Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter5 (section)

===Part 22===

They had treated them so very well.

In that spinning mill, they had never referred to the elves as slaves and they had cared for them like family. They had given the elves days off, paid them a fair wage, and even given a little extra food to whoever worked the most that day. The ''three'' sisters’ family had been secretly proud of this.

But then one of the elves had made a careless mistake outside of the mansion.

The local lord had unfortunately seen it and the three sisters’ mill was forced out of business by collective responsibility.

Their parents had been imprisoned on charges of negligent supervision. The three sisters had never been in prison, so they didn’t know if the prisoners were treated better or worse than the elves.

They had treated the elves so well, yet none of the elves had provided any assistance.

Not one.

Because after they were taken away to help pay off the family’s debt, they were made to serve other families. The many elves had done nothing to help three sisters of a family they didn’t serve. Because those were the rules. That was how this world worked.

That was all their bonds were worth.

It had all been meaningless.

The three sisters were forced to live out in the mountains like wild animals and work back up from nothing. The youngest sister hadn’t been able to bear it and lost her life. But not because she had starved or been attacked by an animal. She had died of suicide. Unable to leave behind her old civilized life, she had chosen to end it all with a more civilized act.

The youngest sister may have seen it as an escape from hell, but the two surviving sisters had watched their beloved little sister deteriorate day by day. That had built up a rebellious spirit that refused to let it end there. In a way, even with one dead, the three of them were always supporting each other.

So the two older sisters had gritted their teeth, survived, waited for a chance to present itself, and crawled back up.

Using their own power.

That way they needn’t feel indebted to anyone.

And at the same time, they decided it was a law of nature that elves should be captured by humans and used until they collapsed.

If you tried to violate that law, destiny itself would conspire against you.

They no longer felt sorry for the elves. They would never try to save them. If the elves wanted to die, they could die. In fact, the sisters would lend them a helping hand there. Because this was a fortune they had built up with their own blood, sweat, and tears. If this success was taken from them too, they truly would break. So what was wrong with using everything available to them?

“...Maybe we were wrong.”

“Maybe so.”

Something flew toward them.

The witches had no way of knowing it was called a Railgun.

It flew past them without even grazing them, but it still produced a powerful enough gale and shockwave to send them spinning through the air and slam them into the floor.