Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

The minus-20 air bit at his skin.

At a yacht harbor in Long Beach, Los Angeles, Kamijou Touma continued his confrontation with the strange magician known as Citrinitas. He clenched his right fist tight and readied it.

He would win.

He had to win no matter what.

And…

“If I stay here, the downpour of glass will get me, but any shield will be torn apart by that sand laser or a sand boulder. And that sandbag that blocks my punches is pretty bland, but no less of a pain in the ass!!”

“Do not call me bland. It injures a small amount.”

The Transla-Pen picked up the comment made by the collared and crawling woman while she pouted her lips like a child, but then her jaw dropped, opening her mouth wide, and an ultra-compressed sand blade was released.

Trying to run away was not a long-term solution. So with extreme fear clutching at his heart, he stayed low and charged toward the two leash-connected bodies of Citrinitas. He threw his right fist, but the woman jumped up like a dolphin, the doll began to crawl, and a thick sandbag rose up to block the path of his fist.

Othinus viewed their surroundings.

“Is there a tanker truck around here? A septic tank would work too.”

“?”

“Citrinitas uses sand,” said Othinus. “They use it in different forms, like a compressed blast, sharp glass, or a heavy boulder, but that means they are restricted by the nature of sand. So we only have to use that against them. And what’s a basic camping technique right alongside boiling your drinking water? A standard step you should always follow before drinking any water from rivers or springs?”

“A filter made with…gravel and activated charcoal?”

“Yachts and cruisers use them for recycling rainwater. And they include sand as well. A handmade filter cleans filthy river water, but they don’t break conservation of mass. That means the filth is caught in the filter and builds up there. And in there, it’s concentrated several times or several dozen times normal!!”

They had already noticed that the doll and the woman never covered themselves in the thick cloud of sand. They had even guessed it was to keep their view clear or to avoid breathing in the fine sand.

But sand itself could be dangerous when used wrong.

So what if Kamijou and Othinus made it a lot more harmful?

“The fugu does not create its own toxin. Plankton eats faintly toxic bacteria, small shellfish and crabs eat the plankton, and the fugu eats those things. All of the initial toxin is concentrated inside the fugu’s body until it reaches a lethal level. This magician is the same. An ordinary substance found in small quantities in the air all around the globe could bring an unnatural level of harm to Citrinitas due to their unnatural magic!!”

Kamijou saw something out of the corner of his eye.

He saw a boxy device smaller than a vending machine with a handgun-like nozzle and a thick hose on its side. He had no idea if these fancy boats used gasoline, diesel, plutonium, or red wine for fuel, but this looked a lot like the pumps found at gas stations.

Hadn’t Othinus given a tanker truck as an example?

“Over there!!”

“Hee hee!”

Citrinitas’s creepy laughter rang through the deserted city where 30 million people had disappeared. This may have been the cleanest Los Angeles’s air had ever been.

The pair made another vertical rotation, resulting in the silver-haired woman crawling and the ball-joint doll standing up with leash in hand. Something was about to happen.

“Naïve, naïve. If you want to use special sand…you need to use it this far!”

A large shadow fell on Kamijou.

The sky above was blotted out even more unnaturally than during a solar eclipse. The culprit was a giant structure. The 5000m-wide aerial spacecraft launch pad had a V-shape with a gaping hole in the center and a triangle swept back from it like a tail wing.

“The Logistic…Hornet.”

“You should have known this answer already. I vanished 30 million people all by myself!!”

With a deep rumble and flying orange sparks, something accelerated around the circle and was then launched skyward from the tail wing. At the same time, drones were launched from the V-shaped wings like a swarm of bees.

Either naphtha or liquid nitrogen was being accurately distributed.

“You know what that implies? When used correctly, this can produce one big move that swallows up all of Los Angeleeeeeeeees!!!!!!”

The atmosphere moved.

An entire city’s meteorological conditions were entirely changed.

Technically speaking, the Logistic Hornet’s massive cargo transportation ability was being used to scatter naphtha or liquid nitrogen wherever it wanted. By manipulating the temperature differences, it could alter the density of the air and thus the atmospheric pressure, allowing the operator to set the weather at the tap of a touchscreen. It was no more than scientific technology. The unnatural cold wave keeping the more southern city of Los Angeles at minus-20 was the Logistic Hornet’s doing.

But this was not about that surface-level effect.

A gust blew in from a direction very unnatural for the seasonal winds. Could the winds be set up to spread the sandstorm across all of LA!?

“Now.”

The standing doll spread its arms with a solid creaking sound.

An inescapable reverse flood, pushing from land to sea, was approaching from behind it.

The Academy City and Anglican Church participants in Operation Overlord Revenge may have seen something very similar.

It spread horizontally in front of Kamijou.

It reminded him a thick wall rising up toward heaven or like a massive dry wave. It fully engulfed the skyscrapers and villas and mercilessly attacked the beach and ocean, not allowing a single scrap of land to remain. The wall of sand was so massive it felt like witnessing Noah’s flood.

A woman had built this new technology to overcome her husband’s accident and make her daughter’s dream come true.

But now it was being abused so that none of those original intentions remained.

“Oppose my ultimate attack if you think that is possible, challenger!!!!!!”