Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume14 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 15===

They had decided to rescue the ordinary people trapped in a car out on the street.

Hiding inside a reinforced concrete building, mourning clothes Mikoto was the first to speak up.

“The biggest problem with the steam outside is the immense heat and pressure.”

“That’s two problems,” complained Kamijou.

“No, it’s one. The heat is what causes the moisture to expand and produce steam. And that expansion is what creates enough pressure to destroy concrete walls.”

It was important to confirm the basic facts of the situation.

The only flaw was how learning the extent of their hopelessness depressed him so much.

But Kanzaki, who was listening in, saw things differently.

“So we just have to cool it. Is that what you’re saying? The solution is simple. If we cool all that steam, it will return to harmless drops of water.”

Everyone would say that wasn’t possible.

After all, there was enough steam to engulf an entire district. And it was over 400 degrees Celsius. That was hot enough to melt car tires and soften asphalt. Dumping a bucket of water on it wasn’t going to cut it.

“But her logic itself isn’t wrong,” said Othinus.

“Fool. That kind of logic is a crucial condition for magicians. It may look like we can do anything, but we actually achieve our desired result by following a set of laws not found in your chemistry or physics textbooks,” added Anna Sprengel.

Kanzaki listened in while spreading out a large piece of paper on a table.

“We need a simple Christian legend related to cooling. I would suggest St. Dorothea and Theophilus. Agnese, may I borrow a few of your Catholic nuns?”

“Could subordinates like us say no if we wanted to? But that story is the opposite of what you want. The legend says the fresh roses and apples were delivered in the freezing February winter.”

“Which is why we reverse it by adjusting the symbols. Index.”

“That should be easy.”

And they only needed the logic to be sound.

No matter how absurd it looked, they only needed to have “correctness” on their side.

Kanzaki Kaori boldly made her claim.



“From there, I can force it through with my power as a Saint.”



At first, Kamijou thought a machinegun was firing outside.

But no.

Rain was pouring down outside the window. The white steam filling the district was instantly cooled into drops of water. There was so much of it it seemed like the weather had completely changed.

They had altered the scenery itself. The logic may have been sound, but the scale was something else entirely. How many tens of thousands of tons of liquid nitrogen would you need to cause this?

Kamijou felt silly even trying to calculate it.

“This won’t last long… Let’s head out!!”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

But once outside, he found a brown muddy river.

He had stepped down out of the building on pure momentum, but now he couldn’t take another step forward. Everything below his hips felt wrong. If he didn’t keep a hand on the wall and watch his step, he would be dragged down and swept away by the water. He was pretty sure only Alice would be able to stand in this muddy current without difficulty.

The car in question was less than 100 meters away.

Yet getting their was no easy task.

“I think you overdid it!! This is going to wash the car away!”

“This was the only way to keep the hot steam from boiling us!! Everything we do is on the level of changing the weather or dropping a shooting star from the sky!”

The scale of everything with Saints was off the charts.

Kamijou nearly stumbled on the way, but not just because of the current. Something was wrong with the ground. The melted asphalt may have re-hardened in the wrong shape.

Kamijou and Index somehow managed to reach the light car that was rocking like a small boat. The weird round car’s engine compartment looked like a metal drum on its side. Since this was District 19, did it run on steam? No, the lack of smokestack suggested it used coal instead.

Somewhat exasperated, Othinus spoke up from his shoulder.

“If it was a car that used a huge battery to power heating elements that heat water into steam to power the car, it would have been a high-tech eco car.”

This was the part that worried Kamijou.

“The car’s partially submerged, so touching it isn’t going to give me an electric shock, is it? Damn…”

Something banged on the glass from the inside.

Someone was in there. Two someones. Just like the girl had said. Hard to tell if they were more afraid of the steam or the muddy river, though.

(I’m risking my life here too. But I made it this far, so I’m going to save them!!)

The car’s doors weren’t going to open outwards while partially submerged like this. Kamijou grabbed a branch floating down the muddy river and climbed up onto the car’s hood. Sensing his weight, the car’s alarm started beeping, but now wasn’t the time to complain about that. This was probably being recorded by the drive recorder, but he still swung his makeshift bat down towards the windshield.

He smashed right through it, but that wasn’t enough and Kanzaki moved in to tear the rest out along with its frame.

She practically clung to the survivors to drag them out of the car.

The car itself slid sideways, pulled by the current.

It wasn’t going to last much longer.

Clinging to a tree a short distance away, Anna Sprengel shouted over at them.

“With this powerful current, trudging back upstream would be inefficient. Fool, let the current take you! Take shelter in a different building downstream!!”

“Dammit, are you kidding me!?”

He swore, but he was the one who had decided to save these people.

He just had to stick to it to the end.

He started to jump down from the car, but he was stopped by a tug on the back of his neck. Courtesy of Misaka Mikoto.

“Stay there.”

The car clearly moved below his feet. But with a stability not found when the current was pushing it sideways. Was that because he could sense a human will behind it? She must have been magnetically controlling it.

Something shifted out of the way below the water and it began to ride the current like a boat.

Something passed by overhead. He instinctually looked up…and felt his heart freeze when he realized it was a power line. Specifically, an exposed high-voltage line like those used by trains.

“Do they have a retro streetcar running in this area? What would’ve happened to us if that had snapped and fallen into the water?”

“Why is that your main concern when you’re traveling downstream with a billion-volt power source?” asked Mikoto.

The steam car bumped into the stairs at the bottom of a pedestrian overpass.

The muddy river would have prevented them from opening any ground floor doors even if they had wound up right alongside one. Instead, Kamijou, Index, Mikoto, and Kanzaki rushed inside what looked like a department store through the second floor entrance.

Kanzaki shouted into what looked like a paper charm.

“I will be ending the cooling spell’s effects, so everyone get inside a sturdy building! You have 10 seconds!!”

Her countdown was precise.

The white steam once more ruled the world. On the other side of the glass door was a world of deadly steam that would instantly boil a human being with a temperature of more than 400 degrees Celsius.

“While this is tempered security glass, the door could break at any moment. Let’s head further up.”

“What about Coronzon?”

While they dealt with this sidequest, she was free to act.

They had given her time.

So was she already past the wall?

If she had been freed into the wide world beyond, could they even find her? Kamijou felt more and more worried.

But just then…

“Ksshh…ey…”

He heard a sound.

No, a voice. From the small radio Kanzaki held.

“Hey! Please someone listen. This is the Central Boiler’s general steam control room. We somehow managed to keep the rest of the boilers from blowing. We have control of the pressure, so there’s no concern of any more steam escaping! Oh, but call the fire fighters and tell them to hurry!! The Anti-Skill officer helping us hasn’t returned!!”

“Oh, shut up. I’m still alive. Really, if you have fireproof suits for welding work, you should’ve told me. I nearly died.”

Kamijou took a look outside…and sure enough. The density of steam had fallen to little more than a thin fog. He could see things clearly outside. This had started out as a January night cold enough for snow. Without any additional steam, things would cool down on their own.

He and the others tried heading out.

It felt like a sauna. It was hot and humid enough to forget it was January. But it wasn’t enough to burn them. And the muddy river was gone.

Othinus took a look around from his shoulder.

“Looks like you can walk around outside now.”

“I guess it was the heat, but that red snow is gone from the ground.”

Probably a combination of the river and the sauna. Whatever the case, District 19 was clean.

“Fool.”

“Teacherrrr!”

The others caught up with them in the unpleasant steam.

And regrouping meant that girl had been reunited with her parents. The reunion took the form of a tearful embrace.

The steam was no longer a concern. That much was good news. But not all the news was good.

They had lost track of Coronzon. And they had no further clues.

His selfishness had come at a steep price.

Or so he thought, but he had underestimated things.

There were others here fighting.

“Also,” said a voice on the radio. “We have a report from the vicinity of the wall. You’re pursuing a fugitive, right? I don’t know who you’re after or why, but no one has crossed the wall. That much I’m confident of.”

“Eh?”

Several voices were talking.

It wasn’t just one person on the other side of the radio.



“A university research team was still gathering data with all this going on. They’re running a microscopic and macroscopic experiment where they scatter a sticky steam with high water retention over a wide area to see if it will efficiently stick to airborne pollutants, allowing them to be retrieved. What matters to you is that they can tell if someone approaches the wall by the change in the steam distribution. But they didn’t see anything.”

“Whoever it is must still be in the city. And if they’re not there, they must have turned around and gone to another district. Hurry up and catch them. We’d much prefer things to be peaceful around here.”

“The chief was stuck in his car? Oh, he can go to hell. He left his post without taking leave, so you tell him if he really wants to protect people, he needs to do his damn job. Now, if he were alone, I would just leave him out there, but his wife and daughter didn’t do anything wrong, so I guess we’ll have to help!!”



“Coronzon…didn’t approach the wall?”

It didn’t sound real even as Kamijou spoke the words.

But it was the truth.

…This wasn’t over yet.

He had gotten distracted. Taken a detour. Put the entire planet at risk. …Even so, it hadn’t been a complete waste. Small good deeds and kind acts were gathering together to accomplish something bigger.

Because Kamijou’s group had acted selflessly, now these other people were acting selflessly in return.

They were lending a hand.

The ring of cooperation was growing.

This was a weapon they had and Coronzon did not. …Or maybe it was her complete inability to acquire this that had broken her so badly.

Whatever the case, this wasn’t over.

If Coronzon hadn’t crossed the wall, then they could still pursue her!

Then someone voiced a quiet question.

That someone was Misaka Mikoto.

“But why did that Coronzon person move away from the wall?”

“?”

“If you want to escape, it’s human nature to want to run along the wall, right? The wall is right there and if you can get across, you win. But this Coronzon didn’t hesitate to distance herself from the wall. She went away. Heading toward the center of the city should only put her at more risk. What does she gain from this?”

Now that she mentioned it…

“Coronzon is actually trying to escape…isn’t she?” asked Kamijou.

“Yes, she is,” said Othinus. “Not being caught would be her actual top priority, but she must have a goal in mind. In that case, leaving Academy City probably is her priority.”

“But her actions contradict that.” Kihara Noukan joined the conversation. “Approaching the city center and extending her time in the city should only increase the risk of her being caught.”

“The wall might not actually matter,” cut in Index. The magic side girl provided a viewpoint entirely different from Kamijou and Mikoto. “It’s like you said before, Touma: Great Demon Coronzon isn’t human.”

“…?”

Coronzon’s actions were inconsistent.

That made some sense since fleeing after Adikalika failed hadn’t been her initial plan.

At the very least, this wasn’t all some grand plan she had conceived to deceive Kamijou and the others.

So if they wanted to stop her, they had to think up the kind of idea she would come up with but before she did. They were the pursuers. If they overlooked even one thing, she would use it to slip away.

In that sense, Index was bringing them another step closer to Coronzon.

“If you think of her as a collection of Telesma…then she doesn’t actually need to cross the physical wall to leave Academy City. She just has to break herself down into a mass of energy.”

“Hey, wait a second…”

His assumptions were crumbling around him.

Was that really an option?

Could you really just throw this new way of thinking into consideration!?

“Are you saying Coronzon can send herself, and her physical body too, through the city gas or the water pipes!?”

“I don’t know what ‘city gas’ is, but she probably can, yes,” said Index. Confidently. “If she hitches a ride on a ley line – a giant energy line running below the ground – she can’t just escape the city, she can escape to the other side of the planet!!”

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