Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth7 (section)

===Part 4===

The next event happened in the middle of the night. At 2AM to be precise.

A voice burst from all the speakers in Camouflaged Aircraft Carrier Izanami. Kobayashi’s voice.

“Alert!! Radar is showing eight objects flying straight for us from the northwest. They are hostile! Everyone hurry to the section you were assigned at dinnertime and take your post. I repeat, we are under attack!”

“Damn, I just know they’re harassing us in the night to wear us down.”

Mikoto’s head still felt terribly heavy, suggesting she was still tired.

“By the way, Kuroko, why are you right there next to me…in bed?”

“Hee hee. Do we really need to explain these things at this stage in our relationship?”

“This ship has! A thousand cabins!! And everyone was given their own!”

A serious night attack wouldn’t target the very middle of the night when people would actually be ''most'' on guard, but they couldn’t ignore a formation of enemy aircraft.

Mikoto didn’t have time to change out of her pajamas. She grabbed a thin cardigan and left the room, only to run into Shokuhou in the long corridor. Apparently that girl’s idea of sleepwear was sheer negligee. She had the same sinister tastes as Shirai Kuroko there…

Ringlets Hokaze was following after Shokuhou while giving the Queen’s bouncing blonde hair a thorough brushing. …Had she also snuck into the Shokuhou’s cabin without her knowledge?

Mikoto and Shokuhou walked briskly down the corridor while other girls rushed frantically around.

“There are 8 enemies,” said Mikoto. “Yawn…oh, and they came from the northwest.”

“That means they’re almost certainly from the Empire, but we can’t be certain yet. Another country’s aircraft might have flown in a big loop to reach us from that direction.”

“And by aircraft, you mean…?”

“Yes, those Girlish Weapons. The flying girls.”

Whatever they looked like, it had already been proven they had dogfighting and missile launching capability. So an error in responding to them could get the camouflaged aircraft carrier sunk along with all the students aboard. They couldn’t afford to underestimate this world’s technology.

“We don’t have anywhere near enough information or time. I’d love to gather in a big conference room to hold a quick briefing, but I need you and the others up in the air right away, Misaka-san. Once you confirm the 8 unidentified craft are hostile, you can shoot them down.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be borrowing Hokaze-san there and a few others. If we can’t match their 8, we can’t stop some of them from reaching the carrier while we’re busy with others.”

Shokuhou and Kobayashi (who had joined them from another route) went to the CIC while Mikoto, Shirai, Hokaze, and some others went to the maintenance hangar which contained the launching catapult.

Kongou Mitsuko was forming a megaphone with her hands and shouting.

“101 Squadron will take off one at a time. Pilots, I need you ready and waiting in your cockpits. The tractor will move you into position, so don’t blast your jet engines and wander around on your own!!”

Mikoto sighed.

“Where’d that 101 come from?”

“That’s your squadron, Misaka-san. Also, you are Railgun 01, Shirai-san is Teleport 02, and Hokaze-san is Rampage 03. When communicating with the carrier, use Izanami. When addressing me personally, use Mental 00☆”

“Is there any point in using call signs after using our real names over the radio so much before? Even if our transmissions are encrypted. I’m sure the Empire is working day and night to break the code.”

Then again, this was another world, so it wasn’t like Imperial agents could use their personal information to threaten their families.

“My, my. Are these the flight suits?”

“Such futuristic designs.”

“C’mon, everyone. You’re being scrambled, so hurry up and change!”

With only girls around, the oddly carefree students casually stripped off their sleepwear and donned their flight suits. The crude maintenance hangar looked like a girls locker room filled with the sweet scents of sports drinks and perfume.

And Mikoto had no reason to hesitate either. Not a one.

Then she looked over at Shirai. With obvious distrust.

“…”

“Geh heh heh. Tie me up or restrain me – it doesn’t matter. Do you really think you can keep a teleporter in one place? Now, it’s time to enjoy my Onee-sama’s live strip showwwww!!”

Mikoto slowly walked around behind Shirai.

When Shirai tried to look back, Mikoto latched her hand onto the back of her head.

“There, that’s better. I just have to keep an eye on you from your blind spot. If you turn around or teleport away even once, I’ll blast you with a Railgun.”

“Weh heh heh!! J-just imagining you bashfully removing your clothing one piece at a time while staring intently at me isn’t bad at all. Ahh, now my brain juices are really pumping…”

“Damn, I forgot perverts know how to convert anything in their favor.”

Mikoto decided being quick about it would be better than worrying over every little thing, so she reached for her pajamas, stripped down to her underwear, and then reached for her flight suit.



If she was being charitable, she would call it a high-performance riding suit.

If she was being uncharitable, she would call it brightly-colored full-body tights.



The neon blue with yellow lines gave it lightning colors.

The flight suits did not have a standardized design. The basic design was the same, but the colors differed. For example, Shirai’s was pink with white lines and Hokaze’s was light purple with red lines.

Those two had already worn theirs once, so they were past questioning it.

It still felt strange to Mikoto thanks to her Earth-based knowledge, but after her experience flying in her summer uniform, she knew she couldn’t be picky.

“Why does it have velcro on the belly, back, underarms, and thighs? I’m afraid those parts will come undone.”

“It makes me think of a next-generation school swimsuit.”

Hokaze provided that strange term with a smile.

Was it for regulating body temperature? Or did it allow the air within the suit to escape when the pressure changed? It sort of reminded Mikoto of zippered plastic bags that prevented leaks when storing leftovers in the fridge, or of the steam vents on frozen foods that were microwaved inside their bags.

Mikoto used a simple gangway resembling a tennis umpire chair to board the Shinshin.

She took a look around the hangar from that higher position. There were multiple types of aircraft, but most were F-2As. …Was that a bad sign? To keep costs down, those were basically a Japanese customization of the excellent F-16 design. That meant their specs were inferior to the truly top-level fighters. Depending on what the Empire had sent, this could be a difficult fight.

And…

“Coming through,” said a voice.

The giant girl with curly blonde twintails was down on all fours and slowly moving through the hangar. She apparently had small wheels. That was the F-22A in a long-sleeved black leotard. She was moving into the catapult standby position.

Did she intend to join the fight?

Since Mikoto had already closed her cockpit canopy, shouting wouldn’t help, so she focused on the radio instead.

“Hey! You’re an Imperial fighter, aren’t you? You aren’t going to join the enemy squadron once you take off, are you!?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Whatever you plan to do with me as a POW, I am a noble fighter and I intend to repay you for your help.”

“?”

Come to think of it, the F-22A had fallen into the ocean after her right tail assembly was damaged, but what had happened to that damage? The Izanami obviously wasn’t equipped with spare parts for an F-22A (especially a giant girl version).

Kongou Mitsuko caught Mikoto’s eye, winked, and gave her a thumbs up. With a smug grin. …Apparently she had taken a spare part for the Shinshin and cut it down to the right size and shape before using it to replace the damaged part. The idea was crude, but the work had been superb.

Was that the help the F-22A had alluded to?

Apparently the daughter of Kongou Airlines’ president had managed to win over this world’s greatest stealth fighter.

Mikoto sounded exasperated.

“Well, I’m glad you want to help, but can you even take off from the carrier at your size?”

“Heh. I am the YF-22A, the special final test model that emerged gloriously victorious from the competition against a certain loser I could mention.”

“What?” asked Mikoto without thinking.

So she wasn’t an ordinary F-22A? After Mikoto had gotten used to thinking of her that way? The damn carrier’s computer estimation must have been wrong.

That fighter just had to make this confusing, didn’t she?

The long-sleeved black leotard girl proudly brushed back one of her curly twintails as she spoke.

“That means I am a size smaller than the mass-produced F-22A. You called this the Izanami, right? It seems to be equipped with a high-power electromagnetic catapult, so I won’t have any trouble. I am the only F-22 model light enough to take off from a ship! Heh heh heh, ha ha ha! Yes, only me!!”

“Oh, that explains it.”

“What part of me do you think you are looking at, Miss Washboard? Unlike a loser like you, I am keeping my chest wrapped up tight. It isn’t easy, but I need to reduce my curves as much as possible to preserve my excellent stealth capabilities.”

Mikoto considered firing her machinegun inside the maintenance hangar, but Shirai’s fighter blasted its jet engine to move in between them. That failure to obey the tractor’s instructions earned her some angry gesticulation from Kongou.

(Well, it’s not my problem, so whatever.)

Once Mikoto abandoned all responsibility there, Shokuhou’s exasperated voice arrived over the radio.

“What should we call her? Just F-22A could lead to confusion ability later on.”

“I just told you – I am the special YF-22A!!”

“How about Twintails 04?”

“Teleport 02, I object. That is my identity.”

“Uh, then curly-”

“Rampage 03, objection.”

“Um, uh, I’m sick of thinking, so let’s just go with Brat 04!”

“Do I not get to object!? This is a violation of my fundamental rights!”

Mikoto was a little concerned she would betray them over this, but having a member of the highly-regarded F-22 family would mean a lot. In mock battles, they had even won a crushing victory of 1 against more than 100.

The enemy numbered 8. With her and Mikoto’s Shinshin together, they could probably take on that many while also protecting the others in their F-2 varieties.

Kongou apparently liked to get the unfamiliar part of a job done first, so she had the YF-22A girl prepare for takeoff first.

Specifically, she had the giant long-sleeved leotard girl lie prone on the catapult. It looked like she was lying on a sled in preparation to descend an icy slope head first. So not the bobsled or the luge. It was the…um, no I can’t get the word bobsled out of my head! Hmm…oh, right. The skeleton!!

“Catapult and launch bar are in place! Control, is the sky clear? Brat 04 will be taking off. Count 3!!”

“Brat 04, roger that. Ahhh, I’m stuck with that awful call name, aren’t I?”

On Kongou’s signal, the YF-22A slid rapidly along the guide rail. The air compressed and burst out as a gust of wind. At more than 250km/h, she rivaled a race car.

Mikoto was somewhat impressed inside the waiting Shinshin’s cockpit.

“That mech girl is really flying.”

“She’s part of your 101 Squadron now, Misaka-san, so shoot her down the instant she does anything suspicious,” said Shokuhou. “I secretly removed the restrictions on the squadron leader’s fighter, so you can ignore Brat 04’s friendly IFF signal and lock onto her☆”

“You’re a monster.”

Kongou waved both her arms to provide a signal.

“Connect Misaka-sama’s Shinshin to the catapult next. We want the best two fighters in the air to guard the ship as we launch the F-2s! If they are targeted before they can stabilize their speed and attitude, they will be sitting ducks!!”

“Railgun 01, roger that.”

The electromagnetic catapult launched the Shinshin.

It felt so different this time.

The specialized flight suit helped keep her mind clear and she had no trouble breathing. Her lungs felt so much more free.

An anti-g suit protected a pilot form the high gs of high-speed combat maneuvers, preventing blackouts. That might make it sound like a high-tech piece of equipment that controlled both the body and mind…but the actual design was fairly crude. The problem was the powerful inertial forces sent the blood down into the legs where it could not return to the head, so it only had to mechanically constrict the thighs just before high-g combat to temporarily cut off the flow of blood to the legs. That meant a fighter pilot who didn’t want to lose their legs could not dogfight at full specs for very long. But if they were fine with having their necrotic legs amputated afterwards, that was another story.

However, the flight suits found on the Izanami appeared to be a bit more advanced. A weak electrical current flowed through the interior of the skintight material, activating the veins which were meant to act like pumps and accelerating the circulation of blood throughout the body. That meant they didn’t have to worry about their legs.

So…

(I can directly control electricity, so do I not even need the suit? …No, no. This is about bodily control, so it’s more of a Hokaze-san thing. Although she might run out of stamina quick if she had to be using her power at all times.)

Mikoto flew in a large circle around the carrier as she spoke into the radio.

“Railgun 01 here. Takeoff complete. I will now wait for the rest of the friendly fighters to takeoff before- hey, Brat 04! Don’t blast your afterburners yet! Teleport 02 and Rampage 03 aren’t in the air yet!!”

“Heh. Why should I wait for you ignorant plebs to catch up? Not only am I from the F-22 family, but I am the special YF-22A. I’m sure those are only some outdated models, so it doesn’t matter how many there are. It is my noble duty to bring down anyone who opposes me!!”

She flew straight toward the enemy group on her own.

For a supersonic fighter, about 100km was nothing at all.

(Oh, I see she calls them ‘anyone’. She sees them as people, not machines.)

Mikoto made a mental note of that while the two dots on the radar intersected without waiting for the Shinshin and F-2As.

And…

“Hellllp! I’m surrounded and the missile lock alarm won’t stop sounding!”

“How weak are you!?” shouted Mikoto on reflex.

Did this tearful mayday from an F-22 count as an extremely rare historical event?

Shokuhou’s exasperated voice came over the radio.

“While the F-22A’s superiority is globally famous, I seem to recall that comes from its spec abilities on paper and its results in mock battles. I believe it has very little actual combat experience. And after paying so much money on it, wouldn’t the developing country want to exaggerate its abilities as propaganda?”

More than that, the YF-22A was only an experimental model. Actual combat would mean the stress of 9gs or more, but the development competition only went up to 7gs. Why was the F-22A a size bigger?  Because some small adjustments and reinforcements had been made to prepare it for actual combat. The YF-22A didn’t have that. Meaning it was overly specialized and thus fragile.

“Your thrust vectoring nozzles and stealth aren’t divine miracles, so the other side is going to be researching countermeasures.”

Stealth aircraft did not appear on radar, but only when viewed from one direction. That changed if it was exposed to radar waves from multiple directions and that information was shared via a datalink. If the radar waves diverted in a different direction by the stealth aircraft’s surface were picked up at a different angle, it would appear on radar.

Not to mention that it would be pursued and attacked like normal in a dogfight at close enough range for visual observation.

And even if that high-level fighter was an idiot, this fight would be a lot harder if she was shot down. Mikoto’s Shinshin alone wouldn’t be enough to wipe out the enemy while also protecting the F-2s.

(Damn, I would really prefer to wait until 102 and 103 Squadron are in the air.)

“I’m going to go rescue her, even if she is an idiot. Everyone who’s in the air already, come with me!!”

“Roger that, Onee- Railgun 01.”

“Roger!”

There were eight enemies. If they could all be stopped by the vanguard, the fighters taking off from the carrier would remain safe without anyone there to protect them.

Mikoto formed up with Shirai and Hokaze and charged on in.

It was a dark night, but the moonlight helped a lot. Mikoto’s appreciation for it grew once they were above the clouds. And as they approached the trouble area, she could see the details not shown on the flat radar.

“Yikes, Onee-sama…”

“Yeah, they’re really going at it.”

It was best described as a swarm of furious hornets.

That they all looked like scantily-clad girls made it hard to interpret at first, but based on the shape of their main wings and engine exhaust ports, the enemy was a mixed squadron of F-14Ds, famous for their variable-sweep wings (school swimsuit catgirls with the main wings on their backs linked to the movement of their arms), and F-15Cs, the bearers of the strongest title in the pre-stealth era (curvy leggings mamas with giant wings spreading out from the joints on their shoulders).

It wasn’t just YF-22A.

The other aircraft were giant girls too.

So were these all Girlish Weapons? This was the standard in this world, so the weird ones were Mikoto and the others who had to put on flight suits and climb aboard steel aircraft.

Mikoto frowned.

“…? I would get F-14s, but can F-15s take off from a carrier?”

“No sign of an enemy carrier in the vicinity,” reported Shokuhou. “Could it be a long-distance attack launched from land? With a midair refueling stop along the way?”

Mikoto’s Shinshin could manage against those large F-15Cs, but Shirai, Hokaze, and the others in smaller F-2s would be overpowered.

The Liheilstaut Air Force had to have detected their approach on radar.

The enemy’s plan appeared to be to start by concentrating on hunting down the troublesome YF-22A and then tear through the inferior F-2s at their leisure, but the initial idiot’s unexpectedly quick evasive maneuvers were throwing a wrench in that plan.

Mikoto was a little impressed. She wasn’t about to say so out loud, though.

(She’s fleeing from eight fighters at once without getting shot down. Hm, I guess that crybaby idiot has some skill after all.)

Anyway, she was risking her life to buy this time.

That was their ticket to survival.

Mikoto’s squadron was in position to take them on.

“Railgun 01 to 101 Squadron. Don’t fly out ahead. Stay by my side!!”

“Onee-sama, you are not one to talk there.”

The situation here was different from the previous dogfight against YF-22A.

This was a head-on clash between two squadrons.

This was a group battle.