Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth6 (section)

===Part 3===

They climbed a steep, narrow stairway to climb abovedeck once more.

“There is something else I wanted to show you,” began the dorm manager. “It is a piece of equipment we found already aboard the Izanagi, but not even we know how to use it.”

“Not even the grownup teachers?”

“Misaka, we are hoping your unfair ability to directly control electricity can shed some light on the mystery.”

Landing ships came in a variety of types, but the Izanagi didn’t appear to have a runway. That meant the top was cluttered rather than flat. It still seemed to have at least a heliport.

The dorm manager led them through a winding array of inner corridors. After passing by Watanabe-sensei on the way and exchanging “how do you do” greetings, they arrived at their destination.

An especially large bulkhead stood in their way.

Instead of opening it, they opened a smaller water-tight door to the side and entered through that.

“This is it,” said the dorm manager.

She needn’t have said so.

A bulky machine was stacked up in the center of the room. The stack was about 5m tall. Each individual part looked like a giant engine but wasn’t. An engine for a 10 thousand ton ship would be larger still and it wouldn’t just be situated above the deck like this.

Plus, you wouldn’t stick a bunch of engines together like this.

“At the same time…” said Mikoto, stunned.

Something like a plastic ruler was attached to the front.

It was a digital counter.



29:13:45:08



The red numbers were decreasing. The numbers 0-9 were formed from straight lines like on a cheap calculator and they were going down moment by moment.

The final number decremented once every second, so starting from the left, did the numbers represent days, hours, minutes, and seconds?

That meant less than 30 days remained.

What happened once they all reached zero?

Whatever the case, you would have to be pretty stupid to innocently ride around on a landing ship without noticing how suspicious this was…

“It wasn’t like this to start with,” quickly noted the dorm manager after noticing the two students’ gazes. “Specifically, the digital counter wasn’t there.”

“What do you mean?”

“At first, it was only a strange collection of machines. But we found the counter inside your carrier. We recognized the shape of the port, so we tried connecting it and the numbers appeared.”

“Does that mean the Izanami and Izanagi form a single giant device ability?” asked Shokuhou, sounding somewhat exasperated.

The dorm manager looked to Mikoto and jerked her chin toward the machine.

Was she supposed to use her power over electricity to figure out what the machine was?

She already had a very unpleasant idea.

“This isn’t just a self-destruct device, is it?”

“You don’t need to come out and state the obvious concern everyone is already thinking, Shokuhou. Not without real proof. That can wait until Misaka has gathered some actual information.”

The reprimand made the Queen scowl. Maybe it was a subconscious survival strategy, but Shokuhou Misaki had a tendency to mentally regress when around a grownup teacher. It was so weird seeing her like that.

Mikoto shut her eyes and held a hand out toward the machine.

She didn’t want to scatter sparks and blow the thing up while she was investigating, so she started carefully.

But the #3 frowned partway through.

“…? Just following the circuits in order, it doesn’t seem to have any explosives inside and it isn’t linked to the ship’s fuel tank.”

“You mean it isn’t a self-destruct device?” asked Shokuhou.

“But it does have a bunch of giant electromagnets. And they’re arranged in a torus.”

“Huh!? That sounds an awful lot like a tokamak fusion reactor that traps plasma at a temperature of about 100 million degrees!”

“It doesn’t have any nuclear materials. And if it was that, it would be shielded with lead. The details also aren’t right for a tokamak. That means it mus be meant to condense something else.” Mikoto sounded like she could hardly believe what she was saying. “Like a gravitational field.”

Even the dorm manager looked skeptical.

“You mean this is a miniature black hole?”

“More than that, it’s a smart black hole that can have its parameters controlled with external stimuli. Used temporally, it would work as a time machine. Used spatially, it would let you warp.”

But what about the digital counter?

Mikoto couldn’t be certain, but she had an answer.

“In 29 days, we will be sent somewhere. And that somewhere is almost certainly the Earth we left.”

“Got anything to back that up?” asked Shokuhou.

“No,” admitted Mikoto. “But if this device can send us to World A, World B, or World C, there would be no reason to send us from Earth to A and then on to C. It could have just sent us directly from Earth to C.”

“I see. So you’re saying World A – this world here – was the destination someone set for this thing? So this is the end point. Yet the device restarted after we arrived. Since they wouldn’t have a reason to send us from World A to Worlds B through Z, only one option remains.”

“Returning from the end point. In other words, a return trip from World A to Earth. That’s the only reason I can think of for the device to activate again in World A. …And since the digital counter exists, it must have already had a macro or program installed to do this.”

Shokuhou listened in silence, suggesting she had no argument.

Being sent back automatically sounded great.

However…

“Can you not fast-forward or rewind it?” asked Shokuhou.

“Nope. If you want to mess with it and produce a black hole outside the torus container, be my guest. The damage would go beyond this one planet, though.”

Mikoto shrugged.

…But this was weird. Where had the Izanami and Izanagi been built?

They had nothing in common with this world focused on Frozen Fossils and Girlish Weapons. And none of this had been in Academy City either.

Why had Mikoto and the others been brought into this? It must have happened intentionally. Someone somewhere had borrowed this super technology and even handed it over to them.

The dorm manager crossed her arms.

“So for the remaining 29 days, we must somehow get by in this world without anyone coming to harm.”

“That’s a much more realistic plan.”

“If only you hadn’t caused trouble and picked a fight with a world power.”

Tokiwadai’s Ace and Queen couldn’t look the dorm manager in the eye.

Could someone please let them know her weakness? Trembling, Mikoto tried to defend herself.

“They fired anti-ship missiles at us!”

“That is not the issue. You shouldn’t have established a hostile relationship, idiot. Dealing with an entire nation with only a carrier and landing ship will not be easy. Escaping them for nearly a month will require a bit of brainpower.”

“Is brainpower ability really enough to get through this?”

Shokuhou sounded exasperated, but it was the dorm manager who looked surprised.

“You can’t tell? I expected it from that idiot Misaka who runs headlong into every problem, but I thought you knew how to use your head, Shokuhou.”

“Gh, I’m not an idiot.”

“Yes, I really did think a Machiavellian idiot like Shokuhou would understand.”

“Who are you calling an idiot!?”

The scheming Queen snapped back on reflex and ended up with her wrist twisted around behind her back. That’s why you’re an idiot, idiot.

A call came over one of the small radios that were quickly becoming necessities.

“Queen, we are receiving an emergency signal.”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow. From who?”

“From the Liheilstaut Empire’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They provided a few forms of authentication over the radio, but we don’t know how this world works and have no way of knowing if they are legitimate. …They say they want to speak with our representative in order to negotiate for a ceasefire and peace regarding the accidental hostility between us.”

Mikoto and Shokuhou exchanged a glance and the dorm manager shrugged. 

They checked the time on their phones which weren’t good for much else while too far out at sea to pick up the signal from an antenna base.

10 AM.

Just about time for a government office to be opening.