Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover3 (section)

===Part 2===

'''(10 Minutes After)

In her red armor and white miniskirt, Holy Swordswoman Beatrice quietly peeked in through the living room entrance while silently nodding her head.

“Good, good. I can’t deny I’m feeling a little lonely, but it’s just wonderful that Boo Boo is making friends.”

“U-u-um, Beatrice? Don’t we have bigger things to worry about? I mean, something clearly isn’t right. This looks like Japan, but it’s completely different. And isn’t it weird that our equipment, appearances, and personalities are stuck in our Ground’s Nir forms even though we’re back on Earth? Plus, everyone can understand each other no matter what language we’re speaking. I feel like space-time has fallen into a Klein bottle…”

White Witch Filinion the glasses cow was the one raining on Beatrice’s parade. She was a plump woman wearing a knit sweater, shorts, cape, and witch’s hat. The airheaded young woman gave off a thick, unhealthy-looking allure that made one think that licking her anywhere would be like eating pure butter.

And if the Holy Swordswoman and White Witch of the level cap group were there, another was sure to be with them. The third member wore a green priest’s outfit with slits more shocking than a China dress on either side of the tight skirt, rising even higher than the base of her thighs. She could not use any healing magic at all and a certain part of her body could not be described too much to preserve her privacy, but to give a vague hint, it was her chest! Yes, that singularly flaaaat chest belonged to Fighter Priest Armelina.

“Ahh… But this place is so relaxing. A futon is so much better than a bed. My parents make tatami mats, so I have a weakness for this soft rush smell.”

As Armelina’s body temperature began to comfortably rise and her head swayed back and forth, the spiky-haired high school boy named Kamjiou Touma gloomily hung his head a short distance away.

“Hi, everyone. It’s your favorite lightning rod of misfortune, Kamijou Touma. …What happened this time? This obviously isn’t Academy City and, since I was in the middle of washing the dishes, the water is still running back home!!”

“More importantly, Touma, we need to investigate the mysterious phenomenon that happened to me. Yes, I had just opened the pudding cup and was about to stick my spoon in when I was transported through space and time!”

“Shut up! Dammit, goddamn fucking nun baby!!”

“(J-jump!?)”

“If you’re going to join the conversation, then give some exposition about yourself! It’s only polite!! There’s plenty you could describe: your white habit, your long and straight silver hair, your hopeless chest that’s just sad to look a-bogyorwaheh!?”

Just as he started lecturing the nun in front of him, the Princess in her special suit kicked him in the butt, Armelina’s metal staff flew toward him, Misaka Mikoto launched a lightning spear, and Aika gave the go sign to the five meter white liger (an unnatural combination of a lion and white tiger) that she used as a couch. For some reason, the powerful feline received more of an explanation than the #3 in a high class girl’s school uniform or the shut-in in a white and green striped bikini.

“Kh. Why don’t I feel awful after being dragged out of my shut-in paradise? This is my first time here, so why does this mysterious Japanese house feel like home?”

Quenser, Heivia, Lu Niang Lan, and Shiroyama Kyousuke were also there, but they were all guys or old women, so they did not matter.

Except…

“I feel like I’m forgetting something I can’t afford to forget.”

The spiky-haired boy was always lamenting his misfortune, but it was Shiroyama Kyousuke who had truly been born under an unlucky star.

“When something weird happens to me, there’s no way that unimaginably evil and blinding whiteness isn’t involved. Heh heh. Heh hah heh! Ah ha ha ha ha ha, goddammit!!”

The boy was overcome by fits of laughter, so everyone naturally kept their distance.

“Ahh, we’re nice and clean now.”

“Squeal… When I get too warm, my nose gets wet and my head feels like it’s boiling…”

Young Shinobu had steam rising from his head as he walked in with the gray pig after their bath.

He must have been moisturized, brushed, and detoxed with some kind of beauty treatment because Boo Boo was glossier than before. Then Shinobu held him close and spoke.

“Okay, time to explain the rules!!”

Things were not looking good. Everyone gathered around 6-year-old Shinobu and sat down to listen.

“For the 1st Sleepless Championship, you can’t sleep! Sleep and you lose! That’s all!!”

“That was fast!”

“And what do you mean by ‘sleep’? I’m seeing a lot of nice racks around here, so are we talking about that sort of-…agwah!?”

Quenser gave a basic response and Heivia took it needlessly far, so the Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata kneed the second boy in the solar plexus, karate chopped the side of his neck when he doubled over, and then made a sharp curving punch into his ribs.

The 6-year-old looked the pig in the eye.

“That sort of?”

“Squeal?”

Beatrice prepared to say it was nothing to worry about with an archaic smile on her face, but…

“If you don’t know something, just ask Beatrice! Beatrice is smart and will tell you anything you want to know!! Heh heh!!”

“No, don’t ask about this! Kh, but when I see Boo Boo that proud of me, I don’t want to say I don’t know!!”

Despite the confusion, they began discussing the details.

Kamijou raised his hand first.

“How do we determine the Sleepless Champion? Do we all get in some futons?”

“Climbing in a futon as soon as the sun goes down is what a kid does!! …Gramps said real gentlemen and ladies stay up late.”

''So he caused this,'' thought the Zashiki Warashi while making mental note of it for later.

“So we can walk around all we want, huh?” asked Mikoto while placing her index finger against her slender chin.

“But you can’t go outside!” Young Shinobu puffed out his cheeks. “You can’t go out to play after taking a bath. Only kids catch cold like that!!”

“Hmm. So basically, we have to fight our drowsiness inside the house? Don’t underestimate a shut-in’s ability to stay up late, little boy.”

Aika summed it up in her striped bikini, but Lu Niang Lan, the beauty in a red modified China dress, looked puzzled.

“But why bother going along with this?”

“Yeah, I’m already feeling sleepy. Yawwwwn… I think being transported through space-time is even more of a burden on your body than jetlag. My head already hurts like I’ve been up 24 hours.”

The White Witch curled up on the spot even though the hallway’s amber-colored flooring was wood. She was so very self-indulgent and defenseless. The opposite sex might have felt their heart pounding at the careless and airheaded allure, but the Holy Swordswoman and Fighter Priest of the same sex only felt irritated. They wanted to kick her.

And everyone had the same thought.

The people who refused to participate in these unreasonable “games” tended to be used as an example, so what kind of “graveyard” did the 6-year-old have prepared for this solid situation? This cow would tell them.

“Munyah?”

Then it happened.

A soft white cloth wrapped around Filinion’s right ankle. But they could not see the other end. It extended endlessly into the distance.

A white cloth.

White.

Queen.

And…

“W-w-w-w-wait! What’s happening!? Beatrice, where is this dragging me off to…!?”

Filinion pointlessly reached out her hands in confusion as she was dragged away by the ankle, but she had no idea she looked like she was being captured by a strange body-snatching alien from the ’80s.

Then Shinobu spoke.

“Oh, the forbidden room is down that way.”

With that ominous piece of trivia, Filinion vanished around a hallway corner.

They heard a door open and then close.

But then…

“Ngwaaaahh!? Abah, ababababa! Wh-what the hell!? It’s so white! What is this white amorphous mass!? I’m…wait, I’m…!!!???”

“Hee hee hee. Ah ha ha. You can’t escape now, brother. There are no morals, standards, or justice here. Just like an anemone captures a small fish or a pitcher plant melts and consumes a trapped fly, I’m going to sweeeetly dissolve you and make you mine.”

“Eek! What is this twintails from hell!? Stop, wait! You aren’t just holding me down! This is direct pressu-…adbchabergeh!!!???”

“Tch. Now that I look closer, this is a blonde and busty woman. You don’t look like my brother at all.”

After the sound of something being spat out, something slid out from the hallway corner. The object symbolized a certain individual and it had been wadded up like a used tissue. It was a pair of glasses with the lenses broken and the part that rests on the nose bent at a right angle.

Quenser’s features were emphasized like a flashlight was shining up at him.

“H-how do you even do that to glasses!? It wouldn’t get that bad even after ten thousand adorable glasses tricks like searching for your glasses when they were on your forehead, looking up at someone above the glasses instead of through the lenses, or getting white cream all over the lenses when trying to cook! Gulp…!!”

Kyousuke looked even more depressed than before and gave the most accurate advice.

“That is the truly evil peak of the Unexplored-class lurking beyond the gods. Merely viewing that truth will drive you mad, so do you really want to search it out for yourself? You’ll end up like that person who lost her glasses and lenses.”

No one could respond to that.

No one wanted that empty title. There was no obligation or sympathy here.

While they did not understand the details, some kind of white darkness filled the forbidden room. It was like summoning a black hole that existed solely to crush people’s bodies. Young Shinobu had a way of drawing in nonhumans, so he had set this up, baited the hook with Kyousuke, and shaken the fishing pole. So what would happen now? They had just received a terrifying demonstration. They did not dare even ask what had happened to the White Witch.

There was one thing they knew for sure.

Fall asleep and they died.

So let the championship begin☆!