Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 18===

District 17 was adjacent to District 9 where Kamijou’s group was.

It also bordered the city wall. It was an industrial area filled with all sorts of unmanned factories.

Itsuwa nervously stepped forward.

“It won’t take long if we drive. We can still catch up to her!”

“It’s been a while since we lost track of her at the stadium, hasn’t it? If she was hiding in a district bordering the wall, why didn’t she go ahead and escape the city?”

Kamijou didn’t have enough information to answer the question Mikoto asked while bothered by the short length of her skating dress.

He assumed something must have happened.

If the Amakusas and the Former Agnese Force hadn’t done anything to slow her, then there had to be some other reason. Maybe Aleister had resisted her from within and maybe Coronzon herself had felt some kind of reluctance to leave.

“Whatever the case, she’s in District 17. Now that we know where she is, there’s no reason to wait arou-”

He didn’t even have time to finish.

A tremor shook the ground.

Something was approaching. From the south. Which meant from District 17.

It was a shape colored the dark blue of the night sky.

It was a colossus. Its head really did stick up above the surrounding skyscrapers. Was it a canine beast? No, was that really enough to describe it? Kamijou couldn’t find an answer even while looking at it himself.

“LAShTAL!?”

“Tch. The foundational theory of Magick. The emphasized letters make that clear enough. She took a spell concerning life and used it to create an artificial form of it. In this case, it may be a Crowley-style interpretation of the Egyptian god Set!”

“You mean the god of the night who has the power to slay gods!?”

Index, Anna Sprengel, and Kanzaki were all shouting something, but Kamijou didn’t know enough about magic to make sense of it. He could only glean that this was probably something big. And if that great demon was making use of it, she may have been intentionally using it wrong.

And now wasn’t the time to ask for an explanation.

He felt the wind pressure. He shouldn’t have looked that way. His entire body was frozen with fear. A building of more than 30 floors, which had seemed like an unshakable part of the scenery, wobbled diagonally and then came crashing down toward the street. Which meant toward him and the others.

“Take shelter!! Get behind something – anything – to shield you!!”

Kanzaki’s sharp command broke the pointy-haired boy’s paralysis. He pressed up against a nearby cement block wall.

(Damn, where are Index, Misaka, and the others!?)

“If you would like your lungs to remain undamaged, do not breathe in, human! Here it comes!!”

Othinus hid within his jacket.

Kamijou was of course wondering why he was supposed to get “behind” something. And what was that about breathing? If the building was falling this way, shouldn’t he get “below” something? But he was given an answer soon enough.

Once the skyscraper sliced through the main street, something like dirty cotton candy swelled out. Past the end of the cement block wall, the entire main street was instantly engulfed.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of tiny glass and concrete shards flew through like a deadly sandstorm. A hit from that wouldn’t just have torn his feet from the ground and thrown him dozens of meters through the air – it would have stripped the flesh from his bones, leaving nothing recognizable behind.

''Except even that idea didn’t cover it.

Kamijou heard a quiet popping sound in his head. Followed by a sharp ringing in his ear like something had pierced into his brain. He had avoided a direct hit from the sandstorm by getting behind this wall. He had been leaning against it. Yet, he couldn’t stay on his feet and slid down into a sitting position. Before collapsing onto his side.

The air pressure of the entire space was off. How could he possibly evade this?

“Gah…ah…”

The pain meant he was still alive. So he had to think of it as a good thing.

He thought the deadly gale continued blowing for more than two minutes.

He couldn’t let this continue. That LAShTAL thing was still swinging its colossal body around. More than one building might have been felled.

He had to get moving.

He knew where he needed to go, but his body refused to listen as he lay collapsed on the ground stained by red snow.

What had happened to Index and Misaka Mikoto?

His hearing still hadn’t recovered, so he was late to realize something had exploded within the pile of rubble. Maybe a propane tank had been enveloped by it all.

When his hearing did recover, someone’s shouting voice belatedly reached him.



“Touma! Are you alright? You weren’t crushed by that debris, were you!? Please answer me!!”



He sat up. He gritted his teeth and forced himself.

He had to answer her.

“I’m…fine, Index. What about you!?”

“We’re fine too. We’re checking each other’s status with our communication spiritual items and phones.”

She was safe. Like she should be. But then why couldn’t he see her for himself?

After dragging himself along and peeking out past the half-destroyed concrete wall, Kamijou understood.

They were cut off. The main street was unrecognizable. Rubble was piled up higher than a five story building. That was more than a school building. They couldn’t climb that. And even approaching it could get them crushed by something like a landslide.

Kamijou was the only one on this side.

Which meant he was the only one who could pursue Great Demon Coronzon right away.

He felt another deep vertical tremor. LAShTAL(?) must have destroyed another skyscraper or large factory.

That thing’s chaotic rampage could threaten the lives that had just been saved. Kamijou clenched his right fist, but then he heard another voice.

Was that Misaka Mikoto?



“Go! Hurry! If whoever is free to go doesn’t stop that Coronzon person right now, things will only get worse, right? So go!!”



He wanted to stay.

Not just communicate by shouting past rubble and using phones. He wanted to see their faces to know they were safe. That perfectly normal thought grabbed at him like countless unseen hands and tugged him back.

Don’t do the right thing.

Give into the kindness and split your focus.

(I won’t…let you do that, Coronzon!!)

“Can you take care of that thing? Index! Misaka!!”

“Touma, LAShTAL is not Coronzon’s final trump card. She must have loads more. We’ll do what we can here, so you go stop her!!”

“I don’t get it myself, but listen to her. The fighting will never stop if you don’t defeat the source of it all, right? Then put a stop to this before any more of the city is destroyed!!”

He shook off his hesitation.

Coronzon tore people apart and obstructed their evolution.

There was only one way to defeat her: to trust those you could believe in without hesitation.

So Kamijou turned his back on the pile of rubble and took off running.

Even if he had to grit his teeth as he did so.

Something exploded in the distance. Several beams of light flashed out. Was that people using magic or esper powers to battle the giant blue shadow called LAShTAL? Their survival was not guaranteed and taking a single attack could mean their deaths. Even so, they were fighting so Kamijou could head to Coronzon and so they could protect Academy City and the wider world beyond its walls.

His trust was being repaid. This was what it meant to protect the bonds that tied people together.