Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter5 (section)

===Part 21===

''Thoom!!

''Kathoom!?

As sturdy as the castle had seemed, it was now shaking like an unsteady suspension bridge. Each time a meters-long bolt launched by a magically-boosted ballista struck, small pieces fell from the ceilings.

With Patissiet and the other elves providing the diversionary fire, Mikoto and Shokuhou magnetically leaped up from the capital to the castle. The scrawny but busty Queen still complained the entire time, though.

They were now inside the castle dozens of meters above the capital.

“Are you sure dragging those elves into this fight was a good idea?” asked Shokuhou.

“Experience is bioelectricity, remember? I made sure to ''boost them all to the level cap of 9999'' with my power, so each one of them should be as sturdy as a fortress. And there’s a whole bunch of them.”

“…”

“Yeah, I know. This world is so convenient it’s actually kind of creepy.”

“At least we managed to escape that Reincarnation Goddess’s plans on our own…”

Mikoto noticed something, so she didn’t respond.

An arrow flew in through the window.

If Shokuhou hadn’t noticed the unusually big smile on the #3’s face and gotten down on the floor, she would have been hit.

“Excuse me, Misaka-saaan!?”

“It’s a message arrow. Huh, Patissiet says they’re winning, so we don’t need to worry about them. Those elves really are unbeatable once you give them bows.”

“Ughhhh, chomp!!”

“Um? Hey, did you just freak out so much you bit me!?”

The giant castle gate at the back of the public square sat partially open.

The garden had been trampled.

No one remained. With no money left to wage war, everyone knew a siege would cut off all their exits with no weapons or food forthcoming. If they obeyed their orders and defended the castle, they would clearly starve to death while trapped inside, so all the professional soldiers and even the gardeners, maids, butlers, tutors, artists, musicians, and cooks had fled.

''Nothing good would come of staying here.

''And this had been their last chance to escape.

The king’s power had hit rock bottom. Mikoto and Shokuhou walked through the haunted house of a castle, searching for that king. He wasn’t in the audience chamber.

Dancer Shokuhou viewed the jewel-encrusted throne from various angles and shoved a hand into the gap between the back and the cushion.

She tossed over something inside a sheath.

“Take this, Misaka-san.”

“?”

“It’s a short sword. I think it would count as a pillow sword. Do you see the stamp on the bottom of the grip? That would be used to prove the king’s identity ability. And if he screwed up bad enough, he could use it to slit his own throat.”

“But he left it behind here?”

Discovering something that shameful would lead anyone to believe the kingdom was done for. Without the excessively decorative sword, the king couldn’t prove his identity. Which meant ''the kingdom had effectively been stolen'', but Mikoto and Shokuhou were only interested in a physical resolution.

They continued down deep into the castle.

Something was crawling around in front of a large safe. It looked like a rodent hiding fruits in the ground to prepare for a harsh winter. After abandoning his dignity and the sword that counted as his signature, the king was relying on his pile of fulgurites which were effectively trash now. He was hopelessly lacking in foresight and crisis management skills. But instead of feeling sorry for him, Mikoto felt sorry for the retainers and other people who had to bow their heads to him.

Shokuhou had a question.

She tilted her head as she asked.

“Did we even need to enter the castle? After stripping him of all his power, couldn’t we have just waited for the debt ability to destroy him?”

“We could have, but we don’t have that much time. It’s faster to deal with him directly.”

The king finally noticed them and let out a shrill shriek.

He was a short and rotund elderly man.

“Oh, so he’s the portly king stereotype,” said Mikoto in disappointment.

“''But he isn’t alone.''”

''Shing!!

Something sharp and heavy flashed down from above. If Mikoto had relied on her ordinary five senses, she would have been killed instantly. Without the radar that sent out electromagnetic waves to detect anyone approaching from any direction, she couldn’t have tackled Shokuhou out of the way either.

“!?”

Mikoto gasped, sprang to her feet, and took an immediate fighting stance.

A pair of figures were swaying unnaturally.

The portly old man, who looked like his own weight would damage his knees if he ran at full speed, was now flanked by a pair of beautiful women who looked out of place next to him. They wore light green fairy tale dresses and appeared to be in their late 20s. Silver swords as long as they were tall rested lightly on their shoulders. A portion of the blade had been blunted near the base so the swords could be carried over their shoulders.

They looked identical.

They may have been twin sisters.

Mikoto doubted they were his wives. A real king could have concubines or take a wife far younger than himself, but something about those women told Mikoto that wasn’t the case here. It was like they were from a different world than him – like there was a barrier of separation between them.

It would have made sense if those two were his advisors or counselors, but their clothing and accessories looked fancier than the king’s.

Mikoto’s first impression of them could be summed up in a single word.

(''Witches''.)

If they only kindly provided accurate advice, they wouldn’t need all that sex appeal.

Why were those sisters working together to dull the king’s ability to make rational decisions?

The pair of witches had made the king their puppet and used him for their own benefit.

Did they benefit from creating a society that caused so much suffering for its slaves and never questioned that fact? And had they set things up so all the blame fell on the king while they could safely escape at any time?

“What’s this sense of deja vu?” said Mikoto. “I swear I’ve seen something like this before? Oh, right. You.”

“Who exactly are you comparing me to here?” asked Shokuhou. “It had better not be the portly king!”

The bewitching women viewed the girls with exasperation.

And their breaths softly left their bewitching lips.

“I am Silver Striker Antoinaisse.”

“I am Silver Defender Sigynette.”

They spoke with smiles on those bewitching flowers.

“You have some nerve appearing here after trampling our flower garden. Like anyone with class and too much time, we know a thing or two about torture and execution. Although our area of expertise is ruling through fear.”

“…”

“When we are done with you, your deaths will go down in history. ''As examples of a fate no one ever wants to experience themselves''. The fear of the silver witches will lead to a century of peace.”

“Hee hee. It has been far too long since I had the privilege of enjoying a young girl’s blood and screams. We shall have plenty of prisoners to experiment on with the uprisings around the kingdom being suppressed, so we will be well-practiced by the time we get to you. We will not fail, so you can rest easy about that at leasy.”

“Um, uh, uh, this is your last chance to apologize! My lovely strategists are truly terrifying when you make them mad! They laughed as they blew away half the volume of a mountain just to eliminate the abnormal group of giants gathered there! When they put down an uprising, they leave behind so many dead bodies the War Investigation Committee never knows quite what to say! I’m talking about a sea of blood and a mountain of corpses! So please stop! I don’t want to see those horrors ever again! I still have nightmares about it, so can’t you all just get along!?”

“Shut up, your majesty☆” “Shut up, your majesty☆”

“Hm.” Bikini armor Mikoto waved a hand in annoyance. “Shokuhou, wanna rock-paper-scissors it? To see who gets to deliver the finishing blow?”

“No, thanks. As a mental esper, it would be bad for my mental health to link minds with someone that stupid.”

“So you want me to do it?”

“Be my guest☆”

Mikoto didn’t give them time to ask what she meant.

The girls who were always at each other’s throats coordinated more quickly than the sisters who had been together since birth.

Those two understood each other on a deep level ''because'' they were enemies.

“Your intel is out of date,” said Mikoto with a displeased wink. “None of those uprisings will be suppressed. Because I already stopped your troops there. If you don’t even know that, you don’t stand a chance. I was at least expecting you to have insulated armor or to redirect my attacks with magnets because your defeated troops sent word back of my electric powers, but you don’t even have that. The Silver Striker and Silver Defender, was it? I don’t know what kind of magic got you those epithets, but ''did you think you could stop lightning with metal''?”

“Eh, ah!?”

“To sum up, you didn’t work hard enough. So forget this. ''Leave us.''”

''Zap!!!!!

A billion-volt current slammed the silver witches into the wall.