Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

They went back into the department store so they get out of the January chill while they thought.

Coronzon was trying to magically escape Academy City using something called a ley line rather than physically crossing the wall.

Kamijou and the others knew that now.

But where in the city would she perform that major ceremony? Now that they had lost track of her, they had to get back on her trail. But how could they do that?

They didn’t even know what district she had escaped to.

“The girl can help!” Alice Anotherbible volunteered. “The girl will divine her location! But, but! She would feel lonely doing it alone, so will someone good with magic help?”

That ruled out Kamijou. Imagine Breaker was never going to help with something like this. And Mikoto visibly cringed at the very idea of relying on divination here, so she was out too.

…But he couldn’t get a read on Takitsubo’s stance. She always had a blank expression and he couldn’t tell if her staring eyes were a sign of agreement or rejection.

The pointy-haired boy tilted his head in the women’s clothing section.

“Eh? You can use Alice in Wonderland for divination?”

“You can use any book, Touma. Haven’t you heard of bibliomancy? You flip through a thick book and place your finger on a random page. Then you apply the passage found there to the problem you’re facing to find an answer.”

Why would he have hard of something like that?

On his shoulder, Othinus continued the conversation like all of this was normal.

“As a piece of nonsense literature, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland tends to be associated with mystical matters, including this sort of divination.”

“So, Touma, it should be a good fit here. It’s also well known.”

“That’s not what the girl is doing! We want to know where to go next, right? That means we want a number from 1 to 23, not a literary passage.”

So the district number?

But how would you use Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to search for a number?

“Playing cards, right?” said an exasperated Anna Sprengel.

Her exasperation was not directed at Alice for the suggestion. It was directed at Kamijou for not figuring it out right away. And it was quite strong.

“Fool. Gambling, by its nature, is often associated with divination. Playing cards are no exception. For a familiar example, playing solitaire on your own is practically a form of divination already.”

This was apparently a slightly more complicated version of solitaire.

Alice clapped her hands and spread them apart, causing playing cards to spill out from the space between her palms. They scattered atop a glass showcase.

Index and Anna Sprengel joined Alice in organizing the cards. After forming a few triangles reminiscent of bowling pin formations, Alice flicked away the unneeded cards, formed new triangles…and repeated the process a few times.

“Human. In this case, you can ignore the suits and focus only on the numbers,” advised Othinus from his shoulder.

In the end, only two cards remained.

Index identified them.

“10 and 10.”

“Wait, so is that the answer? But if it’s District 10, why is there two of them?”

“If you rush to the answer in your ignorance, I will stomp on your crotch, fool. She said the answer would be ''a'' number, remember? But playing cards only go from 1 to 13, so a single card can’t indicate a number higher than that. And playing cards have no zero. So this is the only way to output the answer.”

“This is the answer here. You only have to add the two numbers.”

“Then…Coronzon is in ''District 20''?”

As soon as Kamijou said this, looking thoughtful…

''Ba-zap!!!

“Whoa!?” shouted Index.

The roar was loud enough to make you flinch even at a distance. It resembled electrical sparks. He couldn’t be certain, but was this really safe? If Anna Sprengel hadn’t grabbed Index’s hand and pulled her away at the last second, would they both have been turned to charcoal?

Alice Anotherbible, however, simply smiled.

Only she was unfazed after being exposed to that effusion of power.

“Yay, now we know where to go next!”

“…”

Alice really was special. Her power was extraordinary enough on its own, but nothing good came of incorporating it into ordinary magic. While it was normal for Alice herself, everyone else had to endure that fearsome strength.