Trismegistus

**Trismegistus** (トリスメギストス, *Torisumegisutosu*?), commonly **H. T. Trismegistus** (H・T・トリスメギストス, *H. T. Torisumegisutosu*?) (short for **Hermes Thoth Trismegistus** (ヘルメス・トート・トリスメギストス, *Herumesu Tōto Torisumegisutosu*?)), is a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, introduced in *Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index*.

## Etymology

Trismegistus, specifically Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice-Great") - syncretized from the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth, is a legendary figure whose attributed works form the basis of Hermeticism.

The initials before Trismegistus are derived from the first letters of either the syncretized deities behind Hermes Trismegistus (the default above) or the deities he is currently invoking (e.g. Z. I. Trismegistus with Zeus and Indra).

## Appearance

Trismegistus is a black-haired young man, described as looking like a gloomy butler. He wears an old-fashioned black coat with a brown lining, a light blue tailcoat, a white inner shirt, a brown cravat, dark grey trousers, white gloves, black shoes and triangular brimmed hat. He also has a black cane, less than a 1m long, hiding a sword.

## Personality

On the surface, Trismegistus is a rather calm, polite and humble gentleman who faithfully follows orders and is generally kind towards the people around him. He acts as a butler to Alice Anotherbible, calling her his 'beloved' master (afraid of her anger as a tyrant in his heart) and himself merely a servant. He even went out of his way to prevent Shokuhou Misaki from reading Alice's mind, knowing very well that it could drive her insane. However, he can also be cruel, ruthless and unmerciful against any obstacles or threats, and if he deems something to be a dangerous element to the cabal, he will immediately move to eliminate it at once without holding back.

In addition to this, Trismegistus bases his actions on what he sees as "common sense" (一般的, *Ippanteki*?) (frequently incorporating the phrase or variants of it in his speech). He despises things which would distort "common sense", driven by emotions, religion, superstitions and other factors, and has expressed dismay when his own perception of "common sense" is shaken. Moreover, Trismegistus is quite self-righteous, posssesing a holier-than-thou mentality and fully believes that the Transcendents should deal salvation evenhandedly.

## Background

The legendary figure Hermes Trismegistus ("Hermes Thrice-Great"), a syncretization of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, was the attributed author of works such as the Hermetica, which form the basis of Hermeticism. Outside the story and legend behind it, the name Trismegistus was something like a shared penname which ancient scholars and academics used to release their papers anonymously.

Besides the influence of Hermeticism (and thus Trismegistus) on the Golden Dawn (a.k.a. the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), aspects tied to Trismegistus are also present in Thelema and Magick, with Hermes and Thoth are equated in Aleister Crowley's occult dictionary Liber 777, as well as Thoth's name being used for the Thoth Tarot and the Egyptian god of writing also being associated with the Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass.

As for the Transcendent going by the name Trismegistus, his exact background before and after joining the Bridge Builders Cabal is currently unknown, his fixation on common sense, his mentions of the Plank of Carneades and how superstitions creep into academia and distort common sense, and remarks on how no matter how logically one explains their academia theories there was nothing one could do when people brush them aside based on emotion, seem to show Touma glimpses as to what led him down his path.

## Chronology

### Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index

#### Post-Handcuffs Arc

*Main article: Post-Handcuffs Arc*
When Aradia was guiding Anna around their base, she prioritized introduction to Alice, saying that Trismegistus could wait. After the events surrounding the crash of the Overhunting, as well as the battle in the Vanishing Tunnel, Alice was brought back from Academy City by Anna. Greeting Alice upon her return, H. T. Trismegistus and the others in the group were shocked and dismayed to find that Alice's newfound interest in Kamijou Touma had swayed her from using her magic to benefit their plans.

#### New Year's Arc

*Main article: New Year's Arc*
On January 1st, Trismegistus and Good Old Mary accompanied Alice when she went to greet Kamijou Touma as he and others were making their New Year's Day shrine visits in School District 12. During the encounter, he dissuaded Shokuhou Misaki from peering inside Alice's psychedelic mind.

On January 2nd, Trismegistus greeted Alice when she brought Touma's group to the cabal's newly established consulate, cleaning mud from her clothes and beginning to prepare some games to amuse her for when she showed the guests around her new secret base. After briefly facing Alice's wrath when Touma inadvertently told her about the Killers and Rescuers, Trismegistus explained how the cabal were intending to execute Anna Sprengel for her betrayal, with Mut Thebes present. He was also present for dinner and washed up afterwards.

On January 3rd, Trismegistus encountered Touma and Aradia just after Touma had decided to try and convince the cabal to not to straight up execute Anna Sprengel, with Aradia having just been convinced by Othinus that Touma met her protection conditions. On hearing what the two had to say on the matter, Trismegistus decided that Touma was a dangerous element and immediately moved to kill him at full power, after having struck down Aradia.

After releasing his seal and renewing himself from H. T. to Z. I. Trismegistus, he pursued Touma through the grounds, intending to finish him off before Alice could learn of what he was doing. Trismegistus eventually decapitated him, but Touma had brought enough time for Mary to arrive and revive him, meeting her conditions. The two Transcendents then fought, with Mary eventually releasing her own seal, until Alice arrived to punish them, with only Touma's intervention preventing her from killing them.

ollowing Touma's escape from the consulate, seeing Alice left in a broken state, Trismegistus unleashed Mut Thebes with an enraged roar, splitting himself down the middle as he did so. After composing himself before the recovered Bologna Succubus (whom he sent to aid Mut Thebes in seeking out her target), he decided to call in other Transcendents from outside the city, with the cabal to immediately begin their ceremony, with the risk of Alice's condition worsening to the point of being unable to perform.

Over the next two days, Trismegistus directed the cabal's complex ceremony as its timekeeper. Late on January 4th, he took to the stage himself for the conclusion of the ceremony, which brought their intended savior Christian Rosenkreuz into the world. Presenting him with a robe and telling him why they had brought him into the world, Trismegistus was then shocked when CRC knocked him and the other Transcendents down, revealing himself to be drastically different for the worse from what his legend claimed. Helpless on the ground, a distraught Trismegistus could only watch in horror as CRC turned his attention to Alice, the only one still standing, and crushed the motionless girl's head.

## Abilities

As a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal, Trismegistus is said to be powerful enough to rival the regular magic side on his own. Like some other Transcendents, he uses common tone creation to translate and synthesize his speech into unfamiliar languages.

Trismegistus has extensive training in sorcery, allowing him to generate and control a great number of mystical abilities for a variety of purposes. He is capable of conjuring various items and objects from thin air in a manner resembling that of a stage magician, as well as making them disappear again. Whether this involves storage compartments hidden within his cloak is unknown. Items he has produced include cleaning tools, a leather notebook, a heavy load of movie pamphlets and TRPG rulebooks, a handkerchief, detergent, a dryer, an iron, a leather jacket and a long, narrow adult-sized coffin with slits for stabbing swords into. He can also transform external objects into other forms and substances by magic; for instance, he has turned clouds into dragons and even changed cars into ice cream. During his meeting with Kamijou Touma, Trismegistus was able to turn the cup of tea in his hand into a can of soda that was also able to magically refill itself. Moreover, Trismegistus can even alter the properties of matter. He can make things harder/stronger or weaker/more brittle, make metal stretch and rubber break like glass. He can even make things hotter than the sun, or "so cold that it burns". He can also use enchantments to bring inanimate objects to life and mystically imbue objects or beings with specific but temporary powers and bestow superhuman attributes to living beings or inanimate objects.

In battle, Trismegistus wields a **cane sword** (仕込み杖, *Shikomizue*?), a spiritual item concealed within his cane, rapidly unsheathing it from its scabbard and slashing, in the manner of iai or battōjutsu. Trismegistus doesn't need to hit his target with the blade as it produces a projectile slash when unsheathed, with cleaves through obstacles in its path, with a range of at least 10m. The **slashing attack** (斬撃, *Zangeki*?) is extremely fast and difficult to avoid. In addition, the attack's direction is not always straight and can be changed. With his seal released, Trismegistus can also add various other phenomena, such as fire, water, light, crystals etc, to his slashing attacks, allowing him to produce blasts, bombs, water jets and more in addition to cutting.

### Transcendence

Like many other Transcendents in the Bridge Builders Cabal, Trismegistus can release a seal in order to draw on power transcending that of regular humans, with an incantation involving the declaration of **"Risk 4"** (リスク4, *Risuku 4*?) and **"departing human territory"** (人域離脱, *Jin'iki Ridatsu*?). In the case of Trismegistus, this power is in the form of a '**trio of great beings'** (三倍も偉大なる者, *San-bai mo idainaru mono*?) and the nature of his seal is a **numberless seal** (数なき封印, *Kazunakifūin*?).

By invoking the names and imbuing the powers of two existing gods into his right and left hands, Trismegistus forms a triad from his hands (the invoked gods) and his main body (himself), implanting the world with a false definition that he is a god too, making his own power into that of a new, **false creator god** (偽装創作神, *Gisō Sōsaku-shin*?) not found in any mythology. When doing this, his initials change to reflect the deities whose power he is channelling, such as Hermes (H), Thoth (T), Zeus (Z), Indra (I), Odin (O), Mercury (M). Depending on the combinations of these gods, the characteristics of his magic (e.g. fire, light, crystals etc) change.

## Character Art Design

### Gallery

Trismegistus as he appears in the contents of *Souyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 7* by Haimura Kiyotaka.Trismegistus's character design by Haimura Kiyotaka.