Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Chapter4
Chapter 4: What’s Wrong With Being Only Human? – Save_the_Stray_Devil.[edit]
Part 1[edit]
20 minutes.
If Transcendent Aradia wasn’t defeated and Shibuya wasn’t freed in 20 minutes, the Bologna Succubus would die even if she did reach the hospital.
But that meant she could still be saved if Kamijou Touma ended it here.
He stood at the center of the scramble crossing surrounded by the rioters who had even climbed onto the roofs of the abandoned donut truck and red fire truck.
“Each good deed goes rewarded and add triple strength.”
The witch goddess with just the one shadow sneered at him.
Her long silver hair and enormous wimple spread out behind her.
She twirled the index finger pointed his way.
“Defeating the Bologna Succubus counts as a good deed because it will free Shibuya from these rioting witch hunters. Thus, Triple Reload will reward me. So feel the power of my triple-boosted good magic, root cause!!”
An explosive boom shook the air.
But it did not come from the beam of light launched from Aradia’s hand.
It came from directly in front of Kamijou Touma where his right fist had obliterated that attack.
“You say it was good that the Bologna Succubus collapsed from her injuries?”
He was fully confident now.
He held his fist out and roared with something entirely different from a solid strategy.
“I’m gonna destroy that shitty illusion right this instant!!”
That was their cue.
Kamijou made the first move, leaning his weight forward and taking off running.
A motley mixture of people surrounded the scramble crossing. He would normally have been crushed to death by the 100 thousand witches and a lot of the witches would have been killed along with him.
But that didn’t happen.
The Bologna Succubus was on death’s door, her body was disconcertingly cold, and she couldn’t support her own weight, but she hadn’t released the subtle version of Cold Mistress she was applying to Shibuya as a whole. The witch hunters held back the witches, giving Kamijou Touma freedom to move. The timing was so perfect it felt like a miracle.
And why cower in fear when he could fight?
He had to repay her.
They had never met before today and she shouldn’t have known anything about him, but she had still decided he was innocent and trusted in him. He had to repay her for that and help her survive! Surely that would end far better than listening to the tempting words of a witch who toyed with the concepts of good and evil for her own benefit!!
“Ohhh!!”
He ran right up to her.
Aradia swung her lithe right hand. She snatched an empty sweet roll wrapper from the wind. That counted as picking up litter – a good deed. Instead of stepping back out of his range, she had chosen to reload and keep her chain of good deed attacks going.
His own actions had guided her in that direction.
She could fire projectile attacks and the Bologna Succubus said she was skilled at aerial battles. That meant his best chance was to move into punching range before she could use any of the many cards in her deck.
He had not set this up. The Bologna Succubus had.
Both of those Transcendents could fly, so the fact that they had been staring each other down in the scramble crossing meant they had both already taken a decent amount of damage.
He wasn’t going to waste that.
No matter what.
All he could do was slam his fist into her face!!
“Wind.”
“!?”
A dry popping sound diverted the course of his fist.
Aradia had pressed two fingers against her lips like she was about to whistle. He had seen magic that produced an explosive gust of wind before.
Imagine Breaker could destroy any magic.
But at the same time…
(I see what she did.)
He had been overwhelmed by extreme numbers before.
Othinus had even tried to break his right arm with magic too powerful for him to fully negate.
But this was different. This was no more powerful than the magic the witches serving her had recorded in their looseleaf papers.
(She used the negation to alter the path of my fist!)
It was similar to how a bullet fired through a thick tank of water would have its ballistic path altered. Destroying the magic had caused his fist to waver just a bit.
And it didn’t end there.
“I let you avoid that ‘collision’.”
His fist swung right past her face while she stepped up past his wrist and placed her palm on his chest.
“Wasn’t that kind of me? Now take that good deed back at triple strength.”
“!?”
The simple “collision” energy was multiplied by three, so an impact far more powerful than his original punch tried to shatter every bone in his body.
At the last second, he twisted his body to avoid a direct hit. His jacket was caught in the wind and it was shredded like a hail of gunfire had hit it. A direct hit from that would have smashed up his ribs and stabbed them into his organs.
However…
“I’m not done yet.”
“Damn you!!”
“I let you avoid that ‘collision’. Hee hee. Good deeds are still praised no matter how many times you do them. Hit or miss, my Triple Reload keeps the chain going.”
A direct hit could be fatal.
But every miss tripled the risk from the next attack. And it had all begun when he allowed her to snatch an empty sweet roll wrapper from the wind.
There was only one path to survival.
“Then I’ll stop that snowball from rolling any further!!”
“I thought you’d say that.”
She made it sound like she had read his mind.
He didn’t have time to tense his body. He had already started swinging his fist.
Aradia instead gently spread her arms as if welcoming her enemy. Then she tapped her bare foot against the ground.
Almost like she was popping an invisible balloon underfoot.
The boom sounded like a bomb going off. A thick wall of wind spread out around her in all 360 degrees.
There was no defense against it. The donut-shaped shockwave hit Kamijou and he doubled over like he had been hit by an invisible tackle. The breath was knocked out of him and he flew several meters back before hitting the ground. Even though he had been leaning forward with his full body weight.
“Kah, gwah!! Agh!?”
He couldn’t get up from the hard, cold crosswalk.
While he was struggling to get new air in his lungs, an alluring voice slipped into his ears.
“The overall power should be tripling each time, but that didn’t seem as powerful, did it? It isn’t as deadly against an individual when I spread that power out over a wide area, is it?”
Kamijou’s breaths were still shallow.
He knew where Aradia was going with this.
The witch goddess removed her finger from her chin, gently spread her arms, and smiled thinly at the center of the cracked scramble crossing.
She spoke below the moonlight distorting the nightscape behind her.
“Aren’t I such a merciful witch for sparing your life like that? Another good deed to be tripled.”
Part 2[edit]
The riot never ended no matter where they went.
Kumokawa Seria and Index worked together to carry the Bologna Succubus who kept bleeding despite the handkerchief against her wound, but there was so much violence everywhere that they didn’t stand out much.
(Really, keeping her upright where gravity drags the blood down to her legs is a bad idea when her blood pressure is so unstable.)
“Ugh,” groaned the Bologna Succubus.
But not because she had regained consciousness. The words leaving her mouth were complete nonsense. Her pink wings were asymmetrically half-opened like a broken umbrella and she appeared to be having a terrible nightmare while on the verge of death.
Yes, she managed to speak even with her voice breaking apart at times.
“You need to run away, boy. Kshrrrr. Aradia is coming…”
(Damn, now we definitely have to save her!!)
Kumokawa operated her phone with just one hand while supporting the injured demoness.
“A general hospital accepting emergency outpatients would be best, but where even is one near here?”
“What about that arrow sign pointing toward a Centroid General Hospital!?”
“It’s too far! It’s around a kilometer from the scramble crossing, but that’s a long way at the moment. Do you have any idea how long traveling just 100m will take in this riot!?”
They heard a deluge of angry voices as loud as a roaring stadium.
It came from nearby.
Kumokawa ducked while supporting the limp Bologna Succubus, glanced down at her phone, and clicked her tongue.
“The other side of the station has been completely swallowed up by people. And there was a large hospital with a cross mark on it there.”
“What about an ophthalmologist? Or a dermatologist?”
“Or a dentist? I doubt they would have enough fluid for a transfusion, though. Damn, should I eliminate the one-room clinics from my search?”
The woman in a long maternity dress and a large hat interrupted their discussion.
“Use that.”
“?”
The first to react was not Index, but Kumokawa.
An ambulance was parked on the curb below the toxic neon sign for a club.
The driver’s side door, passenger side door, and the back door all sat open. It was empty. It must have been caught in the riot without an emergency patient inside, so the crew had been forced to abandon it.
Index’s face lit up as she supported the Bologna Succubus from behind with the cat still on her head.
“I know what an ambulance is! It might have tools for treating hurt people!”
“I have my doubts. Just look at it.”
Kumokawa was skeptical, but she still approached the ambulance.
“I don’t think it has any of that fluid you were talking about,” said Index.
“No saline and no Ringer’s solution. Only disinfectant for washing wounds. Damn, and an ordinary blood pack doesn’t help us here.”
The driver and EMTs must have felt they were in serious danger when they abandoned the ambulance. The doors were still open and the glove box sat unnaturally open.
“The ambulance’s registration and radio were both stolen.”
Kumokawa Seria checked through it all before looking in a completely different direction.
Then she smiled.
“But this might be our chance.”
“?”
She led everyone to a nearby coin-operated parking area. It was full of boxy light vehicles with sleeping bags inside and four-wheel-drive vehicles full of audio equipment, so they likely belonged to club workers who couldn’t get a parking space. But there was one big truck that didn’t fit in. Kumokawa circled to the rear container and whispered a suggestion to Good, Old Mary.
“(I don’t know how exactly you people do what you do and I don’t care. Just tell me whether or not you can do one thing.)”
“What might that be?”
“(There are two people inside. If you can incapacitate them through the door, then do it.)”
It didn’t even take a second.
Good, Old Mary stood entirely still, so it wasn’t clear what she even did. She didn’t pull out any obvious weapon or even touch the camping kitchen tools hanging from her thick belt.
Several loud explosions sounded from within the rectangular container, the metal double doors on the back bent outwards, and one of them was blown off, spinning toward the girls. Kumokawa and Index quickly dodged out of the way. It stabbed deep into the hood of a car parked behind them and its alarm started blaring.
Good, Old Mary had not moved a millimeter the entire time, but now she tilted her head and large hat.
“All done.”
“Okay, maybe it was my fault for not specifying you do it quietly, but I thought that went without saying!!”
“What is this?”
Index peeked inside the truck and tilted her head enough the cat had to scramble to avoid slipping off. A man in a white coat and a sexy nurse lay collapsed and motionless inside the container. Something violent had clearly happened in there, yet nothing other than the targets received so much as a scratch.
Kumokawa didn’t remove her coat or her shoes. She just climbed inside, started to step over the unconscious man, remembered she was wearing a skirt, and opted to walk around him instead. The walls and ceiling were covered with thick tarps and a movable chair similar to a dentist’s sat in the center.
Lots of medical equipment was installed all around it.
“This is probably a back alley doctor’s base of operations,” said Kumokawa with some exasperation in her voice. “An ambulance’s radio uses the same special standards as the police and fire fighters. Someone might steal that to call the police for help since their phone doesn’t work. But they wouldn’t have any use for the ambulance registration. Only someone who needs an example to counterfeit their own would have any use for it, so I knew someone like that had to be nearby.”
“But how did you know that back alley doctor would be in this truck?” asked Index. “There were a lot of buildings around.”
“These people from the underside of society love their metal containers. There are a lot of container labs and homes in Academy City too. Although those workaholics on the dark side may have seen their lab and their home as one and the same.” Kumokawa shrugged and got to the point. “Anyway, we just need something that won’t trigger a rejection. Where do they keep a kit of usable fluid? This place is meant for surgery. Whether they’re setting bones, burning off fingerprints, remaking a face, or handling a runaway criminal’s cavity or appendicitis, they would need some way of cleaning the wound.”
Good, Old Mary commented while standing tall and motionless.
She spoke plainly but managed to sound friendly.
“There is no need to hurry. The quality of the preparations and work matter more than the time. As long as you get her blood pressure stabilized, mama’s resurrection will work even if you were injecting the fluid into a very recently deceased corpse. So it is not too late even if the Bologna Succubus has been declared dea-”
“Shut up a moment.”
“…”
She really did shut up.
That Transcendent was weirdly obedient, although it may have been a way of teasing people or of demonstrating her superiority. Kumokawa herself found it kind of awkward because it made her feel like the bad guy.
They tilted the chair back as far as it would go before laying the Bologna Succubus in it. Then Kumokawa faced the wall, opened the fridge there, and found several thick plastic bags full of fluid.
“Here we go.”
“Hm? Is that the fluid?” asked Index. “But it isn’t red at all.”
“It doesn’t have to be blood. The shock of blood loss is actually caused by the rapid change in blood pressure. It’s better if the fluid can transport oxygen and nutrients, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
Kumokawa pulled out a pack of a translucent and somewhat yellowish fluid. The truck only had one in stock, which was just like a back alley doctor. They weren’t a general hospital prepared for emergency patients 24 hours a day.
“This is an iron distribution fluid. Really, any fluid that wouldn’t trigger rejection would work if all we need is to keep the blood pressure from dropping too much. You there, find a vein in her elbow. Wipe her skin off with some ethanol and then-”
Bang!!
Kumokawa Seria was cut off by the blast of an explosive.
It came from the back alley doctor’s handgun.
She held the right side of her face and shouted with all her might.
“Good, Old Mary! Do it right this time!!”
“Sigh. (Mama incapacitated him just like you asked. If you wanted him dead, you should have said so.)”
“Hurry! And don’t kill him!!”
With a wet splat, the plastic handgun burst and the man’s futile attempt to get up from the floor ended. His groaning meant he was still alive…for now anyway. His body seemed weirdly distorted, like a roach that refused to die after being partially squished by a slipper.
(Does everyone named Mary or Maria have to be a troublemaker? My sister also gets carried away and never plans anything out properly.)
Index looked at the hand Kumokawa was holding to her face.
“A-are you okay?”
“Yes. That’s not my brains splattered on my face. It’s the package I was holding.”
But Kumokawa did not look happy. With the pack of fluid blown away, they couldn’t heal the Bologna Succubus. A fluid full of salt, iron, and electrolytes could be created with kitchen tools, but she had severe doubts they could disinfect it enough to be safe for transfusion.
That meant they had to find a replacement somewhere.
And a properly sealed product with guaranteed professional quality.
“Damn, I guess we need a proper medical facility after all. The closest hospital is- oh, hell! The fluid is all over the screen! Let’s see…”
“It has to be closer than Centroid General Hospital,” said Index.
“I know that,” muttered Kumokawa.
There was another large hospital with a large cross mark on it, but there had been a largescale riot in that direction. Breaking through the rioters while carrying an injured woman wouldn’t be possible.
“This looks like the only place that would have everything needed to keep her blood pressure from dropping and save her life.”
“?”
Index peered at the screen and tilted her head. Kumokawa understood the confusion, but it was their last option.
The level of service at such a place was wildly variable. This one could be little more than a tanning salon, but there were more of them of them in Shibuya than there were gyudon shops.
The problem was if they would be open during the riot. Breaking the glass door was always an option, but not causing the workers unnecessary trouble would be preferable.
Kumokawa glanced over at the Transcendent.
(Having an overpowered fighter is convenient, but I don’t want to get too reliant on her. That back alley doctor with a handgun is one thing, but I don’t want to leave decent people twitching on the floor like that.)
“Do you need something?”
“No, not really.”
“(Mama didn’t kill him just like you asked. Mama kept her promise, so why look at her like she’s a monster? It hardly seems fair.)”
“What is this mama nonsense? Are you lonely because your daughter is in a rebellious phase? Anyway, we need to try everything we can. This is Shibuya and it’s New Year’s Eve. If this riot settles down, the building should open its doors.”
The Transcendent was dejectedly poking at the cat’s forehead and radiating a desire for soothing, but Kumokawa just lifted the Bologna Succubus onto her back again.
And then she noticed something.
“Hold on. Where did that little one go?”
Part 3[edit]
Kamijou was spinning.
He had twisted out of the way of the beam, but it had caught his clothes.
He and the bright beam flew through the air and he slammed back down into the asphalt. He rolled across the scramble crossing a while after that before slamming back first into the side of the donut truck abandoned in the riot.
“Gah!!”
But if Othinus hadn’t tugged on his ear to tell him when to dodge, he wouldn’t have managed even that. And letting the beam catch at his clothes a bit had caused this much damage. He felt a dull, twisting pain in his hip and his right leg only twitched when he tried to get back up.
“Human!!”
“I’m- I’m fine…gahh.”
He heard a light clapping sound a short distance away.
Aradia had pressed her palms together in front of her shapely chest. He knew that had to have some kind of magical meaning.
“You survived that thanks to my decision. Such a wonderful good deed, don’t you think?”
“…”
Transcendent Aradia gave him no openings. Had the small snowball already grown lethally large? Was it too big to possibly stop it by waiting for it at the foot of the snowy mountain?
The witch goddess sang with her long silver hair and large wimple blowing in the night breeze.
“Did you hear that, world? Did you hear that, flashing interphasal sparks? My good deed deserves a blessing thrice as powerful. Because a good witch must not come to harm.”
“Human.”
Just then, Othinus whispered on his ear after managing to cling to his clothing during that violent spin.
She was the god of magic, war, and deception.
“Remember what the grimoire library said.”
“?”
“The Wiccan Triple Reload spell is admittedly capable of overwhelming the entire magic side if used correctly, but Aradia’s magic is not based on words. The grimoire library already told you that a witch’s supernatural feats of healing, divination, flight, crop growth, and assassination are all based on the use of natural ‘potions’ extracted from plants and minerals.”
“Wait a second.”
“Cinnamon, garlic, vanilla, ginger, cacao, lavender – the herbs used by witches aren’t necessarily obscure deadly poisons. It is possible that they are much more ordinary and thus, human, we overlooked their presence.”
That would mean it wasn’t just about her phony judgments of good and bad. Did she have a physical tool she used for her magic? Did she have a spiritual item like a fortuneteller’s crystal ball or a witch’s broom? And hadn’t Aradia said it herself? Her spell was a triple reload. Didn’t that mean there was an actual weapon she was loading those “bullets” into?
All the blood gathered at a single point in Kamijou’s head.
What was his true target for Imagine Breaker?
He had to lean against the metal truck and couldn’t even get up, but he desperately observed his surroundings. What was Aradia’s spiritual item? Was it the ankle-length wimple? Or the noisily clanking gold clasps? The midriff-baring modified bikini? He could ignore her feet since they were bare. He had just reached that point in his thoughts when Aradia made her next move.
“Now.”
She slowly separated the hands held together in front of her shapely chest.
But they enclosed a blinding light that seemed to fill the 1cm space between.
The light blew away all of the darkness lurking in the scramble crossing.
“Are you quite done? Killing you will stabilize Alice. And with Alice stabilized, we can bring peace to the world. Who can argue with the goodness of that deed?”
That was when he noticed.
The light Aradia was producing was his biggest hint. He lowered his gaze once more.
And he confirmed what he saw there.
“Aradia.”
“?”
She gave him a somewhat puzzled look.
She would have understood if he broke into tears and begged for his life. Or if he desperately hurled invectives at her. But she found it very odd for him to speak rationally, steadily, like they were equals.
“I want to make one thing very clear up front: I have rotten luck. You could say I’m made of misfortune. So I can promise you this wasn’t my doing.”
“What are you blathering about?”
“Good or bad, witch spells are returned to their user at triple strength, right? Then maybe your attempts to make everything you do look good are starting to fail.”
“Are you trying to stall for time until someone can come rescue you!?”
Aradia spread her hands another centimeter apart.
That released the light within.
The deluge of light shot straight toward Kamijou.
“So.”
But that was exactly why Kamijou Touma smiled.
“It was you who carelessly knocked me over to this food truck, Aradia! And can’t a witch’s herbs be found all over the place!? Like mint and cinnamon!”
He did not use Imagine Breaker.
Despite the risk, he just barely dodged the beam by rolling to the side. The food truck he had been leaning against was blown away, but its contents were also scattered everywhere.
That jiggly call girl had sung an improvised song after seeing the red pickled ginger in her gyudon.
The eyepatch ghost had been afraid her Japanese pasta might have shiso in it.
Index had stared enviously at the donuts covered in cinnamon and mint powder.
None of it had been a waste of time. All of his experiences in Shibuya had returned to aid him. But unlike with Aradia, this wasn’t about mysterious charisma or proselytization. His own actions had created connections with other people and those connections had become a real strength he could use.
Even this donut truck counted.
He had mentioned the mint and cinnamon himself, but vanilla and cacao had also been known as medicines in an older age.
And the coffee and tea available as drink options were made from beans and leaves containing stimulants.
What if all of those things were spread across the area?
“It’s your shadow.”
“Kh.”
Aradia froze just before making her next attack.
She must have noticed that her Triple Reload spell had suddenly jammed.
“Your shadow never changed no matter how much light shined from your hands! And it was always just the one shadow even though all the headlights around us should have given you several!! That dark shadow was always waiting right at your feet, regardless of the actual light source. That’s the true identity of your power. It’s also why you’re barefoot. You mixed your sweat or sebum or whatever other oil with some herbs at your feet to create an ointment whenever you used your magic!”
“I’ll add that I expect your ‘palette’ of chemical compounds is stored in the gold decorations you wear across your body.” Othinus smiled fearlessly on his shoulder. “Gold is malleable. If you kneaded the herbs into the gold for storage, you would only need to rub the clasps together to produce the powder you needed. Gravity would bring that to your feet, so you just needed to step on that barefoot to mix in your sweat or sebum and create that ‘shadow’. Those clasps are shaped like keys. Perfect for creating the chemical palette that acts as your entrance into magic.”
So what happened if vanilla, mint, and other extra herbs are rudely mixed into her “canvas” on the ground?
That goes without saying.
“This isn’t enough to stop me!!”
“Probably not. She’s going to recover soon enough, human!!”
Aradia had already recovered a bit from the damage. She stomped her bare feet on the ground twice to purify it and used her big toes to remake the witchcraft ointment in what looked like a bewitching dance. In the few seconds that took, Kamijou ran toward the other truck abandoned on the scramble crossing: the red firetruck.
More specifically, he ran to the valves on its size.
He again relied on his memory. Why was it the Bologna Succubus had always relied on baths and saunas like the hot spa and capsule hotel with Aradia as her enemy?
Oils, herbs, powders, and ointments.
These witch potions wouldn’t play well with water.
“Ohhh!!”
“Tch!?”
Aradia clearly clicked her tongue when the firehose explosively unleashed a stream of water. Chemical cleanup was usually done by using a liquid, be it water or ethanol. If he wanted to keep Aradia from mixing her ointment by rubbing together the metal clasps, creating a powder, and letting it fall to the ground, his best bet was catching the invisible metal powder in the air and blasting it far away.
For some reason, Othinus smiled coldly from his shoulder.
“Ha ha. The Christians do say wicked women have a weakness to holy water. Are you trying to prove them right, witch god!?”
“Gahh! I don’t want to hear anything from the lingering remnants of a god who forgot to protect the forest-dwelling priestesses!!”
There was a dull snap as a thick piece of metal broke.
Aradia had thrown a roundhouse kick. Her big toe’s nail had torn through the air along a beautifully circular path and sliced through the base of the pedestrian traffic signal located alongside the scramble crossing. She spun it in both hands as lightly as a baton, spun herself around, and sat on it.
She had completed the storybook image.
By the time the tension crackled through Kamijou’s body, the witch’s feet had already left the ground.
Herbs and water were effective, but keeping his distance had been a mistake. Aradia was apparently even better at aerial combat than the Bologna Succubus. Kamijou had to fight with his fist, so vertical distance was devastating for him. She could just stay in the air and kill him with falling objects and projectiles.
“A witch mixes her sebum and sweat with powdered herbs and minerals to create the ointment we need.”
Something flashed.
It came from Aradia as she sat on the severed pedestrian signal like it was a witch’s broom.
Lines of light filled the night sky around her like a planetarium. A satellite viewing the earth may have seen it as a glowing net capturing the planet itself.
“So I will claim the assistance of everything floating in the air! Around 10 thousand tons of cosmic dust pour down on the planet ever day after burning up in the atmosphere. With invisible pieces of the moon in hand, I can even absorb all of the carbon dioxide out of the earth’s atmosphere. The witch goddess will use her ointment to save humanity from global warming! And the good deed of saving the world will be returned to me at triple strength. Then I will concentrate all of that power on a single point to obliterate the enemy before my eyes!!”
There shouldn’t have been any way for him to win.
Spraying around a firehose could never spray all of the extraterrestrial dust from the planet’s atmosphere.
If she was absorbing carbon dioxide, would her actual weapon be related to the wind or air? Whatever the case, not even any dust would remain of him after she crushed him with triple the power needed to save the world.
Othinus whispered up at the witch seated on the pedestrian signal.
“So a witch uses the same ointment to make her broom fly, huh? But you do realize you’re showing off your weak point this way, don’t you?”
She showed no mercy.
“There you have it, human. End this already.”
Kamijou tossed aside the firehose and clenched his right fist.
Yes.
No matter how high Aradia flew, the shadow that provided her power remained on the ground.
“Gah!!”
The shadow shattered and she fell from the sky.
The pedestrian signal she was using as a broom loudly bent and the Transcendent rolled along the pavement.
Back down at the center of the scramble crossing, Aradia trembled within the large cloth that had gotten wrapped around her. She groaned from the first physical damage done to her.
She looked so pitiful and seemed to be in pain.
But this pain was nothing compared to the suffering the Bologna Succubus had gone through after throwing out her own life without hesitation.
It was nothing compared to the pain she would have felt at having to fight a fellow member of her cabal.
Othinus crossed her arms and sneered from atop Kamijou’s shoulder.
“Never forget the first rule of magical flight: it’s easily thwarted. Let’s not forget what happened to Simon the Magician when he foolishly challenged one of the 12 Apostles: he lost the protection of his demon, fell from the sky, and died.”
Part 4[edit]
“Gh, gah.”
Aradia had fallen and hit the ground hard.
She worked to keep her woozy mind in focus.
She wasn’t going to let mere pain stop her. She clenched her bloody teeth and sent strength back into her legs.
She wanted to be someone who could protect all witches.
Some might mock that as an outdated idea. In the age of smartphones and the internet, anyone could do a quick search and see that the witch hunts had been wrong. They would assume no one would ever do that again.
But they were wrong.
This wasn’t a fantasy from centuries ago.
The emotional witch hunts had never ended.
The words and framework used had changed with the times, but similar social attacks could be seen in the real world and on the internet all the time. Even today at this very moment.
Now, this violence was not led by the pros of the Anglican Church. It wasn’t part of a system for carrying out investigations and meting out punishments for magical crimes.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t involved.
It was easy enough to say the witch hunts had been wrong and they were a terrible mistake made in the distant past.
But no one ever went on to say who had been in the wrong or why they had made that mistake. They sealed it away as a thing of the past and avoided talking or thinking about it. That let the people feel no responsibility and didn’t allow any feelings of guilt to take root, so by swapping out the names and framework used, the same social phenomena could continue forever in new forms.
The true violence came from the ordinary people who had no real power and were ready to believe just about anything. It came from the common folk who raised their crosses high and clung to “history” and “tradition”. It was always those “innocent” people who didn’t think twice before burning to death a little old lady who lived a short distance from their village and raised small birds because she liked cute things! It was those pieces of shit who, after it was over, would shrug it off as “mass hysteria” and return to their lives like nothing had happened!! They’re just normal people? Those “peaceful” and “carefree” slaughterers think “we didn’t mean to kill an innocent person” is an adequate excuse. Are those rotten sadists trying to say laughing as you burn a woman to death is acceptable if she really was a witch!?
So Aradia would protect them even in the modern day.
She would protect the people accused of being witches, no matter how much power they did or didn’t have.
She would become someone who would hear the lonely cries of the person isolated behind a solid wall of “common sense”.
She would become the last defense of those who had been ostracized from all other systems meant to provide help.
She would become the goddess of all witches.
And she was willing to dirty her hands if it was to that end.
She might fall from the sky, cough up blood, curl up in a miserable ball, and tremble.
But she would not stop here.
She was a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal. It was time she demonstrated the strength of a magician with a wish she would make sure came true even if it required dealing with that fearsome tyrant Alice!!
Part 5[edit]
As expected, the long silver hair and giant wimple continued to tremble.
Aradia was still moving.
She wouldn’t be broken so easily. Her trick had been revealed, but she would not step down from the stage. She trembled and squirmed, but she finally, slowly got up from the ground.
She wanted to save the witches.
She wanted to create a world that would protect the people ostracized from society.
Kamijou didn’t know the exact conditions or the details of her goal, but he knew the basics.
But he did not back down.
“I can’t help but like the Bologna Succubus better.”
“?”
Aradia could tell this wasn’t just a joke or provocation.
A single mistake or a single moment looking the wrong way would mean instant death for him.
Anyone, even the Transcendent, could tell he was placing his life in these words.
“She doesn’t just want to reach out a helping hand to the persecuted witches. She doesn’t need to limit herself like that before rushing toward certain death with a smile. It’s way less realistic and I like it way more.”
And.
Kamijou Touma was willing to risk his one and only life to save her.
How much time did she have left now?
She had to still be fighting on the verge of death while Index’s group helped her. She wasn’t a cold demon who could only provide pain. He refused to let her die after she underwent so much abuse to rescue a complete stranger like him. He wouldn’t allow it.
He still couldn’t reach the depths of Transcendent Aradia’s heart.
But peering into her darkness and reaching out a helping hand could wait until after he had saved the Bologna Succubus.
“The night, the moon, and the witches. Hecate, Isis, the Morrígan, Freyja. The ancient goddesses of wisdom have always viewed the world from three perspectives while providing a powerful protection for the priestesses serving them.”
Aradia spread her arms and raised her voice even as she coughed up blood from the fall.
“No more…holding back! Risk 4: Releasing triple seal – leaving human territory. Activating the triple goddess within my flesh!!”
Aradia’s shadow stretched out in three different directions.
They spun around her in a circle, dyeing the glowing pavement like an ink stain. It may not have had a fixed shape and it looked something like a Rorschach test that held a different meaning to everyone who viewed it.
This was something inhuman.
The beautiful woman standing there may have only been a temporary form and this was the true essence of the Transcendent.
What had happened to Triple Reload? And the ointment at her feet?
Perhaps she had thrown all of that away and a completely new transcendent magic was about to come his way.
He couldn’t say anything for certain.
The rules of the battle had suddenly blurred.
The flow of battle normally would have changed here.
In an ordinary battle between magicians, the poor victim would have been overwhelmed and torn to shreds by the Transcendent before even managing to analyze her new magic.
But.
Something shattered before Aradia’s eyes and her extreme mystical power was negated.
It ended far too easily.
“?”
“Allow me to introduce you to Imagine Breaker, false goddess.”
Othinus’s whispered words were like a death sentence.
Her first mistake had been allowing a certain boy to get this close to her. Her last mistake had been thinking she could fight back with the occult. After all, his right fist was the greatest enemy of that sort of thing.
“The more you rely on magic…”
“~ ~ ~!?”
“The more I’ll destroy that harmful illusion!!”
With a dull impact, an ordinary boy’s fist caught Transcendent Aradia’s cheekbone.
And he swung through with his full body weight.
