Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

Still being atop the subway train when it pulled into a station would probably cause a panic and they would get in trouble for riding without paying. The train happened to stop before the next station because one of the signals indicated some minor trouble, so Kamijou’s group took that chance to climb down from the roof. It seemed lucky…but with Kamijou Touma that wasn’t an option. It was the result of how badly damaged Academy City was.

Climbing down from the roof was a challenge when carrying someone unconscious. Kamijou was walking it to the end of the tunnel with Vidhatri on his back when the golden retriever asked a question. That the dog spoke human language went without saying at this point.

“Where are you headed?”

“Phew. District 12. The old Bridge Builders Cabal consulate.”

He couldn’t let Great Demon Coronzon kill him. But what could he actually do? She had only been defeated last time at the end of a battle that dragged the entire world into it. Would he have to go through that again? Academy City was already damaged and repairs were slow in coming, so a battle on that scale could easily reduce the entire city to a pile of rubble.

An emergency exit led to a narrow stairway up to the surface. The creepy but bewitching red snow continued to fall. But his breath was white like normal. While viewing the strange scene, Kamijou pulled his phone from his pocket with Vidhatri still on his back.

It was 4 PM, the weather was snowy, and the temperature was -3 degrees.

(It’s no use. I don’t know who would be safe to contact.)

He had a communication device, but he was hesitant to use it. Because he was still officially considered dead. Contacting a classmate or friend would only cause a panic and ordinary Anti-Skill was out of the question. He had only just escaped those Bio Secure people chasing after him with flamethrowers. Not much time had passed at all.

“Teacher, let’s get to the consulate. You can think and call someone after getting some rest.”

“Good point…”

Yes, the consulate.

He wanted time to calm down and think. He couldn’t even come up with any ideas right now. The appearance of Great Demon Coronzon had radically changed things, but he still needed to get to the Bridge Builders Cabal consulate in District 12.

His breath was white.

And that wasn’t all.

“By the way, what is this red snow?”

That had been bugging him.

It didn’t seem to be something Coronzon had done. He reached out just his right hand with Vidhatri supported with his left arm and let some land on his fingertip, but the ice crystal only melted into a drop of water like normal. There was no sign of anything being negated. In that case, had some strange impurity in the air gotten mixed in when the ice crystal was solidifying? He had heard of things like smog and yellow sand changing the color of snow. Maybe it was related to the gas and dust caused by the shells and explosives used in all the recent large-scale battles.

When the snow melted on his fingertip, the resultant drop was clear. So it didn’t seem like blood or some other red liquid had frozen into snow. That was another point toward his theory it was an impurity in the crystal.

…In that case, as bewitching as the red snow looked, it might not be very clean. What did the color red represent? And aside from that, this was city snow which would be full of exhaust.

“Alice, don’t eat the snow.”

“Ehhh!?”

“Why is that so shocking!? There are plenty of other good things to eat!”

“Ugh, fine.”

“You either, doggy.”

“I would hope you could expect a little more intelligence and romance from me.”

At any rate, walking out in the open didn’t seem like a good idea. Kamijou was known as a walking corpse and carrying limp Vidhatri on his back made him look he was committing some kind of crime. Not to mention the little girl and the large dog not on a leash. Their party was practically asking to be taken in for questioning.

“Uh, oh…”

Someone was dancing on the street up ahead.

She looked to be…middle school aged, maybe?

She had a small collapsible umbrella to keep the red snow off of her and her phone was propped up against the edge of a shrubbery, so she must have thought the unusual weather was an opportunity of some kind.

Was it late enough for school to be out already?

Then again, it was the first day back after winter break, so maybe most schools were only having half days.

(I don’t even know when school lets out anymore. I’m drifting further and further from a peaceful life…)

That was a life-or-death problem. For a high schooler anyway.

Snow was accumulating and it wasn’t Christmas. Maybe there just wasn’t much traffic and maybe all the confusion had prevented the snow from being cleared, but the streets were starting to be covered by the red snow and even the trains were having to stop fairly frequently but irregularly. Not many people would want to head out on a day like this, but as someone who was officially dead, Kamijou still wanted to do his best to avoid being seen. That meant avoiding the person jumping and dancing on the sidewalk with no concern for her short skirt and even walking to the center of a big intersection and slowly turning in a full circle to get a 360-degree shot. The cheerful girl’s extrovert energy pushed Kamijou Touma away, forcing him into the narrow side streets. As the kind of person who preferred to take the far corner seat on the train even when no one else was aboard, he really didn’t mind all that much. Although he was somewhat disgusted with himself for how little it bothered him.

“I really don’t want to make a habit of taking my walks in the shadows.”

“It’s not so bad. Do it enough and it stops feeling weird.”

The dog’s advice did not help improve his mood.

He wanted to do something about it before he reached that point.

But while he was choosing the more deserted paths, it was still midday on a weekday. And he was carrying an unconscious girl on his back, but no one was stopping him. Was ordinary Anti-Skill not functioning well? That was fine as long as no one realized the gravity of it, but this could get bad if some devious people took notice.

Their destination was District 12. It was the most religious district and located on the east side of the city.

They had to take a wide detour around District 23 since it was generally off limits, so it ended up a long walk.

“Phew.”

A lot of time had passed by the time they arrived. It was just past 5 PM or thereabouts. In January, the sun would have been setting at this time, but the clouds were blocking it today.

They had arrived at the familiar consulate…sort of.

It was unrecognizable.

It seemed to have collapsed even more than when Kamijou had seen it last. Had a stray shot hit it at some point?

Several of the spires had broken and the garden was covered in rubble and black soil with a dusting of red snow starting to cover it. Over half of a building larger than the average school had been squashed. From the looks of it, the rainwater had to be getting in. Not many rooms would still be usable, but having a roof above your head still meant a lot.

“May I come in?” he asked Alice without thinking.

That made her squeal with delight. Because he was still treating this as her house maybe?

But…

“I-it’s chilly in here…”

Kamijou shivered. It had to have been colder outside, but he felt it all the worse once he was inside. Maybe his senses were returning to him.

A sofa in the corner of the huge lobby was so fancy he wasn’t sure if it was meant to be used or just decorative, but he lay Vidhatri on it regardless. Even that was difficult with the weird doll attached back-to-back with her. How did you remove it? And he felt like the cold was getting even worse. No, could it be he had been receiving warmth from the brown beauty on his back? Talk about a spoiled way to make use of a young woman. As unscientific as it was, he was afraid he had earned some kind of divine punishment there.

They had somehow arrived at the consulate, but now he had to figure out what to do next.

“F-for now, we need to do something about injured Vidhatri. She still hasn’t woken up, but is she okay? If it requires more than a first-aid kit, then we’re out of luck.”

His first thought was the frog-faced doctor.

Yes, a doctor.

“…”

The main goal of his original plan was to prevent Academy City from pursuing him as the living dead. So by escaping to a consulate belonging to another country(?) where the adults couldn’t touch him, he had hoped to buy enough time to call the frog-faced doctor to him and receive professional confirmation that Kamijou Touma was still alive. And with his status as alive confirmed, he would automatically be preserving Index and Othinus’s home too.

He didn’t know if that Condro-whatever country still officially recognized the consulate, but the actual international effectiveness didn’t really matter. He only needed the powerful adults in Academy City to hesitate.

But Great Demon Coronzon’s appearance had destroyed that plan. Utterly.

To be blunt, she wouldn’t care at all about the consulate. If she didn’t like Kamijou’s group, she would march right in to kill them. After all, she was willing to declare herself one who tore apart human bonds and obstructed their evolution. On a larger scale, there was a real possibility of her ''doing something to Academy City as a whole.'' If it came to that, then Kamijou’s group would be killed along with the rest of the city.

(Seriously, what are we supposed to do? However we stop Coronzon, I do still want to prove I’m alive so I can move through the city more easily…but do I have time for a detour like that?)

What was Index doing right now? Othinus and the calico cat too. It was below freezing outside. He couldn’t leave them out there in the frigid air and red snow and there was always the horrific chance that they would happen across Coronzon out there.

“I guess we can’t just come to a stop. We need to decide on where to start…”

Just as he said that, he heard a weird clattering noise from overhead.

Was someone there?

“Alice, get behind me.”

“Teacher, you don’t need to worry about that.”

Hm? Alice seemed awfully certain about that.

Nervous Kamijou sensed something off.

It came from his sense of smell.

Was that the familiar scent of some extremely ordinary chemical seasonings?

Then someone emerged from the second floor. The underwear woman with large wings on her back was walking while working at a cup of instant noodles with a silver fork.

“Hm? Boy, wherefore are you here?”

She was the Bologna Succubus, one of the Transcendents.