Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter7 (section)

===Part 3===

Apparently, the damage was not isolated to the ceiling (or floor?) between the 4th and 5th floors. A few floors above that had been broken through as well.

Shirai glanced down at her phone.

“Jamming?”

“They seem to be using a jamming signal and signal-blocking materials to prevent everything from giving us a hint regarding their powers. These were probably part of the company’s security to begin with.”

That said, being cut off from Uiharu and Saten’s advice was a painful loss. If they could have had a search of the Bank run, they might have found details on Acid or Counselor’s powers.

The 5th floor seemed to be made up of a few conference rooms. The smaller ones would only hold a few people and the larger ones had enough space for more than 20. It seemed the building kept all its facilities for normal people and guests on the lower floors so those people would not have to enter the office space on the higher floors. That may have been necessary for security reasons, but it gave a cold and exclusive impression once you noticed.

(For now, I need to check on the locations of all metal objects, especially steel ones. Fire extinguishers are crucial since you can find them anywhere and you can use them for so much. Is there any aluminum or magnesium around here? Oh, there’s an industrial-sized wax can. It’s not the most explosive thing in the world, but it is flammable.)

Mikoto’s eyes scanned the scene and noted the locations of possible weapons because she recognized how dangerous an enemy this was.

However.

The brief magic seemed to have worn off for the unathletic honey-blonde girl.

“Hee hee hoo… We just have to prevent that weird virus from being injected into the system, right?”

“Breathing doesn’t lie, Shokuhou. Did you put out too many pheromones and nearly give yourself a false pregnancy?”

“W-we don’t even need to defend Zero-Day Link, do we? Wouldn’t it be faster to give up on reaching the 20th floor and skewer the server room from down here!?”

“They don’t have to protect the servers either. They only need to get the virus out there. I don’t know if it uses wireless or fiber optic, but as long as they have that internal connection, they can contact the other Zero-Day Link computers. Breaking the signal-blocking walls would only increase the risk.”

That said.

There was still Acid who controlled oxygen and Counselor who read minds.

They could not focus on the server room unless they did something about those silver-haired twins first. They could see why those two had been held in reserve until now. They were bad enough individually, but finding a blind spot was difficult when they worked together. Blindly charging in at them would only wear Mikoto’s group down. It really did feel like being chased by an immortal monster in a horror movie.

Mikoto leaned back against one of the walls between conference rooms and was surprised to find it was only a flimsy partition.

“Shokuhou. Acid seems to be controlling oxygen, but can you tell what Counselor is doing? Can you use that remote to mess with our heads to reject her power?”

“I haven’t the foggiest…”

“Isn’t your power Mental Out? I thought you could do anything psychological. So surely you can reproduce what that Counselor girl is doing! Right!?”

“I can read minds like that, but there are several different ways of doing so, like reading the chemical compounds in the brain or reading the differences in electrical potential. All I can tell you is that her power ‘reads minds’, but I can’t tell you what path she uses to reach that. Plus, wouldn’t your head reject any command I tried to give you? That plan wouldn’t work.”

“You’re useless.”

“If you’re so great, then do something about Acid! Or is nearly blowing yourself up with your forehead fireworks the only thing you can do!?”

“Try to remember who it was that got us up to this floor!”

“You mean me and my perfect advice ability!?”

The ringlet curls girl grabbed the bickering Level 5s by the head and pressed their foreheads together.

The two of them blinked in confusion as they nearly kissed on accident.

“Enough!! We need to work together and escape this crisis, so why are you wasting this chance we won with your arguing!?”

“Yes, but, Hokaze, you are supposed to be my right-hand girl, so you should be taking my side in-…”

“I – said – e – nough!!”

“Ow, ow, yikes, yikes!! Stop rubbing our foreheads together, Hokaze-san! Oh, no! They’re going to touch! Our lips are going to touch!!”

“Heh, heh heh, eh heh heh. Don’t worry, Hokaze. Look how good friends we are!! S-s-s-so let go! Please let go! Ahhh, why with Misaka-san of all people!? Anything but that!!”

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The Ace and Queen were in the very unusual situation of being forced to take each other’s temperature with their foreheads, so they tearfully trembled in place. They were close enough for their tears to join together, they could feel each other’s warm breaths, and it felt like their generally-unnoticed cutaneous respiration was going to sync up. If their lips touched as well, it was all over.

Shirai Kuroko could not just watch anymore.

This floor was filled with conference rooms that would normally be filled with men in business suits, so the twintailed girl reflexively grabbed a large glass ashtray. But…

(This angle won’t work. Nor will that one. Th-this isn’t easy… Where can I hit them to ensure Onee-sama’s first isn’t taken from me!?)

“Dah, bah, wait, Hokaze-san. Hokaze-san!?”

“Be quiet, Shirai-san!! We must not go easy on them here! I am willing to lose the Queen’s love over this because it is in their best interests that someone tells them this!!”

“But, um, this is not about that! This is a more immediate issue where my Onee-sama’s lips will be taken from me! Ahhh, but I can’t act carelessly here! Anything I do could cause them to close those last few millimeters!!”

They could not expect any reinforcements, so Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki were plunged into an unexpected crisis.

The gorgeous ringlet curls girl smiled thinly while rubbing the two girls’ foreheads together.

“Have you two learned your lesson?”

“…”

“Or shall I continue the forehead rubbing for another minute? I can keep going for 10 minutes or even an hour if necessary. …Surely you are not naïve enough to think you can escape my grip when I can bench press a full ton.”

“I’m sorry! I can’t keep doing this! I’m trembling so much a horrific accident is almost guaranteed at this point!!”

At long last, they were released from that hell, but only after setting a new record of 5mm in that game of chicken.

They could not stop the tears from flowing.

Yes, tears were not something you could control of your own free will. Humans did not have complete control of their bodies.

“Ah, ahhh, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Gasp, pant. I-I survived. I escaped with my life intact.”

The Level 5s fell to the floor and breathed heavy sighs.

Their breathing truly did not lie. It made their unnaturally elevated heartrate readily apparent.

That person who people would fight over if she appeared in a fighting game (because her exceptional dashing meant her combos were nigh inescapable) smiled and spoke.

“Now that you two have made up, how about we have a more constructive conversation? …And, um, why do you all keep talking about lips and accidents when I was only rubbing their foreheads together???”

“(Eh? What’s going on? Do we live in a world where no one can beat overly strong airheads?)”

“(Just you watch, Hokaze. Your nickname is going to be Musclebound Mama in the very near future.)”

“…Did you say something?”

“No, nothing at all!! Look how good friends we are!!!!!”

“No, nothing at all!! Look how good friends we are!!!!!”

The two of them put their arms around each other’s shoulders and put on their biggest smiles.

Each of Mikoto and Shokuhou’s attacks were much more powerful, but someone who actually knew how to string her attacks together into a combo had managed to get close enough to reach out and grab them. They could still win if they played their cards right, but talking back to her at this close range would be suicide.

The two BFFS were still unable to get up from the floor and Mikoto wiped sweat from her brow. Sweat was another thing people could not consciously control.

“Let’s go over what we know. Let’s start with Acid. She almost certainly controls oxygen. Nothing she did felt like she’s using a different power in some way to trick us into thinking that.”

“There is still a lot we do not know, like how much she can do with that power. For one thing, we don’t even know if she has the production ability to make new oxygen or if she is only moving around what already exists around her☆”

Then the stormbringer of a ringlet curls girl tilted her head.

“Um, does anyone here have any siblings?”

“?”

“Well, you see.” She gave a small smile. “Esper powers seem to be somewhat influenced by genetics, so I was wondering how strict that really is. I have no way of looking into it myself since I am an only child. …Come to think of it, there were two sisters in ''that lab'', but how was it with them?”

“…”

It was a thoughtless action.

Shokuhou Misaki glanced over at Misaka Mikoto. It had long been said that the eyes were as eloquent as the mouth, but that belief was backed up by how fortunetellers and psychologists would observe the eyes first and foremost.

The ringlet curls girl seemed to somewhat misinterpret what that glance meant.

“Oh, do you have any siblings, Misaka-san?”

“That would be news to me.”

Her roommate, Shirai Kuroko, looked dubious, but that was not the main point here.

She did have some people she could call her sisters.

Except they were actually mass-produced military clones.

At the very least, the genetic factor was not an absolute. If it were that simple, Academy City would be overrun with more than ten thousand Railguns. But at the same time, genetics did seem to supply some guidelines. She had never heard of a Sister with a non-electrical power. And that was after more than 20,000 had been produced.
Acid and Counselor.

Assuming they had not used plastic surgery to match their appearances, they had to be identical twins.

The bond would not be as strong between ordinary siblings. It was possible fraternal twins would have completely different powers. But if they shared the exact same genetic makeup, that would probably change.

Mikoto frowned.

“In that case…?”