Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover2 (section)

===Part 20===

'''(Quenser/Academy City)

As its name suggested, Academy City was a city full of schools.

The person they were looking for boldly called themselves the Information Broker, which made them sound about as believable as Nessie.

“They apparently work out of Public Minamino High School’s Electronic Newspaper Club. Of course, that’s a super stereotypical dummy organization, their student ID is fake, and we didn’t look too deeply into it as part of the give-and-take relationship between fellow underworld workers. If they were working with Anti-Skill or Judgment, there would be a super lot of wireless signals surrounding them. Whether they want it or not, compliance rules affect everyone equally. But for our purposes, it only matters that they aren’t a collared dog working undercover.”

Once they went there, Quenser found it to be an odd place. There was a school building. And a schoolyard. There was even a gym and pool. But there was no one there. It was not just that they had moved inside for classes. There was no sign of life over the entire school grounds. Almost like an abandoned hospital wrapped in the cold darkness of late night.

The gray pig did not want to set foot inside so suddenly, so he quietly groaned and viewed it from a distance. The pink track suit girl must have picked up on his doubt from that.

“It’s a diorama school…”

“Think of it like the school version of a model room. They super set up a bunch of classrooms as exhibition rooms. This city has around 2.3 million people and 80% of them are some kind of student. With that many schools, there’s a super high demand in some unique areas. There are even specialist stores for the pointers and magnets teachers use in class.”

“Wow, Academy City has taken the schoolteacher fetish to a whole new level… But they can add some extra data onto the network to make it a secret base, huh? If they have the visitor schedule, they wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone in such a large school.” Quenser crouched down in his giant body and wrote out the words on the asphalt with his fingernails. “But if we know where they are, we can get to work. Let’s settle this before they catch wind of this and try to flee elsewhere.”

“Ah, wait. We need to super check for traps first! You might be able to see simple tripwires, but the grim reaper has tons of invisible feelers he can use: IR, ultrasound, EM, etc.”

“Don’t worry.” Quenser was not just being hopeful. “There’s none of that here. I can just tell when I’m viewing the world through this head.”

Kinuhata had pulled out a cellphone more sensitive than human eyes or ears, so a stiff smile froze on her face. She looked back and forth between the electronic device in her hand and the gray pig’s eyes.

“And I doubt a small explosion is going to do much to this skin. We don’t have time, so I’ll go first and you can follow after.”

“Kh… An intellectual defender like me can’t let this simplistic mass of muscles protect her. Let’s get going, Takitsubo-san! I’ll super show you what Offense Armor can do!!”

Quenser did not really understand, but those two cleared the way while absentminded Takitsubo calmly followed after them. Since it was based on a school, the building was open from every direction, but they still targeted the faculty entrance around back.

“Heh hehh. A school, a terrorist, and a model school. That means I can go super all out without worrying about damaging things!”

“Kinuhata. You should still try to not damage the model rooms.”

But the pink track suit girl showed no sign of actually trying to stop her. That was workers in the underworld for you.

But as Quenser had said, there were no traps. The back door was unlocked, so the facility must have been running at this time. That meant at least the manager who had the keys would be in the giant model school. Quenser wanted to make sure they were not caught in the battle.

The school building looked stereotypical from the outside. It was the rectangle of reinforced concrete anyone would picture in their heads, but the inside was quite chaotic. The hallway was made of calm-colored linoleum, but the doors lining it were all different. The color, the shape of the windows in them, and whether they were sliding or hinged varied from door to door.

When he peeked through the windows, he found the floor, wallpaper, and everything else was different from classroom to classroom. Some had wood flooring and some were tiled like a chess board. One had a blackboard hanging on a traditional wooden wall and another had all white walls for projecting videos on. Some had boxy chairs and desks while others had streamlined shapes that made them look like melted cheese

The highlight was the special classroom zone. Seeing all the different varieties of infirmary lined up in a row made his head spin. He could not imagine what you were supposed to base a decision on.

The pig was nearly four meters tall, so his head came close to scraping against the ceiling as he walked along.

He knew their destination. There were too few people in this building. Even so, it was probably too quiet for human ears to pick up on, but this pig-faced giant was different. Their target’s movements sounded like a shout echoing through a cave.

(The south corner of the third floor.)

Perhaps for private school customers or to create a barrier free environment for wheelchairs, there were several varieties of elevator lined up next to the stairs. They ignored those and climbed the stairs. As they approached the destination floor, Quenser just about laughed out loud despite all the work taken to get here.

They were in the exhibition zone for club rooms. That meant it would be obvious where the Information Broker was hiding. They may have liked roleplaying.

The three of them walked down the hallway and stopped in front of a certain door.

It was labelled “Electronic Newspaper Club”.

The gray pig and the knit dress girl exchanged a nod and then kicked the door down together. With a loud sound, the metal door bent and flew inwards, but the person inside did not even flinch as the giant makeshift shuriken flew right past them.

It was a girl in a sailor uniform whose dark eyes were beautiful but hinted at some kind of sticky emotion. Her black hair was tied in a single braid and her skirt reached below her knees, but that was not enough to hide her individuality. Quenser’s battlefield experience, Kinuhata’s nose for the underworld, and Takitsubo’s mysterious inspiration told them something about her.

…Those were the eyes of a killer.

“So we super meet again.”

Kinuhata began in English and that set a precedent. The other girl responded in kind.

“Oh, isn’t this nice. But I thought ''not'' look too deeply into each other’s personal information was the polite thing to do.”

“Really? When did you learn about this world’s rules? I wish I was that super passionate about learning.”

“…”

The braid girl looked to the pig-faced giant instead of Kinuhata who instantly continued the provocation.

She was afraid he was an assassin from some unfamiliar world who had arrived here via Ground’s Nir. But that meant nothing to Quenser. He just had to make her take responsibility by sealing up the hole she had opened.

So he spoke.

“I only want to send you back. And if you won’t cooperate, then I’ll just have to beat you up until you can’t move and carry you back. So which is it gonna be!?”

''“Boo! Long hair, beautiful black hair. I want to smell it, feel it in my hand, and then strip naked, wrap myself in it, and go to sleep! Pant, pant!!”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The atmosphere froze over.

It had been a while, so this had completely slipped his mind. When he tried to talk like normal, the damn pig’s body would cause it to echo complexly and produce a different wavelength that may or may not have had any meaning.

And since he did not understand this Asian language, he had no idea what it was saying.

But the girl’s reaction made it clear he had stepped on some kind of landmine.

Whether from anger or something else, her entire face grew bright red. She held her own shoulders and backed away.

“This was supposed to be serious! So very serious!! This is the biggest crisis of my life…!”

(Hold on. Wait. Why are Takitsubo and Kinuhata glared at me and clenching their fists? I don’t want this to turn into a three-against-one battle with me as the one!!)

The braid girl grabbed a strange object that had been leaning against the wall. It was made of silver. It had a handle as long as mop’s and the end contained a crystal ball colored gray with a bluish murkiness to it. The bizarre weapon could be interpreted as a spear, a staff, or a hammer.

Quenser felt a chill because he could not even imagine what that weapon would do. It was hard to decide how to dodge.

And the moment of truth arrived.

The murky crystal ball glowed palely.

“Hahhhh…!!”

For some reason, the braid girl’s sailor uniform burst apart from within. The braid that seemed to symbolize her disguise came apart on its own and spread out.

Quenser once more forgot what would happen and cried out.

“Make up your mind! Are you supposed to be modest or an exhibitionist!? And you can’t exactly blame me after you did this!”

''“Squeal. Stripping you is supposed to be my job! Doing it all at once like that is such a waste.”

Not even two seconds later, metal armor appeared out of thin air and equipped itself to the girl’s body.

(Two seconds is pretty short but surprisingly long. You can really see everything in that time.)

Quenser managed to calm down after crossing that hill.

It was gray with a bluish murkiness. The armor completely covered her upper body, but the bottom only formed a miniskirt that stopped at the base of her thighs. Was that supposed to be a way of securing as much mobility as possible? The hair itself also became a murky gray tinged with blue.

“Thorbjorg joins the battle.”

As soon as she named herself, the bluish-gray girl swung her silver staff horizontally. The wall next to Quenser exploded and rushed toward him.