Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth5 (section)

===Part 3===

The next three days passed without incident.

23 days remained.



“It’s so hot…”

“Onee-sama, do not undo all the velcro on your flight suit. It is indecent. And stop flapping the stomach slit.”



Yeah, but she was on standby with nothing to do and the sun was beating down on her. It was nice the formfitting suit would prevent sunburn, but it did nothing about the heat.

She was willing to bet she could fry an egg on the landing runway.

The flight suit was designed to protect her even if she was dumped out at high altitude with a parachute, so it was mostly meant for cold temperatures. She could fasten all the velcro then, but the problem was in the heat.

“Ugh…”

The slits had seemed silly at first, but she had discovered just how necessary they were. Without that kind of ventilation, this heat would kill her.

Keeping that formfitting suit sealed tight would leave her drenched in sweat and possibly even with sweat rashes.

Oh, how wonderful was the power of air.

“So 23 days left now,” said Mikoto, still fanning herself.

They were looking at more than three weeks left of pursuit by the three major powers, so they couldn’t relax yet. Even if the past three days had been uneventful.



It was on that third day that something happened.



However, that something was not the arrival of a Liheilstaut Empire strategic bomber or being caught by a submarine packed full of torpedoes.

“Senpai, you said you wanted to discuss the weather map?”

Mikoto stepped into the windowless CIC.

Kobayashi, who was normally staring at the early-warning radar screen, swiveled her chair around.

“Yes, there was something I wanted to discuss with you personally since it will probably influence what happens next.”

She displayed a simple map based on what they knew of this world’s geography and overlaid it with the isobars and weather front lines that resembled distorted stumps. Those things usually seen at the start of the weather forecast.

Any Tokiwadai student would know how to interpret it.

“What…is that?”

“A massive cumulonimbus cloud. And it isn’t alone. Several of them are linked together. It may be a fairly unique linear rainband.”

They had no way of knowing if that was normal in this world, or if this qualified as unusual weather.

Moisture changed the reflection rate of radar waves, so they could be used to measure the cloud thickness and precipitation amounts.

Switching to a display of rainfall amounts created a screen full of red.

“It’s only an estimate, but this shows more than 200mm a day. That’s equivalent to a massive typhoon. And instead of passing through quickly, it could continue for days on end unless the band of clouds shifts.”

That sounded like a natural disaster.

Not even a sturdy military weapon would be unaffected by a weather change on that level.

This was indeed important information.

But.

Mikoto hadn’t known anything about it until she arrived in the CIC. Not even that it was raining. In fact, up in the cruise ship section of the Izanami, quite a few of the girls were casually lying around in swimsuits getting a tan (while the dorm manager wasn’t looking, of course).

Also…

“Is this divine punishment?”

“Could be.”

“As soon as we leave the continent, the Liheilstaut Empire has to deal with this. I guess god really is doing his job. Nothing gets past him.”

Not that Mikoto knew much about god. She had grown up in a city of science, after all.

Mikoto had a vague image of some white-haired and bearded old man standing a cotton candy cloud and holding a knotted staff.

“But I don’t think they have time to sit around and talk about it,” said Kobayashi, switching the radio to a civilian frequency.

Was the broadcast station incredible for reaching this far out at sea, or was the Izanami’s equipment incredible for accurately picking up such a weak signal?

Either way, the radio broadcast had ended its ordinary programming for some emergency news.



“If you live in Dorgionix, you need to evacuate to higher ground immediately! I repeat, the Imperial Ministry of Environmental Development has announced that the Slendard Dam’s water level has exceeded 98% and is rapidly reaching its limit. You are not safe even if you aren’t near the rivers! The dam could break at any moment!! Please check on your neighbors and work together to evacuate to higher ground by car or whatever means available to you! I repeat!!”



The announcer was shouting far louder than was usually considered appropriate.

That showed just how serious it was.

“What is Dorgionix?”

“The Empire’s second largest city. It has a population of more than 9 million. It is an industrial city built with reclaimed land in a fan shape alongside the sea, which means it is almost entirely flat.”

“…”

That meant it would be engulfed.

There was no saving it if the dam broke.

“The radio is telling them to evacuate to higher ground, but if a population that size makes a rush for the narrow and winding mountain roads, congestion is unavoidable. Most of them won’t make it.”

“But it’s their second largest city, right? Surely they have a lot of skyscrapers like the capital did.”

“Apparently they considered the image of a jumbled industrial city to be humiliating, so Dorgionix has strict landscape preservation rules. Including a limit on the height of all structures. If the gravity dam – said to be the Empire’s largest – breaks, I doubt any of the city will survive.”

…Oh.

Mikoto understood the gravity of the situation now.

But…

“Why did you want the advice of a pilot like me? Even if we ignored the risk and brought the Izanami to the coast, we can’t carry 9 million people, can we?”

“Rescuing them by sea would be a challenge. We can’t hold them all and there isn’t time. So I was hoping you could do something by air, Misaka-sama.”

“Such as?”

Asking that so quickly was as good as saying she was willing to help.

Kobayashi smiled a little.

She zoomed in on the map and surrounded a few points with red circles. They were each located alongside the rivers branching through the mountains.

“Based on the military and civilian radio signals coming in, they appear to be starting an emergency release of water from the Slendard Dam, but too much water is flowing into the dam from multiple rivers and the water level keeps rising.”

“But a fighter can’t change the weather. Unless you have a meteorological weapon in your back pocket I could use to scatter the rain clouds.”

“There is something you can do. The dam’s water level is rising both because of the rain and because the smaller floodgates elsewhere are malfunctioning. I would guess they were bent by the unexpected pressure caused by the extreme increase in water. The remote signals from central control won’t open them.”

“So if those smaller floodgates could be forced opened somehow…?”

“The water would be distributed through the different rivers and the gravity dam wouldn’t break. If the emergency release of water is greater than the amount coming in, the dam’s water level will fall.”

The current water level was above 98%.

There wasn’t much time.

But what if there was a way to fly at supersonic speed and launch air-to-surface missiles pinpoint targeting the floodgates?

“It’s not too late… Okay, I’ll head to the maintenance hangar and warm up the Shinshin’s engine! Kobayashi-san, you get the necessary authorization and whatever needed to send me out!!”

“It will be risky. The Izanami is already far out at sea, so you will barely have enough fuel for a round trip even when loaded with an extra tank that sacrifices your stealth. When the Empire notices your approach, they will surely scramble interceptors. Since you need to make a return trip, you cannot waste any fuel, which will make it a tricky battle.”

“That’s not what matters!!”

Mikoto didn’t even need to think about it.

But just as she was preparing to run out of the CIC, she found someone else standing in the exit.

It was Shokuhou Misaki.

“No.”

“Move, scheming Queen. There isn’t a moment to lose!!”

“Think about it. The Empire has tons of fighters, so why aren’t they sending any of them to Dorgionix?”

The Queen’s words alone stopped Mikoto in her tracks.

That was admittedly…odd.

It didn’t make sense.

That was the Empire’s second largest city and an industrial city to boot. Flooding there would likely trouble them on the military front too, so why weren’t they acting on a plan so obvious some middle schoolers could come up with it?

“Listen. The dam breaking will flood Dorgionix. On its own, that is a natural disaster. With a ''natural cause'', they have no one to hate. But what if the Empire attempts to prevent it and the dam breaks anyway? Then the city was flooded by the Empire’s failure to blow up the floodgates and it becomes a ''man-made disaster''. Which means ''the people will have someone to hate''.”

“You mean the Empire is afraid of being blamed for the failure, so they aren’t going to do anything? But so many of their own people are at risk! And they have a way of saving them!!”

“I thought Tokiwadai students had a better grasp of politics than this. Vague terms like ‘maybe’ are not found in the political world. Without 100% certainty, they will stand back to avoid the risk. That is the key to a long career as a politician.”

Basically, Shokuhou Misaki was asking why they should go out of their way to create a man-made disaster when it would only be a natural one otherwise.

If they attempted a plan without 100% certainty and it failed, the people – fairly or not – would focus their enmity on the Tokiwadai group. And with the backing of the furious people, the Imperial military would be much more free to act. When their situation was tenuous enough already, why take on extra risk?

True, that might be the wise decision.

But it wasn’t the right decision.

It couldn’t be.

So Mikoto knew what she had to say.

“I’m going to save them.”

“…”

She wasn’t like the Queen.

It was Misaka Mikoto’s ability to say these things without hesitation that made her Tokiwada’s Ace.

“You’re worried about what happens next? Let’s say we could have saved 9 million people but didn’t. If people found out about that, our situation would be far worse.”

“And if you screw this up and let the Slendard Dam collapse?”

“If that happens, you can just give them my name. Tell them it was all my decision. Then the Empire’s concentrated wrath won’t be directed on Tokiwadai as a whole. Does that satisfy you!?”