Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

Silence had fallen for a change.

Great Demon Coronzon must have stopped using her Dakshina Kalika inside the shipyard.

The muffled booms were coming from beyond the thick walls. From what she had called the turrets.

The greatest threat of that magic was its incredible rapid-fire ability and precision. On the other hand, the destructive force of each individual attack was not great enough to freeze his legs in place just from seeing it. Of course, a direct hit from that sharp 5m explosion would still pierce through every part of his body and kill him instantly, but ''that was all it would do.'' That was destruction he could actually imagine, which wasn’t like Coronzon. He didn’t know if the great demon had realized how the iron trick worked, but she must have decided that attack had lost its ''allure'' with its accuracy so greatly reduced.

…That meant she would not intercept him now.

Kamijou had used the metal scaffolding and stairs to reach the deck of the sliced carrier. Strangely, there was no launching catapult. Also, the flat deck was covered in square panels a few meters across. Perhaps the Kagenui operated its aircraft completely differently.

He kicked away a heavy toolbox left on the deck. The deck was the equivalent of three or four floors above the shipyard’s floor, so about the same as dropping something from a school roof. The toolbox lid opened on the way down, allowing wrenches, a power drill, files, and other tools to pour down like rain. With her directly below.

“Oh?”

An odd sound followed. A distorted popping sound, like striking the air with a whip.

Coronzon extended her overly long blonde hair like a chameleon’s tongue and hopped up to the carrier’s deck three of four floors up.

Bringing her less than 100 centimeters away from Kamijou.

(How is she still showing off new abilities!?)

“Kh!!”

“Now, allow me to shout: Veparrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

He had to suppress his instincts.

Using Imagine Breaker was too dangerous.

Instead, he immediately let his upper body drop down.

Something like an invisible shockwave burst from Coronzon’s wide-open mouth. It missed Kamijou and greatly ''bent'' the deck of the cutting-edge warship, albeit one still under construction. And it didn’t end there. Something like white grains of rice were eating though it. Those were maggots. The armor panel grew dark and rotten before melting away.

“!!”

Finally.

As powerful as it was, one of Coronzon’s attacks had ''missed''. This was the perfect chance. Kamijou rushed in and clenched his right first, but his feet sank down. The floor didn’t hold.

He fell.

“Gah…owww!!”

But it could have been worse. He only fell one level. He landed in the cabin directly below. He might have died had he plummeted all the way to ground level.

The table and chairs were directly bolted to the floor. It was hard to tell because the computers and wiring hadn’t been installed yet – was that called the outfitting? – but this was where the ship was controlled.

“Is this the CIC?”

So said Othinus. …Why had he been able to come up with “outfitting” but not “CIC”?

Of course, he didn’t have time to sit around listening to Othinus. A second and third roar were launched from directly above. There was no rotting this time. Once the interior of the ship burned away, the other time it shattered like stone or ice. Kamijou rolled away from the large hole overhead, leaving the broken cabin and entering a narrow corridor.

“Rank3” was written large on the wall and red and yellow lines on the floor branched off along different paths, but he had no idea what they meant.

Othinus was saying something while clinging to his clothes.

“So she’s moved on to Goetia now? …Dammit Coronzon. She pouts her lips and acts like a niche specialist, but she’s just a trend-follower. Even she loves the classics. Maybe she yearns for the proper methods since that’s something she can’t do herself.”

“What is that Goe thing!? I may be dumb, but I can tell missing this will get me killed!!”

“After all the attention R&C Occultics gathered, I imagine it’s famous enough that even a goth loli middle schooler would know about it… The general public views it as a handy grimoire that lets you summon a whole bunch of demons with just one book, but the Crowley faction interprets it as a ‘murmur’. Instead of a physical summoned monster, they see them as spells that withdraw unknown power from within yourself through conscious atavism. There are 72 + 1 extra. Crowley himself supposedly drew on a portion of Buer’s power for healing magic. I say ‘supposedly’ because it’s a legend with no corroborating evidence.”

So was it magic that placed a variety of special effects on your voice? Like a paralyzing scream, a slashing shout, or a healing song?

“Are you saying this has more than 72 attack patterns? We’re not talking about some rich kid’s colored pencil set here. How am I supposed to deal with that kind of variety?”

“Goetia is certainly a pain. It starts out with a lot of basic abilities and then has a lot of room for adaptation among them, so it’s hard to guess what could come next. So you need to get her to switch to some other magic, human.”

“?”

She must have expected Kamijou’s frown. It was nice that he could skip past a lot of the annoying trouble with his understander.

“Each spell she has used so far has been extremely powerful, but she has never once used more than one spell at once. She has always focused on one at a time. You saw her bleeding, right? She has been shortening the preparation time for those large-scale ceremonies too far even for a great demon. Because they’re so powerful, she may be afraid of losing control and having them blow up in her face. There’s also Aleister’s obstruction to consider.”

“Meaning?”

“If we get her to use a spell that works in our favor, she will be creating her own blind spot. When using a certain spell, you know she won’t use Dakshina Kalika or Goetia.”

That conclusion meant a lot.

It was enough to make the future look a bit brighter for Kamijou.

“I’ll do it, but what spell does she have to use for us to win?”

“Magick: Flaming_Sword.”

The future sank into darkness.

Wasn’t that the most dangerous of her attacks that she had used against him during the battle over Adikalika?

That ultra-fast and ultra-powerful projectile attack had twisted his entire body around along with Imagine Breaker.

It was the original reason he feared Coronzon.

“But if she uses that, I’m dead!”

“When she had a physical body, yes. But Imagine Breaker worked on it when she was separated from her body in Scotland.”

“And now…?”

“She has a physical body.”

It turned out his hopelessness hadn’t quite been complete before. Now his understander had thoroughly proven he would die instantly.

“Look, human. All of Coronzon’s magic has been powerful enough to kill instantly. Getting scared over the power of the attack at this point is meaningless. And no matter how powerful it is, you know this attack. Between Scotland and Academy City, you’ve been hit by it twice and lived both times. And you negated it once, when she wasn’t at full power. Your body has learned the pattern and timing by now, right? It gives me a headache to consider, but that most frightening of attacks ''has become'' the easiest one for you to dodge. Plus, Coronzon sees those past experiences as successes, so she will use it if she gets impatient. Especially now that she can use it at full power.”

“…”

Was this when he should shout “such misfortune”?

“The worst thing she could do now is produce some new ability you’ve never seen before. You saw that earlier when she used her hair to pull herself up onto the carrier, right? That’s the last thing you want now. So no matter how dangerous it is, a known attack is much safer. When you know the attack already, you just have to dodge it. It’s simple. You can do that, can’t you, human?”

“It is not that simple! If it was easy to dodge, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with!!”

Still, it was true she would be wide open after using that attack. It had been the same with that Goetia(?) attack. If he hadn’t fallen through the rotting deck, he would have been able to get a punch in.

“Just in case you’ve forgotten, I will point out that I am not saying these things to make you suffer. To be blunt, this is the very best option you have left. I’m reluctant to even bring up the other options. Would you go out of your way to choose a more painful and more difficult road, human?”

Was she saying the best line had fallen this far?

Great Demon Coronzon was just that dangerous a being.

Most likely, the vast majority of his options would lead to his death. The normal options would get him killed like normal. So Othinus was presenting him with an unthinkable option and encouraging him.

“Ugh. Where do I start?”

“You don’t have to. …You aren’t an angel, a Magic God, or a Transcendent, yet she failed to kill you. That great demon’s patience will already be running thin. It wounds her pride. The only surprise is that she hasn’t already tried to rely on that past success.”

He had thought it was weird how much Othinus was pushing him toward this, but apparently it was something he had to be ready for regardless.

He was scared of course, but this was all for nothing if he let that guide him onto a losing path.

He heard footsteps.

From nearby, on the same level. He pressed against a corner in the corridor.

“I am a demon, but not from the Qliphoth where the forces of evil gather. I am the great demon hidden by the holy Sephiroth. I dwell in the same abyss as Da’at.”

He heard a voice.

In a tone far too sinister to be called singsong.

“Every number is the same. My right hand contains Nuit of Resurrection. Watch as the possibilities expand and surpass the bounds of the finite. My left hand contains Hadit of Vengeance.”

He recognized this phrase. This was the incantation Coronzon uttered before casting Magick: Flaming_Sword. She really was impatient. Adikalika had been stopped, she had fled through Academy City, and she hadn’t been able to cross the city wall. Thinking back, she had experienced one failure after another. She had to be sensing bad luck, or an unpleasant invisible trend. It made sense she would want to rely on a past success to break free.

If she was focused on that incantation, she must have switched what magic she was using.

No Goetia was coming. He didn’t have to worry about Dakshina Kalika.

Kamijou pressed up against the wall and waited.

Three steps.

Two steps.

One step.

He steeled himself and rushed out from around the corner.

Coronzon was right there. He didn’t even need to let her use that flaming spell. His fist could just reach her!!

And Coronzon’s lips whispered.



“Get him, ''Dakshina Kalika''.”



Kamijou’s heart froze.

But the poor boy could accuse this of being unfair or unreasonable all he liked. It wouldn’t make the reality any less cruel.

“Ohhhhhhhhh!?”

He shouted, twisted around, and – because using Imagine Breaker would be more dangerous – he dropped to the floor to somehow avoid the barrage.

Or he tried to. But in truth, he felt a scorching heat in his right flank. A bunch of ice must have exploded to the side of the sliced carrier. The ice had shattered itself to scatter countless ice shards at speeds greater than bullets. They easily pierced the ship’s armor and one of them tore through the boy’s side.

He spun through the air.

He broke free of gravity and then made a horrifying discovery. The carrier was sliced into pieces. And he had flown beyond this slice. He flew over the three floor drop to the shipyard floor and reached the next slice.

“Gah!!”

Othinus…had been wrong?

No, that couldn’t be.

Maybe Coronzon really could only use one spell at a time. But she could solve that problem by creating a time difference. And she had given some dubious information earlier.

''The turrets''.

If she had set up those stationary turrets (that maybe could actually move) here and there within the shipyard, then Coronzon herself would be free to act. By using her second magic in advance, she could catch Kamijou in a crossfire. The strategy discussion with Othinus had been necessary, but it had given Coronzon too much freedom!!

The drop in accuracy no longer mattered. If the barrage was distributed over a wide enough area, it could still hit.

Kamijou rolled through a large area. Located directly below the flat deck, it was likely the maintenance hangar where the many drones would wait on standby. …But the width of the slice left only about the space of a classroom and there was nowhere to hide.

Plus, Coronzon had been singing. What had she prepared for the other half of the crossfire?

Wasn’t it an attack that would kill if it hit?



“Magick: Flaming_Sword. Manifest thyself through descent of the Sephirah and bathe him in thy power.”