Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter3

==Chapter 3: The Transcendent Blossoms – Sabbat_VS_Witch_Hunt.==

===Part 1===

Kamijou threw open the stainless-steel back entrance.

The winter sky was still blue since it was 3 or maybe a bit later. Soaking themselves in the hot spa had been a bad idea even if it had been part of a plan. He thought the north wind was going to freeze him solid.

“Damn!!”

He didn’t have time to worry about that.

Transcendent Aradia would be back soon. Kamijou and the Bologna Succubus alone could not protect that large shopping mall with so many entrances. Aradia already knew they were in the Miyashita Ark, so staying there would be like asking her to launch a surprise attack and kill them.

He lent the Bologna Succubus his shoulder and half-shouted his questions. But not because he was overexcited. He was afraid she wouldn’t hear him otherwise.

That was how weak she was.

But she still wrapped him up in her light pink wings like a cloak. She wanted to give him as much of her remaining body heat as she could.

“What do we do now!? We need somewhere to hide if I’m going to treat your wound!!”

“Hee hee.”

“What is it now, Bologna Succubus?”

“I’m just thinking how glad I am I risked my life to save you. Here, I’ll reward you with a nice tight hug☆”

“T-take this seriously!”

She pouted her lips at that.

“Goodness gracious. So you want my request? Then I say a sauna or a capsule hotel would be safest. A sand bath or an enzyme bath would do if you want to have more fun with it.”

“What is it with you and baths?”

“Fine, would you prefer a love hotel or soapland? At a massage parlor, you can put on paper underwear and get a mystery gel rubbed all over your back. Do they have showers you can use there?”

“What is it with you and…that stuff!?”

Kamijou was blushing now and the Bologna Succubus giggled weakly. She could barely stand up straight, but she was amused by his reactions.

“First, I’m interested in Japan’s strange bath culture. And second, an indoor facility with lots of small rooms separated out like honeycombs suits our needs best. Karaoke boxes and manga cafés don’t give you must privacy as a deterrent against crime, so we have to look at the more ''adult'' destinations instead.”

So was the lowest hurdle among them the capsule hotel?

Kamijou checked his map app with his empty hand.

“Damn, I’m getting more and more poisoned by the smartphone culture. I get worried whenever I can’t look something up on here first.”

They made their way to the map icon closest to the Miyashita Ark.

The place was deserted.

Had everyone left with all those creepy faces appearing? Or was the place made so you could check in without interacting with a real person? Either way, no one stopped them as they walked right through the front desk area. Kamijou’s clothes were still soaked, so he appreciated the warmth of the heater. It was enough to make him teary-eyed.

“What the hell is this?”

Something like coin lockers for giants lined the walls. The doors were 1m squares of translucent frosted glass, but that was it. Each box was a room just big enough for someone to get some sleep inside. It reminded him of a sterile spaceship in an SF movie or maybe an extremely efficient prison.

He wasn’t sure he could carry the weak Bologna Succubus to a higher level and he didn’t need to anyway. He pushed her into a box on the bottom level and had her lie on her back.

He was chilled to the bone, but treating her was more urgent than heating himself.

He leaned into the same space and immediately detected a sweet scent. He hadn’t noticed it before, but it probably came from her hair.

“So I want to treat your wound, but ''where were you hit''? No covering up with your hands! Or your wings! Just let me see. Actually, are a succubus’s organs even in all the same places as human ones?”

“Oh, you licentious lad. Are you that eager to get into my underwear?☆”

“I’m going to assume these jokes mean it’s not that serious. Do you want those to be your last words!?”

“But how else do you plan to see underneath this?”

He froze. She must have liked the attention because she slapped his cheek with her pink tail.

That light pink lingerie was the only thing she wore and it was a one-piece corset that covered her from top to bottom like a bunny girl. When Aradia had kicked her back in the hot spa, it had been in the stomach, but that was the hardest spot to check with that outfit. The waist was fitted pretty tightly. In fact, it had to be the tightest part of the entire thing. Q: You want to see a bunny girl’s navel without having to see her boobs or butt in the process. How do you accomplish this? A: ………Why wasn’t there an answer!?

This was first aid. It was a necessary medical procedure!

Kamijou kept trying to convince himself of that in front of the defenseless young woman, but he couldn’t seem make himself actually do anything.

“Oh, no. I don’t think there’s any other option. But how do you even take one of these off?”

“Sorry, boy. I can’t help it I’m such a natural virgin killer, so try to be patient with me.”

“Why am I taking such massive psychological damage when I’m only trying to selflessly help someone!? It’s like my heart is a hunk of ice being chipped away with an icepick!!”

He got carried away and bumped his head into the low ceiling.

He was left to sob with his hands over his face, so the Bologna Succubus put her hands on her hips while still lying on her back. But she didn’t seem angry with the pathetic boy who couldn’t just enjoy the situation he found himself in. Instead, he heard a strange ''ziiiip'' sound from either side of her hips. She was undoing the zippers there.

She used her wings to push her back up from the bed.

“There we go.”

“Ahhh!?”

She pulled the thin material down to her navel and rolled it up there. It was a lot like someone pulling off their school swimsuit’s shoulder straps and half removing the swimsuit.

“Hee hee. I appreciate the mighty big reaction, boy. It’s a real confidence booster.”

Being a succubus, she didn’t seem to mind at all. She even placed her hands behind her head. The two big things jiggled on top of her chest and Kamijou blushed so bright he thought his face was going to explode. It was super awkward because she made no effort to cover up and even grinned up at him. He wanted to politely look away from that part of her that now had only her hair to cover it, but that wasn’t an option. She was injured and needed treatment.

“I would recommend getting this over with quickly. Aradia is working to recover as well. If we can recover faster, than we have a chance to send an attack her way. Every second wasted reduces our odds of survival.”

“You’re certain Aradia will come back for us?”

“Unquestionably.”

He couldn’t send the Bologna Succubus back into such a deadly fight while still injured. He needed to at least provide first aid to stabilize her condition. He looked back down at her body and noticed a purplish discoloration above her navel. A large one too. About the size of a child’s fist.

“Yikes.”

“Hell’s bells. That kind of reaction is a lot scarier than any kind of scientific threat, you know?”

“But what do I do about this? I-is this internal bleeding? Since I don’t see an open wound here, I don’t think disinfectant or a bandage will help. Applying a compress seems like the only thing I can do.”

“That should be enough. It’s only a bruise, albeit a severe one. It is internal bleeding and I know it looks bad, but it doesn’t look like a major artery or organ was affected.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“If the internal bleeding was that serious, I would have passed out from blood loss as soon as I loosened the waist constriction. This is very tight to protect the dreams of boys like you.”

The simple store in the hotel sold most basic medical equipment.

Kamijou soon returned with a variety of options.

“Is a warm compress or a cold one best for this?”

“A nice, cool one. You wouldn’t heat up a lump on your head, would you?”

He just took her word for it and peeled off the compress’s clear film like he was unwrapping the single-slice cheese used for toast.

Then he faced her again.

“Okay, I’m going to apply it.”

“Hee hee☆ Have at it, boy. I’m ready for- bdflkbhldfh!?”

“Yikes!! Bologna!”

“Krlrlrl- ah ha ha. That was chillier than I expected and I have very sensitive skin. You did nothing wrong, so keep going.”

Was that just her common tones breaking down?

He thought something had exploded inside her.

“This compress really smells.”

“Aromas are more noticeable in a small space like this.”

The Bologna Succubus reached out a hand while lying on that minimal bed. It made her look like a good-looking but lazy young woman reaching for some snacks. He wished she would cover up those large things with her hands since her hair was doing a very poor job of it. Or she could use her pink wings or tail. She had plenty of options!!

The topless Western woman (!?) remained oblivious to that wish.

“Do you have any painkillers?”

“I brought over everything they had, but don’t ask me what any of it is. Oh, this says it’s a cold medicine. And this is a sleeping pill?”

“My, oh, my. What is some loxoprofen doing here? Don’t you normally need a prescription for that? But I want a little more than that. Ooh, an anticonvulsive. Since it isn’t from my flesh or bones, I’m guessing this pain is related to my smooth muscle, so I’ll be taking that☆”

“Wait, um, taking it? But I just carried this over for you to see! You can pay for it yourself, I hope!?”

Kamijou didn’t know much about painkillers (despite having been in and out of the hospital more than the stereotypical sickly girl), but if she was happy with it, he wasn’t going to argue. In fact, he was a little surprised that ordinary drugs even worked on her.

“I think that’s all you can do for me. Oh, but this drug is supposed to be taken with food, so I should eat something. Hmm, I’ll probably heal faster if I eat this takoyaki, tenkasu, and mayo sandwich they’re offering.”

“Why would you go for a mass of grease and carbs that even a high school boy like me would shy away from?”

The demoness really did buy the mystery sandwich. She turned out to be the type who eats triangular foods by holding the bottom two corners in her hands while she nibbled at the top corner. That was weirdly cute. Maybe her younger habits never faded since demons(?) didn’t age. Whatever the case, Kamijou thought his heart was going to stop from the combination of the childish mannerisms and her large and topless chest.

She again demonstrated her opposition to littering by balling up the sandwich wrapper for easy disposal later.

“Mmm. That was good. And a full stomach makes me sleepy.”

She stretched her arms up while sitting up on her knees now. She was once more leaving herself with nothing but her hair to cover up and the ceiling was so low her palms ended up pressed against it, but she looked happy enough. Had that greasy sandwich really healed her? Surely not. The more he learned about Transcendent physiology, the more confused he got.

“Now we need to get our clothes dry. Oi, quit leaving the capsule every chance you get, boy. Climb back in here with me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because the capsules let you set their temperature and humidity. If I lower the humidity as far as it goes and crank up the heat, it should function like a dryer.”

“Are the SDGs just a joke to you!?”

But it was true he was going to freeze to death as things were, so he had no choice but to crawl into the cramped space with her.

He made sure to apologize to the god in heaven before succumbing to the demon’s temptation.

“What is this sweet scent? The compress didn’t smell like this, so is there something in the air conditioning filter?”

“Buzz. Wrong. That would be my cleavage. The bare skin may give off more milky pheromones than the half-dried underwear.”

“…”

“Sorry for being a virgin killer in more than just the visual way, boy.”

''Does she have to keep bringing that up!?'' Kamijou did his best not to look at the winking young woman a mere 50cm away from him. She must have enjoyed teasing him because she was in a very good mood and even cackled while switching to a cross-legged position.

But what were they supposed to do now?

He was honestly unsure how healed she was, but she had been hit pretty badly. And Aradia had apparently received a weird boost to her power brought on by desperation. Kamijou couldn’t instantly power himself up and it would be heartless to throw the Bologna Succubus into the line of fire every time he sensed danger.

He could only think of one option.

“Let’s meet up with Index and the others,” he whispered.

“You mean the grimoire library?”

“And Othinus too. They might give us the clue we need. You keep talking about the Bridge Builders Cabal and Transcendents, so I think it would be best to see what some magic experts have to say.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said the Bologna Succubus while belatedly putting those big things back in the chest of her underwear and adjusting their position a little. Kamijou blushed, but he was more fascinated with the discovery of how a bunny girl costume was actually put on.

“However, that is easier said than done. How exactly do you plan on doing it? I doubt you would run into them if you just ran around the large open world of Shibuya.”

“So would it be best to send them some kind of sign that we’re in this capsule hotel?”

“What if Aradia sees it? Then the inevitable battle would begin before we had time to prepare.”

“Th-then it just has to be a subtle sign that only Index would notice.”

“A quiet whisper will never reach every corner of Shibuya.”

She shot down his every idea. Unfortunately, she was right.

A noticeable sign would be noticed by Aradia, but a subtle one wouldn’t reach Index. He wracked his brains for a solution until…

“Oh.”

“Hm? Wh-what now, boy?”

“I’ve found the answer. There really is a way of sending an obvious sign to Index no matter where she is in Shibuya while that transcendent magician Aradia remains none the wiser!!”

“Th-there is!? O-out with it then! Gulp.”

He raised his trembling head and gave her the deadly serious look of someone revealing an apocalyptic prophecy.

“I can message her phone.”

“You had a mobile this entire time!?”

The sexy demon rapped her knuckles against the top of his head.

He pulled out his phone to find a flood of messages from Kumokawa-senpai.

===Part 2===

“…”

When Index arrived at the back-alley capsule hotel, she crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks.

Othinus and Kumokawa Seria weren’t much different.

The only one who wasn’t upset was the calico cat on the nun’s head.

Kamijou Touma was confused. The Bologna Succubus was the one crazy enough to go around in nothing but underwear, so why were their piercing gazes focused on him? Not to mention that the god was trying to act like a reasonable dresser when her outfit was just as revealing.

Maybe it was all the time he had spent in that capsule full of sweet female pheromones to dry his clothes.

Whatever the case, he wasn’t given a chance to defend himself.

“(My plan is in complete shambles now. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I’m supposed to be the mature beauty of his group, but then she comes along out of nowhere and steals that position away from me!)”

“(Human, why are you falling for a mere big-titty demon when you are already have an ultra super rare god?)”

The ones muttering under their breath were giving off a terrifying dark aura. And one of them was a god, so she was probably uttering curses that would drive all who heard them to madness.

“(He’s clearly a phone newbie, yet he can summon a swarm of girls with a single message? And he didn’t think twice about calling in more girls when he was already with me. Not to mention that this is a ''hotel''. I can’t believe he didn’t have an issue asking them here or that they didn’t have an issue coming here.)”

“Shut up, you winged freak!”

“Shut up, you winged freak!”

Kumokawa and Othinus appeared to have become friends at some point.

Index didn’t seem to realize what the Bologna Succubus had been implying, so she alone watched on in confusion.

They couldn’t all fit in that capsule, so they remained in the hallway. The Bologna Succubus used the edge of the capsule entrance like a bench since she was injured. When Kamijou tried to leave the capsule, her pink tail coiled around his neck and yanked him back to her side. The super sweet and sexy young woman’s lonely gesture nearly sent him (quite literally) to heaven.

Othinus got the conversation started, sounding somewhat irritated.

“So, human. Did you drive everyone out of this building to claim it for yourself?”

“Do you really think he could do that? It is still the late afternoon outside, but the guests will start returning once night falls. Capsule hotels are generally built alongside saunas, but they are still hotels.”

Kamijou wanted to get down to business.

What did his two experts – Index and Othinus – think of Transcendent Aradia?

“I’ve never heard of a person called Aradia.” The nun still looked upset, but she answered his question while seated on the hallway bench. “But I have heard of ''a book'' called Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.”

Kamijou’s heart skipped a beat.

Aradia. And witches.

“But a lot of people think that was a story a witch made up on the spot to tell the author what he wanted to hear.”

Kumokawa seemed to prefer being in the corner because she leaned back against a square pillar and held the bored-looking cat while tilting her head at that answer.

“So that witch used the same technique as a streetside fortuneteller?”

“More or less. ''According to a fortuneteller who has since abandoned their authority,'' the entire field is about drawing out the words a hesitant person wants to say themself.”

“The witch herself probably wanted to be seen as a good talker and a clever doctor,” cynically added Othinus while climbing up onto Kamijou’s shoulder.

But this wasn’t any help at all.

If it was only a book, then what exactly were the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal?

Kamijou glanced over at the Bologna Succubus, but the demon seated next to him was only smiling. When she noticed him looking, she winked and squeezed her upper arms together to accentuate her cleavage. But he did recall that she had said her purpose in life and actions were centered on someone being sentenced to death for the absurd charge of running a succubus brothel.

Anna Sprengel had apparently joined that cabal and the magic side generally believed that she was no more than a name that appeared in the letter Westcott forged when founding the Golden cabal. Kamijou had assumed that forgery theory only meant that Anna herself had never appeared directly on center stage to spread any those global disasters, but what if there was more to it than that?

And then there was ''Alice'' who stood at the top of the Bridge Builders Cabal.

“Don’t let them confuse you, human.” After finally reaching her usual spot on his shoulder, the 15cm god tickled his ear with an exasperated sigh. “There is no way of proving one way or the other if a goddess named Aradia really existed in the distant past. The same is true for the entire Bridge Builders Cabal. The issue we need to focus on is the fact that a magician going by that name is here in Shibuya today and that she is attacking you with some kind of powerful spell. Whoever she might be, you can eliminate her as a threat if you defeat her.”

That was true enough.

But this was a big problem Kamijou didn’t think he could just ignore.

“If she is using witchcraft, then it should be based on natural chemicals.” Index attacked the issue from a different angle while kicking her legs atop the bench in the shared hallway running between the locker-like rows of capsules. “A witch’s supernatural feats of healing, divination, cursing, flight, and crop growth should all be derived from medicinal herbs and minerals. They are basically priestesses living deep in the woods after all.”

“So what is that Triple whatever thing, Index?”

“You mean the Wiccan Triple Reload?”

The Bologna Succubus, who was of uncertain age, was playing with the cat. The cat had slipped from Kumokawa’s hands to chase after her wiggling tail, so she was skillfully sending her tail darting this way and that to just barely dodge the kitty punches.

Her clarification meant nothing to the high school boy, but it was valuable information for Index.

“I see. ''That'' explains the Aradia name. In that case, you can call what she uses witchcraft, but her spells are not based on a specific mythology or religion like Greek or Celtic.”

“U-um, Index?”

“This is something newer and more like a ''superstition''. Instead of digging up the ancient techniques, this witchcraft was created new by mixing together bits and piece of the thoroughly Christianized culture. That means she won’t just use the Rule of Three. Wicca has plenty of rules and taboos all its own. Use those against her and you should be able to defeat her no matter how much more powerful she- oh.”

Index was cut off by a rattling sound.

But what was rattling?

The floor was. No, was it the entire multi-tenant building containing the capsule hotel!?

The Bologna Succubus whispered into Kamijou’s ear while sitting next to him and resting her head on his shoulder (and receiving threats from Othinus for invading the little god’s territory).

“Aradia is here.”

===Part 3===

The sun had set.

The sky was dark and, true to the December date, the winter season became impossible to ignore once sunset arrived. However, it was also New Year’s Eve, so Shibuya was only starting to get fired up.

“…”

One girl wore a translucent raincoat over a swimsuit-based outfit. She wore an eyepatch and looked something like a comical ghost or a clione, but she was currently staring at the scenery of Spain Zaka.

She saw a large piece of cloth fluttering there.

A small girl of about 10 was trotting along in a witch outfit, probably on her way to the scramble crossing. “How cute,” said the ghost, but on closer inspection, that witch girl had her navel exposed and she was barefoot. She could easily freeze to death in that modified bikini, so did she have a thick layer of some kind of heat insulating gel applied to her bare skin?

“A witch.”

The ghost had had a frightening experience with one of those earlier in the day.

Her hand froze up while reflexively reaching for her phone to record the possible news in front of her. But this witch costume looked a lot cheaper than the last one. The clasps didn’t look like real gold, for one. It may have been made with a clothing printer that used a remote machine to perform automatic high-speed sewing based on the supplied pattern data. Recently, White Spring had a deal where you could order a printed garment online and then have their delivery service deliver it to you in less than half an hour.

(But is that really a popular enough character for someone so clearly new to cosplay to choose? For that matter, ''is that even a character from something''? Well, someone may have thrown together the pattern data based on the uploaded videos and then released it for public use.)

Just then, the ghost took a step back and nearly bumped into a witch.

But this witch looked to be of high school age.

“?”

(Um!?)

A moment later, the ghost realized there were even more of them.

Everywhere she looked, she found witches wearing ankle length wimples and modified bikinis. There were 5 or 10 or maybe more. The number gradually increased like stepping on the white beach and seeing dark oil start to seep out from below the sand. It was like the scratchy sound of cheap bells were drowning out the crowd’s chatter.

None of them were looking her way.

They were only respectfully holding some folded clothes in their hands. For whatever reason, blank pieces of looseleaf paper were stacked up on top of the clothing.

They were all muttering the same thing under their breath.

It was a forbidden, profane, and sweet utterance that brought the word “secret” to mind.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

For some reason, when the ghost heard those whispered voices, something started to grow in the back of her mind.

This was something she had tried to forget. It was an unseen scar on her heart that formed the foundation of her current life and could not be removed at this point.

She belonged to a group who posted videos to a video site. She was always conscious of her numbers, but that wasn’t always a battle against herself.

She had once had a rival.

She hadn’t heard anything from that rival ever since the girl made the mistake of uploading a shoplifting video and had to move away.

They had been friends…or she thought they had. But the silly number of followers tacked onto the end of their account names had always led them to compete, for better or for worse. And if the ghost hadn’t come out just barely on top, that friend, whose real name she didn’t even know, may never have felt the need to gather attention with a shoplifting video.

She had been terrified of the guilt catching up to her.

So she had grown even more obsessed. Because if she dressed in crazy outfits and received the praise of so many people online, she could forget all about the more colorful reality she lived in. And who was going to complain about that choice if she also earned more money than most adults made?

But she couldn’t shake off, wash away, or escape reality.

She was wearing a translucent raincoat over a costume based on a practice swimsuit. That cheap, meaningless outfit wasn’t enough. That plastic and synthetic fabric had no mystical significance and couldn’t free her from reality. It couldn’t relieve the weight suffocating her.

So what else could she do?

What could she do to finally shake free of the reality doggedly pursuing her?

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

“Oh.”

There was the answer.

The witches continued to multiply.

Just like with Halloween costumes and video posting, it was so much less frightening when you weren’t the only one doing something.

There were more and more.

More and more and more and more and more and more.

More and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more.

They came from every direction. Witches emerged from every street corner to flood the scene. There were some suppressed screams as people were overwhelmed by the sight, but everyone was paralyzed by it and no one began recording with their phone.

The ghost should have felt the same.

But this didn’t even seem strange to her anymore, much less frightening. She instead felt an all-encompassing sense of calm. Most everyone understood what a follower count was these days and it was so much easier for new content creators to get started. This worked the same as video sites and the rest of the internet. Once enough people were doing something, it gained legitimacy.

Everyone was doing this too, so she had nothing to worry about.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

One witch must have sensed something because she held out some folded clothes and a stack of looseleaf paper.

The ghost smiled as she accepted the invitation and opened a new door by repeating the secret keyword.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”



Meanwhile, someone was humming atop Shibuya Scramble Squiz, a skyscraper complex connected to Shibuya Station.

“Hm, hm, hm, hm, hm.”

On the special observation deck at the 46th floor, Transcendent Aradia raised her arms and stretched in the large space with a view of the city’s nightscape through the surrounding glass.

She snapped open the clasps to her modified bikini, letting the garment fall away. She only ever exposed her naked body to the green trees, but in artificial Shibuya, the temporary botanical garden being held here was the only option available.

Her long silver hair became much more noticeable.

Witches were meant to bathe in the moonlight and live secret lives deep in the forest, so if she wanted to eliminate the noise from her thoughts and get a fresh look at her situation, moonbathing and forest bathing were her only real options.

(I had prepared myself for the lack of starlight, but this is bad. Even the moonlight is barely leaking through.)

So this was little more than a way of calming herself.

Aradia spread her arms and bathed in the night air of the artificial greenery.

The witch goddess slowly walked naked across the 46th floor observation deck, stopping to snatch a free pamphlet from the magazine rack along the way. The action had no meaning. She was only relaxing her body and eliminating all biases from her thoughts.

The ad campaign described on the pamphlet was apparently a common thing in the shopping district lately.

''“Help grow more greenery and kick global warming’s butt with Magical Powered Kanamin! Get your free flower seeds now! If we all do our part, we can save the planet with our flower pots!!”

“Hee hee.”

Aradia laughed when she saw the magical girl drawn on the pamphlet in primary colors.

But not because she found it laughable.

(So this teaches people to love the deep forests and to assist those close to them?)

This was an Academy City entertainment product made for small children and the campaign’s claims had little to no scientific basis behind them. But ironically enough, it hit a lot closer to the essence of a witch than those texts written to criticize witches that based their beliefs on all the ancient parchment documents they had gathered.

Aradia glanced to the side while toying with the pamphlet in her hand.

She saw some billowing clothes there.

But they weren’t hers. They were worn by the girls who were serving the witch goddess in the hopes of receiving even a small fraction of her blessing. They were watching Aradia as a living model of a perfect witch, making note of everything from her gait to her breaths, and jotting it all down on their looseleaf paper.

That was known as their Book of Shadows. Modern witches bound by the Rule of Three were given a stack of blank paper when they first started down that path. The newcomers would continue writing down all the knowledge they obtained until the day they died to create their own personal grimoire.

The girls kept writing without even looking up and they all spoke in unison.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

That sounded important, but the phrase was actually meaningless.

It was the same as youth slang and online memes.

Having some kind of secret shared term or phrase created a sense of unity while also creating a sense of superiority over anyone who didn’t understand it. Those in the know were separated from the world at large and formed a loose community. But it was easier for people to get onboard if the phrase felt like it had some history or tradition behind it. Repeating that phrase created the illusion of invisible bonds and made them think they were protected as part of some great purpose. The same method had been used at the Sabbats during the Middle Ages, a time when some people wanted to return to their ancestors’ ways after Christianity had taken over.

''I want to know too.

It was an intellectual poison that silently spread using that common desire.

When a demon (or something forced to bear that title) were summoned at those gatherings, the process to perform the summoning tended to be a lot lengthier and more complex than the part where they actually did anything with the summoned being. Why? Because those arcane rituals were the best part and it was so relaxing to be actively working on something. Perhaps it would be too romantic to liken that to the period leading up to an unrequited love being fulfilled.

“Hm.”

With influencers on social media and whatever-tubers on video sites, the world continued to transform and evolve at an accelerated rate, but the basic desires at the bottom of it all had not changed. Aradia saw the world as a living fossil.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

::::::::I want to live an active life without anyone knowing who I really am.

:“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

:::::::I want to be an entirely new person.

:: “''May the holy witch guide us.''”

::::::I don’t want to screw up or fail.

:::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

:::::I don’t want to make a fool of myself in public.

::::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

::::I want to learn how it works without needing to be an expert.

:::::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

:::But I also want a skill no one else can imitate.

::::::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

::And I don’t want to work hard for it.

:::::::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

:I don’t want to bow down to the know-it-alls.

::::::::“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

I want a trick that makes reaching my goal easy.

(This city’s people have so many openings for me to utilize. I don’t think it’s as bad as New York, though.)

So these girls would not rely on the mythologies and religions linked to great political power. They were only using their young sensibilities to link together some slang and memes they all knew, but that was to be expected when they all lived separate lives. It was selfish, willful, and entirely for themselves. They were driven by their own desire, so they could never get along with the mythologies and religions that asked for a unified lifestyle before seeking happiness – in other words, ''that demanded their followers protect their teachings that had already been finalized so long ago.

This is what witches had always been. The Sabbat had always been this sort of gathering.

Transcendent Aradia was the one who gave concrete form to those desires and provided the witches with the necessary knowledge and a place at which to practice it.

The nude idol spread her arms at the center of the Sabbat and sang loud.

“It is time to begin the second round.”

She would keep this simple.

If she could not settle this on her own, then she would crush her target with an onslaught of 100 thousand witches.

===Part 4===

The entire building containing the capsule hotel shook violently.

The demoness shrieked and clung to Kamijou’s side. He stuck just his head out of the capsule and took a look around, but since the capsule hotel was basically a portion of a sauna or bath, it lacked windows.

“Well, something’s happening, but what do we do about it!?”

“With just you, I could have flown you away from the roof, but I can’t do that with three or four people and a pussy cat. And I couldn’t sleep at night if I coldheartedly abandoned the cat.”

The busty upperclassman and busty god glared at the demoness as if to say “so you could sleep like a baby after abandoning us?”

But the Bologna Succubus had a mind tougher than depleted uranium, so she sat up from the edge of the capsule and winked at only Kamijou.

“So our first job is recon and intel gathering. We can fight, hole up in here, or run away, but we’ll want to see what Aradia is up to before choosing.”

“In other words, you don’t have an actual plan. Got it.”

The capsule’s wonderfully ecofriendly heater had fully dried their clothing.

Aradia could easily break through the concrete wall to get into the building. The Bologna Succubus had already mentioned that flying away wasn’t an option with more than just Kamijou, so she had likely already ruled out staying in the building too.

They needed to get a look outside. Inside a smoking room that had somehow survived into the current day, they found a window covering one of the walls.

Kamijou was dumbfounded by what he saw.

The sidewalks, streets, and every other part of the ground were covered in witches, witches, and more witches!!

“What the hell is this?”

It looked like a riot. Every single person crammed in like on a packed train wore an ankle-length wimple and a modified bikini. Kamijou initially thought she had ''multiplied'', but a closer inspection proved that wrong.

“Blast it, Aradia. Have you started proselytizing?”

“Prosely-what?”

They all stood at different heights, wore different hair styles, and were of different ages. They were all dressed in the same witch outfit as Aradia, but those had to be the ordinary people of Shibuya exposing their skin to the frigid air. Some of the witches were even standing on the roofs of the cars parked on the curb and on the supports for the blue road signs crossing the large road.

“''May…tch…us.''”

There was a good distance between him and them.

“''May the…witch…us.''”

There was a thick layer of tempered glass in between too.

“''May the holy witch guide us.''”

But a great vibration still reached him.

“''May the holy witch guide us!!!!!!''”

It wasn’t just the glass or the building shaking – it was the ground.

Their fearsome chorus may have shown up on a seismograph. Kamijou was pushed beyond dumbfounded. He was terrified. The visual alone had blanked his mind, but his instincts were telling him he would die if he wasted what little time he still had.

“What is going on?”

“Witches never make their presence known. They slowly spread below the surface, silently corrupting a family, a town, a country, or any other community,” explained Index, standing on her toes atop a bench to better see straight down.

The Bologna Succubus bent and stretched her body and flapped her pink wings one at a time to see how her recovery was going.

“This is what Aradia’s dangerous charisma can accomplish when she puts her mind to it. She already has a new coven. The youngins of Shibuya are highly receptive to the latest trends, so that may’ve hastened the spread.”

“Dangerous charisma? Are you saying she started a cult?” groaned Kumokawa Seria.

They could only see one side of the building from here, but they had to assume the other three sides were much the same They were completely surrounded and the disturbing shaking of the building suggested some of the witches were already breaking holes in the walls to get in.

It felt like fleeing inside a rundown shack in the humid jungle to escape a swarm of army ants.

“Um, quick question.”

“Yes, boy?”

“Are ''all of those'' Aradia? That is, can they all do everything she can!?”

“She is the witch goddess who rules the night and the moon. She appears at the secret Sabbats to grant the witches the knowledge they need to escape the cross’s persecution. They can’t do everything she can, but they can easily ''borrow'' a portion of her power temporarily.”

“H-how big a portion!?”

“They should be able to use Triple Reload since that’s built into Wicca itself.”

Sweat poured from Kamijou’s brow.

The Bologna Succubus’s body temperature was a bit elevated after she finished her stretches and she started leaning against him while clearly amused by his reaction.

“With some exceptions like Magic Gods, Saints, and Alice, any spell you see someone use is built from the basics of magic. ''And she is a generous goddess who does not hesitate to grant the witches her greatest techniques.'' I don’t know if they gather their knowledge in a paper notebook or on their phone’s memo app these days, though. Still, the Rule of Three is a double-edged sword with a serious chance of self-destruction, so it takes experience and a certain style to use it at Aradia’s level. Really, it comes down to whether or not you can grasp the boundary lines of that taboo well enough to survive your very first experience with it.”

If that was true, this could hardly get worse. They had barely managed to drive off Aradia alone, but now the witch goddess had abandoned all kindness and carelessness and strengthened herself with an army large enough to cover the ground below. Meanwhile, the injured Bologna Succubus had only been treated with a compress and painkillers. Index and Othinus’s knowledge was a help, but they couldn’t provide direct violence. That went double for Kumokawa Seria who was only an upperclassman at school.

Kamijou’s right hand carried Imagine Breaker, which could negate any supernatural power.

But he was the only one capable of physically fighting against those 10 thousand or even 100 thousand witches. How much could they even do in this situation? A group that big would physically crush him before the supernatural even came into it.

“H-hey, Senpai? Or Index? Forget my fantasies – how much does the average girl actually weigh? 40kg? Maybe 50?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

For some reason, everyone else there glared at him. Even Othinus and the Bologna Succubus who couldn’t be described as “average” by any stretch of the imagination.

But this time Kamijou wasn’t just being rude.

“There are adults and children out there, so let’s just go with 40kg as a rough estimate for the average female weight. If we also assume there are 100 thousand of them out there, that would be…”

“Sigh. 4000 tons, human.”

“I wish I could disbelieve that number, but this is deadly serious. Even if we hide in here to avoid getting crushed by the group, I get the feeling that flood of bodies could directly tear this building from its foundation.”

However…

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

Kamijou couldn’t believe it, but the Bologna Succubus was actually smiling.

“You might think this can hardly get worse, but only due to your own lack of imagination. I expected this much and there is nothing to fear as long as that holds true. Aradia actually ''takes her work very seriously''. The thing is, that’s what gives her such a short fuse. She can be a pain to deal with, but that’s probably the 1st requirement for becoming a witch. She puts her fears at ease by throwing out the wild, eccentric tricks and sticking with the tried and true fundamentals. Ha ha. She would make a good civil servant, but she could never make it as a gambler. And the thing is, we aren’t doing boring paperwork here.”

The Bologna Succubus stepped away from the window and stabbed the arrowhead of her tail into a device on the opposite wall: a fire alarm.

Afterwards, she took in a deep breath that sent a tremor through her alluring bodylines, spread her wings wide, and shouted at the top of her lungs.

“Watch out for the dust!! They’re tearing down the building walls! Is there no line those freaks won’t cross!? You need to run away before they get you too! Also, I’d rather not mention what’s in that dust hanging in the air, but breathing it in is enough for it to harm you! If you start to feel dizzy or faint, that’s means it already got to you!!”

The clangor of the alarm squeezed at Kamijou’s heart.

But he was also confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, it’s just a bluff.” The Bologna Succubus grinned. “But the primary enemy of the witch has always been the witch hunt. In psychological terms, that’s known as mass hysteria. With sufficient data, you can trigger one yourself like you’re following a flowchart.”

“You’re pitting mass hysteria against a cult!? So many people are going to die!”

Kumokawa Seria’s eyes widened, but the Bologna Succubus readily nodded.

“Listen. The witch hunts began with the virtuous citizens accusing each other, ''so you could say it was history’s worst neighborhood dispute.'' You don’t know why, but you’re pissed off, nothing is going right, and something must be to blame. And wouldn’t you know it? That one neighbor seems awfully sus, don’t they? Humans love to blame something close by and eliminate it to reclaim peace of mind. And what’s the first thing anyone in Shibuya is going to see or hear about at the moment? Aradia’s witches.”

With a flapping sound, the demon spread her pink bat wings with her hands clasped below her navel.

“And I believe I already showed you my magic. Cold Mistress converts all pleasure signals into pain. But if I adjust its strength, I can create a ''nagging irritation'' that creates a subconscious source of unease. They might be hesitant at first, but there is no avoiding it. They can try drinking some tea or petting their dog, but all attempts to soothe themselves will only make it worse. Before long, that small irritation will rule their mind. Just like with disease, weather, accidents, and recessions, when humans have trouble understanding some large, invisible factor, they try to calm themselves by directing their hate toward a target closer at hand and then they can’t stop themselves.”

“I see,” said Othinus from Kamijou’s shoulder. “But that only works if people can hear you. There weren’t any ordinary people in this entire building. You can’t fill out the ranks of your witch hunt army without anyone to corrupt.”

“True,” agreed the Bologna Succubus. “But who ever said my Cold Mistress is limited to this building?”

A new rumbling reached them.

Kamijou spun back toward the window to find the witches were being overrun. New colors were flooding the unified colors of the witches like muddy water entering a clear river.

“Touma, something’s happening down there!”

“The fire alarm and the lie about the dust were only the ignition needed to get the ball rolling. The actual seed of displeasure that spreads through the people could be anything. Then Cold Mistress amplifies that feeling into a great irritation and they start searching out for any rumors that might give them a reason or a cause for their unease. If there is an obvious outsider nearby, it’s so easy to convince them they can solve everything by attacking that group. That is how witch hunts work.”

No, that “muddy water” was the hair atop people’s heads.

A mixture of blacks, browns, yellows, reds, and even some obviously dyed greens and pinks formed a single mass that attacked the witch army. This group was a mix of genders and they had no uniform. They were less organized, but they were larger in terms of both numbers and momentum.

Kamijou could hear an earth-rattling rumble through the tempered glass.

“It’s you outsiders refusing to obey the rules that give Shibuya a bad name!”

“Ugh, shut up! My head hurts so bad! What the hell did you do to me!? Argh!?”

“I’m calling the police! This is an unauthorized assembly! Scram and quit bothering the rest of us!!”

It scared Kamijou that the rumble came from human voices instead of bombs or gas explosions.

This was the result of Transcendent Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress spell.

From the looks of it, that spell’s range covered all of Shibuya if not more.

He could see now why she had said she might be able to fight back against Alice with that power. When you didn’t need to specifically target each individual, you could attack a general group over a large range.

The sexy demon wiggled her tail and smiled scornfully down at the surface.

“100 thousand witches? Don’t make me laugh, Aradia. Today is New Year’s Eve. ''100 thousand is a tiny minority.'' Did you even consider how many people from all across Japan are gathered in Shibuya for the countdown tonight? And what if we include foreign visitors too?”

What was happening down there?

Which side was overwhelming the other? Could it have reached the level of bloodshed?

“And magic will lose to the ordinary crowd. Bodyguards, companions, slaves, a best friend – every Transcendent belonging to the Bridge Builders Cabal seeks it in different forms, but in the end, we all long for the human world. Aleister may have tilted the scales toward science for the general public, but that is still the world we live in. Humans cling to the easily visible and controllable things. They might claim otherwise, but when they find themselves on a sinking ship, do they reach for their holy talisman or for a lifejacket made of petroleum? When their life is on the line, no one ever relies on their capricious and unfathomable god.”

“Bologna Succubus!?”

“Ah ha ha. Yes, I’m the demoness who hates any and all false accusations. The witch hunts are such a perfect example of it that they left their name in history. ''They weren’t even attacking the real supernatural demons at the center of the issue.'' They were lashing out at anyone they found suspect to forcibly stabilize their imperfect society. Really, it was little more than a human sacrifice ceremony. Watching this here isn’t at all fun for me, let me tell you.”

The Bologna Succubus laughed lightly with her mouth hidden behind her large wings.

Perhaps she was redrawing the lines of what she needed to protect after seeing the boy worry about the very witches who were trying to kill him.

“But these casual witches fell for Aradia’s temptation, went to her for easy help, found an excuse for their own weakness, and decided to attack complete strangers like you. ''They were bad people to begin with.'' Don’t kid yourselves, you rioting criminals. Did you think there wouldn’t be any consequences as long as you were just a face in the crowd? Did you think you counted as a victim for letting yourself get agitated into violence? I protect innocent people who have been falsely accused. So, boy, my concern is limited to kind people like you who have a penchant for getting themselves into trouble. We demons haven’t fallen so far we go around saving even despicable villains.”

“But you can’t let this continue! Stop it! No one wants it to end like this!!”

“Ha ha! Yes, ''that’s the look'' that makes me want to help you out so badly. And I’m sorry to say they don’t have that same appeal. Concern for others is undoubtedly the greatest virtue ever discovered, but do remember that being weak does not mean someone is pure of heart.”

Kamijou heard a shattering of glass as the demon’s pink tail swept horizontally like a whip.

A downpour of sharp shards burst out with terrifying force.

The Bologna Succubus had just finished saying not even demons would save the wicked, so she wouldn’t care what happened to the witches on the ground far below.

The Transcendent was indeed transcendent.

He had been caught up in some nerve-wracking rescues when working with Alice Anotherbible. Anna Sprengel’s many misdeeds may have been similar in that they were unpredictable and capricious. These people could not be judged as either good or bad. He was working alongside a Transcendent from the Bridge Builders Cabal, so he should have considered the possibility of her resorting to ''capricious violence based on a desire to help''!!

She flapped her wings, jumped out from the window, and soared into the night sky.

“Wait, Bologna Succubus! Stop those witch hunters! You aren’t running away after all this, are you!? You’re they only one who can switch this off!!”

“Hah hah hah! This is where we say goodbye, sightseer boy. Serious and short-fused Aradia has a difficult time with unexpected trouble and can’t adlib to save her life, so now’s our chance to show her what for. And it’s a Transcendent’s job to clean up this Transcendent mess, so you can rest easy, join that young crowd, and head back to Academy City. That city’s thick wall will protect you from any riots in Shibuya☆”

He wasn’t in the mood for that kind of nonsense, so he reached out his hand on reflex. But…

“Stop, boy!!”

Kumokawa grabbed him around the hips and pulled back with her full body weight.

His momentum died and his grasping fingertips just barely missed the tip of the Bologna Succubus’s tail.

But without that assistance, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself and would have plummeted from the window.

With a heavy roar of something moving through the air, the Bologna Succubus vanished into the night sky.

“Dammit!!”

“Touma!”

Index called out to him after Kumokawa pulled him onto his back.

She was implicitly asking him what they should do now.

How was that even a question? The Bologna Succubus had helped him so much this entire time. Without her, he quite literally would have died to Aradia’s hand a third and final time. But that didn’t mean he could just let her use the innocent people of Shibuya as disposable shields.

He had to pursue her.

If they didn’t stop Aradia’s witches ''and'' the Bologna Succubus’s witch hunt, Shibuya would be destroyed before the countdown was complete!!

===Part 5===

Things had gone from bad to worse.

Pursuing Aradia or the Bologna Succubus required going outside, but passing through that crowd unnoticed wasn’t possible.

Or so Kamijou thought.

“Huh?”

After descending the emergency stairs and carefully opening the door, he found the crowd pressing in from nearby. But none of them were looking his way.

“Aradia may have ordered them to ‘kill Kamijou Touma’,” whispered Othinus from his shoulder. “But did she ever snap a photo of your face with a phone or camera? If it was an oral command with no photographic reference, you might be able to get through undetected.”

He was glad his clothes had dried. He wanted to avoid anything that would make him stand out.

“But they have access to those modern marvels too,” cautioned Kumokawa Seria. “New Year’s Eve is basically one giant photoshoot here. They might be tracking down a photo on social media that happened to catch you in the background. This doesn’t guarantee your safety, so be careful.”

But he honestly had some more immediate things to worry about at the moment.

“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?”

“Kyah!? Stop grabbing at my clothes!”

“I work so hard! Day in and day out! So why don’t I ever have any more money? Someone out there must be counteracting my efforts!!!!!”

The people out there were arguing back and forth.

The girl in a large eyepatch, a wimple, and a modified bikini looked an awful lot like the video site ghost Kamijou had seen near the station. Her lack of chest left a lot of openings in Aradia’s costume, which actually made it more risqué. And who was that swinging around a folding chair with all her might? Yes, wasn’t that the tanned call girl in a camisole?

The deep metallic sounds coming from her didn’t match her jiggliness at all.

(I met them both with my delivery job, so I’m glad we didn’t use our names or phone numbers. We only know the 8-digit single-use ID we gave each other.)

“Give it a rest, you- gyah!?”

A bluish-white beam shot off in the wrong direction.

Was that lightning? The eyepatch ghost had flipped through her looseleaf papers and traced her finger along something written there, but it looked like her attempt to retaliate with Triple Reload had failed.

Yes, the scary thing here was how the magically-powered witches were being pushed back by the powerless witch hunters. The Bologna Succubus had said the Rule of Three magic introduced a large risk of self-destruction. It was a tricky spell and going through the process was probably hard in this chaos and with a crowd packed around you so tightly.

“The real difference is that the witches want the help of the beneficial supernatural if they can get it, but the witch hunters will not give up until they have eliminated the negative anxiety they feel.” Exasperated, Othinus watched the commotion from Kamijou’s shoulder. That god of war, deception, and magic explained her thoughts. “''A group that fears death will act fearless if it will distance them from death.'' That might look contradictory, but it happens all the time during riots and wars. When people are pushed passed their limits, they will step on a mine themselves or rush straight toward the incoming shells or flamethrowers. With enough people doing that, they can bring down the enemy force. When you aren’t crossing the border for fun and the collapse of your country is a real possibility, anyone who still acts ‘reasonable’ will be overwhelmed and lose.”

“I don’t believe it…”

“That’s the normal way to think. And war doesn’t just mess with people’s patience and sensibilities – it tears down their standards of normalcy. Which is why this sort of thing is best avoided.”

They didn’t have time to stand around watching.

There was more than one kind of hell underway here.

The cat on Index’s head was growling a low warning for once.

In fact…

“Damn, this area’s covered in blood!”

“Boy, the rioters didn’t do this. It was the glass shards that supposed demon sent raining down earlier.”

In her thick coat and tight skirt suit, Kumokawa pointed toward the rusty smell.

Several girls lay on the cold sidewalk at the base of the building. They were all witches. Their groans joined the rusty smell. The downpour of clear blades must have hit them directly, but everything around them was in chaos. No one was even considering treating their wounds.

And Kamijou himself couldn’t do anything more than pull out the obvious shards and tie up the wounds with whatever cloth he could find. He had no way of checking for smaller shards and, even if he saved their lives, he wasn’t sure if this would leave scars on their skin.

“Ugh.”

“Don’t say anything. I stopped your bleeding, so you’ll be fine for the time being!”

“Thank you. Now I just have to find Kamijou Touma.”

“…”

With no photo, the girl had no idea who she was talking to.

For that matter, what had they even gathered here to do? What would have happened to him, Index, and the rest if no one had interrupted? For that matter, ''if the witches couldn’t determine who near the building was Kamijou Touma, could they have tried to fulfill Aradia’s command by going on a magical mass shooting of every high-school-aged boy they came across?

“(Boy, it would be dangerous to stay much longer.)”

“(But we have to call an ambulance for them, Senpai!)”

“(I overheard some girls over there talking about your delivery job. Delivering the food uses a single-use ID, but you have to use your real name when cashing out at the convenience store. So you need to get away before they- hey, wait! You and your stupid kindness!!)”

Kamijou shook his head to drive out the fact that he was being targeted by 100 thousand witches who had given up on thinking for themselves and converted to the Transcendent’s cult.

He couldn’t do this like the Bologna Succubus.

He refused to accept that you didn’t need to care about someone if they were a bad person.

After roughly stopping all the injured witches’ bleeding, Kamijou tried to call an ambulance but found he couldn’t get through even with the emergency line. He didn’t hear the usual ringing – he just heard three short beeps before the connection ended.

“What, I can’t even call the emergency number? Why are the lines so overloaded?”

“Because the entire city is like this right now, human. Unless Aradia and the Bologna Succubus are stopped, who knows how long it would take for an ambulance to arrive even if you did call for one. These people are covering the sidewalks, roads, and the cars parked on the curb.”

That meant he had to end this entire commotion if he wanted to get professional help for those girls.

That meant chasing down Aradia and the Bologna Succubus.

If the emergency numbers weren’t working, then the normal internet was out of the question.

“If no one can use social media, it might take them longer to work out your identity,” said Kumokawa.

“…”

“Okay, okay. I take it back, boy. Say whatever you want, just don’t glare at me like that.”

How frightening did he look today? For some reason, even that perfect upperclassman raised her hands awkwardly. When he tried to look her in the eye, she averted her gaze.

Othinus sighed from his shoulder.

“Your face was everywhere back when the two of us were on the run from the world in Denmark. No one can check that right now with no internet access, but someone with a good memory might still recognize you.”

“Are you saying they’re gradually narrowing in on me?”

“Frankly, it’s strange they haven’t figured it out yet.”

Kamijou was so plagued by misfortune he knew better than to chalk that up to luck. He needed to be on the lookout for some even greater disaster waiting to ensnare him.

At any rate, he wouldn’t be able to track down the Transcendents by checking for the latest photos posted by witnesses on social media.

“Shibuya is a big place. Where do you think they went?”

“Those Transcendents are decently skilled at magic, but too dumb to even use a people clearing field to hide their presence. Just head for the center of the commotion, human. That will get you there quickest.”

“Got it, Othinus. Index, Senpai, follow me!”

The god was telling him to charge right into the most dangerous part of the riot. He would honestly have preferred having Index and Kumokawa take refuge in a sturdy building, but he had no idea where would be safe at the moment.

They kept low while moving through the crowd flooding the streets. It pained him when he saw some people grappling nearby, but Kumokawa grabbed his hand when he reached out to help. She silently shook her head.

The ordinary ramen shops scared him at the moment.

A riot like this could lead to a fire so easily.

None of them recognized him without a photo, but all of these 100 thousand witches were after Aradia’s enemy: Kamijou Touma. However, the witch hunters had no real reason to protect him either. If he did anything to stand out or the witches learned who he was, both sides would attack even harder and make it impossible to move.

“(Hate me for this if you want, but for now you need to keep your head down and ignore all of these supposed witches.)”

“(But, Senpai!)”

“(If they notice you and start to attack you directly, the individuals working to protect you will be trampled by both sides of the conflict. And I mean that literally. We will be trampled to death below living people’s feet. The supernatural isn’t the greatest threat during a riot. It’s being crushed to death ''without anyone even noticing they’re doing it''!!)”

He was honestly surprised there weren’t any fires yet.

Meanwhile, Index spoke up.

“Aradia, huh?”

“?”

He really didn’t want her saying anything that would provoke the witch hunters, but they mostly appeared to be responding to the witch outfits at the moment. Index was dressed pretty unusually (and had a cat on her head), but they ignored her completely.

But that meant the witches could attack them at any moment for not wearing that uniform.

“Touma, do you know when Wicca was created?”

“Don’t use his name!” shouted Othinus from his shoulder.

Kamijou frowned.

“When? I mean, we’re talking about real witches here, so long, long ago in the times told of in fairy tales, right?”

“No, it was created in 1954 AD. Yes, there may have been some prototype witches before the official textbook was released, but it was officially announced in 1954.”

That was a surprise.

What the heck was this? That was after World War Two. Hadn’t the story of the bear grease come from a cursing ceremony some British witches had directed at an entire country to keep the German army away during the war?

“What’s this textbook?” he asked in a bit of a daze.

“The witches use what they learn to write a grimoire they call the Book of Shadows, but it is highly unusual for one of those to reach the level of a true Original Grimoire. When Gardner released his own collection of self-taught knowledge, it doubled as a report on the truth of witches.”

Kamijou wasn’t exactly an expert on children’s stories and fairy tales, but he was pretty sure there were stories that included witches – like Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and Hansel and Gretel – that were older than that.

For that matter, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland would have already been out by 1954. He had a hard time believing that no one around the world had ever imagined a witch flying a broom through the night sky before then.

But Index’s explanation kept going. She made sure to hold down the cat on her head when he took an interest in the garbage strewn from a toppled garbage can.

“Witches are said to be the priestesses of an ancient religion that predates the arrival of Christianity, but they aren’t the originals. They’re a reproduction created in a later era. A magical researcher named Gerald Gardner, who even interacted with ''Crowley'', is said to have dug up the ancient mythologies and religions from before they were twisted by Christianity and carefully reproduced the original texts from before witches were considered villains.”

“And Aradia is the perfect witch based on his findings?”

“I don’t think so,” bluntly stated Index.

In the distance, something was being shaken up and down like a mikoshi. Kamijou glanced over at it without really thinking and gasped when he realized it was a van large enough to carry 10. Since the windows were covered by a chain mesh and the roof had red lights on it, that had to be a police vehicle here to keep an eye on the countdown. Also, it didn’t look like it was the supernaturally-powered witches who were doing it. The panicked group didn’t even care if their targets wore a witch outfit anymore.

Othinus sighed from Kamijou’s shoulder.

“It has been pointed out that Gerald Gardner had a few biases when creating his reproduction of the ancient witches. Of course, even on the magic side, that kind of skeptic tends to be the sharp-tongued type who don’t make many friends, but it is true Gardner’s supposedly ‘perfect reproduction’ included some inauthentic sexual ceremonies just because he loved them so much. Do you get what I mean, teenage boy? I’m talking about the kind of sexual ceremonies groups of witches hold in secret night after night.”

“Um…”

Kamijou wasn’t sure how to respond to that one, so he looked the other way and groaned, earning him a glare from both Othinus and Kumokawa. The teenage girls’ faces told him that response had earned him a failing grade. But what was he supposed to say when they brought it up in the first place!?

The only girl oblivious to all this placed her finger on her chin.

“The biggest story among all this was Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches.”

?

Kamijou frowned. Index had mentioned that title before and it bothered him that it included the name Aradia.

“It was presented as a report on the legends conveyed to the author by an Italian witch, but like I said before, no mythology features a goddess named Aradia. Since it even calls her the daughter of Lucifer and Diana, it seems likely that it was all made up by the witch on the spot in response to what the author wanted to hear.”

“Wait, so you mean it’s all based on nothing?”

“Probably.”

Kamijou placed his hand on the back of Index’s head to have her crouch down. Real money was flying around like confetti and the cat on Index’s head kept punching at it. He didn’t even want to know where that had come from.

And Index was a little too oblivious to her surroundings while lost in thought.

“The problem is that Gardner believed every word of the report ''and included the legend of Aradia in his Wiccan spells''. And at such a deep level there is no removing her.”

“…”

That made sense.

Hadn’t a fake ''female magician'' who only existed as the name Anna Sprengel in some letters played a role in the foundation of the Golden cabal? The idea that Westcott had made her up entirely hadn’t seemed so likely after Anna herself showed up, but Kamijou was growing less certain of that.

Index continued over the mechanical alarm of a vending machine or ATM.

“In that sense, you could indeed say that Aradia is the goddess of all witches. How it got that way is complicated, but everyone involved in Wicca today is receiving the blessings of those Aradia-born theories. And if you follow the instructions found in the looseleaf Book of Shadows written by each witch, anyone can use her magic.”

Then what was this woman claiming to be Aradia trying to accomplish? If she only wanted the blessings of that name, just being any old witch would have been enough.

Was the story of Aradia entirely made up?

Or was she such a powerful being that the humans had failed to record her presence accurately?

A beam of light shot into the night sky with the intensity of a nearby lightning strike. Even from here, Kamijou could see what he thought was Shibuya Pelko’s roof being torn away. That was the Wiccan Triple Reload, but it must have failed again. If it were under control, it would have crushed the witch hunters (who were really ordinary people rioting).

A shrill scream burst from the cloud.

More magic had failed.

Hadn’t he been told the line between good and bad deeds was determined by general consensus rather than any individual? He was starting to wonder if only Aradia could control that magic. Even if she had distributed her secret technique, that didn’t mean everyone could perfectly absorb that information.

The large discount store and department store scared him. If the furious rioters stole some kitchen or hardware tools, this could easily lead to bloodshed.

Kumokawa Seria whispered to him while reflexively keeping her head low.

“You wanted to reach the heart of the commotion, didn’t you? I think you’re almost there.”

“What? Are you saying she circled all the way around the station and returned to the scramble crossing?”

You couldn’t take a direct route with so many rioters around. Had she naturally wandered back there while avoiding the streets blocked by rolled-over cars and barricades of piled-up bicycles? But was that really a coincidence? Hadn’t the Bologna Succubus also flown in a circle and returned close to their starting point when escaping through Shibuya’s sky?

Was there some kind of magical meaning to making a big circle and going into hiding?

Or maybe it was a common understanding within the Bridge Builders Cabal that showed itself when they were on the run.

(Did Alice do anything like that?)

During that day wandering through Academy City’s darkness, he recalled a few times when he was separated from Alice and they were unnaturally reunited, but he couldn’t say what route she had taken.

He thought about it a bit, but he wasn’t going to find an answer right now.

Because he had seen something else.

Two Transcendents stood at the center of the scramble crossing, surrounded by the crowd of witches and witch hunters.

Car headlights shined in from multiple directions, casting their shadows in just as many directions.

Enough rioters had appeared to separate an entire ward from the rest of Tokyo and the people even stood on the roofs of a donut truck and a red fire truck that had failed to escape in time.

It was actually beautiful.

This was the center of the riot that had left Shibuya entirely nonfunctioning, but all of the rioters kept their distance so as not to disturb those two. It gave the scramble crossing the harmony and formality of an international competition. Just the two of them had overpowered and held back hundreds of thousands of people.

They were not using dreadful magic or demonstrating superhuman strength.

Perhaps this was the true essence of the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal.

They corrupted their surroundings.

They ruled the very space they occupied.

They possessed an overwhelming charisma. It wasn’t an issue of good or evil, legal or illegal. Their very presence loudly announced that they made the rules and they were the true pillar from which the world was constructed. In other words, they were transcendent.

Aradia glanced over at Kamijou. With a single shadow stretching from her feet, the witch’s eyes shined bright like a small child offered a sweet treat. The expression didn’t match her sexy modified bikini, but that was in fact the extent of the power balance between her and Kamijou Touma. No matter how hard he might push himself.

So when she spoke, it wasn’t directed at him.

“He’s here.”

“Verily.”

The Bologna Succubus smiled bitterly and sighed with her light pink wings spread. She had multiple shadows spread out like a flower thanks to the headlights.

“I went to all that effort to help you escape the riot and then you come marching to the center of it anyway. You really are incorrigible. But maybe that’s what makes me want to protect you so much.”

“''Are you sure about this?''”

“''I am.''”

With that, the Bologna Succubus and Aradia both took action.

But hold on.

Something deep in Kamijou Touma’s chest was ringing an alarm bell. What had they just said? The Bologna Succubus had run off after irresponsibly turning the people of Shibuya into rioters in order to fight back against Aradia. That much was true. But that didn’t mesh with what was happening now.

For one thing, the Bologna Succubus had been running away this entire time.

If she could defeat Aradia in a one-on-one fight, why had she been so adamant that they needed to run away?

It was over before it started.

The “legend” built up around that demoness unraveled.

They didn’t even get to exchange attacks. The Bologna Succubus was sent spinning through the air before slamming back down into the asphalt. Her wings were bent and pinned between her body and the ground.

The Wiccan Triple Reload spell had done this.

But Kamijou didn’t understand what exactly had happened to her. There hadn’t been any obvious light or noise. That spell was something else entirely in the hands of Aradia.

Every good deed she made using magic would return to her at triple the power.

And she would have set things up so doing all this to Shibuya, spreading her witch cult, and creating 100 thousand witches were all considered good deeds.

The transformation of 100 thousand people into witches and everything they had done

The riot in Shibuya.

It had all been gathered together, multiplied by three, and sent in to attack the Bologna Succubus.

“You should have known there was no defeating me.”

Aradia kept her palm aimed toward her enemy with a thin smirk on her face and her long silver hair spread out behind her.

Did even this count as a good deed in the world of witches?

“Your Cold Mistress takes every single pleasure signal – which are meant to efficiently guide us toward survival and reproduction – and converts them all into intense pain. I can’t deny it is a dangerous power that could even stop that tyrant Alice if the conditions were right, but if I soak myself in negative emotions like regret and hatred, then you have nothing left to convert. Your spell is powerless if I do not seek out pleasure or comfort.”

“…”

“Yet you still decided to challenge me directly. A demon ignoring the odds and hoping for a divine miracle sounds like a double standard to me, Bologna Succubus.”

The demoness couldn’t even get up.

Which meant she had no way of stopping Aradia from revealing the truth.

“Is he really worth going this far to protect?”

“Ah,” groaned Kamijou.

''He should have realized.

Yes, all of Shibuya was engulfed in a massive riot. Objects had been destroyed and blood had been shed. But with hundreds of thousands rioting, he had yet to see a single death. How had that happened? Someone must have set it up that way.

“How shortsighted. I imagine your plan was to have him hide beyond my reach while I was dealing with you, but that fell apart the instant my foolish target trotted on up to us without even noticing what you were doing. ''You failed to earn his trust.'' You should have given up on the fool, so why was a Transcendent like you so obsessed with him?”

When the Bologna Succubus had broken that window at the capsule hotel, it had injured the girls directly below. But what if she hadn’t done that? If 100 thousand people had tackled the building, how many would have been crushed and killed in the process? None of them would have hesitated to do so without the blood to frighten them.

“Ah, ah.”

''He should have realized.

She had taken flight, saying she would handle the rest of the fighting on her own, but was that really her being irresponsible? If she were really irresponsible, she could have abandoned the fight against Aradia, left Shibuya, and ensured her own safety.

The witches vs. witch hunters looked a lot like a clash between two Transcendents tearing Shibuya apart, but Aradia had always been the one to make the first move and the Bologna Succubus had always been responding after the fact. The Bologna Succubus couldn’t take the initiative, so it was always Aradia making the surprise attacks. That was why the Bologna Succubus had flown from that window. By taking a route Kamijou’s group couldn’t follow, she had hoped to keep them out of this extreme battle.

“Ahhhhhhhh!”

''He really should have realized it so much sooner!!

The Bologna Succubus’s actions had been consistent from start to finish! She had rescued Kamijou for no real reason, rejected all false accusations directed at him, and risked her own life to save all people in that position!! Yes, and she had even said the witch hunts counted as a type of false accusation. She couldn’t ignore that, so of course she would have tried to protect the witches kneeling to Aradia!!

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

He poured all his strength into running.

He crouched in front of the Bologna Succubus and propped her up since she was too badly injured to even get up on her own.

“No, no.”

Her voice was frail and her body felt unnaturally cold. Like she was missing something.

“I didn’t – cough – want you to see me looking so pathetic.”

“Pathetic?”

He thought on that word.

There was nothing he could do but shout.

“In what world is this pathetic!? Goddammit!!”

Something was staining his clothes, leaking through, and soaking his skin.

It was her blood.

He started to reach out, but Kumokawa reached out her own hand uncertainly.

“That wound is bad, boy.”

“Yeah, I know!!”

The blood kept flowing without stopping. It was more than internal bleeding this time. Even he could tell this wasn’t your average wound. He was a fairly experienced brawler, but not even he knew what to do about this one. At this rate, she really would lose her life.

She had already passed out in his arms.

If nothing was done, she would die.

He couldn’t remember the name at first.

But then he recalled that other name that had been key to this incident from the very beginning.

“Yeah, that’s it. Good, Old Mary!!”

“You’re going to rely on her, human?”

“What choice do I have!?”

He shouted into the night sky with the Bologna Succubus in his arms.

He didn’t know where that woman was.

But she was the only chance left.

“I know you’re out there somewhere, so save her – save the Bologna Succubus!! Please. You saved me after I had my spine and guts torn out, right? You did that for a stranger who your cabal thinks is trouble! But this isn’t an enemy! It’s another Transcendent from your cabal!! So why wouldn’t you-”

“''Because it would not work.''”

Out of nowhere, he found someone standing right next to him. Even ''Othinus'' was caught off guard and gasped.

“?”

The woman’s long blonde hair spread out at ankle length and she wore a long, loose dress.

The stomach looked especially loose, so it may have been a maternity brand. The thick belt lazily wrapped around her produced a series of deep metallic sounds. They sounded like jangling bells, but they were actually a variety of camping kitchen products clanking together. He didn’t know what meaning they held, but they included a fancy multitool from Switzerland, a portable pot with a collapsible handle, a small burner that could be used as a stove, and a sandwich toaster. The knife with a weird seal mascot on it made her look more like a type of Kuchisake Onna than a homemaker.

The brim of her large hat hid her eyes while her alluring lips whispered to Kamijou. He couldn’t distinguish them from a physical voice, but she may have been using common tones like the Bologna Succubus had.

“She told you from the beginning that mama’s resurrection is not all-powerful. Technically speaking, mama’s resurrection recipe only closes up a dead person’s wounds and returns them to the initial moment of cardiac arrest, making it a very boring and common sort of miracle. No matter how perfectly the body is mended, it must contain enough blood for CPR to work. Otherwise you will only have a fresh hunk of flesh to watch slowly decompose.”

He didn’t understand.

Yes, the Bologna Succubus was injured all over. Yes, she had internal bleeding in her gut from earlier. But he had been resurrected after having his torso pierced through and torn open. It wasn’t like she was hemorrhaging a fountain of blood.

It was Aradia who gave him the answer.

“You can’t blame him for not remembering what happened when I killed him so quickly. He was in no state to form the memories in the first place.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“True. And if he doesn’t know, it means she intentionally didn’t tell him. That was a meaningless choice, but mama quite likes that sort of kindness.”

“What do you two know that I don’t!?”

Good, Old Mary froze in place and Aradia shrugged.

Aradia was the first to speak.

Good, Old Mary’s silence functioned as mild criticism of her revealing the truth the Bologna Succubus had kept hidden this whole time.

“You lost your life more than once at my hand. When I directly destroyed your torso.”

“What about it?”

“''Didn’t you find it odd?'' That kind of injury means a lot of lost blood. Of course it does when I calculated out a death that would prevent Good, Old Mary from resurrecting you. So why was she still able to do so anyway? And twice in a row at that?”

He thought about it and then looked down into his arms.

He focused on the disturbingly “cold mistress” he held there.

He noticed something odd on the inside of her left elbow. He pushed her arm cover out of the way and found a special bandage covering the small mark left by needle.

Good, Old Mary must have decided there was no hiding it anymore, so she provided the answer.

“''She gave you her blood.''”

“…”

“The blood needed to save you came from her. Enough to make up for your destroyed spine and stomach the first time and your ruptured liver the second time.”

He heard a straining sound coming from his back teeth.

He hated this.

It infuriated him.

It hadn’t been misfortune after all. He hadn’t just been dragged into a fight between these Transcendents. Which one of them had truly dragged the other one into the pit of death!? He wanted to curse his own foolishness!!

“Why?”

He was shaking.

Unable to fight the intense emotion, he shouted into the ear of the demoness held tightly in his arms.

“Why didn’t you tell meeeeee!?”

She didn’t give a single word in reply.

Her eyes were shut, her limbs hung at her side, and her body was limp. She wasn’t even conscious anymore. Even she would ''end up like this'' once she hit her limit. He still didn’t have a good grasp on what a Transcendent was and maybe they didn’t even qualify as human anymore, but he should nave noticed. Before he allowed it to end like this!!

There must have been hints.

For one, hadn’t she said the Transcendents tried to work out a unified plan ''because they were afraid of dying'' and also feared that unpredictable Alice would tear it all down with a smile at some point!?

Good, Old Mary provided the truth.

“She has lost as much blood as you did in your two deaths, so mama’s resurrection will not work on her. She is already past the limit. It is honestly amazing she could still move around at all in that state.” Her words were precise and cruel. “But that ends here. Third time’s the charm, as they say. All that movement has ended once and for all here.”

The Bologna Succubus had been laughing and showing off her skin to tease the boy.

But even that had been a desperate act to keep him from realizing what was really going on.

He thought back on all that.

He thought on what the word “savior” really and truly meant.

This had never even been her fight. She had only done all this to meddle in Kamijou’s affairs when the Bridge Builders Cabal’s Killers decided to take his life. If she had stayed out of it, it would only have meant a quick and near painless death for a complete stranger.

She could have kept out of it because it wasn’t in her power to stop it. When he had died, she could have deemed her attempt a failure and gone home. When she found there was no way left to win, she could have left and saved herself. But she hadn’t done any of that. She had given him her blood and repeatedly put herself at increasingly greater risk for a clueless idiot who kept throwing away the precious second and third chance at life she had given him. She had even thrown out all those safer options and started a fight she couldn’t win to protect a complete stranger.

She refused to allow any and all false accusations.

She wanted to create a world where no innocent people were made to suffer.

That was really and truly her only reason.

“To hell with this.”

What could he do? The Killers, the Rescuers, and the entire cabal didn’t matter anymore. What could Kamijou Touma do for the Bologna Succubus who had literally saved his life twice!? After thinking for a bit, his trembling abruptly stopped.

He had found what he needed to do.

He focused on the path forward.

“Good, Old Mary.”

“Yes?”

“Would your resurrection work if she had enough blood? What if we could get her her missing blood?”

“No.”

She bluntly rejected that idea.

She didn’t allow him even the small possibility he had used to gather up what little fighting spirit he had left.

“A demon can give blood to a human, but it does not work the other way around. A human blood type cannot be used to save her. No one in the world can do that.”

That made sense. If ordinary blood would do, then the Bologna Succubus could have gone to a hospital, borrowed a transfusion kit, and “recharged” to give them more chances at resurrection. But she hadn’t done that.

There was no way of saving her.

He wasn’t even given the right to throw away his life to fight for her.

His vision started to go dark, but then…

“You Transcendents have some weird gaps in your knowledge. Or maybe these are blind spots born of unexamined assumptions.”

Kumokawa Seria interrupted.

The ever-perfect upperclassman hadn’t given up yet.

She was willing to keep fighting for Kamijou’s battered spirit.

“You said it was human blood types that prevent us from saving her, but does that mean injecting her with a typeless blood substitute to stabilize her blood pressure would work?”

The Transcendent in a big hat tilted her head for a few seconds.

Then a slight smile formed on her lips. The Transcendent had accepted someone else’s opinion.

“I see. An interesting idea.”

“Just to be absolutely sure, can we save the Bologna Succubus by stringing her along just long enough with a completely artificial substance like saline, Ringer’s solution, an iron distribution fluid, or even artificial plasma? Think this through carefully. That boy’s future is counting on this!!”

“That method should work. If you can stabilize her blood pressure somehow or other and keep her ready for resuscitation, then mama’s resurrection should work just fine.”

“Then let’s go with that. Boy, that means you too!!”

Kumokawa slapped him on the back and then started tying up the Bologna Succubus’s thighs with some rope she found, even though the wound was on the demon’s gut. She didn’t seem to care how much blood was getting on her fancy coat and suit. He wasn’t sure what she was doing at first, but apparently she was trying to increase the blood flow to the vital organs by restricting blood flow to the extremities. That was one way of feigning an increase in blood pressure without increasing the total amount of blood. A fighter pilot’s g-suit used the same principle. A mistake here could easily lead to necrosis in her legs, but Kumokawa showed no hesitation.

But this was only buying them a bit more time.

It wasn’t a fundamental solution.

Good, Old Mary kept her eyes hidden behind the brim of her hat while she glanced down at that desperate work.

“However, it is unlikely an ambulance could reach us through this riot. The hospitals themselves will be overwhelmed too. There will be no doctors available to perform first-aid even if you carry her to a hospital yourselves.”

“What’s the actual limit?” bluntly asked Kamijou.

The answer came so smoothly it almost sounded cold.

“If you wish to complete the transfusion before she dies, you would need to begin within 20 minutes.”

“Got it.”

They would fake the conditions needed to save her.

They would snatch her away from the deadly grasp of fate or god.

He held the Bologna Succubus tight once more before relaxing his grip.

“Senpai, where’s the closest major hospital? A general hospital that accepts emergency outpatients would be best.”

“I’m searching now. The phone service and social media sites are overloaded, but the GPS isn’t so bad. Only because my provider uses an Academy City satellite, though.”

“Index, you help Senpai carry this biggest idiot in the universe to the hospital. That should be faster than waiting for an ambulance.”

“Okay, but what about you?”

That wasn’t really a question. Her tone made it clear she already knew the answer.

If the Shibuya-wide riot wasn’t ended in the next 20 minutes, the Bologna Succubus’s treatment couldn’t begin. Then her heart would stop and there would be no saving her.

But on the other hand, she could be saved as long as the riot was stopped before then.

“Good, Old Mary.”

“Are you sure you want mama going ''with them''? Mama is a Transcendent who can create a small universe in a clear box and make use of any and all recipes. Mama would have much better odds of winning a fight against Aradia, who has mastered the witchcraft of the ancient forest and carries the blessings of the night and the moon.”

“You worry about your job. After getting our hopes up like that, you don’t get to come back and say you couldn’t save her after all.”

Her eyes were hidden behind her hat, but she still seemed to be examining the boy with an appraising eye.

She was judging the resolve and determination of an average, normal, and ordinary high school boy.

And she finally nodded.

From there, they didn’t waste time with excess words.

“''Leave it to me.''”

“''Then you leave this with me.''”

He left his savior’s life in her hands.

Then Kamijou Touma scraped the soles of his shoes against the pavement to turn and face his enemy.

She stood at the center of the scramble crossing.

That Transcendent could have attacked at any time, but she had chosen to watch it all play out. He had always been her one and only target. The Bologna Succubus’s opposition would have been a surprise and she would probably prefer it if her fellow cabal member were saved. So she wouldn’t bother pursuing the Bologna Succubus, Kumokawa, and the others. Not because she was a good person or wasn’t that kind of person – she simply had no reason to.

On the other hand, she wasn’t going to stop the witch riot.

Her top priority was killing the threat, not rescuing her fellow cabal member.

But Kamijou Touma was not going to let that happen.

He clenched his right fist so hard it hurt. The target of that fist stood right in front of him.

He had to get started.

He had to take that first step forward.

“Aradia, you might be a witch goddess of the night and of the moon and you might be a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

“Are you all done chatting?”

“But I will destroy all of your illusions in the next 20 minutes. Got that? 20 minutes. By then, I’ll have ended this riot of witches covering Shibuya!!”

===Between the Lines 2===

Scarlet flames burned the night sky.

Every breath pulled black soot deep into the lungs, which was enough on its own to shorten someone’s life.

A fire was burning deep in a forest where the old superstitions had never died.

It burned the small log cabin, the garage added to the side, and even the pile of firewood the old lady had smiled and bragged would get her safely through the winter.

What had that little old lady done to deserve this?

Because her life in the forest had taught her how to tame birds? Because she was too old and feeble to keep the black cats from sitting on her windowsill? Because she lived all alone away from society? Because her long life had left her with no shortage of old tales to tell?

Maybe it was all of those reasons together.

Whatever the case, when a mysterious infectious disease ran rampant in the area, the people concluded she was behind it.

“Don’t worry about me.”

Black pieces crumbled from what the witch goddess held in her arms.

Beautiful, noble, and resigned words spilled from the old woman’s cracked lips.

The people who proudly held their giant crosses high probably had no idea this was happening in one corner of the world. With more than 2 billion believers, they would probably complain if they were asked to take responsibility for the actions of a mere 1% who had lost control.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

These things happened and then were always written off as a margin of error so small it could be ignored.

A life had been carbonized to the point she had no recognizable eyes or mouth left, but she still gathered her last ounce of strength to get out one final whisper.

“So please. Save the next one instead.”

A mere 50m away, the curtain of dark trees opened up onto a highway. A giant billboard stood there for the drivers to see: ''Grapple’s latest phone – the MilliPhone 15 High End – makes its debut this fall!!

…Yes, I will rid the world of this.

The witch goddess roared into the moonlit night while holding a stranger’s corpse so close her hair and cheeks were covered in soot.

Her job wasn’t done yet.

Even in the present day, the world hadn’t changed in the slightest.

It never would unless someone worked to change it.

She couldn’t abandon this mechanism of salvation just because the age of witches was a thing of the past.

So Aradia continues to roar in a world full of true contradiction and cruelty.

She had decided to save any and all witches.

No longer would she be a mere witch.

She swore to herself she would become a goddess.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume6_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume6_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>