Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth7 (section)

===Part 1===

Winning the battle wasn’t the end of it.

They were at an altitude of 800m.

They were flying at a speed of less than 300km/h.

That meant they had decelerated nearly to the limit for an aircraft, but they were still moving far faster than a car on the highway.

Which meant they couldn’t afford even the slightest mistake.

Since they were flying, they would have to perform a landing. A deck landing in this case. Mikoto, Shirai, and Hokaze could not let their focus slip until they had landed on Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

No matter how ridiculous it seemed, they were risking their lives. Even without an enemy and without any air-to-air missiles, screwing up the deck landing would mean death.

“By the way, Kuroko, that was smart choosing Hokaze-san as the other pilot. She makes great ''insurance''.”

“Eh? That is not why I chose her, Onee-sama. I merely thought her superior strength would make her less likely to blackout. I would never entertain such thoughts.”

“?”

If it was only Mikoto up there, the wicked queen could lie and give false instructions that indirectly caused her to crash, but she couldn’t tell that to the ringlets girl tilting her head in confusion.

“Kobayashi here. I am here in the CIC working control with the Queen. We are ready for your landing, so we will display instructions on your screens. Match your speed, angle, and altitude to the instructions you receive. Misaka-sama, you can go first since you are the most fatigued.”

“I can’t believe you would take a stroll in the supersonic world wearing your uniform instead of an anti-g suit, Misaka-san. That goes beyond being a musclebound gorilla. Academy City really has created a dreadful monster. I don’t think the #3 even qualifies as a mammal. You seem more like a dinosaur to me.”

“God, I want to shoot a missile at the carrier.”

She would have done so if she had any anti-ship weapons, but unfortunately she did not.

“Also…”

“I know, Misaka-sama. That carrier seemed like a labyrinth, but it looks like a speck from up here.”

Hokaze was right.

The blue sky and the sea were like planes of death created by a lazy god and that one artificial object sat in the space between. If they fell anywhere other than that tiny speck, they would die.

It was now time to descend toward that speck. To be blunt, its size made the idea terrifying.

Where was the landing runway on that speck?

Was it that?

The arcade running diagonally through the cruise ship? The rain sheet that had acted as a roof had been removed to open it up, but camouflage structures the size of 4-or-5-story buildings towered up on either side.

…Would this be like squeezing a fighter into the gap between buildings at school? And Mikoto’s craft was about 20m long.

(The standard single-seat Shinshin was less than 15m long. Why did they feel the need to make this bigger two-seat custom?)

This was going to be a tight fit.

As sturdy as the fighter felt, a crosswind could still push it and the carrier itself would be endlessly rising and falling thanks to the waves.

“Yikes! That’s like landing in a narrow valley between two giant mountains!!”

“Um, uh… Onee-sama, I don’t think someone of your meager size needs to worry about any valleys between big mountains…”

“Kuroko, shut up or I will shoot you down.”

After Mikoto’s threat, Shokuhou’s exasperated voice came in over the radio.

“Izanami to the flat pair. Your landing will be guided by microwave and laser, so there’s no problem. If you follow the instructions on your display, you will be navigated with a margin of error of less than 30cm. The ILS is apparently precise enough for you to land inside a tunnel. …Listen, Misaka-san. That means you have no reason ability to doubt what I’m telling you.”

(This is going to be tricky. It’ll be even harder than piloting an unfamiliar fighter without any practice.)

“I don’t need Mental Out to read your mind, Misaka-san. Doubt me if you want, but if you are going crash, do it in the water. I don’t want to have to run around putting out burning metal wreckage on the crucial deck. Especially not out in that blazing sun☆”

In the end, this was a group activity.

There wasn’t much Mikoto could do on her own.

Despite her doubts, she had no choice but to follow the instructions.

(I’m so glad we have Hokaze-san with us. Not as a fighter, but as a valuable hostage.)

“Anyway.”

This was another world.

A world that looked a lot like Earth but was entirely different. Especially with how the fighters and bombers were scantily-clad girls flying through the sky.

Mikoto had a headache. Did this mean they were faced with ''the usual question''?

“How are we supposed to get back to our world?”