Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover2 (section)

===Part 22===

'''(Quenser/Academy City)

When the wall next to him exploded and crumbled down toward him, Quenser knew he would have died in his normal state. Sticking explosives in a pile of rubble, hiding behind cover, and hitting the enemy soldiers with a downpour of stones was a method he had used frequently himself.

But he was an extraordinary gray pig at the moment.

“!!”

With a short breath, he made a backhand blow with his giant fist. He was able to react in time. He felt a chill at his own frightening kinetic vision and reflexes and he sent the scattershot of rubble flying in the opposite direction to protect Kinuhata and Takitsubo.

Or that was his intention.

But when the crumbled and scattering rubble contacted his wrist, it wrapped around his hand. In fact, it was no longer a solid. It was sticky, gray…

(What is this? Cement!?)

“This is super bad. Is that her esper power? Either way, get your hand out of there!!”

He did not have time to listen to Kinuhata’s warning to the end.

The thick skin of his borrowed hand felt the sizzling heat of pressing your palm against a heated grill. But heat was not something that just happened. There had to be a chemical phenomenon that produced it.

(…Doesn’t concrete produce heat when it hardens…?)

Then he realized why the knit dress girl was so concerned. Concrete was not unique in that regard. All matter changed volume when converting between a gas, a liquid, or a solid.

Intense pain came from the gray pig’s hand, like it was being crushed by rapidly hardening concrete.

“Ghhh!!”

He clenched his teeth, swung down his fist with enough force to crush a nearby steel desk, and broke the rehardening concrete off of his hand.

“Oh, how lovely. A normal human’s bones would have shattered like a glass dropped on the floor.”

Thorbjorg giggled.

But Quenser did not understand. What had that been? The hardening of concrete was supposed to be irreversible, so it could not be returned to the soft cement afterwards. Had she created some strange new chemical that did that?

“No. That is an esper power.”

“Don’t state the wrong answer with such confidence. This is what we call Magic.”

Either way, it was abnormal.

The pure destructive power was not the problem. Even with metal Objects in the forefront, the military still placed a lot of trust – bordering on religious faith – in reinforced concrete. Someone like this could ruin important transportation points like sturdy bridges and tunnels or important bases located in fortresses or underground nuclear shelters.

Thorbjorg took her spear or staff with a large crystal ball on the end and she raised it straight up.

Quenser naturally followed it with his eyes and he saw something there: something was wrong with the ceiling. What looked like sharp conical stakes covered the ceiling like a badly eroded limestone cave.

And they had appeared from the side in sync with the crystal ball’s movements.

So what would happen when she swung that spear down?

“!!!???”

There was no time to spare. Quenser grabbed Kinuhata and Takitsubo in his hands and leaped back with all his might. He had no time to worry about the door, so his back broke right though the wall to take them into the hallway.

A tremor shook the entire school building, but it was not the gray pig that had caused it. An even greater impact had dropped from the electronic newspaper club’s ceiling.

And it did not end there.

Thorbjorg used both the soft and hard states. After falling to the floor, the pile of weapons melted and rushed toward Quenser’s group like a surging river.

Fighting that with punches or kicks would be the height of folly. That box of reinforced concrete was like a great maw lined with sharp fangs. Thorbjorg had chosen a hideout that gave her the perfect advantage.

(Dammit!!)

Unable to make use of his potential, Quenser almost immediately chose to jump backwards again, breaking out of a hallway window with his back. The gray torrent also erupted from the windows like spewing vomit, but they just barely managed to avoid having any of it contact them.

They had been on the third floor.

So Quenser spun around in midair and absorbed the impact with his legs as he landed. He could never have pulled that off in his normal body.

Thorbjorg did not come after them.

She elegantly approached the window and gave one glance at the scene outside before more than half the school building lost its shape like piece of candy in the hot air of a blow-dryer.

“Kinuhata, wasn’t there someone in there…?”

“The car is gone from the parking lot, so they must have fled. They might have heard us kicking down the door before this super clash began.”

The school building transformed into a giant coiled snake. Thorbjorg herself was not taken inside, so she stood triumphantly atop its head.

“My Offense Armor is from the ultra super winners of the beloved wind element, so someone from the eternal benchwarmers of the earth element has guts thinking she can outdo me…!!”

“Kinuhata, I’m not sure what you think you’re fighting over here.”

“You see, I am super respectful of Hollywood, but there’s one thing I can never accept. The way they show psychic powers by having people raise their hands and yell while a storm blows in and lightning strikes! Is it not shocking enough if it doesn’t fill the whole screen!? And now this plain old dirt-user is showing that same love of unnecessary flashiness. I’ll super teach you all about the ''wabi'' and the ''sabi'' of paranormal powers!!!!!!”

“And ultra super…?”

“What’s wrong with driving a point home!?”

After going to such lengths to hide her identity, the enemy was as far from discreet as possible once she got going. After this, there would be nowhere for her to hide in this city. …Was that just how afraid she was of being pursued from Ground’s Nir? A lot was still unknown about the conditions for constructing a Gate, but she may have been thinking of giving up on Academy City and fleeing to another world.

“Hey, queen atop her giant pile of shit, are you super listening to me!? Mwa ha ha. I know everyone would forget you even existed if you didn’t climb all the way up there, but I’m sick of all this. Take your filthy mountain and get back to your world!!”

(Why are you provoking her like that!? There’s no point in me staying silent if you do that!)

“…”

Thorbjorg smiled atop the giant snake’s head.

And still smiling, she swung the crystal ball spear and sent a great mass of cement down toward them.