Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

The rain was falling.

The funeral in the auditorium had ended, so most of the students were using the walkway to return to the main school building.

They were pinching something and sprinkling it on their heads. It turned out to be salt.

Mikoto sighed softly as she walked out.

“So even the students at his school treat his death as something unclean.”

“I doubt many people in Academy City understand the symbolism. Just like very few people bother looking up the etymology of words like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. Most people see it as no more than the done thing, like bowing your head when entering a room. And does it have to be so cold!?”

Shokuhou’s shouted breath was already visible.

And a frigid rain was falling outside.

Shokuhou had started off holding her own shoulders, but once she set her sights on Mikoto, she grabbed onto her.

“Get off, Shokuhou. Kimonos are hard to fix once they start to come undone, so don’t grab onto me.”

“Oh, c’mon. Being a hot-water bottle is about all you’re good for, Misaka-san.”

“Oh, really? Even though I happen to have some hand warmers?”

Shokuhou Misaki petrified.

The corners of her lips twitched.

Her pride appeared to be conflicted over whether or not she should put on a polite smile.

“If you don’t want any, then fine. I’ll seal them away at the bottom of my purse. In the zone where I can’t dig them out again.”

“Wait, Misaka-saaan! You win, I admit it! So please show some love to this Little Match Girl freezing in the winter collllllllld!!”

“You have everyone call you a queen and now you have the nerve to act like the unfortunate Little Match Girl?

Mikoto toyed with the unathletic girl by tossing her hand warmer packs one after another as if to have her juggle them.

…This entire exchange may have been a way of preserving their mental balance. To Mikoto, the forced cheerfulness only made her entire life seem like an act.

“Ahh…☆”

“Hey, where the hell are you shoving that hand warmer, Shokuhou!? What happened to us having a shame culture!?”

The girl was shutting her eyes, trembling, and sighing like she was sinking into a hot spring, but the details were best left unstated.

She was capable of prioritizing what really mattered, meaning she was the type who would decide to nestle together in the nude to stay warm if they were stranded on a snowy mountain in the winter. Mikoto was certain of that now.

The official next to the hearse formed a megaphone with his hands and guided them.

“The buses are over here! Um, if you’re from the school, use bus 1. If you’re a visitor, use bus 2.”

Yes, it wasn’t over yet.

Many umbrellas blossomed like flowers and gathered together.

Carried by the adults.

The coffin was loaded onto the hearse.

The black and gold vehicle was headed to District 10.

Specifically, to the crematorium.

The entire student body wouldn’t fit there, so only what appeared to be Kamjou’s class would be going.

A bus was enough to carry that many.

And a second bus was enough for the visitors.

Another time limit had appeared.

Mikoto saw the distance to the crematorium like the timer ticking down on a time bomb.

But what did that time limit matter at this point?

Death could not be overturned.

It was already over.

“…”

“Ohh, blessed heat ability. Modern conveniences are truly wonderful…”

Next to her, the queen was saying something that suggested a kotatsu was all you needed to win her heart.

The two buses left the rear of the school to follow the hearse. The reporters out front seemed to be making a minor fuss, but the buses had no obligation to wait for them.

No one on the fairly large bus uttered a word.

The GPS navigation system provided a few instructions in a female voice, but the driver appeared to be ignoring them. Maybe there was some kind of etiquette to it, but the hearse seemed to avoid the shortest route and took a longer way to their destination.

In the adjacent seat, Shokuhou whispered briefly while staring out the window being pummeled by raindrops.

“Misaka-saaan.”

“Ugh, what idiot is sending a drone after us?”

With a sparking sound, the multicopter lost control out in the rain.

But who did those persistent reporters want to attack with their articles? Surely it wasn’t Alice Anotherbible or the Transcendents from the hidden side of the world.

“Maybe you could say we sent him to his death too. We didn’t stand in his way and attack him, but we did give him a push from behind.”

“Misaka-san. Malign his resolve and determination again and I will slap you.”

But Shokuhou didn’t actually deny it.

It probably bothered her too.

It was the same when they had fought Christian Rosencreutz. It had required a lot of power to repel him and Kamijou would have been killed if it had been even slightly insufficient.

Even so.

If their power hadn’t been up to the task, would he have considered running away?

“Not likely.”

“Not a chance. I can’t see him giving up on a fight once he started it.”

He hadn’t actually started that fight himself, but no matter how unfairly he was dragged into it, he had always fought to end it. So he could gently untangle the mess of threads.

“…”

It didn’t take very long.

They arrived at the crematorium.

A large roof covered the area in front of the entrance.

Had it been designed with bad weather like this in mind?

It looked like they had to wait for the workers to deal with the coffin.

“Go on, Misaka-san.”

At Shokuhou’s prompting, Mikoto got off the bus.

She wasn’t used to descending a bus’s stairs in Japanese mourning clothes. The clothing was like a single tube, so had it even been designed with climbing and descending stairs in mind?

“Of course it was. Did you forget the stone steps leading up to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples?”

“Oh, no. Now that idiot is correcting me.”

“Oh? Misaka-san, did you forget I am the intellectual type? Care to see who does better with our next exam ability?”

Come to think of it, didn’t they have five-story pagodas in the Edo period? And those buildings wouldn’t have had elevators or escalators.

Shokuhou Misaki continued to rub the hand warmer against her cheek. It would have run out of heat by now, so was she making use of the placebo effect? Or maybe the cold was making her hallucinate.

An official guided them into the building.

There were numbered tatami mat waiting rooms with cremation chambers lined up.

Maybe there was a rule, but the cremation chambers not in use had their doors wide open. A square metal door led into a closed space seemingly made of brick or blocks. The shape was something like a modified baker’s furnace.

Mikoto peered inside and fell silent.

“…”

It wasn’t even the size of a laundromat.

Yet it felt far too ordered and optimized.

She sighed softly.

(I’m just not used to this.)

It was actually a bit of a relief when she spotted a few old vending machines jumbled together in a corner of the long hallway. She had wanted to see something that threw off the excessive organization of the place.

“It’s nice and warm in the building at least. Ugh, but now I kind of have to use the restroom.”

“I was a fool looking for salvation in a messy idiot like her…”

They could hear the conversation of officials in some room or another.

The voices crept up from the floor like the chill.

“A healthy high school boy? He should have thick bones.”

“We’ll have to burn him for a full four hours. That way there’s no chance any trace of his DNA map or the chemicals used for esper development will remain.”

A heavy scraping sound followed.

It came from something like a piece of pottery the size of a volleyball. Something had caused it to scrape against its lid.

“What does the height chart say? Is this size good?”

That was the funerary urn.

Would a whole person really fit in something so small?

Mourning clothes Mikoto frowned.

“Hold on. I get cremating him, but who gets his ashes?”

“The funerary urn can be transferred to someone else after being placed in the grave.”

Shokuhou’s finger hovered indecisively in front of the vending machine, but she only fidgeted without actually buying any warm coffee. Her fear of artificial additives appeared to be rearing its ugly head again.

“For now, he’ll probably be temporarily buried in a public grave.”

Could they really just do that?

Even as ashes, he would officially count as “remains”.

Besides. His parents apparently weren’t in the city, so who had submitted the notification of death to the government office? Mikoto had thought you couldn’t cremate someone until that had been received.

(Then again, this is the city that buried over ten thousand clones in secret, so they may have some tricks to get around that.)

They entered the waiting room.

The space was about 45 square meters.

Perhaps everyone wanted their own space.

His high school classmates were here, but Mikoto didn’t know any of them very well. She naturally kept her distance.

It was a weird feeling.

Why was she staying by Shokuhou’s side?

And while Mikoto mostly associated funerals with flowers and incense, the scent of burning candles was stronger. Maybe because that scent was a lot more oily.

A large LCD TV sat in the tatami mat room. In addition to over-the-air, and cable, it included an online streaming app. There were also a tablet with a public SIM. That may have been so hot food could be ordered in with a bike delivery service.  Mikoto recognized a few of the apps lined up on the screen.

Shokuhou pointed at a sliding screen by the wall that seemed to lead to storage space.

“It looks like they have napping blankets in there.”

“I can’t imagine sleeping here could lead to sweet dreams.”

Four hours.

That explained why they had so many entertainment options for killing time.

“Shokuhou.”

“Yes?”

“Can you last four hours?”

“Sorry, excuse me a moment while I go freshen up.”

Western mourning clothes Shokuhou vanished somewhere with a severe look on her face. She had apparently gone out to visit the ladies room. Unable to relax without anything to focus on, Mikoto grabbed the TV remote and faced the giant screen. The time for New Year’s specials was over. A middle schooler like her had no idea what usually aired on weekday mornings.

(But maybe it would look more authentic if I don’t get all worked up over it?)

You were supposed to smile at New Year’s and cry at funerals.

She was fed up seeing people switch modes as if with a switch or dial.

She flipped through the channels for a bit.

The talk shows were more than she could handle today, so she kept changing the channel to escape them, but that mostly left shopping shows and old dramas.

After settling on a satellite broadcast animal show, she saw an enormous polar bear mercilessly attacking a family of seals. She was taken aback. She had been expecting footage of frolicking kittens or puppies. She wasn’t looking for the bloody and gory reality of nature right now!!

“What are you doing, Misaka-saaan? Why wouldn’t you go for a safe worldwide cruise show?”

That girl returned, looking exasperated.

But why was Shokuhou Misaki so familiar with TV on weekday mornings?

“Are you really a middle schooler?”

“If you’re trying to imply I’m an old lady, I will hit you.”

Something was sitting next to the TV.

At first, Mikoto thought it was a piece of Japanese-style artwork meant to help set the mood.

“Wait…” she said without thinking.

They already had a memorial tablet ready.

At first, Mikoto was confused who it was for. Because the name on it was a dharma name.

“I always thought the name was meant to be symbolic in some way.”

“In Academy City, they apparently have a website that automatically assigns one. Y’know, by tweaking a program ability meant to come up with a pet name if you can’t come up with one yourself.”

Did this city not have the rule where it only counted if it came from an important abbot?

Of course, it seemed like Academy City’s monks were part-timers who also worked as entertainers.