Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover2 (section)

===Part 5===
 
'''(Heivia/Ground's Nir)
 
He was running away.

From what? From a single girl.

Heivia continued to run full speed between the forest's trees while balls of light were fired at him like tracer rounds. They flew in large arcs and poured down on him like rain. When they hit the ground or a thick tree trunk, they would explode and leave behind a small crater. At this density, he would have been killed instantly if he had gotten on the ground in the middle of an empty field or fled into a foxhole. So why was he not dead?

(Are the explosives something like instant-set bombs? A lot of them are getting caught in the taller branches instead of hitting the ground. They're exploding way too high up a lot of the-...)

"...Bgwah!?"

The idiot must have earned some divine punishment for acting like an intellectual because one ball of light slipped through the gaps in the branches and fell right on his head. He had been running a second before, but the explosion slammed him to the ground and he bounced higher than he was tall.

Even now the handsome boy was sparkling.

In fact, he was not scorched at all. Something white had grown from his back and protected him like a giant shield.

"Oh...wah!? What the hell!?"

The wing stabbed into the ground, pinning him in midair. Once he had stopped his momentum, he placed his feet on the ground and tilted his head.

(W-was that part of the skin's functionality? This material is so thin and I can move it however I want. I could do anything with this! Mwa ha ha ha ha!!)

He was sick of running away. More importantly, he wanted to give a somewhat harsh punishment to that girl in the revealing armor. With that goal in mind, Heivia looked up, but nothing more happened. He realized he had no idea how to bring out and move that wing. It required using his mind in a different way from moving his arms or legs.

"Dammit, this isn't a cutting-edge smartphone! You can't just omit the thick user's manual!!"

It seemed running away was his only option.

The explosions were more shockwave than fire and thus did not ignite the forest, but there was nothing clean or ecological about this attack. If he hid behind cover, he would simply get eradicated along with it. The mysterious wing had disappeared at some point and, at this rate, he would end up blown to pieces while still borrowing this good-looking face. That nihilistic and handsome smile might just remain on his face while his body weight of flesh was gathered up and dumped into a coffin.

"Are you goddamn kidding me!?"

His hair and jacket were muddy as he scrambled down a gentle unpaved slope.

This was not an armored vehicle or attack helicopter equipped with a howitzer. To reiterate, he was only up against a human here. A slender girl. The only obvious weapon was the rapier in her right hand, but he could not even begin to imagine how she was using that like rockets were used to level out the land in front of an advancing army.

And...

(She isn't taking this seriously.)

Heivia gulped inside the handsome shell.

(She's doing all this and she isn't even taking it seriously. She's making no effort to actually pursue me! Is she doing this without really paying attention? How many wars could this girl start!?)

This pairing was not good.

Just as scissors could not beat rock, he had no way of turning this around. Fight or flee, the result would be the same. He would be unilaterally worn down and killed.

(Isn't there something...someone!? I don't care what it is! I just need someone who can play paper! Just bring that here right now!!)

The wing from before may have qualified, but he could not use that right now. If you had forgotten your PIN, you could not use your credit card to pay for dinner. Searching the bottom of your bag for some lost money would be more productive.

While exposed to so many explosive flames, Heivia silently prayed and kept running. He had no idea what it was, where it was, what form it took, or how it would help.

That was why he prayed.

He had no plan. But there was a hint of probability and statistics in his reasoning. If he did not reach out his hand, the odds of success would remain at 0%. If he wanted even the smallest possibility, he had to search for something, even if he could only search at random. Running around searching was the only option.

"Hm?"

His sense of time was so thoroughly out of whack that he was not sure if a second or an hour had passed, but he finally detected a change.

He heard the refreshing sound of running water.

There was a clear stream. It was narrow enough he could probably jump over it with a running start and jumping into it would not be enough to hide him. But he still saw it as an opportunity. He changed course to run alongside the stream. This faint hope slightly numbed some of the fear and exhaustion.

Had water simply seemed like an advantage against fire?

Or had he hoped one of the animals that were bound to gather at a water source would help in some way?

He was not sure.

He just kept running without knowing what exactly he was hoping for.

In the end, it was an issue of statistics and probability.

In other words, his effort into running across some kind of coincidence had transferred him onto a different set of rails.

"Boo?"

He heard some kind of groan.

No, this was human language. It was not just mimicking sounds like a parrot; this was someone speaking with enough intelligence to know what the words meant.

"Why are you all muddy? I know you humans are weak to change, so you'll get sick if you don't keep yourself clean. You need to be careful."

"Wh...what?!"

Heivia was not certain this was what he was looking for, but he still came to a stop.

A gray pig-faced giant was scooping water into a wooden bucket with a handle, like he was dropping it into a well. Heivia stopped because it was impossible to ignore that nearly-4m height and all that fat situated atop powerful muscles.

(W-wait? There's more of those pig costumes that Quenser wore? But, wait, eh? If that isn't a costume...eh???)

He had not recognized any of the trees in this forest. And he had some serious doubts that the fire pillar girl chasing him was human given what she could do. But this was on a much bigger scale. It felt so very wrong that it overwhelmed his capacity for understanding, split apart his right and left brain, and gave him a headache that threatened to transform that idiot into a genius.

He did not understand any of this.

But this was too much. He felt like the world he believed in was crumbling around him.

(It doesn't matter who wins or loses.)

He instantly made up his mind.

(But there should be an opening if that fire-breathing girl and this giant thing start fighting. I just have to use that to escape! I can't hope for anything more...!!)

"Boo? What's the matter?"

The pig-faced giant remained carefree. This would work. If Heivia just left things as they were, he was fairly certain a battle would begin on its own.

But then he felt movement on his back. That wing was starting to appear again now that he was facing such a threatening being.

"Don't you..."

He heard a resentful voice behind him.

This was the first time he heard that girl's beautiful voice.

"Don't you dare bully Boo Boo, you dumb pretty boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"

But he did not have time to appreciate it.

Before any mystery wings could appear, a blunt weapon covered his borrowed face with enough force to distort the handsome features. Only after hearing an unpleasant noise from his neck and bending backwards did he realize it was the sole of a metal boot.

She had been a decent distance away, but she had filled that gap in an instant.

It took a while before he realized flames had spread out from the red girl's back like wings.

And just before he collapsed, he spotted her underwear as her miniskirt fluttered up from the force of the flying kick. They were fairly lewd for their pure appearance.

And there was one thing he knew he could honestly say this time:

It wasn't my fault!!