Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume15 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 7===

Hamazura Shiage had run away.

Dion Fortune watched him go.

With her untaken hand still held out in the empty air.

Even though he had once risked his life to save her when she had come apart into a deck of cards.

His actions here…made him an enemy of the Anglican Church, the member of the three great Christian sects that specialized in battling human magicians. It was a foolish, amateurish, and suicidal choice. A clever professional magician would have hidden any hostility they might have had.

In other words, Hamazura was not behaving like a professional.

So was he really the person the Anglican Church and its collection of professionals from around the globe should be pursuing?

What were they doing to one of the ordinary people they were meant to save?

(And on that note…)

Dion Fortune snapped at Kanzaki for acting without permission.

“What the hell are you people doing!? Have you forgotten I’m the Archbishop at the very top of the Anglican Church? I won’t let any of you kill Hamazura! I’ll use every last bit of my authority to ensure it!!”

“That’s the problem, though, isn’t it?”

The gloomy voice that interrupted belonged to Necromancer Isabella Theism.

Dion Fortune hadn’t been asking for opinions. Interrupting the Archbishop was itself disrespectful, but she didn’t seem to care.

“You’re going too far in supporting him. Whose going to follow the orders of a leader who can’t keep an objective and impartial view thanks to her personal feelings? Especially among us Anglicans who protect the world from wicked magicians.”

“Wha-?”

“For that matter, aren’t you an original grimoire taking the form of tarot cards? You’re a Golden magician ''manufactured by Great Demon Coronzon herself''. It wouldn’t surprise me if you had been ''manipulated'' to subconsciously support Hamazura Shiage…or rather, Coronzon’s remains.”

So she was bringing that up.

Dion Fortune’s thoughts were her own, but insisting so would be meaningless against someone who opposed her. Isabella knew that, so she sneered thinly. While watching her boss’s downfall.

It appeared Isabella wasn’t the only one to hold this opinion.

Despite the many people gathered here, not one of them moved to defend Fortune. In the end, was she nothing more than an outsider to them?

Stiyl Magnus glanced over at the “no smoking” sign on the wall and lit a new cigarette as he spoke.

“Influential members of the Royal Family and the Knights have been expressing concerns too. That means you no longer have the backing of the adults. …It’s time, Dion Fortune. You were put in place as a temporary figurehead to prevent chaos in the absence of an Archbishop after Lola Stuart’s downfall. I’ve heard you suggested the idea yourself and convinced Her Majesty the Queen. So you should make yourself scarce before you start causing chaos yourself.”

She had no interest in political power. She had known from the start she would eventually lose it.

But Hamazura Shiage was a different matter.

He was not a magician, so he shouldn’t be killed by the rules of the magic world. She couldn’t let these people give up on him for their own convenience like this.

She couldn’t as the Archbishop, even if she was an interim figurehead.

She couldn’t as one of the original Golden magicians who had laid the foundation of the magic system that existed to this day.

…And more than anything, she couldn’t as his friend.

So she scoffed.



“''As if you could stop me, fool.''”

“''Then die.''”



Stiyl didn’t hesitate to respond.

The place burst into motion.

Sister Lucia held a giant wooden wheel in front of her and it burst on its own. The sharp splinters formed a scattershot wall that rushed toward Dion Fortune. And bags of gold coins – which were heavier than hammers – used glowing wings to weave between the gaps of the splinters to fly toward Fortune’s head and solar plexus. Those were Angelene’s.

But she was unharmed.

Dion Fortune only had to hold out her right hand.

It held a black box.

“Translate, simplify, and create anew.”

It was swallowed up.

Both the wall of scattershot splinters and the flying coin bags.

“Archetype Processor. …I can’t believe you would try to take me on with ordinary magic without any kind of twist to it. Don’t underestimate an original member of the Golden cabal, little girls!!”

''Crash!!

When the lid reopened on its own, filthy mud rushed out as if from a hose. And this mud contained a mountain of metal shards the size of guitar picks that would strip the flesh from the bone of anyone it touched. If Kanzaki hadn’t laid out countless wires to set up a barrier, that is exactly what would have happened.

(Honestly, why couldn’t you direct that tear-jerking spirit of charity toward the amateur lamb who was manipulated by a great demon without any knowledge of the magic world?)

If they couldn’t manage that, Dion Fortune would have to beat them down and confiscate their right to wield justice.

Using her duty and authority as Archbishop of the Anglican Church.

She bared her teeth and roared.

“Unlike a certain right hand I could mention, this spiritual item doesn’t just safely and comfortably negate your magic. It randomly transforms it and not even I can predict what form it will take. Peek inside the open box at your peril. There you will find the very sin and karma you directed at others!!”

Since it was completely random, there was only one reason why Fortune wasn’t caught in the explosion and killed too: pure luck. And that sort of incalculable factor was the most frightening thing in combat.

And.

Dark-skinned Necromancer Isabella Theism whispered under her breath while paying no heed to the harm that had come to her allies. She looked perfectly relaxed.

Her words formed an obvious curse.



“Thou art the dark king who rules all below the horizon. Thou art the ruler of the house that welcomes the sun god. Thou art the mighty manager of the night and thus the ruler of half the day – and therefore half the world. Thou art the god who may always be resurrected if the proper ritual is performed even if thy body is destroyed, torn to pieces, and scattered across the land. Thou art the great king of death, equality, justice, and of thy own sacrifice. I am prepared to welcome thee here.”



Cold sweat poured down Dion Fortune’s brow.

This…this one was ''truly'' bad.

This was one of the mythological symbols that even the Magician Crowley had valued highly. The Aeon of Isis, the Aeon of Osiris, and the Aeon of Horus… Even a middle or high school student who had perused the R&C Occultics homepage a bit would be familiar with those terms.

More than that, Dion Fortune herself had once met a woman calling herself Magic God Nephthys in London. It wasn’t that she had been no match for her. The difference had been so overwhelming she couldn’t even work up the will to try and fight. And this god was ranked higher even than Nephthys in the ancient myths.

Dion Fortune shouted, wide-eyed.

She named the nemesis who stood in her way.



“''Underworld God Osiris''!?”