Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume15 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 13===

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

Narthex Coded Cathedral could seal any magic she predicted before it was used, so any magician would be driven into a worse and worse position as the battle continued.

(It’s technically not a negation like my Imagine Breaker. It’s probably a mind control power that precisely messes with their brain, ''preventing them from remembering the necessary incantation''.)

If she could use that magic, did it mean she, unlike Index, could refine her life force into magic power?

…The worst part was that there was no penalty for Narthex if her prediction was wrong. It wasn’t like she could only seal away a maximum of five things at a time or that she lost some power each time she was wrong. That meant she could use it all she liked. She had no reason to hesitate. She could seal away any magician if she set up a perimeter by listing off the ten or twenty most likely candidates.

Kamijou would have to do it.

Imagine Breaker let him fight Narthex without worrying about her magic sealing!

“(Or we can use magic she doesn’t expect in the slightest for a cheap win. Either way, you move out and gather attention. Make us look like no more than ''useless bystanders''.)”

“(Because once Narthex isn’t paying attention to us, we’re free to act again. Even a spell that wouldn’t normally hit can do the trick if we launch it from a blind spot☆)”

Just then Narthex whispered a word.

“''Release''.”

That word was the opposite of a seal, making it the trigger to free something.

But free what?

Kamijou didn’t even have time to wonder.



“Come forth, knowledge. You are the Original Sin for which all mankind was expelled from paradise!!”



Lessar’s body tilted unnaturally to the side. Before a surprised Kamijou could even try to support her, Birdway collapsed to the floor. She was bleeding from the nose and mouth, but she did nothing to wipe it away. She had passed out.

(What? That wasn’t poison gas. It would’ve taken me out too. But then…)

Narthex sneered over at him from her distant position.

The hand not holding the plush bear was toying with a floating apple seemingly made of red crystal. No, that was only what it looked like to Kamijou. Whatever it was, it could take many forms.

“Did you forget I am holding the fruit hanging from the branches of the Tree of Knowledge? This is the ''raw'' forbidden knowledge before it is processed into a grimoire.”

So were those two in the same state they would be if they had received the toxic knowledge of an original grimoire!? No one other than Index could defend against that. And given a professional magician’s greed for knowledge, they may have had their souls absorbed and polluted even more than a normal person.

But what if attacking the magicians had delayed her by a step, creating an opening?

“!!”

Kamijou immediately grabbed a burner from the floor. It was probably a maintenance tool for the military weapons kept here.

Instead of targeting Narthex, he went for a thick power cable running alongside a steel pillar.

What if he burned through that and dropped the sliced end to the floor?

The cut power cable scattered bluish-white sparks and he rushed rapidly along the steel reinforcement beams arranged in a lattice pattern. He ran toward little Narthex!

An unpleasant “zap!!” rang out.

But Narthex Coded Cathedral did not fall.

Just beforehand, her lips and tongue had uttered a word.

“''Seal''.”

(She used magic to cut off the high-voltage current!?)

He slammed on the brakes. If this wouldn’t even act as a smokescreen, charging in like this would only get him killed.

“That seal isn’t just a psychological attack! It works on non-magical things too?”

“My mother did not see the magic side as her ''only'' enemy.”

Of course she didn’t. Great Demon Coronzon had ultimately intended to destroy all 7 or 8 billion humans, be they from magic or science.

“You can find seals in mythologies the world over, but the most dynamic would probably be from Greek mythology. After all, Cronus and Zeus both swallowed their pesky children to try and remove them from the world of myth. Of course, those gods were generally immortal, so it didn’t count as killing. It was seen as a seal because they would be back to normal once removed from their father’s belly. Ah ha ha. Doesn’t that remind you of that absurd Red Riding Hood story where she was eaten by a wolf but somehow still had a happy ending?”

Kamijou glared straight at Narthex while moving just his eyes to the sides. Was there anything he could use here? She could seal anything, but was there nothing that would let him use that against her!?

“So seals don’t actually negate the energy the way your Imagine Breaker does. They are much more ecological. They let me remove your deadly force, but I hold the right to release the seal. That means I can effectively steal my enemy’s power and use it myself. A lot like stealing a demon and using them as your servant.”

Narthex Coded Cathedral licked her lips with her little tongue.

And she gave a death sentence.

Before Kamijou could find anything capable of breaking free of this bind.

“So I can have fun like this. …Release!!”



''Crash!!!



Fearsome light and noise were released horizontally. It was the ultra-high-voltage current used to power the electromagnetic catapults that launched the drone airbase’s unmanned fighters into the sky. That deadly energy shot across the underground space.

''No, that wasn’t all.

Kamijou couldn’t even react.

“Wha-?”

“Even ordinary electricity can have its apparent power multiplied by gathering and sealing it. The capacitors used to amplify the voltage of stun guns are primarily made of ''insulators'' like paper or glass. Even a high schooler understands how that works, I hope?”

And it didn’t follow a straight line.

When Narthex swept her outstretched hand from right to left, the destructive energy did the same. The blinding light forming a great serpent of more than a hundred million volts shorted the metal pillars and thick power cables as it targeted Kamijou’s head!!

He could see now why Lola Stuart had kept Narthex a secret.

She was a taboo among taboos.

She was a combination of science and magic that had been treated as a failure for being ''too successful''.

“!!!?”