Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume7 Chapter3

Status: Incomplete

1/6 parts completed

   

Chapter 3: The Next Move – Witch_Trial.

Part 1

“The girl is ready to eat!!”

“…”

Alice put on a perfect smile and made her announcement as the center of the world.

She had taken the seat of honor at a very long table inside the white castle’s large dining hall. An impressive array of food covered the table as if that was just the way of things here. Everything clearly followed Western culture, but each course of the meal was not brought out separately. And the silverware only included a single knife and fork per plate.

“Here, Alice. Make sure to wear a napkin.”

“Nh.”

“Wouldn’t it be best to cut this up on a separate plate? You prefer using a plastic cocktail pick instead of a fork, don’t you?”

“I want a bento food pick! The shiny see-through ones are so grownup and cool!!”

The young butler H. T. Trismegistus’s cloak seemed to contain anything and everything. He also swiftly took care of Alice without getting in her way. He had denied it himself, but the way he looked after her sure made him look like her tutor.

“(Hey, Othinus. What does Trismegistus mean? Some kind of god?)”

“(There is of course a story behind the name, but the legend that still remains in the current world doesn’t point to a specific individual. It’s something like a shared penname ancient scholars would use to release their papers anonymously.)”

So was the concept of a throwaway account a modern continuation of an ancient tradition? But what did that mean for this young man using the name?

Kamijou didn’t have a clue about Western etiquette (was there even such a thing as a singular “Western” etiquette when, even limiting your definition of Western to only include Europe, that category included everything from Greenland in the west to Russia in the east?), but the man had hung the head of his black cane from the back of his chair.

“Alice does not like having each course brought out in turn. Yes, common sense says she prefers to do things trattoria style.”

“Ooh, meatballs! They’re made from almost the same thing, but they still seem so different from the small hamburger steaks in a bento.”

“If you ask mama, the distinction is similar to the difference between gyoza and shumai, Alice.”

“Yay, there’s Chinese food too!”

Kamijou had trouble focusing on the food when Mut Thebes, the Transcendent punishment or execution expert, was eating at the same table as him, but when their eyes met, she silently passed him the French dressing. Apparently she wasn’t in a bad mood – that was just how she always looked.

Othinus, meanwhile, was worried about being drugged and had the cat try the food first, but Index started chowing down immediately.

“Yum. This home food is just as good as restaurant food.”

“Yeah, can’t say I expected home cooking here,” replied Kamijou.

“(Why is it such a surprise? Mama only wants everyone to feel at home.)”

Kamijou hesitantly dipped his spoon into his soup. So that woman was the ultimate magical healer, could fight according to Kumokawa-senpai, and was willing to do all the housework? Was there anything she couldn’t do?

He had a feeling the Transcendents wouldn’t try to poison the food. If they wanted him dead, they could have obliterated him with simple brute force.

“You eat too, Aradia. You’ve missed mama’s cooking, haven’t you?”

“…”

The witch goddess looked uncomfortable.

She knew the others weren’t going to suddenly attack since Alice was against it, but she wasn’t sure where she stood in the Bridge Builders Cabal.

“H. T. Trismegistus, you aren’t going to eat your fries? Then the girl will take them.”

“I am saving them to eat after my baked potato, Alice. And I see you are stealing them with your fork despite my explanation!”

The young butler tearfully protested, but Kamijou was curious what the difference was between these Western-style baked potatoes and Japanese-style buttered potatoes.

It looked like H. T. Trismegistus let himself be bullied while Good, Old Mary tried to control Alice through her stomach. As Kamijou noticed each cabal member’s strategy, what might have looked like an enjoyable meal seemed a lot more like a game of chess or shogi surrounding Alice.

But even that wasn’t perfect.

So whether they were a Rescuer or a Killer, the Transcendents all feared the boy who could freely influence Alice.

Kamijou glanced to the side. It was already dark outside the window. The sun set early at the start of the year, but it was already well into the night.

Q. Why was he doing this?

A. “Eh? Because you’re spending the night at the girl’s house, teacher.”

Alice had made it sound like a foregone conclusion.

He could have refused and he doubted she would have stopped him from leaving. But doing that would have made it even harder to predict the actions of the other Transcendents who were so interested in Alice Anotherbible’s moods.

“Hm. The girl’s soda water has gotten warm.”

“Shall I pour you a new glass, Alice?”

“No!! The girl wants this glass!”

“Very well. Your wish is my command.”

The young butler was clearly accustomed to her childish demands. He opened a tiered storage container he pulled from his pocket and then held an icepack of dry ice against the glass to cool its contents. Kamijou got the feeling the guy had a canister of carbon gas in there too.

H. T. Trismegistus’s job was to look after Alice (and clean up the mess she made while eating), but the food preparation was handled by Good, Old Mary.

Othinus, who was being careful to only eat something she had seen another human or the cat eat first, whispered to Kamijou with a piece of bread in both hands.

“(Human, have you figured out who you need to keep an eye on?)”

“…”

“(In this case, it isn’t Alice.)”

He agreed with that.

He didn’t know the exact number of Transcendents staying in the Bridge Builders Cabal Consulate, but the one who terrified him the most was Good, Old Mary.

Resurrection.

Even death could be reversed.

Aradia and the Bologna Succubus’s mysterious spells had appeared to be purely destructive in nature, but this would bring great chaos to the world in a different way entirely. For example, if all of humanity came together and used up all of Earth’s natural and human resources to defeat a single Transcendent, it might not end there. If Good, Old Mary used her resurrection, that Transcendent would be good as new while everyone else remained worn down. Kamijou didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

So as dangerous as the Transcendents were on their own, they might push past their usual limits on the assumption they could be resurrected.

It felt like having the frog doctor on your enemy’s side. Kamijou felt ungrateful since she had already saved his life more than once, but it was those rescues from beyond the verge of death that told him just how abnormal Good, Old Mary was.

(On that note, Alice’s abilities seem so depthless she could handle both destruction and resurrection.)

“This bread is good. I didn’t know just bread could taste good, but it does.”

“That is because mama baked it from scratch herself.”

It sounded like Index and the mama were hitting it off. Or rather, the latter was winning over the former with food.

Then Kamijou noticed a silver cart next to Good, Old Mary. It contained portions of the same food Alice was eating.

“What’s that for?”

“Mama is willing to forgive people for not showing up at the table for mealtime. Especially when they are recuperating in their room like the Bologna Succubus is.”

“…”

This was something he had hoped to see for himself. He had been told she was fine, but still.

“(Do not take the bait, human. Did you learn nothing from Los Angeles? Hopes can quickly transform into vulnerabilities.)”

“(But…)”

The Bologna Succubus had seemed different from the rest of the Bridge Builders Cabal (including Alice). She looked wild with the horns on her head and wings on her back, but of all the members he had met so far, she had had the most solid head on her shoulders.

“(Mama has been perfectly reasonable with you at every turn and I still rank below Miss Walks-Around-In-Her-Underwear?)”

Good, Old Mary was squirming for some reason, but he decided to ignore it…which must have shown on his face because an even deeper shadow fell over her face.

But for now, he was focused on the Bologna Succubus. He still had trouble believing some things.

For example, there was that traitor Anna Sprengel.

The rise and fall of R&C Occultics he could understand. That had been Anna’s personal toy. But even as an outsider, he could tell it meant a lot that Alice Anotherbible had appeared before him.

“We are not like the Magic Gods,” said H. T. Trismegistus.

Was the silent tension in the air coming from Mut Thebes, the executioner Transcendent?

“What I mean is, we do not attempt to gather the people’s faith or be worshiped as gods. I have no desire to spread the name of my beloved master among the people. Simply put, the fact that our presence is so widely known is a major failure in and of itself.”

If Alice hadn’t appeared out of nowhere and followed Kamijou around in the dark side of Academy City on December 29, the world never would have known the name of the Bridge Builders Cabal. If the Transcendents were gathering to fulfill some master plan, then that alone was a significant mistake.

For the Transcendents like Aradia and the Bologna Succubus, the battle in Shibuya on the 31st had been a highly unusual occurrence. Internal conflict hurt them far more than it benefited them. And dragging all of Shibuya into that conflict set things up so the entire cabal looked like villains.

It made sense the cabal would want to punish Anna Sprengel.

But was that reason enough to kill her?

Kamijou thought about it for a bit.

Setting aside his feelings, was it even possible to physically attack and kill that monster?

He guessed it was possible. Those Shrink Drink spears contained a special liquid in the head. Being pierced by one and forcibly injected with the liquid was supposedly game over for Anna Sprengel, so she probably really would die. It wouldn’t just defeat her or aggravate her. It would kill her.

Anna was certainly a fearsome magician, but she couldn’t vanish into thin air or pass through walls. In a 1-on-1 battle, a dense enough barrage would make it impossible for her to dodge and she could take a direct hit. Kamijou had defeated her on the 25th because fighting with St. Germain’s help had given him more options to use.

But that realistic path toward killing her was the entire problem.

The cabal was not split into Rescuers and Killers over the question of striking back at Anna. The entire cabal agreed with it (except for Aradia who they hadn’t ben able to reach until now). Did that mean the Bologna Succubus agreed too? After she had thrown away her own life to protect a stranger like Kamijou?

But…

“O-oh, right. Alice, what about your vegetables? If you do not want them, I can put them in a container and eat them as a late night snack.”

“No, these aren’t just any vegetables. They were steamed in butter! This is the good kind!!”

“I see. You are such a good girl with plenty of common sense. Ah ha ha.”

Kamijou’s mind was entirely focused on the Bologna Succubus, but something in a corner of his mind stopped him. Could he really ignore everything underway here?

H. T. Trismegistus was saying a lot to Alice with a smile, but he had given up on actually influencing her on his own.

At first glance, the consulate was heaven for Alice. It was filled with things she liked.

But the Transcendents’ actions were rooted in fear.

The young butler called her his “beloved master”, but he appeared to be standing on a foundation of fear.

No matter how close any of them got to her, they could never have a real connection that way. Even if none of them actually harmed her, none of them could save her from her loneliness either. It was like an automated store run by polite prerecorded phrases. The smiles here were only for show.

Which of them was the real monster?

Could he really conclude that it was exposure to this environment that had twisted Alice?

Good, Old Mary glanced over at the cart of food.

“Please excuse mama for a bit.”

“Oh, if you’re going to the Bologna Succubus, I’ll join you.”

This was what Kamijou wanted all along.

But there was no rule limiting him to only wanting one thing.

“You come too, Alice. We can visit that dumbass and see how she’s doing.”

“Yes, teacher!!”

Alice sprang from her seat of honor.

Index was still working at the food and looked confused why anyone would want to leave the table and 15cm Othinus slapped her forehead while seated on the table.

But the seating arrangement no longer mattered. Now Alice was just another part of the crowd like Kamijou.

Good, Old Mary tilted her head with her eyes still hidden by her large hat.

“Mama doesn’t mind and the Bologna Succubus was worried about you too.”

H. T. Trismegistus’s jaw dropped while various tools spilled from his cloak, so Kamijou doubted inviting him was a good idea. Instead, Kamijou turned to the witch goddess who looked just as shocked.

“What about you, Aradia?”

She vigorously shook her head.

Things were awkward for her in the cabal after losing her battle, but she must have decided being surrounded by her old cabal-mates was better than ending up 1-on-1 with Alice.

But Kamijou ignored that and grinned.

“Oh? You’re that opposed to staying here? Yeah, I can see why. After everything you did on the 31st, it would make sense to go apologize to the Bologna Succubus.”

“I-”

“Right, teacher? We all need to get along.”

“~ ~ ~!?”

Aradia tearfully gnashed her teeth. She looked like someone whose escape route had been cut off by a horizontal line of landmines.

And with that settled…

“(Index, you can eat every bit of this food, so you look after things here.)”

“Hm? But this food already belongs to me.”

“(Just listen. I want you and Othinus to observe H. T. Trismegistus. Things should relax in here after Alice and I leave and I want to know if he lets anything slip as soon as he doesn’t have to look after Alice anymore. With your perfect memory and Othinus’s knowledge of inhuman magic, you might be able to figure something out together.)”

“(Not so fast, human! Don’t leave me behind with that cat!!)”

The god was unusually tearful and shaken, but with all this food on the table, he didn’t trust Index alone to keep watch even if she did have a perfect memory.

“Don’t worry.”

“Yikes!!” yelped Kamijou, jumping on the spot.

Mut Thebes had ended up right behind him without him noticing. That was super scary with an execution expert.

This was also his first time hearing her speak. She had a lovely, almost musical, voice.

“I will watch over them. If that gloomy butler tries anything, I will end his life on the spot, so there is nothing to worry about.”

“I-Is that so?”

“Make no mistake. I simply do not want anything to ruin my meal time. I happen to like sharing my meals with people who are enjoying themselves.”

Apparently Transcendents these days came equipped with a tsundere mode.

Good, Old Mary pushed the cart out of the dining hall, so Kamijou and Alice followed after her (while dragging along an empty-eyed Aradia whose soul was starting to escape through her mouth). Preventing Alice from swiping food from the cart became Kamijou’s job.

He sensed someone’s gaze and found Good, Old Mary was looking back at him while pushing the cart. …Oh? It was hard to tell which direction she was facing with the large hat hiding her eyeline, but could she really safely turn her head that far?

“…”

“Wh-what do you want? It’s hard to breathe when you stare silently like that.”

“Nothing.” She shook her head and the large hat on her head. “I was simply noticing that you really do have the power to get Alice to obey.”

“Of course he does. Because he is the girl’s teacher!!” replied Alice while he restrained her. Really, he was lifting her up like a stuffed animal while she waved her arms and legs in delight.

(The girl’s teacher, huh?)

Anna Sprengel had apparently done something to Alice, but what exactly had she done to make Alice so obedient?

“…”

Then Aradia glared quite harshly at him. Come to think of it, hadn’t she been with the Killers who were trying to take his life to prevent Alice from turning out this way?

She had been temporarily stripped of her magic by the duct tape around her feet, but that wouldn’t last forever.

Regardless, the demoness was his priority right now.

On the 31st, Kumokawa Seria and Good, Old Mary had worked to save the Bologna Succubus, but apparently she was still too weak to leave the consulate or even show up to dinner in the same building. What was her condition like? Hopefully she didn’t have casts on all her limbs with tubes and electrodes covering the rest of her.

Kamijou continued following Good, Old Mary and the cart down the hallway. She never entered any of the rooms. Instead, she opened an accordion door and pushed just the cart onto a small elevator. Apparently she didn’t use magic to make the glasses and plates float around.

Kamijou felt like he had lost his chance to lower Alice to the floor, so he held onto the playfully squirming girl while looking up at the ceiling.

“Is the Bologna Succubus up there?

“Yes, we were free to choose our own rooms and that idiot insisted on having one on the top floor. She was still better than Alice who wanted to stay in the basement storeroom or attic, though.”

The casual insults helped make them sound like friends.

They walked down a hallway lined with giant flower pots and goddess statues that probably had some meaning which was lost on Kamijou. On the way to the stairs, they passed by someone Kamijou didn’t recognize. Since Aradia looked away awkwardly and used Kamijou as a shield, he guessed this was another Transcendent.

How many Transcendents were there in all?

Hopefully they were a chosen few like with the Level 5s and Saints, but that was really only wishful thinking on his part. They might not have a set number like with God’s Right Seat. The thought of those extraordinarily powerful beings numbering 10 or 20 thousand like the clones was too terrifying to consider.

Good, Old Mary whispered to him while walking silently.

“(Aradia is acting just like a girl in a haunted house. Make sure you check this out. It isn’t often you’ll find a young woman’s vulnerabilities so clearly on display.)”

“I can hear you, you know?”

Aradia shut her eyes and stuck up her nose, but she continued clinging to Kamijou’s right arm with all her might. That could be cute with a small girl like Alice, but he wasn’t sure what to do with someone who gave off as many pheromones as Aradia. His spine tensed every time he felt that soft sensation bumping into him.

Good, Old Mary collected the cart from the elevator in the third floor hallway. Unlike an apartment building or student dorm, the hallways took lots of twists and turns (which meant the number and size of the rooms wasn’t standardized). They made their way through the labyrinthine consulate before stopping at a door.

Good, Old Mary knocked thrice and called out.

“Bologna Succubus.”

There was a keyhole in the door even though it was an interior door.

“Mama is here with your dinner.”

But apparently the occupant was willing to leave the key with someone else.

Good, Old Mary lifted her large hat with one hand and pulled out an old-fashioned key that had been balanced(?) on her head. It was just the one key, not a ring of them, so it was probably a master key.

This may have been a hint of how much camaraderie there was in the Bridge Builders Cabal.

The click of the lock opening sounded awfully loud.

“?”

Alice looked curiously up at Kamijou. Maybe because he had quickly put her down on the floor.

He audibly gulped.

Every tube in his neck was so dry they seemed to catch.

How bad were the Bologna Succubus’s injuries really?

She hadn’t needed to go through any of that. If Kamijou hadn’t been so weak or if he had recognized the dangers of being killed repeatedly, she wouldn’t have had to replenish his opportunity for resurrection like that.

“We are coming in,” announced Good, Old Mary.

And she opened the door.

“Take this! And this! Yes, yes! Bang! Bang! Bang!! No, why was the southern tank units wiped out? What, a drone loaded with aerial bombs? Uh, oh. Is that a playable unit and not just an indiscriminate NPC for the event!? Did this nincompoop buy all the new units in the shop the instant the new update went through!? Gyahhhh!!”

She was there.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed.

She didn’t see any of them because she was playing an FPS game with VR goggles on.

She was making the most of life in Academy City where technology was said to be 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world. Beyond her usual one-piece corset, she also had bandages all over her body, but she was going nuts on the bed there. She would lean to the side in her cross-legged position and swing the controllers around quite dangerously. Stepping too close was liable to get you slapped in the face with a tail or a wing.

Good, Old Mary silently pushed the cart into the room, casually grabbed a curly pink goat horn, and slammed the wounded woman onto her back. She kept rolling back from there, so she ended up with her butt sticking up in the air while still in her cross-legged pose.

“Show some appreciation for the food and respond when people talk to you, Bologna Succubus. Hmph!”

“Gwahhh!!”

The Bologna Succubus’s tail flailed wildly with her butt sticking up. The impact had knocked the VR goggles out of place, so the room’s fluorescent lights had dazzled her eyes.

“Oh, the lad. Long time, no see.”

“Hey, Good, Old Mary? What’s happening? Her common tones are sounding all 8-bit. Does yanking on a demon’s horn break their brain that badly!?”

“This is her idea of a joke. Taking it seriously will only encourage her, so please don’t.”

Then the Bologna Succubus noticed something else: Alice was staring all sparkly-eyed at the VR game set. The young girl was fixated on the flatscreen TV linked with the goggles.

“What is this? Hee hee. Yay! The girl wants to play too!!”

“Bologna Succubus!!” shouted Good, Old Mary, uncharacteristically(?) raising her voice.

Unseen tension filled the room.

This was Cold Mistress, the Bologna Succubus’s Transcendent spell. Didn’t it replace hunger, lust, sleepiness, and all other pleasure signals with pain?

And if used correctly, it was supposedly the only spell with the possibility of rivalling Alice.

“?”

Alice seemed like an embodiment of joy as she rushed for the device with a huge smile, but then she slowed.

The Bologna Succubus spread her pink wings wide to get in the way.

“Halt, cease, desist!! I forcibly added an unofficial blood & guts processing pack to the downloadable version on Steal, so the actual rating would be well into adults only territory. It’s great for playing online matches, but you can’t use it in the official tournaments. Nothing this gory would be a good match for a gal a doll like you, Alice.”

The Bologna Succubus must have concluded this wasn’t actually going to stop Alice’s charge because she crawled to the edge of the bed, let her upper body fall to the floor, and grabbed the main power cable to the power strip. She yanked that out, bringing down all the gaming equipment at once. Only her butt remained on the bed, so it looked a lot like she was sticking it out.

Alice tilted her head.

“I can’t play?”

“Alice, this game is a lot more suitable for a noble lady like you. It’s called Manju Crossing!”

“?” Kamijou looked confused.

He agreed that a small girl (she was a small girl, wasn’t she?) shouldn’t be playing a ridiculous FPS which made a point of representing war in a hyper realistic way and then turned around and let the player fire N, B, and C weapons, but why were the Transcendents all panicking over it?

“We said Alice must never get her hands on a smartphone or tablet, Bologna Succubus,” said Aradia with fear written on her face. “Letting her watch an online drama or Hollywood movie would not end well.”

“You’re the ones that barged in here with her,” argued the Bologna Succubus, pouting her lips.

There was a clattering sound.

The Bologna Succubus had a red tube extending from the inside of her elbow. It was connected to an IV stand next to her bed. The bag hanging from that contained a red liquid with a gemlike shine. It was strange, but Kamijou didn’t feel any kind of biological reaction when he saw all that red contained in a hygienic pack instead of flowing from someone’s body or splattered on the floor. He recalled that the demon couldn’t receive a transfusion of human blood with a normal blood type, so was this something special, like her own blood or artificial plasma?

She must have noticed him staring.

The bandaged Bologna Succubus returned to her cross-legged position on the bed and placed her other hand on the inside of her elbow.

“You don’t need to worry about this, boy. In fact, what are you doing this deep in the Bridge Builders Cabal so soon after that mess?”

“What is that stuff”

“What? It’s only some transfusion fluid. Really, what doesn’t make sense here is you. Did you even go to the hospital? Aradia there killed you several times and Good, Old Mary forcibly resurrected you in a way I can’t explain. Aren’t you concerned about your health?”

He could only look away and cough.

Were the hospitals even running on New Year’s? The usual frog had to be his best bet!!

“(All mama has done is go around saving people and now you act like I’m a land mine to be avoided.)”

She didn’t seem completely out of it, but Good, Old Mary was looking depressed as she swiftly sliced up some round bread and cheese with her multitool that had a seal mascot attached.

The Bologna Succubus rubbed her hands together and licked her lips while observing all the food that Good, Old Mary lined up on the small bedside table.

“So how deep have you gotten in this, boy?”

“Anna Sprengel. I heard she was the cabal’s top priority. Something about protecting your secrets.”

Kamijou pulled up a seat and cautiously broached the subject while the Bologna Succubus grabbed some of the bread.

“Yeah, and Anna started that whole kotatsu syndrome thing which is even affecting us.”

“Eh?”

That didn’t come from Alice Anotherbible? thought Kamijou as he watched her laugh and take a sip of milk. (Aradia let him know that succubi loved milk.) She finally continued while smiling and sharing her cheese with Alice.

“She let R&C Occultics run wild to start up a global anti-elite movement and then used Alice as a trigger to shake everyone up even more. Thanks to that, our collection of Transcendents is seen as an evil organization that threatens the stability of society.”

There were two mysteries here.

First, the Bologna Succubus and Good, Old Mary hadn’t demonstrated any kind of extreme cruelty during the Shibuya battle on the 31st. In fact, they had selflessly assisted a stranger like Kamijou. Why were they now in agreement with the other Transcendents about executing Anna Sprengel?

And second, what would happen to Aradia once that top priority issue was dealt with? He couldn’t have them turn around and decide to silence her since she could also leak their information.

The Bologna Succubus glanced over at Alice.

Alice had found something she liked more than Manju Crossing. She sat on Kamijou’s lap looking as pleased with herself as a king, but she tilted her head curiously when the Transcendent looked her way.

Kamijou decided he needed to ask, but couldn’t build up much momentum and remained hesitant.

“What…do you plan to do about it?”

She was as close to a good guy as there was in the Bridge Builders Cabal.

She was the reasonable member of the group.

But the next thing she said overturned that image Kamijou had constructed.

“’Probably kill her. I mean, the accusations against Anna Sprengel are anything but false and I’m not so nice that I’m going to head out and save the guilty criminal who betrayed us all.”

Kamijou really did stop breathing – and even lost consciousness – for a few seconds.

He felt like he had gone to the biggest police station in town in search of help, but they slammed the metal shutter in his face and told him to get lost. This proved that H. T. Trismegistus hadn’t been putting words in the Bologna Succubus’s mouth. They really did all agree on this point. She had said it herself: she wasn’t going to save a criminal.

“…”

“You’re asking mama now?”

Not so much out of strategy than out of desperation, Kamijou turned to look at the other more reasonable cabal member, but Good, Old Mary only tilted her head in the large hat.

She seemed to be asking why he had so much trouble understanding something so simple.

This was all it took for them to use the spiritual item left in Mut Thebes’s care. The countless javelins bound in an X-shape within a single binder. The words “drink me” taken straight from Alice in Wonderland. They hadn’t created the Shrink Drink in order to threaten Anna into obeying. They truly meant to kill her.

“This case does not match mama’s condition either. So like it or not, I simply have no reason to save Anna Sprengel.”

Kamijou’s mouth flapped like a goldfish but no words came out.

Her condition?

What was that about?

What was this powerful sense of wrongness roiling in his chest?

“I take it you’ve noticed,” whispered Aradia by his side.

She was the very enemy who had attempted to take his life on December 31. In fact, she had killed him. Quite thoroughly and more than once. She was supposed to be the last one he could hold a reasonable conversation with, so why did she seem like the only one he could actually speak with anymore?

“Each Transcendent has their own reason for joining the Bridge Builders Cabal. And that reason is always about protecting something beyond ourselves. That is even true for me and for H. T. Trismegistus. But on the other hand, we never do anything on a whim. We gathered with a clear purpose, so whether or not an action advances that purpose is crucial information when we make a decision.”

“But…but.”

“If it fit our search criteria, one of us would save Anna. But none of us have stepped forward to do so. I expect that is the whole story here.”

“What do you mean you don’t do anything on a whim? What about you, Bologna Succubus!? You risked your life to save a stranger like me!!”

“Yeah, but only because you were falsely accused.”

“And you, Good, Old Mary!?”

“Mama is only freely distributing the saving substances that shouldn’t be limited to the privileged class who were chosen by a miracle.”

This is what our search result says.

So why are you still questioning it?

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Kamijou realized he was drenched with sweat.

This wasn’t right.

These Transcendents were fundamentally different from the powerful foes he had faced before. They weren’t like Accelerator, Fiamma of the Right, Magic God Othinus, Kamisato Kakeru, or Great Demon Coronzon. It wasn’t about good or evil. It wasn’t about what they liked or disliked. They simply saved whoever met their conditions. And it wasn’t some condescending thing where they chose to do it on a whim. If someone happened to meet the conditions, they would turn against their oldest allies or even sacrifice their own life to carry it out.

So what if Kamijou hadn’t met just one of the Bologna Succubus’s conditions on the 31st? What if he hadn’t matched Good, Old Mary’s rules?

Or what if someone else who met their conditions showed up and he was an obstacle to saving that person?

(This isn’t working.)

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and Good, Old Mary.

Why had he thought they were safe?

Everyone else in this lockable room were Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal.

He felt like he was in a space ruled by the inhuman – like he was inside a ferocious beast’s cage at the zoo.

(It might look like we’ve gotten closer, but deep down we’re kilometers apart. This isn’t just about Aradia or H. T. Trismegistus. I thought the Bologna Succubus and Good, Old Mary were on my side…but I just didn’t understand how Transcendents work!!)

And…

“Teacher, teacher, teacher!”

Alice smiled and kicked her legs in Kamijou’s lap.

She was Tyrant Alice, the greatest irregularity who all the other Transcendents feared.

But this new information changed how he viewed her. Who said the winner of a majority vote was always correct? Why had he never considered the possibility that it was all the other Transcendents who feared Alice that were wrong? And after seeing firsthand how often her whims had saved lives in Academy City’s dark side!!

For example, what if Alice Anotherbible was a young and incomplete Transcendent in the sense that she had yet to decide on the conditions for her salvation? That would explain why her actions seemed so capricious and not based on any consistent rules. Some people would be saved as a result and others might die. It was also possible that the sweet words that little villain girl had whispered in Alice’s ear may have shifted the scales there.

A lack of consistent rules was a scary thing at first glance.

That was unavoidable when people’s lives were at stake and you couldn’t predict what she would do next.

But was that really so bad? Since you couldn’t tell what Alice was thinking, she might decide on a whim to save a kitten on the roadside. Meanwhile, the other Transcendents viewed everything through the lens of their conditions and would abandon someone to die if they failed to meet even one item on their list. Which one of those was more messed up?

You couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

You couldn’t perfectly predict what she would do next.

But…wasn’t that how it worked for normal human beings?

“Aradia.”

“What?”

“What about you? Does Anna Sprengel meet your conditions?”

“It’s a tricky one. I might consider it since she’s a woman who uses magic, but she also has the financial power to singlehandedly build up a global IT company. She just doesn’t feel like a poor witch being unjustly persecuted by the wealthy Christian church. So my internal scales would be 2-to-8 between saving and killing. I could possibly change my mind if you had additional conditions for me to consider, but if I had to make up my mind right this instant, I would go with the latter option.”

Kamijou smiled a little.

Finally.

He felt like he was speaking with space aliens here, but did Aradia realize what she had said?

She said it was “a tricky one”.

So she couldn’t overturn her 2-to-8 decision, but she was willing to call it tricky. To Kamijou, that word hinted at a fragment of something beyond the cold judgment – something unnecessary and inefficient.

(What is happening here?)

None of this changed that Alice saved his life on the 29th and both the Bologna Succubus and Good, Old Mary saved his life on the 31st.

So why was he having a much easier time reaching an understanding with Aradia who had killed him more than once?

(Is it just that Aradia has a more reasonable set of conditions? Does it help that I’ve sealed her Transcendent abilities with the duct tape on her feet? Or did something in her change while being separated from the cabal for a time?)

He could come up with a number of theories, but no answers were forthcoming.

For one thing, he didn’t know what a Transcendent really was. How were they different from a normal magician, from a Saint, or from something special like Fiamma or Othinus? It made sense he couldn’t find an answer when he didn’t have a clear definition for them.

“Alice.”

The room froze over when he spoke to the girl in his arms.

He was the one and only person who could control Tyrant Alice. That was where his value lay for the Transcendents. It may have been even more important than Imagine Breaker here.

Alice kicked her feet while he held her in his lap and she looked up to meet his gaze.

“What is it, teacher?”

“I want to know what you think. You knew Anna Sprengel, didn’t you? I saw her take you back to the Bridge Builders Cabal on the 29th.”

“Yes!”

“So what do you want to do with her? I get why the cabal as a whole wants to do this, but I know you’re not bound by any of that.”

“The girl doesn’t really care.”

That was about as much of a non-answer as you could get.

That may have been a response a completed Transcendent could never give.

“But the girl doesn’t like liars and traitors very much.”

“…”

That was much more of an answer.

The eyes looking up into his while she leaned back into his chest were pure as could be. She was deciding someone’s fate with the logic of a child.

Sure enough, if the Shrink Drink spears meant to kill Anna came from Alice in Wonderland, then it was reasonable to assume Alice had helped Mut Thebes make those.

Alice’s internal scales were probably wavering between whether Anna Sprengel’s betrayal was directed at the cabal as a whole or at Alice personally. If the former, then Anna was the friend who taught her a fun game the grownups didn’t want her to know about. If the latter, Anna was the sack of shit who had made a mockery of the trust Alice had placed in her.

To repeat yet again, no one could predict what Alice would do next.

Say Alice held a red flag in one hand and a white flag in the other. One hundred times in a row at a rate of once per second, Alice would raise whichever flag she wanted. If she ever raised the red flag even once – whether on a whim or for a calculated reason – Anna would lose her head. And all the Transcendents around Alice would be begging her to raise the red flag the entire time. Now, under those circumstances, was it really logical to rely on the possibility of Alice saving Anna on a whim?

Kamijou loathed Anna Sprengel. He couldn’t find any reason at all to like her.

Not after what happened with St. Germain and seeing the disaster in Los Angeles with his own eyes. And she may have been involved in the recent tragedies within Academy City too.

But was he willing to kill her? That he wasn’t ready to say.

It wasn’t the solution he had in mind. If capricious Alice was guided by the other Transcendents to kill Anna, Kamijou couldn’t help but feel like that decision didn’t come from Alice’s personal morals.

A small child with a knife could possibly kill someone.

But how could you push that small child toward bloodying their hands like that? And how could you act like Alice was the fearsome monster in that scenario?

Kamijou suddenly remembered what the Bologna Succubus had said on the 31st.

(I’m the only person who can get through a normal conversation with Alice Anotherbible without being killed and I’m the only one who can scold her when she does the wrong thing.)

That was a clearly unnatural situation.

He had a strong feeling Anna Sprengel had a hand in setting it up, but…

(That doesn’t mean I want Anna dead. And I don’t like the idea of Alice killing someone.)

That may have been an impossible goal from the beginning.

Kamijou didn’t know a thing about Alice Anotherbible’s past. If she had been in this environment for long, it was possible she had already killed someone. Based on how terrified the Bologna Succubus had been of her in Shibuya, it seemed likely she had killed, or nearly killed, in the past.

But if he was still going to choose that as his goal…

(That sounds like a decent stance to me. And if I stick with the Bridge Builders Cabal, which is dead set on executing her, could I possibly help Anna escape at the last second?)

Anna Sprengel was of course one of history’s worst women.

Even if he did help her escape execution, letting her go free was much too dangerous.

He already knew from experience that she would simply escape her cell if he punched her and left her with Anti-Skill.

He honestly didn’t know what he could do about this.

He only knew he needed to stand up against what he was certain was wrong.

These people intended to use Tyrant Alice to kill someone they wanted gone.

Be the kind of person who can stand up and say that’s wrong, Kamijou Touma.

Between the Lines 3

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