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

===Part 16===

She had fallen.

Narthex Coded Cathedral lay unmoving on the hard floor.

A wet splat came from her.

Kamijou had grabbed something from her back and pulled it away. It was a clear tube…no, several of them. He had physically broken her connection to her second brain. The tubes crumbled away.

Narthex…had lost.

Coronzon would never come back to life.

Hamazura clenched his back teeth. He had stopped her by shielding Kamijou. That was true…but why had that been the only option their side had?

The people who sided with the hated were always, always labeled evil and defeated.

Because what they were doing “wasn’t right”.

Was that so wrong? So much so that the only option was to throw their lives in the gutter?

“Phew…”

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet sighed a short distance away.

This was an aircraft hangar. The underground space was so large it could be easy to forget that.

She seemed to be dragging along a great weight. The seal on her metal coat should have been released, but was she still not back at 100%? She was at least doing better than Birdway and Lessar who were still unable to move after being hit by toxic knowledge on the level of an original grimoire.

The emaciated girl sighed.

(It almost feels like everyone else was intentionally taken out of the fight. I guess the only person left who ''I need to keep away from here'' is Dion Fortune, wherever she is on the base.)

“Hamazura, are you alive?”

“Even though I doubt anyone in the world wants me to be,” sulked Hamazura.

He knew he was actually lucky to have his girlfriend and a Transcendent on his side.

So. Was he supposed to just accept the world’s idea of what was “right” and head home?

“I feel bad saying this Hamazura, but Coronzon herself really was evil. I don’t think you’re going to convince anyone otherwise.”

“I know.”

Hamazura wasn’t going to deny that any longer.

But…

“I still wanted to be her friend. What’s wrong with that?”

“Heh. That look on your face is more like it. Then I’ll let you handle the rest.”

Narthex had been defeated. Hamazura didn’t know what she had been planning, but it wasn’t going to happen now. Coronzon was dead and nothing would change that. He felt like something unseen was holding his head down and had placed a thick lid over him.

“…”

Takitsubo Rikou…was safe.

But Hamazura didn’t run over to her.

He couldn’t return yet. He hadn’t ended this yet.

So.

After shaking free of Blodeuwedd the Bouquet who weakly waved her hand, he firmly changed direction.

To face someone else: Kamijou Touma.

“Narthex Coded Cathedral was trying to destroy the world for Coronzon and she wanted to crack open your head and bring her back. …I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do for Coronzon now that she’s dead, but I didn’t think either of those things would do that. That’s why I helped you. I’m still not sure I should have and I kind of wish I hadn’t.”

“I see…”

“But this doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you for killing Coronzon.”

He couldn’t.

No matter what. It wasn’t a matter of right or wrong.

“Coronzon chose for herself to take the path of evil, so you had no choice?”

What a joke.

There were people who couldn’t do the right thing.

They wanted to and they admired those who did more than anyone, but they believed someone as wretched as them couldn’t…and so they pulled back the hand they actually wanted to reach out.

Hamazura wouldn’t let anyone say otherwise.

Because that had been him.

When he was labeled a Level 0 and then crushed by the pressure of being the new leader of Skill Out. He had rotted to the core back then, but he hadn’t crawled back out on his own. Only after running across Item, meeting people like Mugino and Takitsubo, and overcoming a great battle had he finally found himself. Yes, it had taken a collection of factors he normally never could have hoped to encounter.

Had Coronzon been given a chance like that?

She had always been alone.

The entire world had labeled her an absolute evil.

She hadn’t had a chance to crawl back out and no one had held out their hand.

Instead, they had gathered around, forced her into even worse circumstances, and called her evil for not figuring out her mistake all on her own. Was that how this world worked!?

Pain. Fear. Agony. Suffering.

It was true Coronzon had never uttered a word of it on that red snowy night.

Being who she was, Coronzon must have proudly stuck to her role as the powerful enemy to the very end.

''But…

“Are you kidding me, Kamijou Touma? The people who are suffering and in pain can’t even ask for help. It might seem easy to you!! But they’ve been pushed to the point they’ve lost sight of what’s normal. So they try to act bad, they turn their back on you, and they convince themselves it’s better that way!”

Even as he shouted the words, Hamazura realized this really was the side for him.

This was a risk.

He could tell he was tumbling further down the slope.

This temporary awakening didn’t come from evil. He knew this was no more than a power that brought him closer to death, but still he did it.

It was time to draw a line in the sand.

They could call him evil if they wanted. He didn’t need justice or righteousness here!!

“She couldn’t say it. Coronzon couldn’t manage to get the words out. But that doesn’t excuse you for killing her!!!”

On his way here today, Hamazura had opposed goodness and justice in a number of ways. But that didn’t mean all evil was destructive and deadly. He must have gotten a blow or two in on the existing idea of goodness by saving some strangers along the way.

Between good and evil, Coronzon had been evil.

But preferring evil didn’t mean she had to destroy humanity.

''Villains could be kind to people in their own evil way.

If someone had taught her that, maybe she could have developed her evil in that direction and grown into something else. If the world had been willing to compromise with her, maybe she could have found a place for herself and lived there.

But no one had.

Everyone had stubbornly refused to do so!

On that night, even Hamazura had spoken in support of the destruction she was plotting. He had acted like he was on her side, but he had really been pushing her away by calling her a harmful being who would destroy the world!

What had Coronzon really wanted him to say?

Had it actually devastated her when she had heard him speak up in support of her destructive plan using Adikalika?

What if he had insisted she was too kind a person to destroy the world?

Yes, that was it.

He had already known he was stupid, so why hadn’t he been able to say that stupid thing!?

Even if it wasn’t true, wouldn’t Coronzon have wanted to hear someone say it to her? He knew it was a silly thing to consider. Maybe proud Coronzon was shouting resentfully up at him from the pit of hell, saying not to twist his memories to reduce her to something so weak. …But what if that really had been ''all it was''? If so, then the one who had ultimately cut her lifeline and shoved her off the cliff was none other than Hamazura himself!!

Coronzon hadn’t figured out how to use evil.

If she wanted to save someone, she had been free to do so from the side of evil.

What had kept her from realizing that?

And who had killed her before she could realize it?

(That’s obvious.)

He couldn’t run away.

What could he do for Coronzon? He had come all this way in search of an answer.

So Hamazura Shiage would not run away from here.

The rest of the world had called Coronzon a great demon, thrown stones at her, and spat on her.

But.

There were 8 billion people out there. So couldn’t there be just one idiot who clenched his fist for her?

(I encouraged her and you killed her to stop her. We share the blame for believing too much in our own ridiculous ideas of what’s right!!)