Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

After leaving through the bent platform door and setting foot on the elevated station platform, Kamijou took a deep breath and focused his mind. When his life was on the line, there was no need to take a risky gamble by rushing in shouting threats. He glanced to the side and saw a large hole the color of rotten vegetables in the platform made of concrete and steel. A few people were gathered nearby. Were they prison guards?

(Now, then.)

He grimaced as the simple act of breathing triggered dull aches all across his body.

(I fell down that hole in Alice’s world, but ''what happens if I don’t do that''?)

A dull creaking sound passed by overhead. He looked up and could make out a few footsteps passing by on the roof covering the entire platform.

“What do you mean this wasn’t a problem with the train!?”

“I mean exactly that. This wasn’t a simple brake malfunction. It could never crash at full speed unless there was some conflict between the train’s own controls and the track’s automatic brakes!”

“Hee hee. Yay! The girl is in the lead! Follow her, everyone!☆”

“Alice!! Do not run off in random directions, you short-sleeve animal ears girl!!”

While looking up toward the voices, Kamijou saw some underwear pass by above the clear panel used to let sunlight in.

“Bff!?”

He saw a leather belt around thighs, some fancy lace, and thick white tights. He got more than a glimpse too, since it was a lot like looking up from below an open umbrella.

(O-oh, I get it. With one hole in the floor, it might break through elsewhere too. Until they know what caused the first hole, they can’t know which way is safe and sending them to the roof is easy for that Judgment teleporter.)

“Hey, Al-!”

He started to call out to her but froze.

If he stopped Alice here, she might start helping him again. And he was the one who had decided he wasn’t accepting her help.

Meanwhile, a few more shadows passed by overhead.

He was still unsure if he had made the right decision.

This was the elevated platform on the 2nd floor of the train station. On the concourse below, he would probably find Hanatsuyu Youen the Carrier, Frillsand #G the Artificial Ghost, and Rakuoka the Mass of Muscles. He wouldn’t make any new discoveries there and the difficulty level would be set much higher without Alice’s mysterious adjustments. If he thoughtlessly rushed down there, he was pretty sure he would fail to get anyone’s assistance and just get himself killed.

You only live once, so when you knew somewhere was dangerous, it was best to stay as far away as possible. He needed to instead focus on going places, seeing things, and trying things he hadn’t back in Alice’s world.

He ignored the wandering footsteps and ran straight across the platform.

Even so, something felt off to him about all this.

(Huh? Something isn’t right.)

Fortunately, the platform didn’t collapse like wet cardboard the way Shirai’s group had feared it might. He ran across it just fine. He moved from the Delivery Go Round side of things to the Overhunting side. He reached the crushed first car and worked his way back from there. He didn’t consider the possibility that the criminals remained locked up inside the train. That kind of optimism had no place in reality.

Whoever was talking to Shirai had said this “wasn’t a problem with the train”, so the cause had to be located further back.

He was fairly certain all the trains would have been stopped after the accident, but climbing over the platform door barrier and descending onto the tracks was still nerve-racking.

This was a straight-line path with nowhere to run.

He stared off into the distance from the elevated railway while he started walking down it.

(But will this problem really be something an amateur high schooler would notice?)

He was still figuring out how his old folks smartphone worked, but he managed to use its LED backlight to shine alternately between the power lines overhead and the metal rail below his feet. The railway had powered rails and overhead powerlines, probably a sign of how many different trains were researched and experimented on in this city.

Just as the track grew a lot more complex, he found he had crossed a railroad switch.

He didn’t think he had traveled more than 300m. For a high-speed train that didn’t stop at the intermediary stations, applying the brakes there wouldn’t stop it in time for the station.

“Is this it?”

Kamijou crouched and viewed something at his feet.

He did not know all that much about trains and railroads, but something here was unusual even to his eye. Some white plastic boxes were installed at a set interval in the space between the rails, but one of them had been smashed by a hammer or something.

He recalled the voices he had heard passing by on the roof.

''“What do you mean this wasn’t a problem with the train!?”

''“I mean exactly that. This wasn’t a simple brake malfunction. It could never crash at full speed unless there was some conflict between the train’s own controls and the track’s automatic brakes!”

(Could this be the track’s automatic brakes?)

An ATS was a large system of sensors that measured a train’s speed and automatically sent a stop signal if necessary.

This wasn’t just destroyed.

The color inside wasn’t right. He could tell a few of the cords below the smashed cover had been rewired.

“But wait…”

This was odd.

(Huh? Huh??? This isn’t right at all. An electric being like Frillsand #G could probably destroy the train’s brakes, but was she really behind this mechanical sabotage? She could just blast the train from a distance and fry its systems, so why would she even need to mess with the track at all?)

An alarm was blaring inside his mind. Was this the only piece of sabotage? He had a feeling it wasn’t.

A moment later, he felt a heavy blow like someone had swung a metal bat into the side of his head. He didn’t just lose his balance. He was launched to the side from his crouched position. By the time he realized how bad this really was, he had already broken free of gravity. He could feel himself leaving the elevated railway and soaring toward the empty air beyond. He was about to cross the pivotal line. He would soon be past the edge.

But intense confusion hit him before the pain did.

“Gh, bh?”

(Why? Why wasn’t it electricity? That artificial ghost’s attacks didn’t feel like being hit by heavy metal. Then what is going on here?)

He had been attacked.

Attacked by someone deadly enough to put his life at risk with just the one blow.

However…

(Was Frillsand #G ''not'' the one who caused the crash!?)

He was not viewing the same incident as before, just from a different vantage point.

''The actual answer was different than in Alice’s world.

As soon as he realized that, he flew over the edge of the elevated railway and plunged toward the city 7m below.