Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter5 (section)

===Part 4===

Maeda could not move his own body.

So when the shaking of the ambulance shook his right arm, the leotard girl saw something there.

She saw it on his wrist.

And on his neck just below the collar.

He had several permanent scars visible on the skin between his Anti-Skill equipment. As someone who worked on the underside of the city, she knew those were all places with thick blood vessels. Even if your opponent was wielding a blade, you could not let yourself be slashed there.

He had gained these scars in his intense daily duties.

This was proof that he had arrived on the verge of death countless times while fighting to protect complete strangers.

And that was not all. She was only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

He was not an idealist who knew nothing of reality’s cruelty and he was not actively trying to show off these signs of his hard work.

It was possible.

Someone could face the great darkness out there and still choose to silently protect Academy City. If you used the city’s deep darkness as an excuse, you could justify anything, but it was only the weakness in the leotard girl’s own heart that had let her do that.

But this meant Riot might have been able to do what he had done.

She might have been able to escape the darkness. The back alleys still would have been the only place for her, but she could have faced the darkness in a different way. For example, when she heard a scream, she could have rushed recklessly to the scene and used her Telekinesis as a shield.

That might have been an option.

If she had not eliminated the possibility herself.

(He isn’t all talk.)

But it was too late to realize this now.

This was all meant to end her life.

She had caused this.

This man had what she did not and she had put him in mortal danger.

(There really were adults in Academy City capable of giving things real thought and acting on that thought? Then what have I been doing all this time!?)