Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume6 Epilogue
Epilogue: The Record Needle Skips – Irregular_Counter.[edit]
The countdown hadn’t even begun, but a few fireworks were already bursting in the night sky.
For better or for worse, Shibuya was a tough place.
The clash between the witches and the witch hunters had involved hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, but once Aradia and the Bologna Succubus were gone, the city quicky returned to business as usual. Everyone gathered at the scramble crossing and stared up at the numbers counting down on the giant screen.
These people processed information and emotions quickly.
Within the crowd, Kamijou held Aradia’s limp form, but no one did anything other than occasionally aim their phone camera his way. The eyepatch ghost took a selfie with the fireworks in the background and the call girl showed the small wound on her upper arm to the young man who was apparently her driver. He looked upset because she said she was in too much pain to work for the day.
Someone weaved through the crowd to approach Kamijou.
“Touma.”
It was Index with the calico cat on her head. The cat had to be just as tough as Shibuya to hold onto his spot all throughout the riot.
“I managed somehow. Here’s Aradia. I tied her hands behind her back with a zip tie I found on the ground nearby and I put plastic bags over her feet with rubber bands to keep her from making more ointment with her bare feet, but I’m not sure if this will actually work.”
“It should be fine, but what are you going to do with her?”
“Human, you had better not be thinking about taking in another freeloader.”
Now that was a scary thought. It was unclear of anything other than Imagine Breaker could restrict a Transcendent’s power, but he truly could not afford any more mouths to feed. He was supposed to be out here to earn enough money to avoid starving over winter break, so he did not want to end up with higher food costs instead.
He trembled at the thought, but then looked up and grimaced.
He had landed on the cleverest idea his brain could come up with.
“So, Index-san. How about we be really nice here and let those handsome Anglicans and their very cool Necessarius group take the credit for this one? Wait, no! I don’t want to keep her!! The world is such a big place, so why isn’t there, like, a prison that can hold magical criminals and keep them safe and secure!? Why do I have to pay out of my own pocket to shelter and feed the attempted murderers who show up to kill me!?”
“I don’t know what to tell you since I don’t know how to contact the Anglicans. A lot has happened since we last saw them, so who knows how they pass information around. Letters? Pigeons?”
“…”
Kamijou suddenly realized he didn’t even know if they had an emergency contact number. Unease rapidly set in within his stomach. Whenever a magical incident was underway, they would show up, cause him heaps of trouble, and then leave, so he had never really thought about it before.
And…
“Hi,” said Kumokawa Seria.
She raised a hand in greeting while approaching him. Her thick coat and suit were stained with blood, but she didn’t stand out too much in Shibuya at the moment.
“That Bologna Succubus woman got her transfusion and is resting in a bed.”
“Where did you even take her during all that?”
“A cosmetic surgery clinic.” She smiled bitterly. “Their quality varies wildly, so some don’t do anything more than hair removal and tanning, but some are real medical facilities that do actual surgery like facelifts and boob jobs. So even if they’re a small clinic, they will have blood and fluids for transfusion.”
Kamijou may have never considered that option.
And he got the feeling they were even more common than gyudon shops in the center of Shibuya.
“I really just borrowed some iron distribution fluid to prevent shock from blood loss, so now it’s up to that mysterious Good, Old Mary woman.”
“I…see.”
That was a relief. She had already proven her skill with Kamijou himself.
And with that settled…
“By the way, Senpai, what about your business? You said you were accompanying me because you had business in Shibuya.”
“All of this threw a wrench in those plans. (I thought there was something hidden at the Miyashita Ark, but I would be amazed if it wasn’t far too late for that after taking so many very noticeable detours.)”
“?”
Kamijou tilted his head, but Kumokawa only smiled bitterly.
“Cosmetic clinics always feed information to the cops, but I somehow doubt the Bologna Succubus will end up in police custody no matter how suspicious the circumstances of her injuries. I’ve already seen how much of a monster that other ‘Transcendent’ Good, Old Mary is, so I’m sure the Bologna Succubus will be a major threat again once she’s been healed. To be honest, not even my incredible intellect can think up a way of stopping them if they teamed up.”
“That’s fine.”
Kamijou adjusted unconscious Aradia’s position in his arms and used a finger to brush her silver bangs off of her forehead.
When he spoke, the look on his face said he had suspected it could come to this.
“I’m sure I’ll run into the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal again. If I want to say anything to the Bologna Succubus or Good, Old Mary, I can always say it then.”
He had defeated Witch Goddess Aradia, but he doubted she would stay restrained for long even if he brought her back to Academy City.
The Bologna Succubus had said their cabal intended to change the entire world for their own purposes. And that she would become his enemy in the process. The difference between the Killers and the Rescuers wouldn’t matter then. Their cabal would never see eye to eye with people like Kamijou who were willing to accept the world the way it was.
Then there was Anna Sprengel.
Not to mention Alice Anotherbible.
He already had a connection to them.
He just didn’t know when the next incident would happen.
“I see.” Kumokawa Seria then waved her phone with the grin of a girl plotting one hell of a prank for April Fools’ Day. “So are you saying you don’t want this? And after I went to the trouble of attaching a GPS tracker smaller than a kernel of corn to the decorations on the Bologna Succubus’s underwear.”
A small figure blended in with the common crowd and observed the situation while licking at the two scoops of ice cream she had bought at a food truck deployed for the holiday. She had gotten the honey flavor with rose petals out of curiosity, but it was honestly a little much.
She was Anna Sprengel.
(Yes, that ended well enough.)
She held an irregular position by not siding with the Killers or the Rescuers – which really just made both sides suspicious of her – but she was officially one of the Transcendents now. And she had never had the self-control needed to tap the brakes on her own actions.
(That would be so boring. Aradia vs. the Bologna Succubus. The witches vs. the witch hunters. Those silly Transcendents try to act so smart, but how is this any different from the magical incitement I pulled with R&C Occultics? After pressuring them with Alice, I was really hoping they would show me more of their own world☆)
While thinking through all this, Anna reached her empty hand toward Kamijou’s group. It didn’t matter how many people stood between them.
This was how that Rosicrucian saw things.
“He thinks he has saved Aradia now that he has defeated her. I do hope you show me an amusing transformation when you see her killed right there in your arms, Kamijou Touma. Hee hee. I belong to the Bridge Builders Cabal now, so I need to kill Aradia to keep her from spilling all of the cabal’s secrets.”
She was enjoying herself.
Enjoying herself so very much.
Kamijou Touma already knew that Alice stood at the top of the Bridge Builders Cabal. So what if one of its members killed Aradia while she was helpless? What would the boy think before he investigated who exactly had done it? How long would he be able to forgive the cabal as a whole or its leader Alice Anotherbible!?
The thought was sweeter than the ice cream and colder on the tongue too.
Anna could never resist such powerful temptation.
Which was exactly why she wanted a ruler who would place a chain around her neck and keep her in line.
However.
“My, my, my. What have we here?”
She heard a voice.
The instant the soft, kindly female voice slipped into Anna Sprengel’s ears, an unpleasant sweat poured from the arrogant Transcendent’s body.
She recognized it.
She knew whose voice this was.
“All magic should be 🎁ed equally to all 🙂 regardless of nation, region, occupation, class, age, or ♂️♀️. How did that simple teaching transform into a massive 💻 company?”
“…”
“Oh? My 👄s seem to be undergoing a strange transformation, but you can still tell what I’m 👄ing, can’t you? You’re a smart 👧.”
“………………………………………………………………………………”
It took a few seconds before Anna could even gulp.
Was her vision growing blurry because of tears in the corners of her eyes?
She came to her senses and spun around. She searched her mind for a powerful spell that could crush her enemy along with the entire crowd around them.
A high-pitched snapping sound echoed across the entire scene.
By then, Anna Sprengel had already been separated from the world.
“What!?”
“You will ❌ find me using hostages. Nor will I vanish into the crowd after starting a panic using some 🩸shed. Sigh. For that matter, a magician like you should really be using a 🙂 clearing field. What an embarrassment you are. Magic is the 🔌 of a phase hidden on the underside of the 🗺️, so it really is ❌ meant to be shown off for no good reason.”
Anna’s vision shook.
The woman stared curiously at the nails of her own fingers emerging from her gauntlet. That meant she wasn’t even looking at Miss Sprengel.
“Hm, fascinating. Since I can refine magic 🔌 in this body, it must contain a lifeforce of its own.”
Existing in the same space as this woman was devastatingly bad. She should have trembled in fear simply learning the woman had appeared on the other side of the planet, so she clenched her teeth at being so careless she failed to notice the woman until she was less than 10m away in 3D space.
The woman’s long, reddish blonde hair was worn in a modified braid done up into something resembling a giant fried shrimp. Her skin was unbelievably pale and she wore thin glasses on her intellectual face. Her body looked to be maybe 30 years old. She wore a special orange suit resembling a racing swimsuit, but did Anna realize that was the same thing the Academy City android named Ladybird had worn? Thanks to the large, unnaturally shiny hat, the black sleeves, and the large pareo she wore, her overall outfit could be described as a witch swimsuit.
She looked up from her nails and made a direct announcement while something glowed faintly.
“I too am a magician, so do ❌ hold back. Come at me with everything you have. ♍ of Nuremburg, high ranking member of the 🌹, leader of the supposed 🇩🇪 branch of the 🥇 cabal, and builder of 🌉s. No one else can bother us now☆”
The Golden cabal had not just suddenly appeared in England.
Its founders had not been geniuses from the very beginning.
William Wynn Westcott was a beginner once.
There was a time when Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers hadn’t known the first thing about the occult.
So.
Who had taught those legendary magicians the types of mystical and supernatural powers humans could control?
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!!”
“Hee hee.”
“That role is mine! History says so. It all started with a coded letter they received seemingly by accident, so it has to be Anna Sprengel who helped found the Golden cabal!! I refuse to accept any starting point before that!!”
“I do ❌ particularly care even if that Anna Sprengel is you.”
The woman demonstrated the confidence of someone with truth on her side.
Anna Sprengel, meanwhile, was forced to cling to a legend, so she bit her lip at the woman’s casual demeanor.
Those with a true mastery of their field did not obsess over their achievements. Because they knew they could produce something just as great whenever they wanted. That was why they were willing to snap the finest sword or break a beautiful plate and investigate the quality of the break to see if there was any room for improvement. And they did this for their own personal satisfaction, not to set an objective high score. Their interest couldn’t even be roused for a unique miracle.
They had the superhuman ability to go on smiling as they threw out a solid legend like a piece of scrap.
For Westcott and Mathers, it didn’t come from social status or cabal rank. Nor was it based in fear or social niceties. There was no outward reason like that. Those audacious founders of the Golden wouldn’t show anyone respect for those reasons, but the instant they had met her on the street, they had bowed their heads and adored her like puppy dogs. That great goddess of wisdom had overpowered the magicians who now ruled at the peak of Western magical history. This woman had had become a legend all her own, not just from her skill but from her ideologies and beliefs as well. She loved all equally and shared great power with anyone in need. She was even said to have been the reason the Golden cabal widely accepted ordinary women as members.
She was Anna Sprengel’s true enemy.
Lady Sprengel could not help but tremble in terror.
The woman’s large hat shook, the decorations hanging from the brim clanked together, and a toxic neon light shined from her glasses.
She was smiling.
She clasped her hands in front of her large chest and smiled sweetly.
“On the other ✋, this enclosed space means no one will get to see your humiliating defeat. Think of this as a generous 🎁 from me to you☆”
“Anna…”
A name left Anna Sprengel’s trembling lips.
But this wasn’t a numerical value or character string referring to herself.
“Anna Kingsford!? But you were confirmed dead over a century ago! How can you possibly be here now!?”
“Hee hee☆ What do you want me to say, Anna Sprengel? That I tore the 😈 from his throne, made him do my bidding, and kicked down the gates of hell all so I could come back from the 💀 and punish you? Yay!!”
Miss Sprengel could not afford to hold back. She had already taken action as a high ranking Rosicrucian and the leader of Lichte, Liebe, Leben, the original temple that neither Westcott nor Mathers had ever reached. Nothing she could do could ever be enough. She shook a skinny glass vial to activate the contents. She stabbed it into the center of a flat, clear cylinder about 11cm across. Anyone in the know would recognize that as a glass anti-personnel mine that would cruelly take off the leg of its poor victim and that no metal detector would detect.
She was using a chemical fuse instead of the standard one. When someone stepped on and broke the vial in the center, the chemicals inside would mix together and cause an instantaneous ignition.
“Incurring my wrath was the worst mine you could have stepped on.”
For Anna Sprengel, the mine controlled its own microcosm.
First, it would extract “summer growth”, part of the four-step cycle. Then it created an environment of endless growth by stopping up the usual cycle of life and death for plants in particular. Then it linked that to the 8th operation: separation. That would create a deadly space where simply stepping on it would separate every joint and every organ from the body, and that space would expand endlessly.
She desperately threw the mine while thinking through the process in her head.
“You may have crossed the boundary between life and death to attack me, but I will stop up that same cycle to erase your unnatural existence. I hope you suffer a slow second death while your temporary body cracks open like a fragile egg and spills its ugly contents!!”
“My, my.”
A single exasperated comment was all it took for the attack to end in failure.
Anna Sprengel had definitely thrown the glass mine containing a deadly spell, but it failed to go off and remained in the air.
It flew.
The transparent explosive twirled and twirled without ever detonating.
The glass container filled to the brim with lethal force would never break if it never hit the ground.
“…”
“This is magic. Is any further explanation necessary?”
The words “0 points” were written in glowing writing above the softly smiling face.
Miss Sprengel’s most secret techniques were overwhelmed by a single use of the far cheaper and more reliable fundamental magic.
This seemed to demonstrate that the knowledge of how to use your tools mattered far more than showing them off.
“I already told you that magic is the 🔌 of a phase hidden on the underside of the 🗺️. Blathering on endlessly in front of your enemy is about the worst thing you can do. Especially when you also emphasize how much physical pain it will cause. I might as well be seeing a 🧙♀️ desperately creating an aphrodisiac as a get 💰 quick scheme, Anna Sprengel.”
“You don’t get to march back onto center stage after all this time and act like you’re the manager of all curses and diagrams. Are you saying all magic belongs to you and every magic user in the world needs to ask your permission first!?”
“No, no. Hee hee. I make no such claims.”
Even after all this, Anna Kingsford may not have even been focused on the Rosicrucian before her. She clasped her hands in front of her chest and did not hesitate to speak while thinking of the boy so accustomed to misfortune he had accepted it as normal.
However, she was not attacking Anna Sprengel because of who she was and she was not saving Kamijou Touma because of who he was. She would respond the same way if she saw any ordinary person threatened by magic.
In other words…
“I simply wish to aid the 🙂 around me☆”
“You expect me to believe that!? Don’t act all pure and noble while showing off just how ugly I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!!”
The dull straining of bones and joints came all over the young magician’s body and then her silhouette swelled out. She rapidly transformed from a child into an adult who gave off a sweet and bewitching aroma.
She manifested her full power.
She hadn’t wanted to waste it until she had regained all the power wasted by Madam Horos, but using it here did not qualify as a waste.
She was terrified of this fear. Her wish for someone to manage her desires had been a complete lie. In truth, she was willing to wear a collar or chains as long as she found a ruler powerful enough to protect her when the time came!!
“I’ve pulled out all the stops, so return the favor. Show me all the cards in your deck! I don’t care if it’s direct Telesma control or Gnosticism, just bring out all those dark age spells from the deep, deep darkness so far from the dawn!!”
Anna Kingsford actually sighed.
She shook her head and formed an X-mark at the top of her hat.
But Anna Sprengel had not done anything wrong here. She was undoubtedly a world-class magician who “top level” didn’t even begin to describe. The problem was Anna Kingsford’s absurdly high standards for magicians.
Westcott and Mathers, the founders of the Golden cabal, had been geniuses who even Aleister had looked up to at one point, even if they had fallen out later. Their names remained at the top of the list in the annals of magical history, but even they had been no more than troublesome children to this great goddess of wisdom.
Trying to outdo Anna Kingsford in the field of magic was a mistake in and of itself. If you could not sense that, you were best off staying silent and doing as little as possible for as long as it took for you to understand.
“For 1️ thing, I do ❌ understand the concept of a ‘spell’.” There was an air of disappointment in her voice, like she had peered into the greatest depths of this magician and found her lacking. “The 🗺️ we were born into was always brimming with the mystical and ✨ing with the supernatural. Everything in the 🗺️ is born of and protected by the mystical without needing to focus your 🧠 with these ‘spells’. No matter how much people drain the land of its color with their 🔬tific technology, they can ❌ rid the 🗺️ of the mystical and the occult. Can you ❌ access that endless blessing without artificially focusing your 🧠, Anna Sprengel? Is the supernatural and the mystical no more than a brief dream that vaguely appears in your 🧠 when you hold your breath and concentrate on the center of your brow?”
“!?”
The result was known before the clash even happened.
The woman who lived in a dream smiled at the girl who was viewing a dream. To Anna Kingsford, using magic was as much a part of her as breathing and the beating of her heart. It was too late by the time the other Anna realized how much trouble she was in. Anna Kingsford did not use a special spiritual item or any fancy motions. The monster who had taught Westcott and Mathers only spoke some ordinary words with her alluring lips.
That was all.
“Soror Kingsford 1888.”
An odd sound came from Anna Sprengel’s right arm.
By the time she heard it, the entire arm had already vanished.
“Ah.”
“Truly 👍 magic does not need a special tool or 🏢. It requires no other preconditions, like inborn talent, special coordinates, or a special ⏱️. The gates stand open before everyone equally and no one should be cruelly shut out due to born qualities such as gender or race or due to insufficient preparations caused by 💰 differences. No matter what. Yes, magic should be about producing a miracle using no more than a stone or a stick found on the ground. There is no need to call on a fancy four-letter name like YHVH – as long as you know the proper way to use the magic, even the most ordinary name can carry great 🔌.”
Her flesh was torn away.
Body parts disappeared, vanished, and were lost.
Her arms, her legs, her torso!! Her skin, her flesh, her bones! One by one and in order!!
“Whether it is ✔️ or ❌, you may have been involved with the 🥇 cabal’s founding using the name Anna. But that fact will be your undoing. If you had no❌ carelessly gotten involved with Westcott and Mathers and your whims had led you elsewhere, you would have been just an ordinary Anna with no connection me.”
“Kah, ah!?”
With what sounded like the rustling of cloth, a thin, disk-like can appeared in Anna Kingsford’s palm. It was a film can used to store film stock. She supported it with just her slender fingers, like a waitress holding her round tray.
But that wasn’t just an ordinary film can!
“Magic is a powerful mutual 🔗 to the entire 🗺️, including all its phases, and that 🔗 can be activated for your own purposes. Shape, color, number, action, knowledge, and the connections between 🙂 are much the same. If you had not formed this thin, thin connection with me via those disappointing children, this never would have happened, Anna Sprengel.”
“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
Her head spun.
No, not even her disembodied head remained any longer. All that remained in Anna Kingsford’s hand was the disk-like film can. It looked a lot like a miniature version of the Mouth of Truth.
But even in that state, she could still breathe and blink. The flat “face” pasted to the surface of the disk wasn’t even allowed to die.
This was of course very intentional.
“Hee hee. Even that selfish Mathers who refused to sit at the same desk 😭 ed and begged for forgiveness when I punished him like this.”
The disk was technically countless parchment charms pasted together.
And it was also Anna Sprengel’s body except for the face.
“Now, do you require a spell-style explanation of what just happened?”
“Heh…heh. Storing planetary power in a charm is introductory magic. And the macrocosm and the microcosm are always linked. So you didn’t actually destroy my body. You separated my limbs and organs and sealed them in the corresponding charms. Which is why I’m not even allowed to die!!”
“Yes, I did ❌ think you required one. That would be redundant in the face of a visible punishment like the 🎵ing disk☆” said Anna Kingsford with a smile.
One was a preserved corpse given cutting-edge tech in place of her stopped organs and the other was an undying film can with a face. They made for an unbelievable pair, but it still wasn’t enough to faze the people of Shibuya. Aradia and the Bologna Succubus had already proven that ordinary people wouldn’t even question the supernatural when it was boldly carried out in plain sight.
(From what I 👁️ in the Miyashita Ark where I was stored, they seem to have created piggy 🏦s that eat up the coins with a very realistic silicon face.)
That was the only thought on her mind as she released the temporal and spatial “separation”.
Immediately, a slender finger touched her back between the shoulder blades.
That was the physical shut-off switch that Human Aleister had installed in her youthful (due to the injection of lipids and hyaluronan) skin when remaking that monster inside and out into a moving preserved corpse.
No one could defeat her in the field of magic.
So the final safety had to be placed in an entirely different field. That very human fear and caution could be seen in her very design.
That human would not allow himself the arrogance of Westcott and Mathers.
His history of failure and defeat had taught him all too well what happened when he sought too much power.
He knew from the beginning he was going to look pathetic in the end, so he had developed a habit of considering in advance what he could do in those parameters. This was the result. Aleister asked a question as his finger rubbed gently at the slide switch embedded in the woman’s skin.
“Would you be angry if I confiscated that?”
“No, ❌ really.”
Anna Kingsford did not even look back while holding the singing face film can on one hand like a tray. The light swaying atop her hat looked like a pleasant will-o’-the-wisp.
That true master was looking past the crowd and below the New Year’s fireworks where a boy’s group was filled with bright hope at the possibility of getting at the Bridge Builders Cabal using a GPS tracker. Those young lives would not hesitate as they moved into the new year.
The dark claws and fangs of magic had failed to reach them.
The historical genius teacher happily narrowed her eyes behind her glasses, like that joy was her own.
“My job is to aid the 🙂 around me. I am willing to do anyone’s bidding if it will lead to an 👍 result. If you are willing to accept clear punishment if you fail to hold up your end, then I need not explain the process. I, Magician Anna Kingsford, am also one who has chosen to walk this path. I have long since dedicated myself to this life too much to worry over whether I live or 💀.”
“This path, huh? Ma’am, this is a silly question asked purely out of personal curiosity, but what is a magician in your mind?”
“It is that which you find before you.”
That was her entire answer.
She did things very differently from Aleister whose habits from his time among the contrarians of the Golden cabal led him to give lengthy answers to even simple questions.
But just like with E=mc2, the simplest answers were the most beautiful.
Anything beyond that was mere lip service meant to help the less experienced understand. Like the reference book sitting next to the main textbook.
So when Anna Kingsford kept going, it was a sign of the great gap in skill between the two of them.
“If someone is bedridden with 🤒, a magician brings them 💊. If someone’s 🌾s are suffering during a drought, a magician makes it 🌧️. If a poor 👧 requires a 👗 for the ball, a magician prepares one for her. A magician requires no further explanation or qualification. Magic can simply be defined as a strange 🔌 ordinary 🙂 can ❌ understand. And a magician should be one who 🎁s the blessings of magic to all 🙂 whether they have any specific knowledge of any specific field. If a magician sees someone in need, that is all the reason they need.”
The great difference elicited bitter laughter from Aleister, who had singlehandedly won the Battle of Blythe Road.
But that probably was what magic really was. Just like Westcott and Mathers had failed to become the children’s book idea of Santa Claus or the Kasa Jizo because they had wanted to be someone special, had been obsessed with their elite tastes, and had fought among their own Golden members for superiority, ultimately tearing the cabal apart.
Aleister of course was little different. He had been exposed to their oppression, raised in their hatred, and never attempted to hide his own desire when using magic. He had taken some serious detours before his rematch with Mathers had taught him that magic was meant to give form to people’s most precious feelings.
Anna Kingsford had died shortly before the founding of the Golden cabal. That was why Westcott had borrowed the name of that outstanding magician for his lonely falsified letters (whether or not a magician named Anna Sprengel really existed in Nuremburg, Germany) and why Aleister, who had joined the cabal later on, had had never directly learned anything from Mrs. Kingsford.
Would he have seen the path of magic differently if he had been given that opportunity?
Would he not have created a technical system that would make use of a pregnant woman if it would advance his goals?
(This is all meaningless sentiment.)
Do not forget that Aleister Crowley had possessed a gloomy personality even before making contact with the Golden cabal. Even without Mathers and Westcott’s influence, he would have suffered a magical fall eventually.
It was only after around a hundred years of experience that Aleister could give a simple response here. He chose to seal away his bad habits and respect his predecessor’s simplicity.
“I see.”
“However.”
Until a moment before, that powerful Rosicrucian had thought she had complete control of the world, including science, magic, and even the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal. She had been reduced to no more than a flat face and an intangible change came over the expert who held her. She had already proven very clearly what happened to any magicians who arrogantly misbehaved in her presence, regardless of their rank or legendary status.
With that established, Anna Kingsford simply smiled.
“If your behavior moves beyond what I deem to be necessary, I will ❌ hesitate to turn against you. The 💯 safety you so selfishly imagine you have can be torn down at any time.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
Aleister pushed up on the physical slide switch installed along the centerline of her back between the shoulder blades. He was only using one finger, but he was as cautious as someone gently slicing open a heart with a knife.
The light vanished from the top of her hat and from her glasses and she collapsed to the asphalt in standby mode. Aleister ignored her like she was a mere tool and picked up only the face film can.
Was he the dancer seeking a saint’s head? Or was he the lonely Norse god seeking wisdom and advice?
The human lifted the can respectfully in both arms, brought the face to eye level, and spoke.
“I think it’s time you told me everything, Anna Sprengel.”
“About what?”
“About the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal. Especially with regards to Alice Anotherbible.”
He was answered with silence.
He was willing to throw the flat film can like a frisbee as a toy for the golden retriever, but there was no need to rush.
Anna Sprengel could not defeat Anna Kingsford.
She could retry it trillions of times and the result would never change. Just like rock could never lose to scissors.
The battle was already over.
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a children’s story adored not just in England but worldwide. However, it carries an entirely different meaning for anyone with a knowledge of Kabbalah. That legend is fairly well known in the magical world.”
“…”
“But you see, I started that legend and I never even met Lewis Carroll. People also say Alice’s innocence, her fixation on other people’s inner thoughts, and the adventure that led her on are the origin of the Thelemic principle of listening to your heart as spelled out in the Book of the Law. In other words, Alice Anotherbible is something born of the unique system of Magick developed by Aleister Crowley.”
So what exactly was she?
Aleister didn’t think she was a tarot set that reproduced a specific person’s mind like he had seen when dealing with the Golden cabal, but there had to be plenty of other methods. She could be an artificial human created from specific external effects applied to a pregnant woman, she could be an artificial spirit like the Loch Ness monster, or she could be any number of other things.
Had a new life been created for its creator’s purposes?
Or had an existing person had their soul reshaped?
Sex, drugs, and cults. The system of Magick allowed one to ignore all existing morals and taboos to improve their personal magic, so there were plenty of options.
This truly was the opposite of aiding others. Aleister had developed it all himself, but even he had eventually grown disgusted with how extremely self-serving it was.
“Sing for me,” he said.
“Is that my role?”
“I realize I am about the last person in the world who can get away with saying this, but I am going to say it anyway: This is really pissed me off and I will not let you or anyone else toy with that boy’s life any further.”
The phone conversation underway did not match the mood of the shouted countdown, the cheers, or the booming fireworks.
“Eh? Touma, if you were having money trouble, you should have just asked your mother and me to send you some. In fact, I thought we sent you a fair amount for the winter after you said you weren’t coming home for the holidays.”
“How many times do I have to tell you it’s too late to send me money now!? I said up front the ATMs don’t start running again until the 4th. That’s why I decided I couldn’t count on any New Year’s money and took my chances with a part-time job in Shibuya instead.”
“Yes, but we could just use HayHay.”
“…What?”
“The electronic payment service. The one you can use to pay at the supermarket or convenience store by holding your phone out to the machine next to the register. Remember when you called to tell us you were using a smartphone now – I guess just to test out the call function – and you sounded so excited about it? We sent a gift payment to your account back then, so you should have a fair amount of funds available. Touma, you really need to learn how to use all the basic apps. Why is my teenage son more clueless about this than a middle-aged man like me?”
“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”
Kamijou quickly covered the speaker of his phone with his hand, but it was too late.
The cheap phone was bad about sound leakage.
He trembled as he looked to the side to find Kumokawa Seria shaking her head with a hand on her forehead. The look on his beautiful upperclassman’s face clearly said, “Sorry, boy, but I can’t think of a solution to this one.”
Then the 15cm god and the gluttonous nun attacked him simultaneously.
The peaceful scene some of the world’s strongest monsters had wished for was dyed red with spilled blood.
