was terrifyingly distractable.

Legendary Magician Christian Rosencreutz sniffled like he had completely forgotten where he was.

''But he hadn’t.

He did not have some grand goal related to the fate of the world or the future of humanity. He had no plan at all. He poured all of his energy into whatever drew his attention at the time.

But his power was immense.

He had enough power to one-shot Alice Anotherbible, yet there was no predicting where he would direct it next.

“The humans must die! Every last one of them!! If they can’t be trusted to keep their promises, the only solution is to go around slaughtering them all. Hwa ha ha! And then all the cats can be happy!!!”

“What the hell is wrong with- shit!?”

Kamijou started to shout back on reflex, but he quickly swung his head to the side.

He felt something wet on his temple: his own blood.

He could guess it was some kind of magic, but he couldn’t analyze it even after being hit by it. If he hadn’t moved at the last second, it would have taken off his head.

Still weeping, Rosencreutz shouted out loud.

He had not reduced his deadly strength.

“Death to all humans!!”

“~ ~ ~! Give a thought to how powerful you are, you dumbass!!!”

Kamijou clenched his right fist, but he couldn’t reach.

They were too far apart.

And his opponent was slightly faster.

With a “crash!!”, something heavy fell behind Rosencreutz.

It was a 2m silver orb.

At first, the sensible part of Kamijou’s brain identified it as a wrecking ball meant to tear down skyscrapers, but it wasn’t. This orb had a round handle just like on a submarine’s watertight doors.

“The Pneuma-less Shell…sniff, sob.”

CRC smiled even as he cried. He was full of emotion.

He moved his feet as if performing dance steps.

But this had nothing to do with magic.

He was simply avoiding the small flowers blooming on the ground.

“Uhh, sob. You may have encountered this when battling a magician who takes after me. It is a Rosicrucian spiritual item, after all. Stones and sharp blades will stab or slash. Plant ropes will strangle or squeeze. Not even this old man can control the random fluctuations that produce the world’s oldest tools related to each cause of death and they will produce the greatest attack based on that origin!”

(Tch!! So is he really at a more advanced level than Anna!?)

Kamijou could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but this was also his chance.

If Anna Sprengel and Christian Rosencreutz were the same sort of magician, then their spells would be similar, even if the scale was different. That meant he only had to remain calm and observe. He already knew this man’s attacks. CRC wasn’t from a completely unknown legend. Kamijou had already defeated Anna who had long ruled over and protected the Rosicrucian cabal, so he might notice some familiar magic in this fight. That would be his greatest opportunity. Rosencreutz had realized this and thus produced the randomized Pneuma-less Shell to prevent Kamijou from predicting what would happen next. That could mean the man was subconsciously afrai-

Kamijou’s optimism was shattered by a dull wrenching sound.

His right shoulder had become a solid mass of agony.

Rosencreutz smiled.

He gave a twisted smile while holding his palm out from a short distance away.

He had indeed summoned the Pneuma-less Shell, but he hadn’t laid a finger on its round handle.

The possibility of recognizing the attack – and the relief that thought brought – had been part of his strategy.

In other words…

(Spoilers aren’t enough to weaken him. He knew I would recognize that and used it against me!?)

“Gahhh!!”

The distance between them was irrelevant. CRC had only needed to hold his palm out toward Kamijou. That was all it took to tear into his right shoulder and produce scorching pain. Kamijou’s legs refused to support him. Unable to fight the force of the blow, his feet left the rubble-strewn ground and he spun through the air.

What was this? He didn’t know, but what was even happening to him!?

A second time.

And a third time the same attack assaulted him.

Since he had failed to resist the first impact, Kamijou let himself to be knocked backwards to try and avoid any further attacks, but it wasn’t enough. CRC corrected his aim for each new attack.

“Hm?”

The onslaught of destruction suddenly stopped.

CRC took a single step to the side.

Kamijou blinked in confusion even as he grimaced from the pain coming more from his bones than his skin.

Why had that man suddenly dodged? It didn’t make sense.

Was it based on some kind of rule? More importantly, was there some way of taking advantage of it?

The only thing on the road there was an old abandoned civilian car. The two round headlights and the plain bumper looked something like a smiling man.

(Really? It was that? It was really nothing more than that!?)

“Oh, how cute. Oops. I do have a bad habit of getting emotionally invested in things like this. I wonder if it was a habit I picked up from using hidden symbolism to interpret secret instructions and messages.”

Kamijou shuddered.

Logic and tactics came second. He really did do everything on a whim.

The next attack would arrive before long.

“Kh.”

Kamijou focused his mind on his right hand.

What was Imagine Breaker good for?

He clenched his teeth and his fist as tight as could be.

“Don’t try to defend, Touma!! Dodge by falling to the right!!”

Hearing a shout, Kamijou immediately swung his right fist.

But to the side, not the front. That shifted his center of gravity just enough to let him roll to the side and out of the way of the deadly attack.

It was a close thing.

He belatedly realized that, if he had relied on Imagine Breaker out of habit, he probably would have failed to fully negate the immense torrent of magic and his arm would have been twisted off at the shoulder or elbow.

And.

He recognized that voice.

“I-Index?”

Index was there with 15cm Othinus on her shoulder.

Kamijou forgot all about his pain and looked up from the ground.

Those two had no reason at all to risk their lives to save a villain like Anna Sprengel. Yet here they were.

No warm light had descended from heaven and no great sea had parted before his eyes.

But what was this if not a miracle?

“Do you think we have time to explain why we’re here or how we got here? Get back on your feet already!”

“Sorry, CRC, but I have too much pride as a god to quake in fear of your legend. I am the Norse war god, so my magic is not built with your rules at the foundation.”

And those two weren’t alone. Kamijou had trouble believing the next person he saw: Misaka Mikoto.

He was speechless.

She may have read the question in his eyes.

Mikoto averted her eyes a bit as she spoke.

“I-I never said I wouldn’t help. I only presented the problem from a different viewpoint. So don’t get all excited about this, idiot.”

Something else drew his attention.

“?”

For some reason, ''a complete stranger'' had shown up too.

Why had that middle school girl with long blonde hair come to this dangerous place?

“Don’t worry about me. Even if I explained my reason ability for risking my life here, you would forget it all soon enough anyway☆”

For some reason, Christian Rosencreutz waited for all of this to play out.

In fact, his eyes were sparkling.

A bad sign.

“Fascinating!!!”

“Watch out, everyone!! That idiot is about to attack!!”

They all scattered.

Whatever happened, the air in a straight line out from CRC rapidly heated and scorched. A pedestrian bridge far behind them was sliced apart and soared through the sky.

Apparently he wasn’t guaranteed a hit whenever he held out his palm.

Gathering his attention was far too dangerous.

That alone could mean death.

Even if the silver young man himself didn’t intend for it.

After all, not even Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker could fully negate CRC’s magic. Defense was out of the question. Evasion was the only option. If your legs froze up in fear of the approaching deadly attack, you would be instantly consumed.

And it wasn’t just dumb luck that there were no victims from Kamijou’s group.

Kamijou had experienced too much misfortune to believe in that.

There had to be a real reason they had been saved.

“TBSR – TCKU (Thy body shifts right – thou cannot keep up)!!”

“Oh?”

Index had folded her hands and raised her voice in what sounded like a song, but it wasn’t.

That was Spell Intercept.

By analyzing the structure of the enemy magician’s spell and randomly rearranging the incantation or symbols into something extremely similar but with an entirely different meaning, Index could throw off the enemy’s focus.

She had only diverted his aim by the smallest amount this time.

But when she really worked at it, she could cause the magic to malfunction or even harm the enemy magician.

“Kee hee hee. Oh, how delightful! Such fun!! Is this what modern magic is like? It is missing a lot, but I see you have made a number of changes to make up for that. You could even call it a brand new genre of original recipes. This type of creativity is far more interesting than Kingsford who continued to use the musty old secret arts!!”

Christian Rosencreutz was probably being entirely honest.

But Index still clenched her teeth.

He was saying she had insufficient data and that all her knowledge was a distorted version of the original. She had dedicated her life to memorizing more than 103,000 grimoires, so his words were a humiliating insult to her.

He might as well have tried the finest dish of a chef who had worked his ass of training in French cuisine and then scoffed, calling it an amusing Japanese twist on the dish.

That man had to be well versed in ways to make people suffer.

And he used them for no more than his own amusement.

But reality could not keep up.

“Gh!?” groaned Mikoto.

She had magnetically pulled over an electric car as a shield, but now it exploded. The whitish explosion of the giant lithium-ion battery slammed into her, throwing her backwards.

Index’s instructions weren’t enough to avoid this.

Her Spell Intercept wasn’t enough to throw off Rosencreutz’s aim!?

“Hm? Weird. This doesn’t match my grimoires!?”

“Kee hee hee. Of course it doesn’t.”

CRC cackled gleefully.

He looked like he was resisting the urge to hold his sides.

“Does flipping through a recipe book make you a chef? You are a library, a collection of book knowledge, while this old man is steeped from head to toe in real knowledge and skill. We may be drawing on the same wisdom, but there is a vast gulf between what we can actually use. Hee hee ha ha ha. Did you think your lines of text on paper could outdo what this old man truly performs!?”

“''Shokuhou''!!!”

Collapsed on the ground, Misaka Mikoto called a name that had a terribly familiar ring to it.

The honey blonde girl immediately pulled a TV remote from her handbag. But then she froze. Not even her widened eyes blinked.

Something inside her had suddenly broken.

“What? No…way.”

“''Did you really think that child’s play would work on this old man''?”

He didn’t provide any further explanation.

But everyone could tell that was an absolute truth that brooked no objection. The result was plain to see. The #5’s power did not work on him and that was all that mattered.

With their attack stopped, it was Rosencreutz’s turn.

The negative trend would not stop.

“Kh!!”

Kamijou stepped out in front of the girls and held out his right hand.

But a chill ran down his spine.

Hadn’t he done this exact thing after Alice Anotherbible died and his mind went blank? Index had used the full knowledge of all her grimoires and told him not to use Imagine Breaker here. It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – she had concluded that method wouldn’t work here.

Christian Rosencreutz slowly held his palm out toward Kamijou.

“Ahhhh!!” roared dusty Misaka Mikoto.

She must have harnessed a great magnetic force because the highway overpass crossing the road collapsed and a skyscraper on either side collapsed to block the road. An artificial gale blew through. How many people would have died if everyone hadn’t been evacuated from the area by the martial law?

But Kamijou didn’t even consider that question.

The world quaked. A single attack caused the towering pile of rubble to crumble away. Hearing the cacophony was enough to know it would soon no longer function as a barrier.

The original rule stood before him.

''Evasion was the only option.

''It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – he must not think of trying defense this time.

A pair of eyes shined bright beyond the collapsing pile.

''He'' was smiling with amusement.

“Is that all you can do? You gather all your strength and it buys you a measly 10 seconds?”

“!!??”

Terror squeezed at Kamijou’s stomach.

Before they could try anything else, that abnormal joy pinned Kamijou and the girls’ feet to the ground.

Rosencreutz’s approach could not be stopped.

He was coming to them!?

“Heh heh. No, no. Surely you can do more than that. You bothered to stand in this old man’s path, so you had better entertain me a while longer!!!”

===Part 3===

When Christian Rosencreutz shouted, the color white filled the world.

===Part 4===

For a moment, Kamijou’s memories refused to link together.

Like film cut apart with scissors that wouldn’t fit together again.

Had CRC’s great attack influenced him mentally as well as physically?

''No.

“Gh,” Kamijou groaned, a dull ache in his temples. Yes, this reminded him of the pain felt when looking at the sun for too long.

In other words…

(A powerful flash of light? Did Misaka produce some powerful sparks to try and dazzle Rosencreutz’s eyes?)

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

This move didn’t violate that rule. And since Kamijou wasn’t dead, it must have been effective in this battle against Rosencreutz. But now that Rosencreutz had seen it, Kamijou seriously doubted it would work a second time.

He didn’t see Index, Mikoto, or the others.

He felt a strange weight in his clothing. He looked down the neck of his shirt to see a metal plate larger than his hand. Had Mikoto used that to magnetically fling him as far away as she could?

He hadn’t had time to do anything on his own.

That was fine.

Feeling fear wasn’t a bad thing. Because the fear motivated him to observe as much as he could, think through it all on a deeper level, and find an opportunity. True defeat was only found if he stopped analyzing that fear and let the trembling take over.

“But where am I?”

Still curled up in a ball, Kamijou slowly turned his head.

Had this originally been a trendy laundromat that doubled as a café? He must have subconsciously hidden himself behind the collapsed building.

He didn’t know his exact location.

But it seemed like Rosencreutz had lost track of him.

That didn’t mean he could relax, however.

With no one left to stop him, that man would resume his march toward the District 7 hospital. That endangered Anna Sprengel and the hospital staff who were working so hard to save her even though they knew she was a villain.

Kamijou couldn’t place that burden on their shoulders.

This was his selfish desire. He should carry the burden and the risk. He clenched his teeth, placed a hand on the wall, and slowly stood up.

He could still do this.

(Where are Index, Mikoto, and the rest? I just hope Rosencreutz didn’t go after them.)

Just then…

“Hey. I can’t help but notice you’re risking your life by repeatedly throwing yourself against an unrivaled monster, so I’m here to help out, laddie.”

He heard an oddly relaxed female voice. And it came from the open sky overhead.

And a moment later…

“Oops, botched my landing.”

“Bwahh!?”

Kamijou went blind. It took him several seconds to realize the Transcendent Bologna Succubus had descended from the sky above with her batlike wings and then caught his face between her two thighs and something else. I’d rather not explain what exactly that something else is. Simply put, it was like a backward and upside-down piggyback ride. Using the alphabet, it was something like an S.

“Bwbhbh, get, bhbhj, off of, bhehb, me!?”

“Nhh… Don’t breathe on me there, you jackaninny.”

“Agh, I said get off!!”

While the succubus was being extremely succubus-like, more sets of footsteps approached. After somehow extricating himself from the crotch trap(!?), Kamijou observed the new arrivals with his recovered vision.

“Is it in a demon’s nature to act so inappropriately? Or was the boy responsible for this one?”

“I think they’re having fun.”

Good, Old Mary and Mut Thebes were here.

So was Witch Goddess Aradia.

“Did you call them here?”

“Those of us with nowhere to go gathered together on our own,” simply stated Aradia, not looking him in the eye.

But these Transcendents were not like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Sprengel. They did not act on a whim. They would mechanically list out their salvation conditions and only save whoever met them. Since they were all acting together, these survivors must have been working toward a single goal, which would have required untangling the many threads and solving a challenging puzzle.

For example, there was Mut Thebes.

It seemed like a fundamental contradiction for that punishment expert to be fighting for Anna Sprengel. She was the very person who had chased Anna down before.

Although Mut Thebes herself only quizzically tilted her head.

“My Shrink Drink attack on Anna Sprengel is complete.”

“Kh.”

Those words seemed to tear sharply into Kamijou Touma’s heart.

They stated a fact that could never be overturned.

But she wasn’t done there.

“''Which means my task as a punishment expert has concluded.'' Whatever happens to her now is none of my concern – even if she does find a way to live happily ever after. She is no threat to the Bridge Builders Cabal with her cardiopulmonary function ceased and I doubt she can leak information as H. T. Trismegistus and the others feared she might. I use punishment to protect the group I have chosen for myself. And at the moment, the much greater and more direct threat to the cabal is Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Y-you mean you’ll help us for now?”

“No? You do not fit my salvation conditions.”

So whose side was Mut Thebes really on?

But Kamijou truly felt he would be spared her deadly blade no matter how many times he failed to meet her mechanical search conditions.

However, that it was impossible to know where all that power would be directed was frightening in a different way from a capricious beast that simply obeyed its instincts. There was no chance of escaping her interest by playing dead or taming her so she wouldn’t attack. If anything, she was even more inhuman – like a drone weapon. He felt like he was being followed around by a faint chill that carried great power but could kill based on a ''sensor error'' no matter what her personal feelings might be.

In this case, a neutral stance was someone who might shoot you in the back at any time.

Mut Thebes-chan had effectively come running to his aid, but she still scared him.

However, she ''hadn’t malfunctioned yet'', so she only looked confused.

Mut Thebes was the Transcendents’ punishment expert.

They probably had the least in common and convincing her would be challenging, but there wasn’t time for Kamijou to let that scare him into being more withdrawn.

Rosencreutz wanted to slaughter all of the Transcendents.

And only as a way of entertaining himself because he was bored.

If Kamijou failed to tell that girl some critical information, he would be responsible if she lost her life as a result. So as scared and nervous as he was, they had to work together and share their information for now.

“A-are you aware Christian Rosencreutz is wandering around somewhere nearby?”

“More or less.”

“He isn’t someone you can beat in a normal fight. But that’s your specialty as Transcendents, right? Mut Thebes, having you here is especially important. I want you to immediately fall back to District 18. You at least need to head to the second…no, the third defense line.”

Kamijou was beginning to sound like a weather forecaster during a typhoon.

“His shortest route will take him through Districts 12, 23, 18, and 7. Even if he does go through Districts 12, 6, 5, and 7 instead, you can still blast him from District 18. Your Dead Phoenix lets you absorb the shadows of people and things, converting them into your own power, so you have a lot more options than the rest of us. It would be better for you to fire on him from a safe distance than to attempt a close-range battle with that monster!!”

Mut Thebes displayed no malice.

Her head tilt came from pure confusion.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you’re the strongest here when it comes to pure firepower. Dead Phoenix lets you absorb any shadow and make its power your own, so you can use all the next-gen weaponry you want. That’s perfect for being in Academy City. You’re the only one I can rely on here!!”

She froze in place for a moment.

After blinking twice she puffed out her flat chest.

And for some reason, she looked not to Kamijou in front of her but to the Transcendents to her side.

“Heh heh. I’m the strongest. I shine the brightest. Heh heh heh♪”

“Hmph☆” “Hmph☆” “Hmph☆”

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and even the usually composed Good, Old Mary reacted. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why the opinion of a high schooler like him would matter. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, did they have some kind of strength ranking within their cabal? They seemed to have a rivalry in the same vein as Yarou web novels or VRTubers.

Mut Thebes-chan’s eyes were as emotionless as ever, but she couldn’t keep the grin off of her lips.

“If you want me to deliver an effective blow to CRC, then I’m willing to help. My current salvation conditions are to protect the Bridge Builders Cabal as a separate entity from the rest of the world. If CRC is after the Transcendents, then defeating him would be the fastest way to accomplish my goal.”

“Huh? Hold on. Are you saying I bowed down for no reason?”

“If you don’t ask me properly, I will launch my own attack.”

Kamijou Touma went past 45 degrees and bowed to a full 90 degrees. The salaryman spirit carried by his Japanese blood had suddenly awoken within him.

Mut Thebes put her hands on her slender hips and gave a satisfied snort from her little nose.

“I will fall back to the third defense line, but absorbing a large weapon will take time. And if it is unwieldy enough, it would be more efficient for me to act as a stationary turret rather than try to lug it around.”

“And?”

Kamijou had to admit he didn’t want her to be stompnig along with something hundreds of meters tall like she had before. She would become the real threat to the city then.

“The question is what I do about targeting. Either I will need to absorb a targeting device capable of tracking CRC, or you will have to instruct me from the front line while you- brr, it’s freezing.”

She gave up before finishing her thought.

And she started tugging at him. He looked down to see what that was about and saw her wrap herself in his coat to warm herself.

The Bologna Succubus’s eyes widened at this display of even more brazenness than an ill-behaved high school girl unplugging the electric display in front of a convenience store to charge her phone.

“What’s this, are you his girlfriend now? I’m a lewd succubus and even I resisted the urge to steal his coat!”

But if the Japanese winter was too cold for Mut Thebes, why had she skipped right past a bikini (difficulty level: normal) and worn that even more revealing costume (difficulty level: hara-kiri crazy nightmare)? Since Magic God Nephthys had walked around outside in nothing but bandages, did ancient Egyptians have something against wearing sufficient clothing?

Mut Thebes had nerves of steel.

The cold girl was entirely unbothered by sharing someone else’s coat without asking.

“I do not dress this way because I enjoy it. I can only activate my spell by casting my own shadow on the ground, so this is merely the logical choice. Do not confuse me with those exhibitionists who have chosen to take off most of their clothing in this frigid January weather for no good reason.”

“Mama would prefer if you did not place her in the same category as the witch goddess and the horny demon. Mama dresses perfectly normally. She has never stooped to cheap exhibitionism or sex appeal.”

“Huh? How can you say that when we all bathed together back at the consulate?”

Sparking tension grew between the Transcendents.

From multiple directions.

“She pretends to be the only one who knows how to behave, but I bet she’s wearing some really sexy underwear below that chaste long skirt! Keeping that composed look when she’s secretly wearing the naughtiest panties you’ve ever seen makes her way more of a pervert than us!!”

“Stop it with the baseless speculation. Mama is nothing like you superhuman perverts; she is just as pure and adorable as she looks.”

“If you take a gander at everything from my one-piece corset to the leather outfit of Alice’s punishment mode, it doesn’t take long to notice what all us Transcendent women have in common.”

“Oh? And have you ever seen below mama’s skirt? You have not, so your words are powerless. Accusations made without solid evidence can only lead to the false accusations you despise.”

“Gh!?” The Bologna Succubus flinched back for once.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance, worried this group was going to tear itself apart before they even fought CRC.

“I never said I would save Anna. The accusations against her aren’t false. She is the villain everyone says she is,” said the Bologna Succubus, with the bluntness of a Transcendent. She laid out her conditions with frightening precision. “But if we focus on Christian Rosencreutz’s attempt to kill all the Transcendents, ''then I have no issue with helping.'' …It turns out he isn’t going to save the world. If nothing is done, it’s obvious he will destroy the entire world along with all of our salvation conditions. So I’m willing to give my all to this fight.”

Salvation conditions.

It worried Kamijou that she still hadn’t removed that self-imposed constraint, but he needed as many allies as he could get right now.

She would give her all to fight for those weaker than her.

If that was all it was, she may have been a greater example of justice than the puny boy.

Then Kamijou’s attention turned toward another Transcendent: Good, Old Mary.

It happened suddenly.

“What about Alice? Can you-”

He left the question unfinished, realizing too late that it was a meaningless question.

She silently shook her head.

Her big hat wobbled sadly.

Not even Good, Old Mary could save Anna from the Shrink Drink’s effects. Because a mere Transcendent could not resist even a fragment of Alice Anotherbible’s power.

He doubted she would be able to interfere with Alice herself so easily, especially to overturn the girl’s death.

Was there any crueler irony than her own great strength preventing her from being saved?

“I see,” said Kamijou Touma.

He had already known it, but having it stated by someone else was like a knife to the heart. Good, Old Mary’s resurrection could revert the dead to the exact moment of their death, providing a chance for CPR. But not even that could save Alice. Or Anna.

The row of falling dominos had suddenly stopped.

The frog-faced doctor was fighting to save Anna’s life.

Kamijou had his own task to complete. He could not allow Christian Rosencreutz to reach the hospital.

He noted that H. T. Trismegistus was not here.

Had he been killed when Rosencreutz first appeared? Or did he no longer see any purpose in the Bridge Builders Cabal now that he had lost his master Alice Anotherbible?

For that matter, there were so few Transcendents here given that Good, Old Mary could resurrect people. The Bridge Builders Cabal had pooled their combined strength into that ceremony. Kamijou didn’t know how many there were in all, but there had to have been a large number of Transcendents in Academy City.

Had the CPR failed after their bodies were returned to the moment of death?

Or had the CPR succeeded but they had lost the will to fight and fled?

He had no way of knowing.

“We’ve already lost to him once, so we know just how much of a threat Christian Rosencreutz is,” said the Bologna Succubus.

“But we can’t just let him go free.”

“We are aware,” said Good, Old Mary. “And since we know a direct attack will not work, what we need is observation and preparation. We must make ourselves disappear, find safety, and get a fresh start. So before Rosencreutz notices us, we must leave here, keep our distance, and find cover.”

Their argument was logical.

They had not given in to their fear.

The Transcendents were not like Kamijou. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They had lost and they had experienced the fear of death, but they still used their reason and knowledge as weapons to challenge their greatest enemy.

“Mut Thebes. You too.”

Aradia spoke to the most dangerous of the bunch.

But maybe being known as the most dangerous actually made her the safest one when it came to the problem of a malfunction in her salvation conditions.

Good, Old Mary looked like the gentlest and calmest, so if she suddenly shot him in the back, Kamijou wouldn’t know what to believe anymore.

“What kind of weapon shadows should I absorb? Or ''should I absorb your Transcendent shadows now as insurance in case something happens?'' Given this battle’s difficulty level, it would be best if we had multiple copies of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection.”

Just then, Kamijou felt a chill.

He turned toward it without even thinking. But that didn’t mean looking left, right, or even behind. He looked up.

He was speechless.

And a voice responded to his unvoiced question.

“Found you☆”

“Dammit!!!”

The voice was peering down from the top of a wall still standing among the rubble.

Kamijou immediately rolled away just before the entire scene was obliterated. Christian Rosencreutz dropped like a meteor, blowing away the unnaturally-standing concrete wall.

The silver young man stood at the center of the resultant crater.

He displayed a joyful smile at discovering new prey.

They needed a fresh start.

They had to escape before he found them.

It was the thinnest of threads, but they had finally found a definite chance they could reach for.

It had shattered from a single blow.

“Kh.”

Fear clutched Kamijou’s heart.

But he wasn’t even given time to freeze up.

Kamijou glared at red-clad Christian Rosencreutz and swept a hand out to the side to protect Mut Thebes standing by his side. Then he shouted to her.

“Hurry to the third defense line and stock up on as many next-gen weapons as you can! A simple close-quarters battle will only wear you out, so we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get away!!”

“Kyun☆”

He heard a strange sound.

No, was it a voice? Kamijou looked over in shock to see the girl clasping her hands in front of her flat chest. And for some reason her cheeks were flushed pink.

What had happened?

The Bologna Succubus snapped at Mut Thebes whose eyes were wavering on her otherwise expressionless face.

“Now is not the time to let the suspension bridge effect pierce your heart! I know this is basically your first time speaking with a boy, but how about you get to know him a little before you fall for him!?”

“Wait, is that what this is? I’m flatt-”

“Mut Thebes’s specialty is hunting people down, so if she is in love with you, she’ll probably pursue you to the ends of the earth. Lucky you, if you’re into that. And with a passionate stalker loaded with a limitless supply of blades and firearms, you never have to worry about her cheating on you and you know she’ll accept your love.”

This clarification by Big Sis Aradia (whose eyes looked unnecessarily icy for some reason) made Kamijou’s shoulders jump. The gravity of Mut Thebes’s love was apparently on par with a black hole. If you got too close and let it catch you in its pull, time and space would lose all meaning and you would find escape to be impossible.

Also, based on the way they had phrased some things, he got the feeling H. T. Trismegistus didn’t count as a boy in the eyes of the female Transcendents. That young butler was getting caught in the crossfire despite having gone missing.

How did this all look to Christian Rosencreutz who wielded violence on a whim?

At the very least, he didn’t interrupt their conversation with an attack.

“The Transcendents, hm? The group that lost sight of their own selves through excessive and mistaken ''roleplaying''. I have already defeated the lot of you once. …A repeat of that would be a disappointment. You had better have developed some new special attack now that you have chosen to stand in this old man’s way again.”

There were multiple Transcendents here.

As hard as Kamijou found it to believe, CRC did not appear to view them as a threat.

“Why?” asked Witch Goddess Aradia. “Why dedicate yourself so thoroughly to violence? Our Bridge Builders Cabal has chosen to abandon the self to take up roles that will help others and we even completed a major spell through that. Even for us, ''we had to define our values to wield our power without causing collateral damage''.”

He was not someone to hold an ordinary conversation.

She had to know that, but she couldn’t help but ask.

And.

He gave a response.

“''Passion.''”

A sharp explosion erupted and Kamijou’s group each rolled in their own direction to distance themselves from it.

The blast must have hit a jeweler’s shop because lots of gold and jewelry rained from the sky.

Christian Rosencreutz traced his fingers through empty space.

He displayed no interest in the sparkling precious metal.

He delicately used two fingers to catch a small white flower carried in by a crosswind and gently inserted its stem in the gap on the door of a crushed and twisted luxury car.

He prioritized appreciating nature over strategy or his own interests.

“Playfulness, whims, letting off steam – call it what you like. Kee hee hee. This old man is well aware how great a power I hold in my hands. So I will never blame its results on anyone else. I will not say I did it for justice, for an individual, to save someone, or even to save the world. With power this great, shifting the blame onto someone else could very well break them. No matter what anyone might say, only I am capable of bearing the burden of this power. And I wield my power only to fulfill my passion and my playfulness. ''Because that is ultimately the kindest option for the world at large.''”

“That’s all?”

This question came not from Aradia herself but from Kamijou.

He couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s your only reason!? It isn’t about right or wrong? It really is all about your own momentary whims? So you don’t even hate the Transcendents who brought you into this world? It isn’t that you can’t bear to see what the world has become!?”

“''When did this old man say a single word about hating the world''? The world remains as immature as it was millennia ago and its people continue to attempt a deeply flawed but adorable resistance against it. Heh heh. You thought I would solve everything for you? Ah hah hah hah!! Oh, how adorable. What other word is there for it!? This old man is only choosing who to fight based on how much they amuse me. Which is why I want in!!!”

Sordid emotion erupted from the silver young man.

He could kill because he liked the person.

He could destroy out of pure playfulness.

He was not a stalker who grew violent when the target of his affections didn’t do what he wanted. Did he threaten the world a lot like a sadistic killer who had been handed the nuclear launch controls?

“…”

Aradia fell silent.

As did the rest of the Transcendents.

They really did think only of saving the world. The Bridge Builders Cabal had resurrected someone it turned out they wanted nothing to do with. A great monster who could only be sealed by a vast span of time had been revived in the modern world.

The Transcendents understood this on a deep level because they were the ones responsible.

What had they prayed for and how much had they hoped to leave in his care?

He had trampled on all of that, but they hadn’t let that stop them. Because they needed to bring an end to the foolishness they had caused. So that this disaster could not reach the people they had vowed to protect. That was Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rests’ reason for fighting.

“That too is just another silly passion,” said Rosencreutz, chuckling and holding his own body. He had seen right through them. “All this old man is doing is consciously making use of those passions. Which is why I will not say you are wrong. Ah ha hya. Because it would bore me if you tried to make excuses and shift the blame onto someone else!!!”

The silver young woman took action while laughing.

He casually held out his palm.

A deadly attack that ignored the concept of distance was coming!!

With a solid clang, the air glowed bluish-white.

There was a barrier there.

Good, Old Mary held her hands together and crushed a 500mL glass container. It was an aroma water maker that extracted the scents of herbs using evaporation and cooling.

“A still contains an entire world within. Whether the life of the homunculus created in the transparent bottle or the enchanting potion that can dissolve all materials, it is all contained within. So by preparing one side and then defining the seen and the unseen – the interior and the exterior – your attack cannot reach us, CRC.”

“Oh, really? I take it you are a kitchen alchemist?”

“CRC. To a master of a single path like you, this may appear a simple and unrefined ceremony, but that is what makes it of a system older even than your own. Its influence on you is imperfect, but mama can still remove a portion of your magic and receive it from head on.”

“An alchemist wife? Heh heh. How very interesting!! All magic is an illusion, so it would be a shame to strip it of all dreams and comedy!!”

“Listen to me. Mama is unmarried, so you should address her with Ms., you imbecile.”

For the very first time, a Transcendent did not flee from Christian Rosencreutz’s outstretched palm. She received the attack head on and deflected it away.

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

That rule crumbled away and their possibilities seemed to spread out infinitely.

“''But.''”

Rosencreutz scoffed.

Good, Old Mary wobbled to the side. The color red stained her mouth.

“''You can only remove a portion. That is not nearly enough to repel this old man.''”

“Dammit!!!”

The rule remained unbroken.

Evasion was still the only option. There were no exceptions for those who attempted defense.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

(But even if it was just once and incomplete, she still stepped off of the rails he set up for us. There really is something different about the Transcendents. But he knows that, which is why he’s targeting them first. That’s all the more reason I can’t let him do that!!)

“Aradia!! And Bologna Succubus!!!”

The boy addressed those two because of something they had in common: they could both fly.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to take flight. While carrying Good, Old Mary after snatching her up before she could fall unconscious to the ground. Aradia grabbed the sign leaning diagonally against an electric car charging station, placed blankly-standing Mut Thebes on that makeshift broom, and then soared up higher than the skyscraper roofs.

“Oh, I wanted to absorb Good, Old Mary’s shadow to have her resurrection on hand.”

“Now isn’t the time. That kind of greed will get you killed!!”

Evasion was the only option.

They had to stick to their best option.

Absorbing CRC’s shadow might have turned everything around, but that kind of greed probably would also have gotten her killed. There seemed to be a short lag before Mut Thebes could lay claim to something as her white shadow, so she would have to stand ''defenseless'' before their nemesis for a few seconds. He was sure to kill her in that time. Death was closer than ever before, so they didn’t even have those few seconds to spare.

Rosencreutz did not even look up into the sky.

The look on his face said he wasn’t interested in such a poor plan.

But it seemed unlikely he was going to just let them escape either.

“Flying is a simple task for a magician, but so is bringing them back down to Earth. Surely you know that.”

“Do you think we’ll give you the time?”

“You said that last time. You bore me.”

Even as he said that, the silver young man chuckled and stared straight ahead.

He was apparently interested in Kamijou.

“Thought up any new special moves?”

Kamijou’s vision exploded.

===Part 5===

District 7.

In the frog-faced doctor’s hospital, Anna Sprengel’s clinical records were finally ready.

This included CT and MRI scans.

An ultrasound.

And blood tests using a variety of reagents.

“You didn’t find anything?”

“Weird, isn’t it? Even an electric shock would leave burn marks on her skin.”

The lead medical technician tilted her head.

She would have simply looked puzzled if not for the tension of fear in her cheek.

This wasn’t surprising.

An attack using toxins or chemicals, drowning, and even carbon monoxide poisoning would have caused abnormalities somewhere in the girl’s body. It might be invisible damage to blood vessels or organs and it might be a microscopic change, but some part of her body had to be broken. If there really wasn’t any detectable harm to her skin or her organs, then there was only one diagnosis a doctor could give: ''natural causes''.

Even though no patient had ever been more unnatural.

“…”

There had to be a cause somewhere.

But the doctor couldn’t spot it despite his thorough understanding of the human body.

That had to mean…

“Are we looking at this wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“We are all medical practitioners here, which means we all hold the same worldview. ''What if that worldview is blinding us to something here''?”

===Part 6===

The term “martial law” gained greater weight within Hamazura Shiage.

Not long ago, he had been able to stop by the local discount store, but now it took courage to even open the front door. This was different from Anti-Skill or Judgment lecturing him. He most feared the watchful eyes of their neighbors in this same apartment building.

Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai were self-centered enough to just walk on out regardless, but they weren’t around at the moment.

What were they even doing out there when everything was so dangerous?

Knowing them, they may have seen value in that danger itself.

“I keep tapping, but the video always stops a second or two in… The phone network has really slowed down, hasn’t it?”

“Hamazura, I think everyone is messing around on their phones and tablets because they don’t have anything else to do.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a connection at all, but even a slight slowdown was frustrating when he was so used to more comfortable speeds. Thanks to that, he had left the old-fashioned TV on. As long as you didn’t use any of the net-connected channels, the TV always ran smoothly.

If only there was any useful information there.

When the city was under martial law, it didn’t do anyone any good to tease the audience with a special on the top 10 restaurants in the city. He understood they were just using up all their stockpiled shows, but it still felt so out of place. Didn’t they know no one could head out to visit these places?

What all was happening out there while he was stuck in here?

He was caught in the middle of it, but he could barely find any information.

“Will we be okay staying here?” asked track suit girl Takitsubo with an absentminded tilt of her head.

“It was whoever’s in charge that told us to stay in here. I’m all for having an officially-sanctioned excuse to keep the lazy holiday going.”

“Do we have enough food?”

“If not, the government will bring us some. They started this, so it’s on them.”

As soon as Hamazura said that, he heard a gentle electronic bell.

He checked the intercom screen and saw a drum-shaped cleaning robot slowly crossing the path. The machine spoke with an artificial feminine voice.

“This building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible. Remaining here would be exceedingly dangerous to your lives and your property.”

“Ehhh!? But they’re the ones who told us to stay at home! They could at least run an emergency news broadcast telling us what’s going on out there!!”

“Let’s hope there are no hordes of zombies wandering around, Hamazura.”

===Part 7===

Kamijou couldn’t steady his wobbly vision.

The color beige seemed to have taken over the world. He was seeing a Tokiwadai duffel coat.

That was enough to guess he was being dragged along by Mikoto.

But when had she picked him up?

“What are you doing, Shokuhou?”

“You can’t tell? I’m only cleaning myself off with the wet tissues I found in here. I had concrete dust dumped over my head, so it’s all inside my clothes. You really are a wild thing to not even bother with basic cleanliness, Misaka-san. You might as well live up on the fences with the alley cats☆”

“There is a boy here, you know?”

“Bfgwah!!? Cough, cough!! You could have told me sooner he was with you!!”

Kamijou thought he had caught a glimpse of something, but he was still too woozy to comprehend what he was seeing.

It took a while, but he finally realized where he was. It was partially collapsed and dust filled the air, but this was…

“Ugh, a convenience store?”

“Are you awake now?” quickly asked Mikoto.

She looked as bad as he felt. She had gray dust covering her head on down and her cheeks and uniform were covered in mud.

(Where’s Index and Othinus? What happened to everyone else?)

''A stranger'' was here too.

The girl with long blonde hair wore a Tokiwadai uniform, so was she Mikoto’s friend?

“You can see now that facing him head on isn’t going to work, I hope. It’s a miracle ability you weren’t torn to bits and strewn across the city.”

Why ''was'' he alive?

He knew it wasn’t his own doing.

Mikoto and this stranger must have been fighting hard too. These people had reduced their own lifespans to save him from his own reckless actions.

He understood that.

He was intensely thankful, but the situation didn’t allow him to stop here.

What had happened to Christian Rosencreutz?

“But how does that man’s brain ability work if my Mental Out doesn’t work at all? You aren’t going to tell me he actually wasn’t human to begin with, are you?”

Mental Out.

Kamijou had heard that esper name before.

It belonged to Academy City’s #5.

''But he didn’t know who used that power or what they looked like.

He did wonder if a psychological esper power would work on the Transcendents like Anna and Alice.

A high school boy like Kamijou didn’t know even a fraction of the legends surrounding Christian Rosencreutz, but if he really was the kind of person found in a children’s book, then he would have gone through intense training and obtained near inhuman power. That process could have altered his mind to an extent that not even the #5 Level 5 could control it.

That playful magician was only interested in fulfilling his passions and blowing off some steam. It was only by chance he had been depicted as a wielder of benevolent miracles like someone from a children’s book.

He had explained all that with a smile, but could this really be described using the familiar emotions that Kamijou and the others knew so well?

Deep tremors shook the area even now.

Staticky voices spoke within the partially broken store.

Wherever she had gotten it, Misaka Mikoto held a small Anti-Skill radio.

“Ksh! Escape route Cv1 secured using B2 as a decoy. Make sure Judgment gets away first! Also that military clone staring blankly into space over there! However she was born, she’s still a child!!”

“Wait! I can still fight. If you check the Bank, you will see I am a Level 4 Teleporter, so I can help rescue- argh, listen to me!”

Christian Rosencreutz had not simply lost sight of Kamijou’s group. When Kamijou wasn’t fighting, it meant Rosencreutz was fighting someone else somewhere else.

That could mean Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rest of the Transcendents.

Or it could mean Index and Othinus.

“Damn.”

“Rushing in without a plan won’t help them.”

With that exasperated comment, Mikoto tossed him something.

He caught it to find it was a jelly drink.

“Hey, I hope you paid for this.”

“Idiot. There aren’t any employees here, but the phone-based self-checkout still works.”

Mikoto breathed a long sigh and grabbed a matcha iced latte from the drink section. People’s personalities showed through at times like this. With the store partially destroyed and the power out, she had chosen a drink that would give her an immediate energy boost and didn’t need to be cold to taste good. Kamijou understood why she would avoid the jelly drink since its chemical flavor got a lot more noticeable at room temperature. And yet that was still what she’d given him, dammit.

The honey blonde girl gave Mikoto an icy look.

She had opted to go without a drink.

“Misaka-san, how can you rummage through these convenience store shelves? The place is nearly destroyed and the cooling systems are down, but none of this food has gathered any bugs. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“It’s early January, so all the little critters are hibernating. Kuroko runs a major convenience store chain, so she’s told me all the actual facts about the additives and preservatives they put in their food. How net illiterate do you have to be to actually believe all the sensationalized stories passed around online?”

After purchasing her drink, Mikoto stuck the straw into the drink box and took a sip.

“It’s not just the artificial things you have to worry about, though. How about this, Misaka-san? Do you know where they get the matcha green coloring for lattes and chocolates?”

“Hm? That smug look on your face is enough to know it isn’t tea leaves. So what, is it some kind of chemi-”

“Caterpillar dung☆”

They really did get into a fight with hair-pulling and everything.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance. It seemed to him health nuts like that were only torturing themselves by looking up all that unnecessary information. It sounded like a difficult life, but maybe it was a trial meant to bolster themselves mentally.

Something urgent and worsening was playing out on the radio.

“We can’t waste our forces like this! All remaining forces, fall back to the 2nd line!”

“Got it. We won’t let this end here. This isn’t about our pride. The fate of the city rests on our shoulders!!”

They hadn’t given up yet.

But if they thoughtlessly challenged CRC again, it would all happen again.

(Damn, not even a professional magician or a group of Transcendents could defeat him. I just hope Anti-Skill realized magic exists during the business with R&C Occultics.)

It really sounded to Kamijou like it would be best if he went back out there.

He doubted Imagine Breaker would work against Rosencreutz, but it had to give him a major advantage over anyone else out there.

“So if you do save that Anna Sprengel, what then?” asked Mikoto, unsure what to do with her opened maccha iced latte. “I mean, if she’s connected to that Rosen-whatever guy, she might know his weak point. But she nearly killed you with those mysterious microbes called…St. Germain, was it? Then she toyed with me using that giant capsule machine full of execution items she called the Pneuma-less Shell. And it wasn’t just in Academy City. Didn’t she nearly destroy the entire city of Los Angeles? Was there some secret in common between all of that? Wouldn’t surprise me if there was, but do you really think that wicked woman will give you accurate information?”

What then?

What was his goal? The boy considered the battle he had begun out of necessity.

Eventually, Kamijou responded.

He kept his head lowered, but he spoke clearly.

“Anna says she’s searching for a king.”

“?”

“A king who will protect her without asking why she does what she does. She said she had spent so much time protecting and guiding other people, but no one ever lived up to her expectations and she has grown sick of it all. So she said it’s time she got someone to protect her instead.”

Kamijou didn’t know what exactly had happened during that process.

Something had had caused the immensely arrogant Anna Sprengel to turn away from the world and give up on life. Had it been some shocking event, or had it been a complete lack of change? The puny boy couldn’t even imagine what it might have been.

However.

“But I don’t think she really needs that. She doesn’t need a king. So I want to tell her she can open up and be a part of the world without relying on someone special. I want to tell her no one’s going to hurt her.”

Silence fell for a while.

Both girls sighed.

But those sighs carried something subtly different from exasperation.

“Telling us who she is as a person is hardly fair,” said Mikoto. “It would be nice if she could just be ‘a villain’ – nothing more than a symbol. But once I know her as a person, it’s not so easy to abandon her.”

Misaka Mikoto and the honey blonde girl exchanged a glance.

The resignation was written plain on their faces.

They heard a strange noise.

It resembled raindrops on glass, but the individual sounds were quieter than that. It was more like static on an old TV.

Something flowed in from the broken glass door.

It was the kind of fine sand found in a desert or on a beach.

Instead of pure white, it was colored a faint yellow that stimulated Kamijou’s memory. He recognized this.

The voices on Mikoto’s radio grew a lot more disordered. They were dyed in confusion and panic.

“Dammit, is this the yellow sand from the reports on Los Angeles!?”

“Fall back!! Don’t let it capture you!! Fall back to the 2nd line!!”

“I can’t agree to that. There are still quite a few civilians left in District 12!!”

“Get back here, idiot! …Dammit!!!”

“Citrinitas!” exclaimed Kamijou.

“You can’t reach them in time.”

Unsteady Kamijou was stopped by the honey blonde girl ''whose name he didn’t know''.

“District 12 is a big place, so the distance ability is too great. It would be too late by the time you arrived.”

“…”

“And the rest of Anti-Skill and Judgment have already withdrawn from District 12. These are the facts. And the martial law means no ordinary people will be out on the streets anyway.”

This wasn’t just about the official fighting force.

This would also affect Index, Othinus, Aradia, Mut Thebes, and the rest of those fighting to stop CRC.

''District 12 was a lost cause.

''With the Citrinitas here, it was best to assume no one was left moving.

“You could see this as a stroke of good luck,” said the honey blond girl.

“How is this-?”

Kamijou reached the answer before finishing his question.

If this was the same as in Los Angeles, then the people who had disappeared into the yellow sand were essentially trapped within it. This was still checkmate against them, but that was better than being killed with their bodies split apart like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Kingsford. It was possible Christian Rosencreutz had decided going around killing all of the unresisting people would be a boring waste of his time.

If they stayed put, he might let them live.

But that gave them no way of stopping his march across the city. Then he would make his way to District 7 and arrive at the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

Once that happened, there was no saving Anna Sprengel.

The monster who only ever obeyed his own playfulness and intellectual curiosity would tear it all apart and take her life.

“Sorry. We don’t have many people left, but I still let you die for nothing. I don’t think I can get any closer…”

“Don’t worry about it. If you’d come running here, you’d have met the same fate.”

“Take care of the rest. If this is like in LA, then you should be able to drag the survivors from the yellow sand once the source is defeated.”

“Fall back!! The fight continues at the 2nd line!! Do not forget the words of those fools who joined the sand!!!”

Kamijou and the girls silently listened to the radio.

No.

Was silently observing really all they could do?

They heard an explosive sound from somewhere.

“?”

The wet explosion was different from one caused by explosives or gas. Kamijou hesitantly poked his head out from the destroyed convenience store and found the street covered by yellow sand. Furthermore, something was pushing in from the distance.

“What…is that?”

“Water,” said the honey blonde girl. “It’s water. District 12 is known for all its religious facilities, so it has more firefighting equipment than most districts. Instead of each building having its own, it has a Central Firefighting Tank managed by the district as a whole. That must have ruptured!”

Kamijou looked puzzled. He couldn’t figure out why Christian Rosencreutz would attack there. Wasn’t that basically a giant pool buried underground? He wondered if the man was eliminating all means of extinguishing a fire before starting a great conflagration.

But that wasn’t it.

“We need to get out of here. Immediately,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Why?”

“Did you forget it’s January!? Getting soaked by that sherbet-cold water is enough to kill!!”

Rosencreutz had used the Citrinitas to dissolve District 12’s survivors in the sand. And after that, he was attacking every last alley to ensure he didn’t miss anyone.

Getting caught in that would never end well.

If they were drenched and then exposed to the biting wind, they might just freeze into pillars of ice.

“Run!” shouted Mikoto. “Before it reaches us!!”

The water covered a wide area, but it fortunately wasn’t very deep. If they were caught in the watery zone and their shoes got soaked, they might lose a toe to frostbite, but they could escape the invasion of frigid water by jumping onto a higher ledge or onto a car. It helped that the yellow sand had created a lot of small dunes.

“Pant, pant. Wait…wait for me, Misaka-saaan.”

All the ups and downs quickly wore out ''the stranger'' and left her out of breath. The soft sand below their feet made it all the more challenging. Kamijou would have felt bad leaving her behind, so he took the honey blonde girl’s hand to pull her along with him. For some reason, that immediately silenced her complaints. She was surprisingly meek.

“What now!?” bluntly asked Mikoto, inexplicably irritated all of a sudden.

Kamijou Touma had only one answer to give.

“We fall back.”

It didn’t matter how hopeless the situation was.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t have a single idea of how to defeat Christian Rosencreutz and rescue the people dissolved by the sand.

The hospital was still a long way off.

“We attack him at the next defense line.”

The Transcendents had said the first thing they needed to turn things around and strike back was observation and preparation. That meant slipping away without him noticing, keeping their distance, hiding behind cover, and ensuring they could observe him from safety.

So with the right mindset, this was their chance.

“We lost this round, but it was a meaningful loss.”

The honey blonde girl gasped and looked up.

She was their brainpower and Kamijou had muttered something that had caught her attention.

This was undoubtedly a retreat.

But they could transform it into the first step toward victory.

Their resistance wasn’t over yet.

“If you use up all your trump cards this early, you’ll regret it later on, Rosencreutz.”

===Part 8===

Don’t underestimate the weeds.

If you fail to eliminate that last thin root growing deep into the dirt, your guaranteed victory has already begun to collapse.

===Between the Lines 2===

A trip from England to Germany could be done as a daytrip.

Of course, that was only if you weren’t interested in taking time to enjoy the trip.

“Pant, pant, gasp. W-wait, mistress. Please have mercy…”

“Just hurry up with the luggage, Fortune. This should have been a leisurely railroad trip, but you used British tax money to fly here. It would be rude to the British people if you didn’t do enough work to justify the expense.”

This was how it began that morning as soon as the two met up at Nuremberg’s international airport.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers spoke icily to Dion Fortune whose silhouette was swollen by multiple suitcases, a backpack, and sling bag.

Mina Mathers had a story involving her friend Annie Horniman that could easily be interpreted as belonging to the world of lilies and she was the legendary wife who had supported her (eccentric and brilliant) husband MacGregor Mathers. Dion Fortune also had her relationship with her female teacher, so even for the otherworldly lives of the Golden magicians, those two’s lives were especially rife with 2D-sounding stories. …Which made it strange that Mina alone didn’t have a particularly strange personality and even came off as a kindhearted and sensible person.

“Lies. It’s all lies. Pant, gasp. In what world can that violent back-slasher of a teacher be called kindhearted or sensible? Bleh, the winner of the war has been rewriting the history books again…”

“Did you say something Soror Fortune, my hopeless student?”

Over half of the luggage was Mina’s, so Dion chose to ignore that.

At the very least, Mina Mathers and Dion Fortune were perfectly decent and sensible magicians when compared to MacGregor, the unemployed man who one day began ranting about being a legitimate descendent of Scottish nobility based on precisely zero evidence, or Aleister, the handsome gentleman with the troubling habit of crashing high society parties with a metal butterfly attached to the crotch of his pants.

Mina Mathers had already been separated from Academy City, but she could still choose for herself to support Aleister as the transformed Thoth Tarot.

Nuremberg was an inland industrial city in southern Germany. At this time of year, the low was around -3 degrees. Since it was January, everything was covered by a light dusting of snow, but this wasn’t that far from Denmark where the story of the Little Match Girl was born. While not as large as Munich, which was also in the south, it was a large city with a population in the hundreds of thousands. It had water transportation using the canal connected to the Danube, which flowed through multiple countries, and it provided direct air transportation from its international airport. This was also proof of just how active the city was in producing semiconductors and mechanical components for cars and aircraft.

It was also a historical city.

For better and for worse.

For example, anyone with even a little knowledge of torture and executions would know what the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg referred to. That strange legend had gained a life of its own in different parts of the world, but this city was home to the world’s only extant iron maiden (in the publicly available official records, anyway).

Dion Fortune, who had spread Golden spells across the world with her remote learning correspondence courses, looked curious even through her exhaustion.

“Phew. By the way, mistress, since when did you manufacture a child? Those mourning clothes must only be for show because it looks like you’ve really been quite busy, you lewd funeral beauty.”

“Do not refer to living people as being ‘manufactured’. Besides, she is not mine.”

“?”

“Good girl. If you’re hungry, you can drink this bottle. Do not turn away because you are sick of that flavor. I know you can actually speak.”

A delighted “goo-goo ga-ga” came from the baby carrier.

Mina Mathers was keeping a baby fed. That showed an extreme evolution from when she was so hungry while wandering Academy City that she stuck a power cable in her mouth.

The cat ears mourning clothes woman(?) had used her skill as an artist to design a ceremonial ground and most of the props that complemented the texts and formulas of a magician’s logic, so Dion Fortune skeptically viewed the baby the other woman was holding and soothing. “Then where did that baby come from?” was written plain on her face.

She might have fainted if she were told that was Aleister’s daughter Lilith, though.

To reiterate, Nuremberg was a rare city that perfectly blended a dark history with cutting-edge tech. That may have been why the Rosicrucians had built their largest base there. The old phonographs and silver halide cameras people feared could record the voices and faces of the dead had once been ordinary scientific inventions. Until natural science usurped the throne of the world’s common knowledge by replacing the geocentric model with the heliocentric model and proving that objects consumed oxygen as they burned, magic had been an ordinary field of study.

“Now. Where is Anna Sprengel’s base, the Licht Liebe Leben Temple?”

“How about we check into a hotel first? P-please? Nooo! I’d rather die than begin this lengthy investigation dragging all this luggage around, mistress!!”

Mina Mathers brushed her tearful student away with an annoyed hand and calmly continued.

“We should agree on a plan before we get started, Fortune.”

“Ugh. Can’t our plan be to check into a hotel and leave the luggage there first? Sob.”

“Do I need to scratch you? Dion Fortune, as a Golden magician, you must understand the Rosicrucian ideology at our cabal’s foundation. With that in mind, which side do you take?”

“?”

“I mean.” Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers paused while holding the baby. “Do you believe the legends of the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal as literal stories, or do you think they are some kind of metaphor or code? I am asking what your stance you take as a magician regarding the rose, the cross, the ruby, and the gold.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter2

2023-12-20T12:50:36Z

KamijouTouma007: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 2: So Much Like Tree Rings – Open_War,1st_Defense_Line.==

===Part 1===

Sunset came early in the winter.

It was 5PM.

The first to notice the oddity in the red-dyed city was Anti-Skill.

The martial law declared across Academy City had yet to be removed. That meant Anti-Skill had established an alert network stricter than normal, so even the smallest oddity was immediately reported back to them.

The oddity was detected at the far eastern side of the city, in the strongly religious (by Academy City’s standards) District 11.

“Hey…what’s that?”

And.

Christian Rosencreutz, the silver-haired monster, wasn’t concerned with any minefields that might be in his path.

If he had somewhere to go, he would walk right on through, stepping on all the mines along the way.

“Ohh, oh, ohh?”

Presently, the silver-haired young man clad in red was focused on a plastic bottle.

Specifically, he was staring at the side where he had peeled away a small sticker.

“Hmm. This promises a gift of magic gems, but how do you claim this generous offer? I do not see any kind of contact information.”

“You there!! Show me your ID or residency permit!! Right now!!”

“Oh, I see. You must hold up one of those cleverphones, or whatever you call them, to read this square code here.”

A wet splat rang out.

Rosencreutz never even looked toward the Anti-Skill officer. He didn’t move a finger, but the shouting officer and his gun went spinning up into the air.

In this case, managing to hold onto his gun worked against him.

Because the bullets sprayed against his will struck the fellow officer standing nearby.

“Byah!!”

“Wahhhhhh!?”

The color red and a rusty scent created a brutal scene, but Christian Rosencreutz still ignored it all. With the sticker in hand, he tossed aside the bottle and folded his other hand’s fingers to count something.

“Acquire an ultra-rare trading card – check. Eat that restaurant’s frozen hamburger steak said to have a ‘new and improved flavor’ – check. Worn a heated napping eye mask – check. Tried that simple homemade mochi kit – check. Drank the new chemical pink flavor of energy drink – check. Oh, you there, could you lend me some fingers? Let’s see, where was I?”

“Ah, gah?”

“Won a stuffed toy poodle in the crane game – check. Tried the recommended shark fin cheese dumpling, hit a homerun in the batting cage – check and check. Scored a perfect 100 at karaoke – hm, that’s a check too. Which leaves…”

“Gghghghaghyghagyghagyhgaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Unrestrained cracking noises burst out again and again.

Rosencreutz had not laid a finger on him, but despite his desperate resistance, the Anti-Skill officer’s fingers bent in time with the list. The gun’s grip was crushed by unthinkable force and his index finger pulled the trigger against his will.

“~ ~ ~! Everyone, get down!!”

Something exploded.

Anti-Skill was finally making their counterattack. Snakehead self-destruct drones, which looked like isosceles triangles flying around like a flock of starlings, dropped straight down. Each Snakehead rivalled a shoulder-fired rocket and, when a group of them attacked as sharply as lightning strikes, they had enough firepower to wipe out a group of tanks.

But still Christian Rosencreutz ignored them.

Not a single hair on his head was singed.

“Hm.”

It was the same with him no matter what happened.

He obeyed only his desires when choosing what to do.

Nearly half a day had passed since Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford’s deaths, but he remained in District 12 where he had been reborn.

He had a simple reason for this.

“I’ve tried everything that caught my interest, so maybe I should get moving now.”

CRC’s eyeballs rolled in his head. Everyone present could tell he was focusing on the outside world for the first time.

“''You had better entertain me.''”

Light was compressed.

Sound vanished.

All of a sudden, a 60ton tank was blasted straight up. Anti-Skill had no idea what had happened. Their most well-defended tank had been destroyed in the blink of an eye, so they knew their weaker armored trucks and powered suits wouldn’t stand a chance. The officers wearing military jackets meant to stop bullets and blades would be torn through like paper.

His gaze seemed to pierce right through them.

They knew every spot he turned his attention to would explode.

That wasn’t a logical conclusion.

It was more like a superstition. They were sure that was the rule and anyone who took the rule lightly would be blasted into the air. That was the world they lived in now.

An armored truck was squashed flat, pieces scattering in every direction and knocking over an armored prisoner transport bus being used as a barricade. After taking some kind of destructive damage, an attack helicopter fell toward the Anti-Skill officers fleeing in a panic. There were explosions, screams, and bestial growls.

But Anti-Skill was not broken.

“Surround him!! All units: the current coordinates are designated a max level risk zone, so set up multiple defense lines. This is your top priority!!”

By this point, Anti-Skill viewed the person before them as connected to a wanted criminal. Because they were already aware of another immensely powerful individual who had made fools of them with a supernatural power.

Something tore through the asphalt.

Their tank had been destroyed in an instant, but they weren’t through yet. They had 155mm field artillery, heavy mortars, and even shoulder-fired missiles. The ordinary Anti-Skill officers fired them with teeth gritted.

Orders were given.

“Calculate your line of fire! Keep the danger zone to a minimum!! Fire!!!”

Christian Rosencreutz responded with an exasperated sigh.

“How dull.”

He was hit by explosions from several directions at once.

Moments after massive shells were launched at supersonic speed, most of them was stripped away, focusing all the kinetic energy on the tungsten core. Those special warheads were designed to melt and break a hole through thick composite armor. Each one possessed enough force to punch through and blast apart a flesh-and-bone human, leaving only their collapsing lower body behind.

''But…

“I said you bore me.”

He was unscathed.

That image broke the spirits of everyone watching. The silver young man did not hold back. Explosion after explosion blasted them into the air. The Anti-Skill officers screamed and couldn’t even continue the cycle of dragging their collapsed comrades to safety.

“…”

So.

That young Anti-Skill officer had not been abandoned.

No one around him was capable of moving any longer.

Christian Rosencreutz leisurely strolled through the world of screams, red, and explosive flames.

He stopped when he saw the young officer.

And this was in a world where anywhere that drew his attention would explode.

“Do you want me to stop? But what here could be more entertaining than crushing everyone in my path? If you know of something, I would love to hear about it.”

It all came down to that.

In his world, the mobile game sticker on a drink bottle was just as valuable as a human life.

For a brief moment, the smile vanished from CRC’s face.

“But if you do not, then this is the end for you.”

He slowly held out his hand.

The same hand that had easily blown up a tank and brought down an attack helicopter.

“Ah…ahh.”

There was nothing the Anti-Skill officer could do.

He tried to speak while trembling and unable to move, but…

“Not so fast,” someone else said.

A boy had arrived.

===Part 2===

There may have been one thing that gave Kamijou an advantage. He stood before an exceedingly powerful foe, so focusing on that problem helped distract him from his sorrow. Without that, the shock of losing Alice Anotherbible may have devasted him.

So should he be thankful?

''Hell no.

“…”

The sunset dyed the city red.

Kamijou Touma vs. Christian Rosencreutz.

The collapsed Anti-Skill officers didn’t seem cognizant of the fact that a perfectly ordinary high school boy was confronting that silver monster one-on-one. Their minds had already yielded to the idea that such a thing wasn’t possible.

Kamijou kept his eyes on Rosencreutz but spoke to a nearby Anti-Skill officer.

“You can still move, right? Then drag the others to safety and get out of here. You need to move now if you don’t want to regret this.”

“Oh? And why should this old man just let him do that?”

“Because I won’t give you time to focus on them.”

The Anti-Skill officer got moving despite being weak in the knees. But not to run away – to find some way to get his injured and unmoving colleagues out of danger.

Christian Rosencreutz grinned.

It looked like Kamijou had successfully captured his attention.

“You cannot hold this old man’s attention if all you do is charge at me the same as before.”

“Don’t you worry. That won’t be happening.”

“How exciting☆ Simply killing you would be so ''boring''.”

Hearing that, Kamijou Touma took a step forward.

Faint surprise showed on Christian Rosencreutz’s face.

He may have thought he would always be the one moving in first.

He too approached in amusement.

Now that they were both in motion, there was no stopping them.

Or so Kamijou thought.

“La la la la♪ To all you gentle cat lovers out there, we know you think your cat is cute, but don’t let them create lots of little kittens. Once you have too many to properly care for, it is the cats who will suffer.”

There was a pet shop nearby. It wasn’t actually open thanks to the martial law and the lack of animal cries suggested the employees had taken the animals home with them, but the LCD advertisement screen was still functioning. It may have been set to activate whenever someone walked by.

And a moment after it did…

Tears spilled from Rosencreutz’s eyes.

This was no mistake.

Kamijou watched as the tears joined together to form a line down each cheek and then dripped down from his slender chin like a waterfall.

“Hey, wait, what is with you!?”

“Didn’t you hear? The cats…and the cute kittens. Don’t you feel so sorry for them?”

Kamijou’s eyes opened wide.

Did that man not remember injuring Anti-Skill just a minute ago? How could someone wield that much violence and still feel sorry for some cats!?

He was terrifyingly distractable.

Legendary Magician Christian Rosencreutz sniffled like he had completely forgotten where he was.

''But he hadn’t.

He did not have some grand goal related to the fate of the world or the future of humanity. He had no plan at all. He poured all of his energy into whatever drew his attention at the time.

But his power was immense.

He had enough power to one-shot Alice Anotherbible, yet there was no predicting where he would direct it next.

“The humans must die! Every last one of them!! If they can’t be trusted to keep their promises, the only solution is to go around slaughtering them all. Hwa ha ha! And then all the cats can be happy!!!”

“What the hell is wrong with- shit!?”

Kamijou started to shout back on reflex, but he quickly swung his head to the side.

He felt something wet on his temple: his own blood.

He could guess it was some kind of magic, but he couldn’t analyze it even after being hit by it. If he hadn’t moved at the last second, it would have taken off his head.

Still weeping, Rosencreutz shouted out loud.

He had not reduced his deadly strength.

“Death to all humans!!”

“~ ~ ~! Give a thought to how powerful you are, you dumbass!!!”

Kamijou clenched his right fist, but he couldn’t reach.

They were too far apart.

And his opponent was slightly faster.

With a “crash!!”, something heavy fell behind Rosencreutz.

It was a 2m silver orb.

At first, the sensible part of Kamijou’s brain identified it as a wrecking ball meant to tear down skyscrapers, but it wasn’t. This orb had a round handle just like on a submarine’s watertight doors.

“The Pneuma-less Shell…sniff, sob.”

CRC smiled even as he cried. He was full of emotion.

He moved his feet as if performing dance steps.

But this had nothing to do with magic.

He was simply avoiding the small flowers blooming on the ground.

“Uhh, sob. You may have encountered this when battling a magician who takes after me. It is a Rosicrucian spiritual item, after all. Stones and sharp blades will stab or slash. Plant ropes will strangle or squeeze. Not even this old man can control the random fluctuations that produce the world’s oldest tools related to each cause of death and they will produce the greatest attack based on that origin!”

(Tch!! So is he really at a more advanced level than Anna!?)

Kamijou could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but this was also his chance.

If Anna Sprengel and Christian Rosencreutz were the same sort of magician, then their spells would be similar, even if the scale was different. That meant he only had to remain calm and observe. He already knew this man’s attacks. CRC wasn’t from a completely unknown legend. Kamijou had already defeated Anna who had long ruled over and protected the Rosicrucian cabal, so he might notice some familiar magic in this fight. That would be his greatest opportunity. Rosencreutz had realized this and thus produced the randomized Pneuma-less Shell to prevent Kamijou from predicting what would happen next. That could mean the man was subconsciously afrai-

Kamijou’s optimism was shattered by a dull wrenching sound.

His right shoulder had become a solid mass of agony.

Rosencreutz smiled.

He gave a twisted smile while holding his palm out from a short distance away.

He had indeed summoned the Pneuma-less Shell, but he hadn’t laid a finger on its round handle.

The possibility of recognizing the attack – and the relief that thought brought – had been part of his strategy.

In other words…

(Spoilers aren’t enough to weaken him. He knew I would recognize that and used it against me!?)

“Gahhh!!”

The distance between them was irrelevant. CRC had only needed to hold his palm out toward Kamijou. That was all it took to tear into his right shoulder and produce scorching pain. Kamijou’s legs refused to support him. Unable to fight the force of the blow, his feet left the rubble-strewn ground and he spun through the air.

What was this? He didn’t know, but what was even happening to him!?

A second time.

And a third time the same attack assaulted him.

Since he had failed to resist the first impact, Kamijou let himself to be knocked backwards to try and avoid any further attacks, but it wasn’t enough. CRC corrected his aim for each new attack.

“Hm?”

The onslaught of destruction suddenly stopped.

CRC took a single step to the side.

Kamijou blinked in confusion even as he grimaced from the pain coming more from his bones than his skin.

Why had that man suddenly dodged? It didn’t make sense.

Was it based on some kind of rule? More importantly, was there some way of taking advantage of it?

The only thing on the road there was an old abandoned civilian car. The two round headlights and the plain bumper looked something like a smiling man.

(Really? It was that? It was really nothing more than that!?)

“Oh, how cute. Oops. I do have a bad habit of getting emotionally invested in things like this. I wonder if it was a habit I picked up from using hidden symbolism to interpret secret instructions and messages.”

Kamijou shuddered.

Logic and tactics came second. He really did do everything on a whim.

The next attack would arrive before long.

“Kh.”

Kamijou focused his mind on his right hand.

What was Imagine Breaker good for?

He clenched his teeth and his fist as tight as could be.

“Don’t try to defend, Touma!! Dodge by falling to the right!!”

Hearing a shout, Kamijou immediately swung his right fist.

But to the side, not the front. That shifted his center of gravity just enough to let him roll to the side and out of the way of the deadly attack.

It was a close thing.

He belatedly realized that, if he had relied on Imagine Breaker out of habit, he probably would have failed to fully negate the immense torrent of magic and his arm would have been twisted off at the shoulder or elbow.

And.

He recognized that voice.

“I-Index?”

Index was there with 15cm Othinus on her shoulder.

Kamijou forgot all about his pain and looked up from the ground.

Those two had no reason at all to risk their lives to save a villain like Anna Sprengel. Yet here they were.

No warm light had descended from heaven and no great sea had parted before his eyes.

But what was this if not a miracle?

“Do you think we have time to explain why we’re here or how we got here? Get back on your feet already!”

“Sorry, CRC, but I have too much pride as a god to quake in fear of your legend. I am the Norse war god, so my magic is not built with your rules at the foundation.”

And those two weren’t alone. Kamijou had trouble believing the next person he saw: Misaka Mikoto.

He was speechless.

She may have read the question in his eyes.

Mikoto averted her eyes a bit as she spoke.

“I-I never said I wouldn’t help. I only presented the problem from a different viewpoint. So don’t get all excited about this, idiot.”

Something else drew his attention.

“?”

For some reason, ''a complete stranger'' had shown up too.

Why had that middle school girl with long blonde hair come to this dangerous place?

“Don’t worry about me. Even if I explained my reason ability for risking my life here, you would forget it all soon enough anyway☆”

For some reason, Christian Rosencreutz waited for all of this to play out.

In fact, his eyes were sparkling.

A bad sign.

“Fascinating!!!”

“Watch out, everyone!! That idiot is about to attack!!”

They all scattered.

Whatever happened, the air in a straight line out from CRC rapidly heated and scorched. A pedestrian bridge far behind them was sliced apart and soared through the sky.

Apparently he wasn’t guaranteed a hit whenever he held out his palm.

Gathering his attention was far too dangerous.

That alone could mean death.

Even if the silver young man himself didn’t intend for it.

After all, not even Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker could fully negate CRC’s magic. Defense was out of the question. Evasion was the only option. If your legs froze up in fear of the approaching deadly attack, you would be instantly consumed.

And it wasn’t just dumb luck that there were no victims from Kamijou’s group.

Kamijou had experienced too much misfortune to believe in that.

There had to be a real reason they had been saved.

“TBSR – TCKU (Thy body shifts right – thou cannot keep up)!!”

“Oh?”

Index had folded her hands and raised her voice in what sounded like a song, but it wasn’t.

That was Spell Intercept.

By analyzing the structure of the enemy magician’s spell and randomly rearranging the incantation or symbols into something extremely similar but with an entirely different meaning, Index could throw off the enemy’s focus.

She had only diverted his aim by the smallest amount this time.

But when she really worked at it, she could cause the magic to malfunction or even harm the enemy magician.

“Kee hee hee. Oh, how delightful! Such fun!! Is this what modern magic is like? It is missing a lot, but I see you have made a number of changes to make up for that. You could even call it a brand new genre of original recipes. This type of creativity is far more interesting than Kingsford who continued to use the musty old secret arts!!”

Christian Rosencreutz was probably being entirely honest.

But Index still clenched her teeth.

He was saying she had insufficient data and that all her knowledge was a distorted version of the original. She had dedicated her life to memorizing more than 103,000 grimoires, so his words were a humiliating insult to her.

He might as well have tried the finest dish of a chef who had worked his ass of training in French cuisine and then scoffed, calling it an amusing Japanese twist on the dish.

That man had to be well versed in ways to make people suffer.

And he used them for no more than his own amusement.

But reality could not keep up.

“Gh!?” groaned Mikoto.

She had magnetically pulled over an electric car as a shield, but now it exploded. The whitish explosion of the giant lithium-ion battery slammed into her, throwing her backwards.

Index’s instructions weren’t enough to avoid this.

Her Spell Intercept wasn’t enough to throw off Rosencreutz’s aim!?

“Hm? Weird. This doesn’t match my grimoires!?”

“Kee hee hee. Of course it doesn’t.”

CRC cackled gleefully.

He looked like he was resisting the urge to hold his sides.

“Does flipping through a recipe book make you a chef? You are a library, a collection of book knowledge, while this old man is steeped from head to toe in real knowledge and skill. We may be drawing on the same wisdom, but there is a vast gulf between what we can actually use. Hee hee ha ha ha. Did you think your lines of text on paper could outdo what this old man truly performs!?”

“''Shokuhou''!!!”

Collapsed on the ground, Misaka Mikoto called a name that had a terribly familiar ring to it.

The honey blonde girl immediately pulled a TV remote from her handbag. But then she froze. Not even her widened eyes blinked.

Something inside her had suddenly broken.

“What? No…way.”

“''Did you really think that child’s play would work on this old man''?”

He didn’t provide any further explanation.

But everyone could tell that was an absolute truth that brooked no objection. The result was plain to see. The #5’s power did not work on him and that was all that mattered.

With their attack stopped, it was Rosencreutz’s turn.

The negative trend would not stop.

“Kh!!”

Kamijou stepped out in front of the girls and held out his right hand.

But a chill ran down his spine.

Hadn’t he done this exact thing after Alice Anotherbible died and his mind went blank? Index had used the full knowledge of all her grimoires and told him not to use Imagine Breaker here. It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – she had concluded that method wouldn’t work here.

Christian Rosencreutz slowly held his palm out toward Kamijou.

“Ahhhh!!” roared dusty Misaka Mikoto.

She must have harnessed a great magnetic force because the highway overpass crossing the road collapsed and a skyscraper on either side collapsed to block the road. An artificial gale blew through. How many people would have died if everyone hadn’t been evacuated from the area by the martial law?

But Kamijou didn’t even consider that question.

The world quaked. A single attack caused the towering pile of rubble to crumble away. Hearing the cacophony was enough to know it would soon no longer function as a barrier.

The original rule stood before him.

''Evasion was the only option.

''It didn’t matter what had worked in the past – he must not think of trying defense this time.

A pair of eyes shined bright beyond the collapsing pile.

''He'' was smiling with amusement.

“Is that all you can do? You gather all your strength and it buys you a measly 10 seconds?”

“!!??”

Terror squeezed at Kamijou’s stomach.

Before they could try anything else, that abnormal joy pinned Kamijou and the girls’ feet to the ground.

Rosencreutz’s approach could not be stopped.

He was coming to them!?

“Heh heh. No, no. Surely you can do more than that. You bothered to stand in this old man’s path, so you had better entertain me a while longer!!!”

===Part 3===

When Christian Rosencreutz shouted, the color white filled the world.

===Part 4===

For a moment, Kamijou’s memories refused to link together.

Like film cut apart with scissors that wouldn’t fit together again.

Had CRC’s great attack influenced him mentally as well as physically?

''No.

“Gh,” Kamijou groaned, a dull ache in his temples. Yes, this reminded him of the pain felt when looking at the sun for too long.

In other words…

(A powerful flash of light? Did Misaka produce some powerful sparks to try and dazzle Rosencreutz’s eyes?)

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

This move didn’t violate that rule. And since Kamijou wasn’t dead, it must have been effective in this battle against Rosencreutz. But now that Rosencreutz had seen it, Kamijou seriously doubted it would work a second time.

He didn’t see Index, Mikoto, or the others.

He felt a strange weight in his clothing. He looked down the neck of his shirt to see a metal plate larger than his hand. Had Mikoto used that to magnetically fling him as far away as she could?

He hadn’t had time to do anything on his own.

That was fine.

Feeling fear wasn’t a bad thing. Because the fear motivated him to observe as much as he could, think through it all on a deeper level, and find an opportunity. True defeat was only found if he stopped analyzing that fear and let the trembling take over.

“But where am I?”

Still curled up in a ball, Kamijou slowly turned his head.

Had this originally been a trendy laundromat that doubled as a café? He must have subconsciously hidden himself behind the collapsed building.

He didn’t know his exact location.

But it seemed like Rosencreutz had lost track of him.

That didn’t mean he could relax, however.

With no one left to stop him, that man would resume his march toward the District 7 hospital. That endangered Anna Sprengel and the hospital staff who were working so hard to save her even though they knew she was a villain.

Kamijou couldn’t place that burden on their shoulders.

This was his selfish desire. He should carry the burden and the risk. He clenched his teeth, placed a hand on the wall, and slowly stood up.

He could still do this.

(Where are Index, Mikoto, and the rest? I just hope Rosencreutz didn’t go after them.)

Just then…

“Hey. I can’t help but notice you’re risking you’re life by repeatedly throwing yourself against an unrivaled monster, so I’m here to help out, laddie.”

He heard an oddly relaxed female voice. And it came from the open sky overhead.

And a moment later…

“Oops, botched my landing.”

“Bwahh!?”

Kamijou went blind. It took him several seconds to realize the Transcendent Bologna Succubus had descended from the sky above with her batlike wings and then caught his face between her two thighs and something else. I’d rather not explain what exactly that something else is. Simply put, it was like a backward and upside-down piggyback ride. Using the alphabet, it was something like an S.

“Bwbhbh, get, bhbhj, off of, bhehb, me!?”

“Nhh… Don’t breathe on me there, you jackaninny.”

“Agh, I said get off!!”

While the succubus was being extremely succubus-like, more sets of footsteps approached. After somehow extricating himself from the crotch trap(!?), Kamijou observed the new arrivals with his recovered vision.

“Is it in a demon’s nature to act so inappropriately? Or was the boy responsible for this one?”

“I think they’re having fun.”

Good, Old Mary and Mut Thebes were here.

So was Witch Goddess Aradia.

“Did you call them here?”

“Those of us with nowhere to go gathered together on our own,” simply stated Aradia, not looking him in the eye.

But these Transcendents were not like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Sprengel. They did not act on a whim. They would mechanically list out their salvation conditions and only save whoever met them. Since they were all acting together, these survivors must have been working toward a single goal, which would have required untangling the many threads and solving a challenging puzzle.

For example, there was Mut Thebes.

It seemed like a fundamental contradiction for that punishment expert to be fighting for Anna Sprengel. She was the very person who had chased Anna down before.

Although Mut Thebes herself only quizzically tilted her head.

“My Shrink Drink attack on Anna Sprengel is complete.”

“Kh.”

Those words seemed to tear sharply into Kamijou Touma’s heart.

They stated a fact that could never be overturned.

But she wasn’t done there.

“''Which means my task as a punishment expert has concluded.'' Whatever happens to her now is none of my concern – even if she does find a way to live happily ever after. She is no threat to the Bridge Builders Cabal with her cardiopulmonary function ceased and I doubt she can leak information as H. T. Trismegistus and the others feared she might. I use punishment to protect the group I have chosen for myself. And at the moment, the much greater and more direct threat to the cabal is Christian Rosencreutz.”

“Y-you mean you’ll help us for now?”

“No? You do not fit my salvation conditions.”

So whose side was Mut Thebes really on?

But Kamijou truly felt he would be spared her deadly blade no matter how many times he failed to meet her mechanical search conditions.

However, that it was impossible to know where all that power would be directed was frightening in a different way from a capricious beast that simply obeyed its instincts. There was no chance of escaping her interest by playing dead or taming her so she wouldn’t attack. If anything, she was even more inhuman – like a drone weapon. He felt like he was being followed around by a faint chill that carried great power but could kill based on a ''sensor error'' no matter what her personal feelings might be.

In this case, a neutral stance was someone who might shoot you in the back at any time.

Mut Thebes-chan had effectively come running to his aid, but she still scared him.

However, she ''hadn’t malfunctioned yet'', so she only looked confused.

Mut Thebes was the Transcendents’ punishment expert.

They probably had the least in common and convincing her would be challenging, but there wasn’t time for Kamijou to let that scare him into being more withdrawn.

Rosencreutz wanted to slaughter all of the Transcendents.

And only as a way of entertaining himself because he was bored.

If Kamijou failed to tell that girl some critical information, he would be responsible if she lost her life as a result. So as scared and nervous as he was, they had to work together and share their information for now.

“A-are you aware Christian Rosencreutz is wandering around somewhere nearby?”

“More or less.”

“He isn’t someone you can beat in a normal fight. But that’s your specialty as Transcendents, right? Mut Thebes, having you here is especially important. I want you to immediately fall back to District 18. You at least need to head to the second…no, the third defense line.”

Kamijou was beginning to sound like a weather forecaster during a typhoon.

“His shortest route will take him through Districts 12, 23, 18, and 7. Even if he does go through Districts 12, 6, 5, and 7 instead, you can still blast him from District 18. Your Dead Phoenix lets you absorb the shadows of people and things, converting them into your own power, so you have a lot more options than the rest of us. It would be better for you to fire on him from a safe distance than to attempt a close-range battle with that monster!!”

Mut Thebes displayed no malice.

Her head tilt came from pure confusion.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you’re the strongest here when it comes to pure firepower. Dead Phoenix lets you absorb any shadow and make its power your own, so you can use all the next-gen weaponry you want. That’s perfect for being in Academy City. You’re the only one I can rely on here!!”

She froze in place for a moment.

After blinking twice she puffed out her flat chest.

And for some reason, she looked not to Kamijou in front of her but to the Transcendents to her side.

“Heh heh. I’m the strongest. I shine the brightest. Heh heh heh♪”

“Hmph☆” “Hmph☆” “Hmph☆”

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and even the usually composed Good, Old Mary reacted. Kamijou couldn’t imagine why the opinion of a high schooler like him would matter. Or, as unlikely as it seemed, did they have some kind of strength ranking within their cabal? They seemed to have a rivalry in the same vein as Yarou web novels or VRTubers.

Mut Thebes-chan’s eyes were as emotionless as ever, but she couldn’t keep the grin off of her lips.

“If you want me to deliver an effective blow to CRC, then I’m willing to help. My current salvation conditions are to protect the Bridge Builders Cabal as a separate entity from the rest of the world. If CRC is after the Transcendents, then defeating him would be the fastest way to accomplish my goal.”

“Huh? Hold on. Are you saying I bowed down for no reason?”

“If you don’t ask me properly, I will launch my own attack.”

Kamijou Touma went past 45 degrees and bowed to a full 90 degrees. The salaryman spirit carried by his Japanese blood had suddenly awoken within him.

Mut Thebes put her hands on her slender hips and gave a satisfied snort from her little nose.

“I will fall back to the third defense line, but absorbing a large weapon will take time. And if it is unwieldy enough, it would be more efficient for me to act as a stationary turret rather than try to lug it around.”

“And?”

Kamijou had to admit he didn’t want her to be stompnig along with something hundreds of meters tall like she had before. She would become the real threat to the city then.

“The question is what I do about targeting. Either I will need to absorb a targeting device capable of tracking CRC, or you will have to instruct me from the front line while you- brr, it’s freezing.”

She gave up before finishing her thought.

And she started tugging at him. He looked down to see what that was about and saw her wrap herself in his coat to warm herself.

The Bologna Succubus’s eyes widened at this display of even more brazenness than an ill-behaved high school girl unplugging the electric display in front of a convenience store to charge her phone.

“What’s this, are you his girlfriend now? I’m a lewd succubus and even I resisted the urge to steal his coat!”

But if the Japanese winter was too cold for Mut Thebes, why had she skipped right past a bikini (difficulty level: normal) and worn that even more revealing costume (difficulty level: hara-kiri crazy nightmare)? Since Magic God Nephthys had walked around outside in nothing but bandages, did ancient Egyptians have something against wearing sufficient clothing?

Mut Thebes had nerves of steel.

The cold girl was entirely unbothered by sharing someone else’s coat without asking.

“I do not dress this way because I enjoy it. I can only activate my spell by casting my own shadow on the ground, so this is merely the logical choice. Do not confuse me with those exhibitionists who have chosen to take off most of their clothing in this frigid January weather for no good reason.”

“Mama would prefer if you did not place her in the same category as the witch goddess and the horny demon. Mama dresses perfectly normally. She has never stooped to cheap exhibitionism or sex appeal.”

“Huh? How can you say that when we all bathed together back at the consulate?”

Sparking tension grew between the Transcendents.

From multiple directions.

“She pretends to be the only one who knows how to behave, but I bet she’s wearing some really sexy underwear below that chaste long skirt! Keeping that composed look when she’s secretly wearing the naughtiest panties you’ve ever seen makes her way more of a pervert than us!!”

“Stop it with the baseless speculation. Mama is nothing like you superhuman perverts; she is just as pure and adorable as she looks.”

“If you take a gander at everything from my one-piece corset to the leather outfit of Alice’s punishment mode, it doesn’t take long to notice what all us Transcendent women have in common.”

“Oh? And have you ever seen below mama’s skirt? You have not, so your words are powerless. Accusations made without solid evidence can only lead to the false accusations you despise.”

“Gh!?” The Bologna Succubus flinched back for once.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance, worried this group was going to tear itself apart before they even fought CRC.

“I never said I would save Anna. The accusations against her aren’t false. She is the villain everyone says she is,” said the Bologna Succubus, with the bluntness of a Transcendent. She laid out her conditions with frightening precision. “But if we focus on Christian Rosencreutz’s attempt to kill all the Transcendents, ''then I have no issue with helping.'' …It turns out he isn’t going to save the world. If nothing is done, it’s obvious he will destroy the entire world along with all of our salvation conditions. So I’m willing to give my all to this fight.”

Salvation conditions.

It worried Kamijou that she still hadn’t removed that self-imposed constraint, but he needed as many allies as he could get right now.

She would give her all to fight for those weaker than her.

If that was all it was, she may have been a greater example of justice than the puny boy.

Then Kamijou’s attention turned toward another Transcendent: Good, Old Mary.

It happened suddenly.

“What about Alice? Can you-”

He left the question unfinished, realizing too late that it was a meaningless question.

She silently shook her head.

Her big hat wobbled sadly.

Not even Good, Old Mary could save Anna from the Shrink Drink’s effects. Because a mere Transcendent could not resist even a fragment of Alice Anotherbible’s power.

He doubted she would be able to interfere with Alice herself so easily, especially to overturn the girl’s death.

Was there any crueler irony than her own great strength preventing her from being saved?

“I see,” said Kamijou Touma.

He had already known it, but having it stated by someone else was like a knife to the heart. Good, Old Mary’s resurrection could revert the dead to the exact moment of their death, providing a chance for CPR. But not even that could save Alice. Or Anna.

The row of falling dominos had suddenly stopped.

The frog-faced doctor was fighting to save Anna’s life.

Kamijou had his own task to complete. He could not allow Christian Rosencreutz to reach the hospital.

He noted that H. T. Trismegistus was not here.

Had he been killed when Rosencreutz first appeared? Or did he no longer see any purpose in the Bridge Builders Cabal now that he had lost his master Alice Anotherbible?

For that matter, there were so few Transcendents here given that Good, Old Mary could resurrect people. The Bridge Builders Cabal had pooled their combined strength into that ceremony. Kamijou didn’t know how many there were in all, but there had to have been a large number of Transcendents in Academy City.

Had the CPR failed after their bodies were returned to the moment of death?

Or had the CPR succeeded but they had lost the will to fight and fled?

He had no way of knowing.

“We’ve already lost to him once, so we know just how much of a threat Christian Rosencreutz is,” said the Bologna Succubus.

“But we can’t just let him go free.”

“We are aware,” said Good, Old Mary. “And since we know a direct attack will not work, what we need is observation and preparation. We must make ourselves disappear, find safety, and get a fresh start. So before Rosencreutz notices us, we must leave here, keep our distance, and find cover.”

Their argument was logical.

They had not given in to their fear.

The Transcendents were not like Kamijou. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They had lost and they had experienced the fear of death, but they still used their reason and knowledge as weapons to challenge their greatest enemy.

“Mut Thebes. You too.”

Aradia spoke to the most dangerous of the bunch.

But maybe being known as the most dangerous actually made her the safest one when it came to the problem of a malfunction in her salvation conditions.

Good, Old Mary looked like the gentlest and calmest, so if she suddenly shot him in the back, Kamijou wouldn’t know what to believe anymore.

“What kind of weapon shadows should I absorb? Or ''should I absorb your Transcendent shadows now as insurance in case something happens?'' Given this battle’s difficulty level, it would be best if we had multiple copies of Good, Old Mary’s resurrection.”

Just then, Kamijou felt a chill.

He turned toward it without even thinking. But that didn’t mean looking left, right, or even behind. He looked up.

He was speechless.

And a voice responded to his unvoiced question.

“Found you☆”

“Dammit!!!”

The voice was peering down from the top of a wall still standing among the rubble.

Kamijou immediately rolled away just before the entire scene was obliterated. Christian Rosencreutz dropped like a meteor, blowing away the unnaturally-standing concrete wall.

The silver young man stood at the center of the resultant crater.

He displayed a joyful smile at discovering new prey.

They needed a fresh start.

They had to escape before he found them.

It was the thinnest of threads, but they had finally found a definite chance they could reach for.

It had shattered from a single blow.

“Kh.”

Fear clutched Kamijou’s heart.

But he wasn’t even given time to freeze up.

Kamijou glared at red-clad Christian Rosencreutz and swept a hand out to the side to protect Mut Thebes standing by his side. Then he shouted to her.

“Hurry to the third defense line and stock up on as many next-gen weapons as you can! A simple close-quarters battle will only wear you out, so we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get away!!”

“Kyun☆”

He heard a strange sound.

No, was it a voice? Kamijou looked over in shock to see the girl clasping her hands in front of her flat chest. And for some reason her cheeks were flushed pink.

What had happened?

The Bologna Succubus snapped at Mut Thebes whose eyes were wavering on her otherwise expressionless face.

“Now is not the time to let the suspension bridge effect pierce your heart! I know this is basically your first time speaking with a boy, but how about you get to know him a little before you fall for him!?”

“Wait, is that what this is? I’m flatt-”

“Mut Thebes’s specialty is hunting people down, so if she is in love with you, she’ll probably pursue you to the ends of the earth. Lucky you, if you’re into that. And with a passionate stalker loaded with a limitless supply of blades and firearms, you never have to worry about her cheating on you and you know she’ll accept your love.”

This clarification by Big Sis Aradia (whose eyes looked unnecessarily icy for some reason) made Kamijou’s shoulders jump. The gravity of Mut Thebes’s love was apparently on par with a black hole. If you got too close and let it catch you in its pull, time and space would lose all meaning and you would find escape to be impossible.

Also, based on the way they had phrased some things, he got the feeling H. T. Trismegistus didn’t count as a boy in the eyes of the female Transcendents. That young butler was getting caught in the crossfire despite having gone missing.

How did this all look to Christian Rosencreutz who wielded violence on a whim?

At the very least, he didn’t interrupt their conversation with an attack.

“The Transcendents, hm? The group that lost sight of their own selves through excessive and mistaken ''roleplaying''. I have already defeated the lot of you once. …A repeat of that would be a disappointment. You had better have developed some new special attack now that you have chosen to stand in this old man’s way again.”

There were multiple Transcendents here.

As hard as Kamijou found it to believe, CRC did not appear to view them as a threat.

“Why?” asked Witch Goddess Aradia. “Why dedicate yourself so thoroughly to violence? Our Bridge Builders Cabal has chosen to abandon the self to take up roles that will help others and we even completed a major spell through that. Even for us, ''we had to define our values to wield our power without causing collateral damage''.”

He was not someone to hold an ordinary conversation.

She had to know that, but she couldn’t help but ask.

And.

He gave a response.

“''Passion.''”

A sharp explosion erupted and Kamijou’s group each rolled in their own direction to distance themselves from it.

The blast must have hit a jeweler’s shop because lots of gold and jewelry rained from the sky.

Christian Rosencreutz traced his fingers through empty space.

He displayed no interest in the sparkling precious metal.

He delicately used two fingers to catch a small white flower carried in by a crosswind and gently inserted its stem in the gap on the door of a crushed and twisted luxury car.

He prioritized appreciating nature over strategy or his own interests.

“Playfulness, whims, letting off steam – call it what you like. Kee hee hee. This old man is well aware how great a power I hold in my hands. So I will never blame its results on anyone else. I will not say I did it for justice, for an individual, to save someone, or even to save the world. With power this great, shifting the blame onto someone else could very well break them. No matter what anyone might say, only I am capable of bearing the burden of this power. And I wield my power only to fulfill my passion and my playfulness. ''Because that is ultimately the kindest option for the world at large.''”

“That’s all?”

This question came not from Aradia herself but from Kamijou.

He couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s your only reason!? It isn’t about right or wrong? It really is all about your own momentary whims? So you don’t even hate the Transcendents who brought you into this world? It isn’t that you can’t bear to see what the world has become!?”

“''When did this old man say a single word about hating the world''? The world remains as immature as it was millennia ago and its people continue to attempt a deeply flawed but adorable resistance against it. Heh heh. You thought I would solve everything for you? Ah hah hah hah!! Oh, how adorable. What other word is there for it!? This old man is only choosing who to fight based on how much they amuse me. Which is why I want in!!!”

Sordid emotion erupted from the silver young man.

He could kill because he liked the person.

He could destroy out of pure playfulness.

He was not a stalker who grew violent when the target of his affections didn’t do what he wanted. Did he threaten the world a lot like a sadistic killer who had been handed the nuclear launch controls?

“…”

Aradia fell silent.

As did the rest of the Transcendents.

They really did think only of saving the world. The Bridge Builders Cabal had resurrected someone it turned out they wanted nothing to do with. A great monster who could only be sealed by a vast span of time had been revived in the modern world.

The Transcendents understood this on a deep level because they were the ones responsible.

What had they prayed for and how much had they hoped to leave in his care?

He had trampled on all of that, but they hadn’t let that stop them. Because they needed to bring an end to the foolishness they had caused. So that this disaster could not reach the people they had vowed to protect. That was Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rests’ reason for fighting.

“That too is just another silly passion,” said Rosencreutz, chuckling and holding his own body. He had seen right through them. “All this old man is doing is consciously making use of those passions. Which is why I will not say you are wrong. Ah ha hya. Because it would bore me if you tried to make excuses and shift the blame onto someone else!!!”

The silver young woman took action while laughing.

He casually held out his palm.

A deadly attack that ignored the concept of distance was coming!!

With a solid clang, the air glowed bluish-white.

There was a barrier there.

Good, Old Mary held her hands together and crushed a 500mL glass container. It was an aroma water maker that extracted the scents of herbs using evaporation and cooling.

“A still contains an entire world within. Whether the life of the homunculus created in the transparent bottle or the enchanting potion that can dissolve all materials, it is all contained within. So by preparing one side and then defining the seen and the unseen – the interior and the exterior – your attack cannot reach us, CRC.”

“Oh, really? I take it you are a kitchen alchemist?”

“CRC. To a master of a single path like you, this may appear a simple and unrefined ceremony, but that is what makes it of a system older even than your own. Its influence on you is imperfect, but mama can still remove a portion of your magic and receive it from head on.”

“An alchemist wife? Heh heh. How very interesting!! All magic is an illusion, so it would be a shame to strip it of all dreams and comedy!!”

“Listen to me. Mama is unmarried, so you should address her with Ms., you imbecile.”

For the very first time, a Transcendent did not flee from Christian Rosencreutz’s outstretched palm. She received the attack head on and deflected it away.

Evasion was the only option. They mustn’t even think about defense.

That rule crumbled away and their possibilities seemed to spread out infinitely.

“''But.''”

Rosencreutz scoffed.

Good, Old Mary wobbled to the side. The color red stained her mouth.

“''You can only remove a portion. That is not nearly enough to repel this old man.''”

“Dammit!!!”

The rule remained unbroken.

Evasion was still the only option. There were no exceptions for those who attempted defense.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

(But even if it was just once and incomplete, she still stepped off of the rails he set up for us. There really is something different about the Transcendents. But he knows that, which is why he’s targeting them first. That’s all the more reason I can’t let him do that!!)

“Aradia!! And Bologna Succubus!!!”

The boy addressed those two because of something they had in common: they could both fly.

The Bologna Succubus flapped her wings to take flight. While carrying Good, Old Mary after snatching her up before she could fall unconscious to the ground. Aradia grabbed the sign leaning diagonally against an electric car charging station, placed blankly-standing Mut Thebes on that makeshift broom, and then soared up higher than the skyscraper roofs.

“Oh, I wanted to absorb Good, Old Mary’s shadow to have her resurrection on hand.”

“Now isn’t the time. That kind of greed will get you killed!!”

Evasion was the only option.

They had to stick to their best option.

Absorbing CRC’s shadow might have turned everything around, but that kind of greed probably would also have gotten her killed. There seemed to be a short lag before Mut Thebes could lay claim to something as her white shadow, so she would have to stand ''defenseless'' before their nemesis for a few seconds. He was sure to kill her in that time. Death was closer than ever before, so they didn’t even have those few seconds to spare.

Rosencreutz did not even look up into the sky.

The look on his face said he wasn’t interested in such a poor plan.

But it seemed unlikely he was going to just let them escape either.

“Flying is a simple task for a magician, but so is bringing them back down to Earth. Surely you know that.”

“Do you think we’ll give you the time?”

“You said that last time. You bore me.”

Even as he said that, the silver young man chuckled and stared straight ahead.

He was apparently interested in Kamijou.

“Thought up any new special moves?”

Kamijou’s vision exploded.

===Part 5===

District 7.

In the frog-faced doctor’s hospital, Anna Sprengel’s clinical records were finally ready.

This included CT and MRI scans.

An ultrasound.

And blood tests using a variety of reagents.

“You didn’t find anything?”

“Weird, isn’t it? Even an electric shock would leave burn marks on her skin.”

The lead medical technician tilted her head.

She would have simply looked puzzled if not for the tension of fear in her cheek.

This wasn’t surprising.

An attack using toxins or chemicals, drowning, and even carbon monoxide poisoning would have caused abnormalities somewhere in the girl’s body. It might be invisible damage to blood vessels or organs and it might be a microscopic change, but some part of her body had to be broken. If there really wasn’t any detectable harm to her skin or her organs, then there was only one diagnosis a doctor could give: ''natural causes''.

Even though no patient had ever been more unnatural.

“…”

There had to be a cause somewhere.

But the doctor couldn’t spot it despite his thorough understanding of the human body.

That had to mean…

“Are we looking at this wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“We are all medical practitioners here, which means we all hold the same worldview. ''What if that worldview is blinding us to something here''?”

===Part 6===

The term “martial law” gained greater weight within Hamazura Shiage.

Not long ago, he had been able to stop by the local discount store, but now it took courage to even open the front door. This was different from Anti-Skill or Judgment lecturing him. He most feared the watchful eyes of their neighbors in this same apartment building.

Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai were self-centered enough to just walk on out regardless, but they weren’t around at the moment.

What were they even doing out there when everything was so dangerous?

Knowing them, they may have seen value in that danger itself.

“I keep tapping, but the video always stops a second or two in… The phone network has really slowed down, hasn’t it?”

“Hamazura, I think everyone is messing around on their phones and tablets because they don’t have anything else to do.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a connection at all, but even a slight slowdown was frustrating when he was so used to more comfortable speeds. Thanks to that, he had left the old-fashioned TV on. As long as you didn’t use any of the net-connected channels, the TV always ran smoothly.

If only there was any useful information there.

When the city was under martial law, it didn’t do anyone any good to tease the audience with a special on the top 10 restaurants in the city. He understood they were just using up all their stockpiled shows, but it still felt so out of place. Didn’t they know no one could head out to visit these places?

What all was happening out there while he was stuck in here?

He was caught in the middle of it, but he could barely find any information.

“Will we be okay staying here?” asked track suit girl Takitsubo with an absentminded tilt of her head.

“It was whoever’s in charge that told us to stay in here. I’m all for having an officially-sanctioned excuse to keep the lazy holiday going.”

“Do we have enough food?”

“If not, the government will bring us some. They started this, so it’s on them.”

As soon as Hamazura said that, he heard a gentle electronic bell.

He checked the intercom screen and saw a drum-shaped cleaning robot slowly crossing the path. The machine spoke with an artificial feminine voice.

“This building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible. Remaining here would be exceedingly dangerous to your lives and your property.”

“Ehhh!? But they’re the ones who told us to stay at home! They could at least run an emergency news broadcast telling us what’s going on out there!!”

“Let’s hope there are no hordes of zombies wandering around, Hamazura.”

===Part 7===

Kamijou couldn’t steady his wobbly vision.

The color beige seemed to have taken over the world. He was seeing a Tokiwadai duffel coat.

That was enough to guess he was being dragged along by Mikoto.

But when had she picked him up?

“What are you doing, Shokuhou?”

“You can’t tell? I’m only cleaning myself off with the wet tissues I found in here. I had concrete dust dumped over my head, so it’s all inside my clothes. You really are a wild thing to not even bother with basic cleanliness, Misaka-san. You might as well live up on the fences with the alley cats☆”

“There is a boy here, you know?”

“Bfgwah!!? Cough, cough!! You could have told me sooner he was with you!!”

Kamijou thought he had caught a glimpse of something, but he was still too woozy to comprehend what he was seeing.

It took a while, but he finally realized where he was. It was partially collapsed and dust filled the air, but this was…

“Ugh, a convenience store?”

“Are you awake now?” quickly asked Mikoto.

She looked as bad as he felt. She had gray dust covering her head on down and her cheeks and uniform were covered in mud.

(Where’s Index and Othinus? What happened to everyone else?)

''A stranger'' was here too.

The girl with long blonde hair wore a Tokiwadai uniform, so was she Mikoto’s friend?

“You can see now that facing him head on isn’t going to work, I hope. It’s a miracle ability you weren’t torn to bits and strewn across the city.”

Why ''was'' he alive?

He knew it wasn’t his own doing.

Mikoto and this stranger must have been fighting hard too. These people had reduced their own lifespans to save him from his own reckless actions.

He understood that.

He was intensely thankful, but the situation didn’t allow him to stop here.

What had happened to Christian Rosencreutz?

“But how does that man’s brain ability work if my Mental Out doesn’t work at all? You aren’t going to tell me he actually wasn’t human to begin with, are you?”

Mental Out.

Kamijou had heard that esper name before.

It belonged to Academy City’s #5.

''But he didn’t know who used that power or what they looked like.

He did wonder if a psychological esper power would work on the Transcendents like Anna and Alice.

A high school boy like Kamijou didn’t know even a fraction of the legends surrounding Christian Rosencreutz, but if he really was the kind of person found in a children’s book, then he would have gone through intense training and obtained near inhuman power. That process could have altered his mind to an extent that not even the #5 Level 5 could control it.

That playful magician was only interested in fulfilling his passions and blowing off some steam. It was only by chance he had been depicted as a wielder of benevolent miracles like someone from a children’s book.

He had explained all that with a smile, but could this really be described using the familiar emotions that Kamijou and the others knew so well?

Deep tremors shook the area even now.

Staticky voices spoke within the partially broken store.

Wherever she had gotten it, Misaka Mikoto held a small Anti-Skill radio.

“Ksh! Escape route Cv1 secured using B2 as a decoy. Make sure Judgment gets away first! Also that military clone staring blankly into space over there! However she was born, she’s still a child!!”

“Wait! I can still fight. If you check the Bank, you will see I am a Level 4 Teleporter, so I can help rescue- argh, listen to me!”

Christian Rosencreutz had not simply lost sight of Kamijou’s group. When Kamijou wasn’t fighting, it meant Rosencreutz was fighting someone else somewhere else.

That could mean Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and the rest of the Transcendents.

Or it could mean Index and Othinus.

“Damn.”

“Rushing in without a plan won’t help them.”

With that exasperated comment, Mikoto tossed him something.

He caught it to find it was a jelly drink.

“Hey, I hope you paid for this.”

“Idiot. There aren’t any employees here, but the phone-based self-checkout still works.”

Mikoto breathed a long sigh and grabbed a matcha iced latte from the drink section. People’s personalities showed through at times like this. With the store partially destroyed and the power out, she had chosen a drink that would give her an immediate energy boost and didn’t need to be cold to taste good. Kamijou understood why she would avoid the jelly drink since its chemical flavor got a lot more noticeable at room temperature. And yet that was still what she’d given him, dammit.

The honey blonde girl gave Mikoto an icy look.

She had opted to go without a drink.

“Misaka-san, how can you rummage through these convenience store shelves? The place is nearly destroyed and the cooling systems are down, but none of this food has gathered any bugs. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“It’s early January, so all the little critters are hibernating. Kuroko runs a major convenience store chain, so she’s told me all the actual facts about the additives and preservatives they put in their food. How net illiterate do you have to be to actually believe all the sensationalized stories passed around online?”

After purchasing her drink, Mikoto stuck the straw into the drink box and took a sip.

“It’s not just the artificial things you have to worry about, though. How about this, Misaka-san? Do you know where they get the matcha green coloring for lattes and chocolates?”

“Hm? That smug look on your face is enough to know it isn’t tea leaves. So what, is it some kind of chemi-”

“Caterpillar dung☆”

They really did get into a fight with hair-pulling and everything.

Kamijou stared into the middle distance. It seemed to him health nuts like that were only torturing themselves by looking up all that unnecessary information. It sounded like a difficult life, but maybe it was a trial meant to bolster themselves mentally.

Something urgent and worsening was playing out on the radio.

“We can’t waste our forces like this! All remaining forces, fall back to the 2nd line!”

“Got it. We won’t let this end here. This isn’t about our pride. The fate of the city rests on our shoulders!!”

They hadn’t given up yet.

But if they thoughtlessly challenged CRC again, it would all happen again.

(Damn, not even a professional magician or a group of Transcendents could defeat him. I just hope Anti-Skill realized magic exists during the business with R&C Occultics.)

It really sounded to Kamijou like it would be best if he went back out there.

He doubted Imagine Breaker would work against Rosencreutz, but it had to give him a major advantage over anyone else out there.

“So if you do save that Anna Sprengel, what then?” asked Mikoto, unsure what to do with her opened maccha iced latte. “I mean, if she’s connected to that Rosen-whatever guy, she might know his weak point. But she nearly killed you with those mysterious microbes called…St. Germain, was it? Then she toyed with me using that giant capsule machine full of execution items she called the Pneuma-less Shell. And it wasn’t just in Academy City. Didn’t she nearly destroy the entire city of Los Angeles? Was there some secret in common between all of that? Wouldn’t surprise me if there was, but do you really think that wicked woman will give you accurate information?”

What then?

What was his goal? The boy considered the battle he had begun out of necessity.

Eventually, Kamijou responded.

He kept his head lowered, but he spoke clearly.

“Anna says she’s searching for a king.”

“?”

“A king who will protect her without asking why she does what she does. She said she had spent so much time protecting and guiding other people, but no one ever lived up to her expectations and she has grown sick of it all. So she said it’s time she got someone to protect her instead.”

Kamijou didn’t know what exactly had happened during that process.

Something had had caused the immensely arrogant Anna Sprengel to turn away from the world and give up on life. Had it been some shocking event, or had it been a complete lack of change? The puny boy couldn’t even imagine what it might have been.

However.

“But I don’t think she really needs that. She doesn’t need a king. So I want to tell her she can open up and be a part of the world without relying on someone special. I want to tell her no one’s going to hurt her.”

Silence fell for a while.

Both girls sighed.

But those sighs carried something subtly different from exasperation.

“Telling us who she is as a person is hardly fair,” said Mikoto. “It would be nice if she could just be ‘a villain’ – nothing more than a symbol. But once I know her as a person, it’s not so easy to abandon her.”

Misaka Mikoto and the honey blonde girl exchanged a glance.

The resignation was written plain on their faces.

They heard a strange noise.

It resembled raindrops on glass, but the individual sounds were quieter than that. It was more like static on an old TV.

Something flowed in from the broken glass door.

It was the kind of fine sand found in a desert or on a beach.

Instead of pure white, it was colored a faint yellow that stimulated Kamijou’s memory. He recognized this.

The voices on Mikoto’s radio grew a lot more disordered. They were dyed in confusion and panic.

“Dammit, is this the yellow sand from the reports on Los Angeles!?”

“Fall back!! Don’t let it capture you!! Fall back to the 2nd line!!”

“I can’t agree to that. There are still quite a few civilians left in District 12!!”

“Get back here, idiot! …Dammit!!!”

“Citrinitas!” exclaimed Kamijou.

“You can’t reach them in time.”

Unsteady Kamijou was stopped by the honey blonde girl ''whose name he didn’t know''.

“District 12 is a big place, so the distance ability is too great. It would be too late by the time you arrived.”

“…”

“And the rest of Anti-Skill and Judgment have already withdrawn from District 12. These are the facts. And the martial law means no ordinary people will be out on the streets anyway.”

This wasn’t just about the official fighting force.

This would also affect Index, Othinus, Aradia, Mut Thebes, and the rest of those fighting to stop CRC.

''District 12 was a lost cause.

''With the Citrinitas here, it was best to assume no one was left moving.

“You could see this as a stroke of good luck,” said the honey blond girl.

“How is this-?”

Kamijou reached the answer before finishing his question.

If this was the same as in Los Angeles, then the people who had disappeared into the yellow sand were essentially trapped within it. This was still checkmate against them, but that was better than being killed with their bodies split apart like Alice Anotherbible or Anna Kingsford. It was possible Christian Rosencreutz had decided going around killing all of the unresisting people would be a boring waste of his time.

If they stayed put, he might let them live.

But that gave them no way of stopping his march across the city. Then he would make his way to District 7 and arrive at the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

Once that happened, there was no saving Anna Sprengel.

The monster who only ever obeyed his own playfulness and intellectual curiosity would tear it all apart and take her life.

“Sorry. We don’t have many people left, but I still let you die for nothing. I don’t think I can get any closer…”

“Don’t worry about it. If you’d come running here, you’d have met the same fate.”

“Take care of the rest. If this is like in LA, then you should be able to drag the survivors from the yellow sand once the source is defeated.”

“Fall back!! The fight continues at the 2nd line!! Do not forget the words of those fools who joined the sand!!!”

Kamijou and the girls silently listened to the radio.

No.

Was silently observing really all they could do?

They heard an explosive sound from somewhere.

“?”

The wet explosion was different from one caused by explosives or gas. Kamijou hesitantly poked his head out from the destroyed convenience store and found the street covered by yellow sand. Furthermore, something was pushing in from the distance.

“What…is that?”

“Water,” said the honey blonde girl. “It’s water. District 12 is known for all its religious facilities, so it has more firefighting equipment than most districts. Instead of each building having its own, it has a Central Firefighting Tank managed by the district as a whole. That must have ruptured!”

Kamijou looked puzzled. He couldn’t figure out why Christian Rosencreutz would attack there. Wasn’t that basically a giant pool buried underground? He wondered if the man was eliminating all means of extinguishing a fire before starting a great conflagration.

But that wasn’t it.

“We need to get out of here. Immediately,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Why?”

“Did you forget it’s January!? Getting soaked by that sherbet-cold water is enough to kill!!”

Rosencreutz had used the Citrinitas to dissolve District 12’s survivors in the sand. And after that, he was attacking every last alley to ensure he didn’t miss anyone.

Getting caught in that would never end well.

If they were drenched and then exposed to the biting wind, they might just freeze into pillars of ice.

“Run!” shouted Mikoto. “Before it reaches us!!”

The water covered a wide area, but it fortunately wasn’t very deep. If they were caught in the watery zone and their shoes got soaked, they might lose a toe to frostbite, but they could escape the invasion of frigid water by jumping onto a higher ledge or onto a car. It helped that the yellow sand had created a lot of small dunes.

“Pant, pant. Wait…wait for me, Misaka-saaan.”

All the ups and downs quickly wore out ''the stranger'' and left her out of breath. The soft sand below their feet made it all the more challenging. Kamijou would have felt bad leaving her behind, so he took the honey blonde girl’s hand to pull her along with him. For some reason, that immediately silenced her complaints. She was surprisingly meek.

“What now!?” bluntly asked Mikoto, inexplicably irritated all of a sudden.

Kamijou Touma had only one answer to give.

“We fall back.”

It didn’t matter how hopeless the situation was.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t have a single idea of how to defeat Christian Rosencreutz and rescue the people dissolved by the sand.

The hospital was still a long way off.

“We attack him at the next defense line.”

The Transcendents had said the first thing they needed to turn things around and strike back was observation and preparation. That meant slipping away without him noticing, keeping their distance, hiding behind cover, and ensuring they could observe him from safety.

So with the right mindset, this was their chance.

“We lost this round, but it was a meaningful loss.”

The honey blonde girl gasped and looked up.

She was their brainpower and Kamijou had muttered something that had caught her attention.

This was undoubtedly a retreat.

But they could transform it into the first step toward victory.

Their resistance wasn’t over yet.

“If you use up all your trump cards this early, you’ll regret it later on, Rosencreutz.”

===Part 8===

Don’t underestimate the weeds.

If you fail to eliminate that last thin root growing deep into the dirt, your guaranteed victory has already begun to collapse.

===Between the Lines 2===

A trip from England to Germany could be done as a daytrip.

Of course, that was only if you weren’t interested in taking time to enjoy the trip.

“Pant, pant, gasp. W-wait, mistress. Please have mercy…”

“Just hurry up with the luggage, Fortune. This should have been a leisurely railroad trip, but you used British tax money to fly here. It would be rude to the British people if you didn’t do enough work to justify the expense.”

This was how it began that morning as soon as the two met up at Nuremberg’s international airport.

Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers spoke icily to Dion Fortune whose silhouette was swollen by multiple suitcases, a backpack, and sling bag.

Mina Mathers had a story involving her friend Annie Horniman that could easily be interpreted as belonging to the world of lilies and she was the legendary wife who had supported her (eccentric and brilliant) husband MacGregor Mathers. Dion Fortune also had her relationship with her female teacher, so even for the otherworldly lives of the Golden magicians, those two’s lives were especially rife with 2D-sounding stories. …Which made it strange that Mina alone didn’t have a particularly strange personality and even came off as a kindhearted and sensible person.

“Lies. It’s all lies. Pant, gasp. In what world can that violent back-slasher of a teacher be called kindhearted or sensible? Bleh, the winner of the war has been rewriting the history books again…”

“Did you say something Soror Fortune, my hopeless student?”

Over half of the luggage was Mina’s, so Dion chose to ignore that.

At the very least, Mina Mathers and Dion Fortune were perfectly decent and sensible magicians when compared to MacGregor, the unemployed man who one day began ranting about being a legitimate descendent of Scottish nobility based on precisely zero evidence, or Aleister, the handsome gentleman with the troubling habit of crashing high society parties with a metal butterfly attached to the crotch of his pants.

Mina Mathers had already been separated from Academy City, but she could still choose for herself to support Aleister as the transformed Thoth Tarot.

Nuremberg was an inland industrial city in southern Germany. At this time of year, the low was around -3 degrees. Since it was January, everything was covered by a light dusting of snow, but this wasn’t that far from Denmark where the story of the Little Match Girl was born. While not as large as Munich, which was also in the south, it was a large city with a population in the hundreds of thousands. It had water transportation using the canal connected to the Danube, which flowed through multiple countries, and it provided direct air transportation from its international airport. This was also proof of just how active the city was in producing semiconductors and mechanical components for cars and aircraft.

It was also a historical city.

For better and for worse.

For example, anyone with even a little knowledge of torture and executions would know what the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg referred to. That strange legend had gained a life of its own in different parts of the world, but this city was home to the world’s only extant iron maiden (in the publicly available official records, anyway).

Dion Fortune, who had spread Golden spells across the world with her remote learning correspondence courses, looked curious even through her exhaustion.

“Phew. By the way, mistress, since when did you manufacture a child? Those mourning clothes must only be for show because it looks like you’ve really been quite busy, you lewd funeral beauty.”

“Do not refer to living people as being ‘manufactured’. Besides, she is not mine.”

“?”

“Good girl. If you’re hungry, you can drink this bottle. Do not turn away because you are sick of that flavor. I know you can actually speak.”

A delighted “goo-goo ga-ga” came from the baby carrier.

Mina Mathers was keeping a baby fed. That showed an extreme evolution from when she was so hungry while wandering Academy City that she stuck a power cable in her mouth.

The cat ears mourning clothes woman(?) had used her skill as an artist to design a ceremonial ground and most of the props that complemented the texts and formulas of a magician’s logic, so Dion Fortune skeptically viewed the baby the other woman was holding and soothing. “Then where did that baby come from?” was written plain on her face.

She might have fainted if she were told that was Aleister’s daughter Lilith, though.

To reiterate, Nuremberg was a rare city that perfectly blended a dark history with cutting-edge tech. That may have been why the Rosicrucians had built their largest base there. The old phonographs and silver halide cameras people feared could record the voices and faces of the dead had once been ordinary scientific inventions. Until natural science usurped the throne of the world’s common knowledge by replacing the geocentric model with the heliocentric model and proving that objects consumed oxygen as they burned, magic had been an ordinary field of study.

“Now. Where is Anna Sprengel’s base, the Licht Liebe Leben Temple?”

“How about we check into a hotel first? P-please? Nooo! I’d rather die than begin this lengthy investigation dragging all this luggage around, mistress!!”

Mina Mathers brushed her tearful student away with an annoyed hand and calmly continued.

“We should agree on a plan before we get started, Fortune.”

“Ugh. Can’t our plan be to check into a hotel and leave the luggage there first? Sob.”

“Do I need to scratch you? Dion Fortune, as a Golden magician, you must understand the Rosicrucian ideology at our cabal’s foundation. With that in mind, which side do you take?”

“?”

“I mean.” Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers paused while holding the baby. “Do you believe the legends of the mysterious Rosicrucian cabal as literal stories, or do you think they are some kind of metaphor or code? I am asking what your stance you take as a magician regarding the rose, the cross, the ruby, and the gold.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume9_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament

2023-12-07T17:09:01Z

KamijouTouma007: /* GT Volume 7 (Full Text) */

{{Status|Active}}

{{Toaru:Brief}}

'''<big><big><span style="color:green">This page is for the third series of Toaru Majutsu no Index.</span> [[Toaru Majutsu no Index|Click here for the <u>''first''</u> series.]] | [[Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament|Click here for the <u>''second''</u> series.]] <span style="color:red"><big>***</big></span></big></big>'''

==Alternative Languages==
The ''Toaru Majutsu no Index'' series is also available in the following languages:
*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index (Indonesia)|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)]]
*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Russian:NT|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Русский (Russian)]]
*[[To Aru Majutsu no Index ~ (Spanish)|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Español (Spanish)]]
*[[To Aru Majutsu no Index ~ Deutsch (German)|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Deutsch (German)]]
*[[To Aru Majutsu no Index ~ Italiano (Italian)|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Italiano (Italian)]]
*[[To Aru Majutsu no Index Polski|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Polski (Polish)]]
*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index - Français|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Français (French)]]
*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index ~Brazilian Portuguese~|Toaru Majutsu no Index ~ Português Brasileiro (Brazilian Portuguese)]]

(Note: Translation progress varies for each version.)
----
Visit the [http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/index.php Baka-Tsuki Project Forum] to discuss this series and other information from Baka-Tsuki.

==Story Synopsis==


<big>''This series is a direct sequel and continuation of '''[[Toaru Majutsu no Index]]''' and '''[[Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament]]'''.''</big>

Science and magic exist side by side in this world.

This is the peak of the science side with a curriculum for espers, Academy City. In this city where 80% of the population are students, the season has finally come when all residents are excited and fidgety!

It's Christmas Eve.

Amidst the city showing a cheerful hustle and bustle, ordinary boy who can’t keep up with school, Kamijou Touma, also doesn’t intend to miss this event! He was hard at work in his supplementary lessons...

A backward glance from the default misfortune-prone bastard, the silver-haired sister freeloading in his dormitory, Index, in the heart pounding scene different from the usual, activates a new gluton skill!? While Kamijou tries to desperately stop that, Misaka Mikoto taken in by the Christmas Eve atmosphere appears before him.

==Awards==

{{Toaru:Awards}}

==Translation==
'''Translators Needed'''

If you would like to help translate this series, please post in the forums [http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=3505 here], and we will help you get started. Thank you.

===Registration===

Those who wish to contribute are asked to notify a supervisor beforehand.

Translators are asked to <big>'''<u>[[Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Registration Page|register]]</u>'''</big> which chapters they're working on.

===Format Standards===
'''Every edited chapter must conform to not only the general format guidelines, but also this project's own guidelines.'''
*[[Format_guideline|General Format/Style Guideline]]
*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Names and Terminology Guideline|Project-Specific Guidelines: Format, Names, and Terminology]]

'''All edited translations are to be in American English.'''

==Updates==

{{Toaru:Updates}}

==Terminologies==

All terminologies, character information, and other series details are hosted on [http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index_Wiki this wiki].

{{Toaru:Mtoggle:GT}}

==The '''''Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament''''' series by Kazuma Kamachi==


<div class="mw-customtoggle-Genesis mw-customtoggle-GenesisClose mw-customtoggle-GenesisOpen" style="background:#f2e0ce;cursor:pointer" align="center">'''<big>Genesis Testament</big>'''</div>
<div class="mw-collapsible" style="text-align:left;margin:5px5pxclear:both;font-size:100%;background:transparent;width:100%" id="mw-customcollapsible-Genesis">

[[Image:GT vol 1.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 1 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Prologue|Prologue: At an Early Christmas Eve Intersection — Prepare_for_Xmas_Eve!]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Just Like an Amusement Park — Red_Wear,Big_Bag,and_Flying_Sledge.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter2|Chapter 2: A Changing Academy City, the Night Before — the_24th,Showdown.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter3|Chapter 3: A Dark Conspiracy and a Barrier Gone — Enemy_Use_XXX.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter4|Chapter 4: Interaction with Another World, the Starting Point — “R&C OCCULTICS Co.Ltd.”]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Epilogue|Epilogue: Snow and Crimson Cover All — White_End.(and_Merry_Xmas!!)]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:GT vol 2.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 2 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Prologue|Prologue: The Bloody Christmas Begins — 12/24_to_12/25.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter1|Chapter 1: This is the Real Battle — Home_Ground_Hospital.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Black Pill, White Snow — and_RED_Rose.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter3|Chapter 3: In the Void of Zero — Contact_6.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter4|Chapter 4: The Phenomenon of Kamijou Touma — Not_Right_Hand.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Epilogue|Epilogue: Greeting Through the Bars — Matching_Complete.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Ending|?]]

[[Image:GT vol 3.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 3 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Prologue|Prologue: Look What Under I Found Under This Big Rock — OP.“Hand_Cuffs”]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter1|Chapter 1: A Scab Torn Away — City_Warfare.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Dark Side — Ghost, Android, and…]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter3|Chapter 3: Academy City’s Greatest Taboo — Safety_Zero, Control_Free.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4|Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Epilogue|Epilogue: Cry of a Newborn Darkness — Over_the_C. Point, Now.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Ending|?]]

[[Image:GT vol 4.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 4 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Prologue|Prologue: A Picture Book that Slipped through the Cracks – Magic_Side,Open.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter1|Chapter 1: The Full Population of Los Angeles is Missing – 26_the_West_Coast_Warfare.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Suspected and Alone – Los_Angeles.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter3|Chapter 3: The Counterattack Begins – Boy_not_“Dark”.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter4|Chapter 4: Beyond the Two Choices – Duel_Against_R∴C∴O∴(for_Save_Mother).]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Epilogue|Epilogue: That Human Returns – Science_Side,Interrupt.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Ending|?]]

[[Image:GT vol 5.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 5 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Prologue|Prologue: Visitor from Picture Book Land – Girl_Name_is_“ALICE”.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter1|Chapter 1: A Year Ending, a Wallet Emptying, a Struggle Ensuing – Winter_Vacation.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter2|Chapter 2: The Rescue Puzzle Sits Before You – Travel.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter3|Chapter 3: Welcome to a World Without the Goddess’ Protection – Difficulty_the_ABYSS.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter4|Chapter 4: If Someone Remains to be Saved – Final_Exams_“Handcuffs”.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Epilogue|Epilogue: Even If Your Hand Leaves Mine – Not_Enemy.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Ending|?]]

[[Image:GT vol 6.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 6 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Prologue|Prologue: You Lose Less Weight Than You Would Think – Dying_Hungry.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Go Get That New Year’s Eve Job – Away_SHIBUYA,31.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Goddess of the Night, the Moon, and Witches – “ARADIA”x03.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter3|Chapter 3: The Transcendent Blossoms – Sabbat_VS_Witch_Hunt.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter4|Chapter 4: What’s Wrong With Being Only Human? – Save_the_Stray_Devil.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Epilogue|Epilogue: The Record Needle Skips – Irregular_Counter.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:GT vol 7.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===GT Volume 7 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Prologue|Prologue: Capture the Powerful Witch – Happy? New_Year!!]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Happy New Hell, Another Year of Panic – KOTATSU_Syndrome.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Which of Them was Caught? – the_Consulate.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter3|Chapter 3: The Next Move – Witch_Trial.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter4|Chapter 4: Hear the Name of Thy Ruin, World – Call_"XXXXX".]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Epilogue|Epilogue: Saving Her is Unconditional – Join_to…?]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Ending|?]]

[[Image:GT vol 8.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]

===GT Volume 8 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Prologue|Prologue: Attacked from Three Sides – Proclaim_ML.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter1|Chapter 1: I’m Sick of Running – Break_Through_MCV.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter2|Chapter 2: Transcendent Mut Thebes – The_Death_Penalty_WH.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter3|Chapter 3: Relying on R&C Occultics – Secret_DB.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter4|Chapter 4: Decide For Yourself Which Girl to Save – Battle_of_HsB-AD-CVA01.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Epilogue|Epilogue: Beyond Optimism – Catastrophe_XXX.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Ending|?]]

===GT Volume 9 Preview===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Prologue|Prologue: Battle of the Best – Zenith_of_the_Magic.]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter1|Chapter 1: Determine Your Stance – Right_or_Wicked.]]

[[#toc|'''<small>Back to Contents</small>''']]
<div style="clear:both;"> </div>
</div>

==Side Stories==

{{Toaru:Side Stories}}

==Official Parody Stories==

{{Toaru:Parodies}}

==Story Calendar==

{{Toaru:Calendar}}

==Project Staff==

*Supervisor: ''None Designated''
*Project Manager: '''[[User:OH&S|OH&S]]'''

===Translators===
'''ACTIVE'''
:*'''[[User:Js06|Js06]]'''

===Editors===

'''All editors that can speak and write English proficiently are welcome.'''
:*''Editors list has been cleaned due to inactive editors. Editors are welcome to add their names again if they are still editing or proofreading.''--[[User:OH&S|OH&S]] ([[User talk:OH&S|talk]]) 11:44, 11 April 2017 (CEST)

==Series Overview==

{{Toaru:Series Overview}}

==More Information==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index The wikipedia article]
*[http://www12.atwiki.jp/index-index/ とある魔術の禁書目録　Index] (日本語、そしてネタバレの危険性がある！)
*[http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index_Wiki Toaru Majutsu no Index Wikia]
*[http://r-s.sakura.ne.jp/w/i_m.htm Kiyotaka Haimura website]

[[Category:Light novel (English)]]
[[Category:Dengeki Bunko]]
[[Category:Kazuma Kamachi]]

[[Category:Genre - Action]]
[[Category:Genre - Comedy]]
[[Category:Genre - Fantasy]]
[[Category:Genre - Harem]]
[[Category:Genre - Sci-Fi]]
[[Category:Genre - Supernatural]]