Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume15 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

“Damn those Anglicans. Did they make a big commotion and then take down their own people-clearing field?”

Leivinia Birdway grumbled in annoyance.

The large lobby of the international airport was a mess from end to end.

There was a mysterious hole well over 10m in diameter in both the ceiling and the floor. Those likely came from something ''falling'' straight down from the sky above. All the windows were shattered and the glass-covered floor was littered with crow carcasses… It was all about as bizarre as it could get. It was no surprise that Anti-Skill and curious onlookers had shown up.

Kamijou Touma couldn’t get close to the wall of onlookers, much less the yellow tape.

He sighed and started up his phone’s camera app. He zoomed in as far as it would go to get a look from a distance.

“Hmm.”

He didn’t see anyone magical like the Amakusas or the Former Agnese Force.

He didn’t see Hamazura Shiage either.

“Looks like the storm has already moved on.”

“Because we were running against the flow of the fleeing people,” complained Lessar. “If we were allowed to knock down those ordinary people, we would have arrived sooner.”

“…”

“Okay, okay, I’m only kidding, so don’t glare at me like that. Heh heh heh. Are you trying to get me wet, you white knight?”

Nothing would teach that inappropriate girl a lesson, so it wasn’t even worth trying.

Was it linked with his phone’s location data? Even Kamijou’s cheap smartphone kept giving him local online news notifications for District 23.



“A new threat brought on by EM waves. Could this be the countdown to the implementation of a bird strike assassination weapon that can bring down aircraft without raising suspicion!?”



“The crow mystery!! Does the truth lie in the mysterious temple rumored to have been demolished to make room for the airport? (Read more)”



“How about some yakitori tonight? Click here for the secret to the most mouthwatering salted yakitori around!!”



The clickbait in the headlines was just as bad as ever, which ironically left him with zero inclination to click. It felt like a hellish caramel made by thoroughly cooking down all of humanity’s malice.

Birdway stared at the distant crowd, stood up on her toes, and stretched her back up…but that still wasn’t enough. She grabbed Kamijou’s jacket, tugged, and made her demand while looking up at him.

“Lift me up on your shoulders.”

“Have you never heard the word ‘please’, tiny little lady?”

He complained, but he also crouched down for her. He began to wonder if he was partially to blame for Birdway and Lessar’s worsening behavior.

He lifted her up.

She was light. And her thighs pressed in from the si-

“Ow! What was that zapping my face? Static electricity!?”

“Hey, I’m wearing synthetic stockings. Winter is a tough time for girls. Ignorant boy, it’s time you felt a fraction of the trouble we cute girls go through.”

How could she be so full of herself after asking him to lift her up?

“(Yes, yes. Now this is prime seating.)”

The girl seated on his shoulders and humming appeared to be in a terrific mood.

“That’s the last place the Anglicans were fighting. Which means Hamazura must have been there.”

“But what’s with those melted holes that must be at least 10m? Oh, god. I bet Academy City is making some dangerous nonsense again.”

Lessar paled and clung to him from the side, probably out of fear. Yes, that’s what it had to be. …Although he wished she wouldn’t press her boobs against him because it was so distracting he was about to lose his balance and accidentally suplex Birdway behind him.

He too was curious about that bottomless hole, but that wasn’t their focus here.

Kamijou didn’t understand what all was going on here, but he was fairly certain Hamazura was near the center of it.

Where had Hamazura run off to?

“If we can’t find him, we’ll have to start by choosing an effective method. And the classics are better than trying to be clever. Heh heh. So it’s scrying time. Or would the term ‘crystal gazing’ be more familiar to an amateur?”

“You’re just trying to sound smart, aren’t you, you smug magician?”

“Oh? Have you finally caught on to the common trait among almost every magician, including Mathers and Crowley? Well, it’s one of the few times idiots with obscure knowledge can feel good about themselves, so let us have this.”

“Also, are you done yet? If you don’t need to see over there anymore, I’m putting you down, Birdway.”

She seemed to deflate.

“Down you go!! I can’t have you staying up there forever!”

“Are you familiar with the idea of a crystal ball?” asked Lessar.

Oh, was that all this was?

Birdway the Genius must have wanted to show off some more, so her mouth formed a small triangle, but there wasn’t time to worry about her feelings right now.

With the weight removed from his shoulders, Kamijou tilted his head.

“A crystal ball… You mean like that thing where a young woman dressed in a sexy fortuneteller’s outfit holds her hands out toward it and sends some kind of power into it?”

“Where did you get that from? In this case, the fortuneteller isn’t sending magic power into the crystal. They’re using the crystal to try and read the small subconscious signs inside their own mind.”

“Also, the ‘young woman’ and ‘sexy’ parts are just wishful thinking on your part. Did you get that stereotype from Japan’s weirdly prolific isekai fantasy industry? Neither of those are necessary for fortunetelling. In fact, the crystal doesn’t even need to be a ball.”

Birdway dismantled a pair of binoculars and pulled out a large lens. She colored that in black with a thick marker.

“All you need is to create an environment where you can intentionally stimulate your inner mind through the medium of crystal, so a lens or a mirror work just as well. The witch’s bible recommends a hand mirror colored black.”

“Wait, it works even if it’s flat and you can’t see through it? That’s nothing at all like a fortuneteller’s crystal ball.”

“Again, that’s a mistaken view drawn from your own fantasies. Throw out that meaningless isekai-inspired image right this instant. And doesn’t this country have that silly rumor about a hand mirror colored purple? Yes, called the Murasaki Kagami, I believe. It’s like that.”

…Kamijou had been fairly seriously disturbed at that souvenir shop when they were talking about condoms and the king of rubbers, but apparently there had been a real reason for that visit. They had been acquiring the everyday items they could use as tools. Pros were so cool.

“I feel like you’re being impressed by the least impressive part of this.”

“Yeah, it feels more like a backhanded compliment.”

When they sensitively reacted to his thoughts, Kamijou decided to leave it at that.

Birdway held the blackened lens between her thumb and forefinger and stared at the floor.

“So if they did pursue Hamazura from here…what exactly does that black lens let you do?”

“Track their footprints,” replied Birdway. She made it sound like she was having to explain that turning the faucet made water come out. “This may be hard for you to believe since you know all about Necessarius’s tyranny, but the Anglicans are more humane than most. They want to avoid harming civilians, so they always use a people-clearing field before launching an attack.”

That term sounded vaguely familiar to Kamijou.

…He was often the one being targeted by the attack, so he had few good memories about the magic.

“So if I can find some footprints that don’t follow the current established by the people-clearing field, they will stand out. ''Because that tells me they weren’t made by an ordinary person.''”

“Oh, that makes sense. If the target would wander on out of the field too, the attackers would end up with an empty field. So the Anglicans’ target won’t be affected by the field.”

“If we want to track down Hamazura Shiage, then we only need to search for tracks that stayed in the field but also don’t show the signs of being a professional magician,” explained Lessar. “It couldn’t be easier. If you can’t pick up a trail like that, you’re not qualified to be a magician. A little piggy like that should drop down to a 0=0 and relearn everything from the ground up.”

“Hey, weakling. Are you trying to ramp up the pressure on me here?”

“Ohh? How about you wait to speak human language until you’ve actually found something, little piggy?”

Birdway stared at the floor and nodded in a way that…as rude as the comparison felt, reminded Kamijou of a dog tracking a scent. It didn’t suit her noble appearance at all.

“Tracking him will likely mean leaving the airport through this exit.”

“Yeah, but isn’t he taking a weird detour?”

They wandered here and there a bunch until they ran into an electronically locked door. Birdway reached between the buttons of her blouse to pull out a card that she had been storing (likely with some difficulty) at her flat chest and held it to the reader, opening the door without issue. Kamijou had questions.

“What is that?”

“I borrowed it from an airport worker.”

“…Using legal means, I hope?”

She only smiled.

The super sketchy magic cabal boss didn’t give him a yes or a no answer.

After unlocking a few more doors, they emerged from the airport.

“…”

Had Hamazura escaped through here?

They were at the back of the airport. Kamijou had wondered what they would find there, but he hadn’t expected to see a small business jet stopped there. He gulped when he saw the Union Jack on the tail wing. The British government plane must have moved here since he last saw it.

“But why?”

“They’re probably transferring cargo. See?”

Lessar pointed to a loader sturdier than a forklift and a few cargo containers.

But these were air cargo containers, so they weren’t the long boxes larger than a studio apartment. They were more like 2-3m silver dice.

And one of them was rattling.

“What the hell? That has the British flag on it, so is it some dangerous magical object? Is it like that Pandora thing you’re not supposed to open?”

“Oh, c’mon. Pandora is the name of the artificial human who opened the box. The box has a different name.”

“Who cares!? I’m asking what happens if you open it!”

Birdway glanced over at the other two arguing and sighed before speaking.

“The report I received said nothing about this container. In fact, does that plane even have a cargo door?”

“Yeah, we rode this plane to Academy City, but I don’t recognize that cargo container at all.”

So it was magical, but it might not belong to the Anglicans?

??? Wait, which was it? And either way, didn’t that mean some extremely dangerous object had just been left sitting out here?

…After all, the Anglicans included some super scary people like Stiyl Magnus. What if they ignored some mysterious secret weapon here and it came after them later on!?

When Kamijou nervously touched it with his right hand, there was a sound like shattering glass.

So…it really had reacted to Imagine Breaker?

Then the metal shutter opened.



“Phew!! I-I’ve finally escaped. I guess I am one of the legendary original Golden magicians. My genius is too much for the world to handle!!”



Kamijou Touma recognized the person who emerged.

It was Dion Fortune.

As the boss of a the UK’s greatest magic cabal, Birdway sounded thoroughly exasperated by this state of affairs.

“Aren’t you their Archbishop? Only a temporary figurehead, sure, but what were you doing stuck in an Anglican cell? I thought things weren’t adding up, but did the local troops stage a coup?”

“And aren’t you one of the original Golden magicians? Are you telling me the great Dion Fortune got herself trapped by a twisted loop? Ha ha ha ha.”

Lessar grinned in ultra provocation mode, but Fortune’s reaction was surprisingly minimal.

She only pouted her lips and complained like a small child.

“It’s not my fault. Their necromancer used Underworld God Osiris against me.”

“That’ll do it.”

“Indeed. Not much you can do against Osiris. I mean, he’s Osiris.”

Kamijou waited a bit, but no one provided any further explanation.

Wait, was that the most exposition he was going to get? Was he the only one who didn’t understand? Had he been left behind by the world?

The poor, ignorant boy trembled as he spoke up.

“Umm. Who exactly is this Osiris? Some IT company president who’s popular with elementary and middle school kids on TikZap?”

“Why are you nearly in tears? He’s an Egyptian god. He was originally the god of justice and fairness, but after dying and being resurrected, he became something like the god of death and ruler of the underworld. He’s compared to Hades in Greek mythology.”

“In Crowley-style Magick, the death and resurrection part is heavily emphasized. That lets him correspond to the Son of God who was hung on the cross and resurrected.”

…How could Lessar and Birdway rattle this kind of thing off? Kamijou found it strange. He lived in Academy City of the science side, but that didn’t mean he had memorized all of the Curriculum’s textbooks.

Birdway gave him an annoyed look.

“Bad feelings have a nasty habit of coming true and no one likes being proven right in those cases. Now the Anglicans are looking even more suspicious, but the question is what we do about it.”

“If we can’t trust the Anglicans here in Academy City, is there any reason to even continue with our job? We can always board that government plane and fly on back to England.”

Lessar had a knack for finding something inappropriate to say no matter the circumstances. Which made her a handful. Was there some way Kamijou could search on his phone to find out how to punish someone like her?

“Why can’t I find anything useful!? All I’m getting is some stupid internet slang!!”

“What’s that? Doing some ‘alone time’ net surfing? How pathetic can you be? Why go for mere data when the real, tangible thing is right here☆”

Kamijou could only hope that brat would eventually suffer the consequences of not getting a talking to here and now. Strongly hope.

“I’m not going back,” said Dion Fortune.

In a way, she was the biggest victim who hadn’t asked to be a part of this. She was only temporary. A figurehead. She was supposed to be at the very top, but when it came to Hamazura, all of a sudden she was a target of suspicion, had her authority stripped from her, and was locked up like a criminal.

But she didn’t hesitate to raise her voice here.



“I have to save him. If this is allowed to continue, the Anglicans will kill Hamazura! Even if no one recognizes it, I am still the Archbishop. I won’t let my people trample on people’s lives like that!!”



A soft sigh came from Birdway, who usually maintained a harsh viewpoint.

The sigh had an exasperated tone to it.

“So you’re motivated, great. But do you have a realistic and concrete plan?”

“…I do have one idea there.”