Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth8 (section)

===Part 1===

The blazing summer sun shined down from above.

Misaka Mikoto, a student at the prestigious Tokiwadai Middle School, groaned as she sat up to find she didn’t recognize her surroundings. The ground was hard and metallic. The blue sky was as clear as could be, the scent of sea salt hung in the air, and a watery horizon surrounded her in all directions.

“Where am I?” she thoughtlessly muttered.

Taking a seated look around brought no answers and opening her phone’s map app only produced a full-screen error window.

Mikoto hadn’t been the only one lying there. Dozens – no, hundreds – of unconscious girls wore the same summer uniform. She hadn’t actually counted them all, but she guessed that the entire student body was present.

Mikoto couldn’t remember what had happened.

Hadn’t she been in class like normal a moment ago?

(Was I knocked out with some kind of drug? No, it doesn’t seem like it. I think I would remember the moment I passed out if that was it.)

And they appeared to be on a ship. Not just a boat or a yacht. This was bigger. It was probably a massive ship measuring several hundred meters long.

“It looks like a cruise ship,” commented a thoughtful-looking Shirai Kuroko, the twintailed underclassman who had approached at some point. She would hug or nuzzle up against Mikoto given half a chance, so Mikoto used her palm to shove the girl away.

“Fgrhrgh. The ship is named…Izanami? I’ve never heard of one called that.”

“Huh.”

Knowing the names of all the major domestic and foreign cruise ships was a sign of just how rich these girls were.

“Izanami,” repeated Mikoto, still with a somewhat vacant look on her face. “Then this must be a Japanese ship.”

Eventually everyone came to and, without anyone instructing them to, they all began searching around on their own. Or maybe it was just so hot they wanted to get out of the direct sunlight.

(Come to think of it, I’m not sunburned. Does that mean I wasn’t lying out there for very long?)

Mikoto looked out to the horizon, looking puzzled. Her conclusion didn’t seem to fit for other reasons.

Mikoto and the others took a walk around.

Counting the windows from the flat deck showed four or five levels. The odd design of the windows made it hard to be certain. Two bright and shiny buildings towered up on the left and right. The pathway they were walking through now was like a canyon between them. No, it was more like a wide, straight path cutting diagonally across the entire ship. It was a bold spatial design for a cruise ship. It looked something like an open-air arcade in a stylish shopping mall.

However…

“Hm? The cafes, boutiques, and other shops are all empty. There’s no one there. No store clerks and no ship’s crew.”

“Reminds me of the Mary Celeste,” commented Shirai.

Mikoto wasn’t sure what that meant, but it sounded ominous and she chose not to ask about it.

More importantly…



“As big as this ship is, we are still on the ocean.”

“My. Kongou-sama, why is that a problem?”

“Water and food will be limited. And with nothing but water to the horizon in every direction, we have no idea which way to look for land. Heh. That means we are all adrift together!!”

“My, my. Leave it to you to realize something so important before anyone else!”



Kongou Mitsuko and the swim team members didn’t sound all that concerned, but they were essentially correct. Why noticing their crisis was something to be proud of was a mystery, however.

Adrift.

Stranded.

Could their lives be at risk here?

“We probably don’t want to stay here for long.”

“But, Onee-sama, are you suggesting we operate this large ship ourselves? And we don’t know which direction to go to find land.”

“We don’t need to worry about all that. A ship this size will have a communications room. We only have to send out an SOS and wait for rescue. And if we send out a radio signal on the empty ocean, the rescue team can locate us from that.”

“Oh. That makes sense.”

Now, operating a ship and using the radio required licenses, but the Judgment girl didn’t seem to have thought it through that far. Mikoto wanted to get the necessary work done before that righteous lecturer got around to complaining.

But just then…

“Misaka-saaan. A moment of your time.”

For some reason, Shokuhou Misaki, who she normally didn’t get along with, chose that moment to approach her.

Why?

The queen’s ringlets partner was only standing by her side and smiling, so she didn’t seem all that reliable either.

Shokuhou gestured Mikoto over to the interior of the ship, where the air was quite a bit chillier.

And not just due to the air conditioning. The space was as wide open as a shopping mall, but there was no sign of anyone here either. There were no announcements or even music playing. It felt like they had carelessly wandered inside before opening time.

But apparently this wasn’t what Shokuhou had wanted to show Mikoto. Hokaze opened a metal waterproof door that was very clearly meant for staff only and the Queen walked through first. They all descended an exceptionally steep and narrow staircase that felt terribly out of place on a cruise ship.

They ended up in a space that had to be more than 100m across. The bulkheads had been intentionally removed.

Bright lights lined the ceiling like in a gym and shined down on elevators large enough to raise and lower a truck and all sorts of tools Mikoto couldn’t identify.

And it was all meant to work on what covered the floor.

Fighter craft.

Mikoto could see more than 20 of them.

There could be even more elsewhere, of course.

What were those doing here?

Shokuhou had found them earlier and already had an answer.

“It’s some kind of aircraft carrier. A nuclear-powered one.”

“That’s absurd…” reflexively replied Mikoto, but Shokuhou slapped her palm against a large button on the wall.

With a deafening operation siren, one of the walls opened up. The thick fore bulkhead opened, letting in the sea breeze.

Something drew a straight line along the floor.

It was a groove. Or more accurately, the guide rail for an electromagnetic catapult.

“I’ve never heard of one that directly launches the aircraft from the maintenance hangar, but it’s probably meant as a form of camouflage.”

“Did you say ''camouflage''?”

“Remember the arcade up top? That wide, straight-line path cutting diagonally across the entire giant ship? Remove the rain sheet off the top and it would gain some landing runway ability, don’t you think?”

Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami.

That would mean this ship pretending to be a cruise ship was in fact a 300m nuclear-powered ship.

“Does this really matter?”

“Ugh, we really are on different wavelengths… Even Academy City follows the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. So don’t you find it odd the country would build a nuclear-powered military ship and disguise it as a passenger ship? And these are stealth aircraft, but not the usual American F-35s. They all look Japanese to me.”

“I’m more interested in surviving.”

The Queen puffed out her cheeks and repeatedly slapped at Mikoto, but she was so unathletic it didn’t hurt much.

“Sigh, I don’t know why I bothered telling you… And slapping such a flat chest doesn’t provide much sensation ability or fun.”

“Do I need to punch yours to make them really jiggle?”

Anyway, the pressing task for Mikoto and the other girls was not to solve this mystery or conspiracy.

A military ship was guaranteed to have some professional communication equipment. Sending an SOS to land and waiting for rescue was their top priority. Whether this was a cruise ship or an aircraft carrier, even a ship of this size would only have so much water and food, so they would run out eventually.

And there were already some girls pulling out thick manuals and flipping through them.



“Hm, I see. So this uses an electromagnetic catapult system. And when landing, you use this net.”

“You understand all this, Kongou-sama?”

“She is the daughter of an airline company, after all.”



Kongou Mitsuko and Wannai and Awatsuki of the swim team appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Maybe this was just what happened with the elites of Tokiwadai. Even if they had never seen something before, they were fast learners. Instead of limiting themselves to communications, they were poring over every manual they could find. At this rate, they might learn how to operate the laundry, how to tame the nuclear-powered engine, and everything in between.

Even if Mikoto and Shokuhou did nothing, it looked like someone would probably send an SOS from the bridge or CIC before long.

“Onee-sama, where are you going?”

“To check those fighters. The aircraft should have radios too.”

“If the carrier’s radio can’t reach land, there is no way an aircraft radios could. The difference is like comparing a TV station to a taxi radio. You just want to get a look at it, don’t you?”