Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

Shirai Kuroko teleported repeatedly in quick succession.

But this was a deterrent rather than an attack. Her eyes were still dazzled.

(I didn’t expect her to use her camera’s strobe light when she turned around.)

She was ashamed, but making an appearance now would achieve nothing. She calmly calculated out the time until she would recover.

(Another five seconds!!)

Her vision was returning.

And while she teleported, she noticed an odd crunch from the ground below her feet. Half-hardened snow would not make that sound.

The entirety of District 6 was an enormous amusement park, but it also had some luxury homes known as the Secret Residences. They were all based on a movie or fairy tale, so the large grounds for each looked very different.

This one had gravel, a bamboo thicket, a teahouse bench, and a large red umbrella, but it did not appear to just be a Japanese-style residence. The most notable features were a dilapidated torii and an unmanned train station without its roof. The rusted train track was buried by gravel and weeds and a rusted sign stood on the platform.

The sign said “Otherworld Capital Station”.

(What movie is this from?)

If it was a 3D movie featuring mascot characters, Mikoto would probably know a surprising amount about it. Just as Shirai Kuroko warped to another coordinate, she heard a strange metallic sound. There was now a thumb-thick bullet hole in the rusted sign. She could launch projectiles while ignoring all three-dimensional restrictions, so it was unusual for her to be stuck in a long-term battle. No matter what her opponent hid behind to cover the direct line of sight, she could send a metal dart directly into them and that attack would do its damage regardless of what kind of armor they were wearing.

And yet.

“Ha ha.”

She could hear the laughter of that reporter in a cowboy hat and China dress who had become one with the darkness after trading her camera for a sniper rifle.

“Ha ha, ah ha ha!! Incredible, simply incredible. My craft is all about distance, angle, and timing, but I’ve failed to get my shot after setting all that up three times now. Don’t give me that. You have talent, but watch out because it isn’t just stray dogs that can’t resist chasing a running target!!”

“Really!?”

“Sorry, but I’m the chaser and you’re the chased. Your talent isn’t enough to flip that one around.”

Shirai continued her quick teleports to keep some distance between them while pursing that woman.

She launched several metal darts at once toward the slender leg she saw sticking out from a risqué slit, but…

“Not good enough.”

“Kh!!”

Over the course of a single second, several dozen lightning-like flashes of light assaulted her senses so she lost sight of the proper coordinates.

That was a camera’s strobe light.

The woman’s China dress was fairly skimpy and the stomach was see-through, but it apparently hid a surprising number of tools. That strobe light was no joke when combined with a bolt-action sniper rifle. 

If a feint threw off Shirai’s timing, a bullet whizzing through the air might just hit her at a vital point before she could even teleport. And attacking toward the light source was not going to hit. The woman had thrown collapsible reflector boards around the area so she could reflect the light around.

Shirai naturally grew cautious, but not just because of that.

(I need to find a way.)

She clenched her teeth. She could not let the suspect pick up on this impatience she was feeling.

(I need to find a way to restrain her ''before the gears break''. She might be part of the dark side, but I’m not letting another suspect die! I could never look Onee-sama in the eye if I did!!)

The woman in a bright red China dress dove behind a tall metal “missing person” sign that was attached with wire to an old wooden streetlight.

Shirai’s eyes naturally slid over to the other side of the sign where she would likely emerge, but…

(Oh, no!)

She realized her mistake too late and heard a loud gunshot ring out.

The rifle bullet pierced through the back of the thin sign to fly her way.

She tried to twist her body around and out of the way, but she had begun far too late to succeed. The cloth of her uniform burst and burning pain pierced her side.

“Ghhh!?”

“Tch. Don’t give me that. I only caught your baggy uniform? That was a 7.62mm, so it would’ve torn you apart, organs and all, if it had even grazed you.”

The cowboy hat woman slowly emerged from behind the sign. That shot from behind cover had been awfully accurate and merciless. She must have been using a lens or device that could capture a photography target with something other than normal light—like microwaves or terahertz waves. Shirai tried to hit her with a metal dart while collapsed on the ground, but the woman carefully blinded the girl with a range-finding laser.

“We’re a lot alike☆ Just like Judgment satisfies their drive for justice using handcuffs, I’m driven by the draw of the camera.”

“What are you—”

“A single photo changed the world.”

Shirai could not hit.

The woman was walking straight toward her, but the strobe light and laser left several powerful afterimages on her retinas and her metal darts missed their mark.

“A single photo uploaded to a social media burner account corrected the mistakes nothing else seemed capable of stopping. Someone who thought the world revolved around him, spouted nonsense, and thought he could get away with as much violence as he liked was subjected to so much public criticism that he hanged himself. How could I not fall in love with it? Once I learned there was a way to tear down the walls that refuse to budge no matter how much I punched and kicked them, I could never remove my finger from the shutter button again.”

With a metallic click, the cowboy hat and China dress woman aims the sniper rifle's muzzle towards the tip of Shirai Kuroko's nose.

“That does not count as satisfying a drive for justice.”

“Oh?”

“Did you think justice was on your side because you went viral online and so many faceless people on social media agreed with you? That’s just trading a small gang of bullies for a large one. Did you feel a euphoria when your revenge succeeded better than you had ever imagined? Well, that joy you felt was no different from the joy felt by the person you so hated.”

“You’re such a boring person. Don’t give me that. Anyone that pure and upright through and through isn’t even human. You’re more artificial than a mannequin.”

Was that why this did not feel real?

Shirai could sense no hesitation in the woman’s trigger finger.

She also heard a straining sound.

But it was the cowboy hat and bob cut woman who looked puzzled. That sound had not been the pull of the trigger. Because she had not pulled it yet.

“?”

Then what had it been?

The woman moved just her eyes to the side with her sniper rifle’s sight still pressed against one of them.

The dirt wall right next to her had been blown away.

A mass of muscle easily weighing more than 100-kilograms had crashed into it shoulder first.

This person was over eight heads tall.

The thick muscles had deep grooves between them, making them look like heavy armor.

And the head had a combover and glasses.

“Oh…”

A camerawoman and a sniper used the same skills.

That violent paparazzo had optimized her technique for blending into her surroundings, so she may have been defenseless if an enemy destroyed all of those surroundings.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

The middle-aged man gave a roar like a steam locomotive to accompany the crushing sound.

The woman had immediately raised her sniper rifle—maybe to strike back with a bullet and maybe just to protect herself with the hard metal.

The rifle was bent into a V-shape and exploded, but ''Rakuoka Houfu'' ignored it.

He slammed his shoulder into her.

She might as well have been hit by a large dump truck. The woman in a cowboy hat and China dress was launched more than 5m through the air where she slammed back first into the side of a decoration and stopped moving.

“A-are you okay, Shirai-san!? She is part of the dark side—Benizome Jellyfish. Although she seemed oblivious to it and only ended up that way while pursuing the dark side from the side of justice.”

“Who the hell are you and what is that red demon!!!???”

“Oh, this?”

Shirai Kuroko briefly suspected this was an animatronic used for this Japanese horror train station, but the head was very clearly that middle-aged man.

His muscular body deflated as she watched. Just like the neck of a balloon had been opened. He eventually returned to his usual self. His clothing had torn away, but that was not appreciated in this case.

“A certain type of digestive enzyme is used to grow my muscle fibers. Although it’s really just a visual thing because it’s only vertically splitting the existing fibers. The total amount of muscle doesn’t change, but I can move them more precisely, which lets me use them more efficiently.”

“…”

“Academy City technology can already inject artificial fat into the body to change your body shape and this is the first step toward doing something similar with muscle fibers. Oh, but I end up tearing apart my uniform whenever I do this. Sigh, the lady in supply management is going to let me have it again.”

“W-well, that workaholic side tells me this really is you. But what in the world is this?”

Shirai forgot to even check the severity of her injury. She doubted this muscle fiber proportion management technology was supplied to ordinary Anti-Skill officers. The man bashfully scratched his head and then quickly fixed his combover.

“''I’m an Anti-Skill Aggressor.''”

Those were combat elites.

The middle-aged man who envied everyone else held a position that not just anyone could reach.

“Um…that means I usually play the bad guy during training.”