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

===Part 6===

Looking up from within the sliced carrier inside the shipyard, Great Demon Coronzon wrinkled her brow a little.

This was odd.

Why wasn’t the strategic bomber crashing? A direct hit from that wouldn’t do much harm to her. And if it blew away Academy City in the process, it would cause enough chaos for her to celebrate since she wanted to escape the city. Yet it wasn’t happening?

“Is the tide turning? But what caused it?”

(Aleister’s tricks don’t work. Then is this ''your'' doing? No, am I reading too much into this? Either way, I don’t have time to think about it with the way things are going.)

After some thought, Coronzon froze.

Someone had their hand against the ship’s inner wall. As they gathered strength in their legs. Their movements were wobbly, but they were gritting their teeth. Kamijou Touma was standing back up. Once more.

Yes, he was moving.

He had been twisted and blown away.

''Ordinarily,'' he should never have been able to move.

“Thank goodness,” he said.

He had the voice of someone who hadn’t given up.

“My head hurts like hell and I honestly feel like I’m about to die, but thank goodness I didn’t accidentally touch my head… Yes, that’s right. ''I don’t know who it was, but someone helped me out.'' All for this moment. Because now I don’t have to worry about passing out even when my pain must be way past the limit!!”

Hadn’t Othinus asked what made Coronzon think she had defeated the world? 

Kamijou Touma was one thing, but that cunning Magic God would not make a baseless argument from emotion. She had known from the start what kind of psychological control had been applied to Kamijou Touma!

Even so.

While he could still fight, what was driving that human so far?

He would have been better off just dying.

A drowning man would grasp at straws. Pain and fear could not be tamed by logic. Even if he had survived, he might have avoided a further thrashing if he had played dead. Maybe the world would later be destroyed, but he would be safe for the moment.

“How can you so innocently believe in the future?”

Coronzon found herself taking an action entirely unrelated to her victory.

Some thick, invisible words left her mouth.

As if she were uttering a curse.

“Imagine Breaker negates all supernatural powers and summons misfortune. It negates the good along with the bad, so as long as you possess that right hand, you can never receive god’s blessings. Just like me, your function intrudes on your life. No, it’s worse for you since you never chose for yourself to rebel. You were abandoned by god from the moment you were born. He said it couldn’t be helped and that misfortune was your lot in life. For no more reason than that!! That’s more than enough for you to reject a world that claims to be fair. So why don’t you curse the world? Why don’t you want to destroy the world that wouldn’t choose you!?”

Battered Kamijou smiled a little.

…He didn’t want to be the happiest person and rejoice in his triumph.

Even if it would look pretty cool to be able to say so like it was nothing.

But he couldn’t say it.

He refused to.

He had once gone to hell. During his tour of hell with CRC and Anna Kingsford, he had seen all too well what his nature was.

He was a filthy human.

When someone cried, it hurt him too and he just wanted to escape that pain. He only clenched his fist and fought so desperately because he was a terribly weak person who lacked the resolve to accept tragedy. Being punched was easier than seeing tragedy, so that was what he did.



He didn’t want the misfortune.

He wanted to be happy.

He wanted to live.



He might be plagued by misfortune, misfortune, misfortune, and more misfortune, but he would not lie about his desire to protect his own life and wish for happiness. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to escape from hell. No matter what ideals he laid out, he still hadn’t wanted to die. No, he hadn’t wanted to give up on life just because he died. There was still so much he wanted to do in this world.

He didn’t mean anything as profound as making a great invention that changed the way people lived or eliminating all crime from the world.

Just a single piece of toast.

He hadn’t wanted death to take even the simple action of biting into buttered toast.

It was ugly, foolish, and filthy.

He knew that and that was what allowed him to speak with such conviction.

“Happiness isn’t something you wait around for someone to give you.”

“Damn…you.”

“Even if you were born into misfortune and even if you made a great mistake, there’s no rule saying you have to give up on hoping for happiness. Anyone can ask for it, even if they’ve hit rock bottom. No one has the right to stand in the way of people’s desire for happiness.”

“~ ~ ~”

This was a different choice that Coronzon hadn’t been able to make.

She had hated, cursed, resented…and destroyed her own desire to be happy. At some point, she had stopped hoping for happiness.

Kamijou stared straight at a fact he didn’t want to remember.

Defeating Coronzon would also mean attacking Aleister.

(But you haven’t rotted either, have you?)

One was rotten and the other wasn’t.

In the end, the decision was easy. Kamijou Touma took the first step forward.