Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

The silver-haired and brown-skinned woman named Ureapaddy smiled.

She wiped dark red blood off on the road surface as her former superior, Kipsila Endinia, lay collapsed face down not far away.

Kipsila’s eyes were no longer turned toward her.

His head was tilted at an odd angle and unmoving.

And yet his lips twitched.

“Is this revenge for reorganizing your Astra…? Is this for the 14 who were destroyed…?”

“Of course not, of course not. Their deaths were officially said to be an accident, but we all agreed to it. We gathered the people with the greatest affinity to the Astra, those 15 had their spirits unified, and then that ‘average’ was redistributed back into the bodies of the 15. Right?”

A calm smile appeared on Ureapaddy’s face.

Her expression changed peacefully, gently, politely, and accurately.

“But the reinjection of the unified spirit had little success. Just like with the heart and the liver, the physical structure of the brain differs from person to person. The spirit attaches to not just the brain but the entire body. If a spirit injected from without does not meet the requirements, it will fall apart. And there is no way one can control that Astra in that unstable state. But those failures were our failures. It would be wrong to hate the cabal for that.”

“Then…”

“It is quite simple.”

Ureapaddy’s smile did not disappear.

The smile was too perfect, so anyone who saw it would likely find it artificial and unnatural.

“Even if only incompletely, I can use that Astra. But only if I ignore any damage done to myself and others. If I have a tool I can use, why not use it? I have a weapon with greater effects than Agni’s Festival Fire, so it only makes sense to attack Academy City with it. Even if that means I must use Agni’s Festival Fire as a stepping stone.”

“…Are you really going to use that?”

“I already have. That is why you have been defeated. Just like all the others. Isn’t it a bit late to be surprised?”

“I am not talking about on a level where you can carry it around with you! I am asking if you are going to use that Astra at the output levels from when the project was frozen!! If…if you do that…!!”

“The effects will spread beyond Academy City?”

Ureapaddy guessed what he was going to say and denied it.

But not by saying his ultimate conclusion was wrong.

It was an earlier assumption that had been wrong.

“It is because you say that kind of thing that your cabal remains so insignificant. You think I would simply continue with a plan that was crushed 5 years ago? Have you forgotten that my skills have advanced along with time? At the moment…” She uttered a concrete numerical value without showing any real sign of making any calculations. “I can probably draw out an output 509,000 times that of the attack you were desperate to accomplish back then.”

Kipsila’s breathing completely stopped for a moment.

In all seriousness, he underwent such a great shock that he seemed to lack even the level of thought required to continue breathing.

“You will destroy us all.”

“Perhaps.”

“If that value is accurate, there will be no safe area left on this planet! Whether one flees to highest heights of the atmosphere or the deepest depths of the ocean, that will evaporate it all!! Who knows if the planet itself would be able to continue properly in its orbit!!”

“But isn’t that just the kind of Astra I have? After all…”

Ureapaddy paused for a beat.

And then…