Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM Chapter7 (section)

===Part 6===

“Ugh.”

Misaka Mikoto realized that was her groaning.

She had journeyed and fought across Celesaqphere for so long, but strangely it felt like she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She forced her stuck vocal cords to move and tried to get some kind of sound out.

But when she checked her phone, she found only three days had passed.

The midterms weren’t even over.

Their theory about life support devices and about time flowing at different rates appeared to have been correct.

She took her time pulling back the covers and didn’t find bikini armor anywhere. She was wearing ordinary pajamas.

The ordinary was back.

“…”

There was a curtain separating them, but she sensed someone in the next bed over.

She chose not to check that bed as she changed into her uniform and left the hospital.

The sun was shining in a cloudless sky.

Finding the ordinary Academy City all around her brought tears to her eyes.

She was back.

She was really back.

“But what do I do now?”

She wanted to see Shirai Kuroko.

Uiharu or Saten would work too.

Or maybe she should be a little more daring. Right now, she felt she could meet that pointy-haired boy without getting into a fight. She was so thankful for everything about Earth she didn’t want to bring violence into it.

“No.”

She didn’t need to plan it.

She decided to walk through the city and be thankful for anyone she happened across.

And she spoke without thinking.

“Honestly, never a dull moment in this ci-”

She stopped before finishing the sentence.

Her smile froze.

She had seen something.

Something she absolutely should not have seen.

“No… Heh, heh heh. Eh heh heh. You’re kidding, right?”

Her own voice sounded fake. This world suddenly felt a lot less real.

She had seen someone walking toward her from beyond the horizon.

They wavered like a mirage.

She now had tears in her eyes for a very different reason.

“Misaaakaaa-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!! This isn’t overrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

That girl had left the bounds of humanity.

She looked like a demon.

It was said a beautiful woman was uniquely frightening when angered, but this went far beyond that.

Her long blonde hair was floating a bit.

“Wh-what- but? The three treasures ceremony was over. You were supposed to be stuck in Celesaqphere forever!!”

“Time flows differently between the two worlds. After you left, I used the three treasures to do the ceremony a second time☆ To be honest, I’m relieved I wasn’t thrown a hundred years into the future!!!”

And someone walked alongside the beautiful demon.

The short girl had long ears.

“Oh! There’s the one who left on her own. You were supposed to bring Lady Shokuhou with you.”

“!!!???”

She was there.

That elf was here on Earth!?

Was that allowed?

Wasn’t that an even more dangerous abnormality than Shokuhou’s presence!?

“This is apparently a life-size doll. I can apparently travel between worlds in the same way the two of you came to Celesaqphere using an out-of-body experience, so I am using a temporary body to move around in this world.”

“So for our world, it’s like a bisque doll is walking around?”

Apparently that let her ignore the question of ''what kind of influence a supposedly nonexistent elf’s presence on Earth would have on the environment around her''.

It was a mystery what such a realistic elf doll was doing in Academy City, though.

“Why did you have to help her with the ceremony, Patissiet!? She’d be stuck in the Strange Underpass Cathedral otherwise!!”

“But, um, we all discussed it together and decided it would hurt the power balance if she stayed… With Lady Shokuhou in Celesaqphere, we feared we would end up having the one queen with every other form of life as her slaves.”

(So they decided that “goddess” was too much trouble to keep around? Pff! But it makes sense a world that just freed all its slaves wouldn’t want the ultimate brainwashing queen hanging around. …Ha, ah ha ha. So maybe Shokuhou’s bloody tears here are about more than just me leaving without her?)

An awkward silence fell.

Mikoto hesitantly spoke to the lonely girl.

“Um, uh.”

“Grrrrrr.”

“So…is this headed where I think it is?”

“…for rou…”

“No, wait, that was a mistake. I can’t leave that choice with you right now. If we follow the timeline back, it’s only been three days since we nearly died in that propane tank explosion, so we need to think about our midterms! There’s no reason at all to put our lives at risk again here, so it seems to me it would be a good idea for both of us to just calm dow-”

“It’s time for round twooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”

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