Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth5 (section)

===Part 5===

Mikoto’s Shinshin two seat custom accelerated down the maintenance hangar’s electromagnetic catapult toward the narrow exit. It took off as if from a tunnel.

A transmission arrived from Kobayashi.

“Izanami to Railgun 01. Head north for now. I predict you will be swept off course by powerful winds once you enter the stormy area. There are no landmarks on the ocean, so keep an eye on your instruments to stay on course. Don’t rely on your senses.”

“Railgun 01. Roger that!”

The refreshing blue sky transformed into dark clouds in only a few minutes.

She heard loud sounds like small masses bursting.

At this speed, rain didn’t fall from above – it crashed into her from the front like laser beams. The fighter didn’t have wipers, so the only way to keep her view clear was to trust in the power of the water repellent and use her own speed to blast the raindrops away.

She saw an occasional flash of light.

That was lightning.

(Come to think of it, I’m flying in a big piece of metal over the open sea. What happens if lightning strikes the fighter? It’s full of delicate equipment.)

This was barely within the Shinshin’s range.

Since she had to make a round trip, she didn’t have time for anything extra. The Shinshin ordinarily seemed to slice effortlessly through the air, but now she felt like she was forcing the nose into the solid headwind.

It’s balance was off.

The Shinshin’s anti-radar design meant all of its armaments were stored inside for stealth.

But now it had an extra fuel tank forcibly attached below. She couldn’t count on any of its usual stealth functionality.

The Imperial radar bases would definitely detect her.

She barely had enough fuel for the round trip. Once this began, she couldn’t avoid a battle with the odds stacked against her.

But difficulties for herself she could accept.

(Now, if the enemy is buffeted by these winds too, it should be a little easier to pull away from them with my spee-)



“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. I have an extra tank too, so you should be able to see me on your radar.”



“!?”

Mikoto first looked down at the screen and froze but then twisted around, eyes wide. She couldn’t turn around well with the seat belt, but she could still tell.

Something was following her.

“What do you think you’re doing!?”

“Brat 04. You have to ask? The Liheilstaut Empire is my country. If its people are in danger, I need no other reason to come flying.”

And she wasn’t the only one.

Two more dots appeared on the radar farther back.

“Teleport 02. You didn’t forget about us, did you, Onee-sama?”

“Rampage 03. I am here too. If I let you take all the glory, the Queen might just start crying.”

Mikoto held a hand to her forehead and sighed.

They were almost to the Empire’s second largest city of Dorgionix. They barely had enough fuel, so there was no time for arguing.

Still, Mikoto felt a greater weight than when the risk was to her alone.

…But Shokuhou Misaki always stood at the top ordering others around, so was this pressure a constant companion for her?

(Yeah, right.)

Still, this was no longer a personal whim. She of course had to keep the gravity dam from breaking and flooding a city of 9 million, but now it was also her responsibility to get every single member of 101 Squadron back to the Izanami and Izanagi.

Mikoto refocused her mind.

She now held the position of squadron leader.

Countless artificial lights twinkled through the thick curtain of pouring rain.



“Izanami to 101 Squadron. That is Dorgionix!!”

“Railgun 01. Roger!”



Mikoto adjusted her grip on the control column.

This was where it really began.

“Follow me, everyone. We need to destroy the stuck flood gates and protect the city!!”

They entered the metropolis’s sky from the ocean side.

In the blowing wind and the downpour that was like a head-on barrage, they heard the distorted deep cries of a siren like the one signaling the start of a baseball tournament. Mikoto initially thought their arrival had been detected and this was an air raid siren, but that wasn’t it.

(It must be a disaster evacuation siren.)

There wasn’t time.

They needed to reach the mountains beyond the city.

While passing over the siren-filled city, she could see the traffic clogging the streets below. As she had feared, the civilian evacuation was getting nowhere.

“Rampage 03. We can’t afford to fail, can we?”

“No.”

The dam came into view.

It looked like a cup full to the brim with water. The emergency water release produced something like a waterfall, but the thick concrete still looked ready to crack and collapse at any moment.

Mikoto switched her display to ground attack mode and set it so any metal detected above a certain size in the stormy mountains was highlighted in white. Some of the quicker people would have managed to evacuate into the mountains before the congestion got too bad, so she couldn’t afford to blow up a car or cabin.

After her radar detected metal in the natural scene, she would zoom in the camera view, locate the flood gate along the river, and lock on using visual identification.

That was of course the ideal, but…

(Argh, it’s all white and hazy. Visibility in the pouring rain is too poor for the camera to work! I need to get closer!!)

“Onee-sama! If you descend any lower, you will crash into the mountainside. This is far more dangerous than using your phone and walking!!”

There wasn’t time.

But once she got a lock, the rest would be easy.

“Railgun 01. I have a lock. Someone double check!”

“Brat 04. No one detected on the surface.”

“Teleport 02. Ditto. No civilians came to check on the river or flood gate, so free free to bomb it.”

That was good to hear.

The flood gate wouldn’t move and it wouldn’t return fire with anti-air weaponry. To make sure the mountainside didn’t get in the way, Mikoto raised her nose to gain some height before flying in an inverted U to flip upside down. While rapidly descending toward the mountain, she launched an air-to-surface missile as if dropping it vertically.

Lightning passed right by her.

“Whoa!!”

The bright flash caused the image identification missile to briefly veer off course, but it found its target again and stabbed into the mountain slope.

The floodgate exploded.

Mikoto twisted her fighter around to level flight before she crashed into the ground.

“Railgun 01. One floodgate down!!”

“Izanami. Understood. You have 9 targets left. How many are necessary depends on the rate of the dam’s emergency water release, but it would be best to destroy them all.”

She now had data on the floodgates from the camera. She set a program to detect similar objects and more than 15 box cursors appeared along the mountainside like the facial recognition indicators in a camera app.

(That’s too many. Is it the rain? That must be causing a few false positives.)

Some RVs stuck in the rain may have been falsely identified as floodgates, so she would have to visually confirm them all anyway.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. You saw how I did it, right? There’s no time to waste, so we need to split up and-”

It happened suddenly.

A shrill missile lock alarm filled the cockpit. Uncertain what was happening, Mikoto made a quick roll to the right, but then the empty space there exploded.

A thick lightning bolt had struck a flying air-to-air missile.

If not for that, she might have been shot down.

(What!? Who!? Where!?)

A dot appeared on her radar for just a few seconds before disappearing again.

The lightning had electrified the air and the aircraft’s surface, preventing it from absorbing the radar waves properly.

Meaning…

“There’s something out there? Be on the lookout for Imperial stealth fighters!!”

“Brat 04. I have visual confirmation. At least one YF-23 and two F-35s. I saw a lift fan, so they must be the B-type with VTOL capability.”

Mikoto glimpsed something through the white curtain of rain.

Two types of stealth girl used the dark forested mountainside to hide.

The YF-23 was a high performance stealth fighter that had competed against the YF-22A. In terms of pure stealth, it was rumored to outdo the YF-22A. For whatever reason, in this world it was a black bikini woman in a tube top (maybe to constrict her chest?). Black diamond-shaped wings spread out from the joint near her shoulder blades. …On Earth, it was a mysterious fighter that left people wondering where it stored its missiles during flight, so where was she storing her weapons?

The F-35B was a stealth fighter developed at the same time as the F-22A. Here, it was a giant black-haired girl in a black sailor uniform. The wings on her back resembled YF-22A’s. Perhaps it came with the stealth, but just like YF-22A, she had flat metal panels extending from below her main wings and around her belly. That would be the weapon bay full of missiles and bombs. She had a single engine nozzle on the back of her hips. But it looked like it was made to point downwards if necessary. …So despite her gloomy and plain appearance, she apparently lay prone and spread her legs wide when doing a vertical takeoff or landing. In her sailor uniform’s skirt.

(They look silly, but they’re a troublesome group. Their specs mean my Shinshin and YF-22A’s superiority won’t be enough here!!)

Those three must have realized they were spotted because they moved away from the mountainside and scattered radar waves as they climbed sharply skyward.

Fortunately, the mountain was not densely populated.

They could engage in a dogfight here.

“Railgun 01 to squadron. 01 and 04 have equivalent stealth, so we’ll take them on. 02 and 03, you focus on blowing up the floodgates! You’re the star today, Teleport 02. If that giant gravity dam breaks, this is all for nothing!!”

“Argh. Teleport 02. Roger that!”

“Brat 04. Roger. It’s a shame, but we should cut free our extra fuel tanks. We need to win this!!”

101 Squadron split sharply into two groups.

A black sailor uniform F-35B tried to pursue Shirai and Hokaze, but YF-22A sprayed her with radar waves to draw her attention.

It had begun.

Mikoto, YF-22A, and the three Imperials fought for a position on each other’s tails, so they were flying sharp circles through the sky.

(Is it really only these three? I hope there aren’t any other stealth fighters hiding nearby.)

Shirai made a disgusted comment as she worked on her task.

“Why would they come get in our way here? Even if they want to fight, couldn’t they wait until after we’ve blown up the floodgates!?”

“Because they don’t want us to blow them up.” Mikoto swallowed bitterly. “The Slendard Dam is Imperial national policy. I don’t know if it there was a design flaw or if these conditions are unprecedented, but if a dam built by the country threatens a city, the people will revolt. But if we screw up here and turn it into a man-made disaster, the people’s anger will be directed at us instead. …The Imperial leaders are already planning to let Dorgionix flood – 9 million residents and all.”

“Rampage 03. Is that why the Imperial Air Force only sent in stealth fighters that won’t appear on radar? So their interference won’t appear in the official records!?”

Even with the extra fuel tanks gone, the lightning electrifying the surface of the aircraft meant neither side’s stealth was perfect.

Mikoto’s Shinshin and the black tube top bikini YF-23 soared through the storm, their paths twisting around each other.

(Our specs are about evenly matched, or hers might be a bit better. But if I use the winds to boost my maneuverability, I can get behind her!!)

The invisible winds of the storm roiled around like a living being, but there was some predictability to the wind direction thanks to the mountainside’s influence. Mikoto could make use of the tailwinds and headwinds.

But then…

“Argh, my flaperon isn’t moving like I want. My fuselage feels so heavy. Railgun 01, help! She’s about to get on my tail!!”

(Uh, oh. The wind’s working against her!)

YF-22A’s movements were sluggish, suggesting the buffeting winds were reducing her maneuverability, so an F-35B was about to get behind her.

She would eventually be killed like that.

Mikoto intended to abandon her dogfight with the YF-23 and go rescue her, but something moved sharply in to block her course.

It was the other F-35B in a black sailor uniform.

“Damn!!”

She was cut off from YF-22A.

“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. She’s on my tail! I can detect her radar waves! You need to get her off of me before she gets a lock!!”

Mikoto was busy dealing with both the YF-23 and an F-35B. She couldn’t go to YF-22A’s rescue right away, but YF-22A would be shot down if she didn’t.

(Damn, what can I use right away!?)

“Railgun 01 to Brat 04. Lower your altitude and continue straight! Stay so close to the mountainside you’re nearly colliding with it!!”

“If I fly straight, she’ll get a lock! I’ll be shot down!!”

“You won’t! Look for the metal tower on the mountain 5km ahead. Make a sharp turn there!!”

That was directly ahead of her in a fighter that flew more than 300m every second.

YF-22A yanked up her nose and began a loop-the-loop.

Unable to respond to the unexpected action, the F-35B fly right past the top of the metal tower.

And she ran into an invisible mass there.

The air. Turbulence slid sharply down the mountainside.

Her black sailor uniform was blown upwards and her armor and wings were pulled upwards too.

''Wahhhh!!

Mikoto thought she heard that scream within the blowing wind.

…You couldn’t underestimate natural phenomena. If conditions aligned just wrong, the power of the waves could slice through a cargo ship weighing more than 100 thousand tons or a mass of wind accelerated as it slid down a mountainside could break apart a 40m aircraft.

By observing the terrain and getting the timing right, that could make a decent replacement for an air-to-air missile.

“Report, Brat 04!”

“Um, one down. One of the F-35Bs.”

But it was still two against two.

They couldn’t relax yet.

They were about evenly matched with the F-35B and the YF-23’s specs were a little better.

Still, Mikoto and YF-22A had hope.

Something exploded in the distance.

Shirai or Hokaze’s F-2A must have destroyed another floodgate.

“Izanami to 101 Squadron. The Slendard Dam has passed its estimated time limit, but it remains intact. That proves the amount of water entering the dam has lessened. Keep going!”

Just then, the YF-23 pursuing the Shinshin suddenly veered away. Even though it might have gotten a lock on Mikoto if it had stayed there.

“?”

(That direction!!)

“Railgun 01 to Brat 04! Shoot down the escaping YF-23. That’s our top priority!!”

“Okay, but why are you so concerned about-”

“That bitch is going to launch a missile directly into the dam!! Because she knows they can’t stop 02 and 03 from blowing up the floodgates at this rate!!”

Were they that intent on blaming the dam’s destruction on Tokiwadai?

But if the Slendard Dam didn’t break at all, no one had to take responsibility in the first place.

Fortunately, the enemy was only heading straight for the dam at full speed. That simple motion allowed Mikoto and YF-22A to get a lock while pursuing.

Even though, looking just at their specs, the YF-23 may have been superior.

Maybe she had prioritized approaching and attacking the dam over her own safety.

An air-to-air missile caught up.

Her main wing exploded, she lost balance in midair, and the black tube top bikini YF-23 crashed into the center of the dam’s reservoir lake.

“Railgun 01. One down. The YF-23.”

“Looks like the last one is withdrawing,” said YF-22A as she watched the black sailor uniform girl departing in the direction of Dorgionix.

There was no need to pursue her.

“Teleport 02. The final floodgate is destroyed!”

“Rampage 03. Double check of destruction is complete.”

“…”

Now the #2 city of Dorgionix was safe.

Mikoto had only thought of this as a world where tanks, fighters, and other weapons were giant girls.

But what was this?

Not only had the Liheilstaut Empire abandoned 9 million of their own people to die to dodge responsibility, but they had worked to actively kill them.

This was more than just anthropomorphized weapons. Something was wrong at a deeper level. This really was a different world from Earth.