Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover3 (section)

===Part 7===

'''(11 Hours After)

It was 10 AM and the puppet show on the educational TV program was amazingly effective at putting people to sleep.

Beatrice wandered around the wide tea room. She stroked her slender chin and thought about the situation.

Index and Misaka Mikoto were nowhere to be found.

“…”

She could think of a few different possibilities.

The first was obviously that they had fallen asleep and fallen victim to the White Queen. There was nothing she could do if that were the case.

But the others were troublesome too.

(Are they setting us up?)

What if they had made it look like they had fallen asleep and vanished but were actually hiding in the attic or below the floor and observing everything? It was possible.

To reiterate, this incident(?) was a championship. Only the final person would survive as the champion. If those two had given up on challenging the unassailable White Queen, they might be waiting in safety for the others to drop out.

Of course, with only one champion, they would have to fight each other in the end if they were working together. But it would allow them to survive until the final battle. If they were hiding, they had no guarantee they would not fall asleep while they waited, so they would want a partner to watch over them.

“What are you doing?”

Beatrice’s shoulders jumped when she heard a voice behind her.

It was Aika, the girl in a white and green striped bikini.

Her presence had nearly vanished when her white liger had been taken from her, but she had suddenly popped back up here.

Yes.

Why had Beatrice’s shoulders jumped instead of feeling relief? There was another possibility.

Only Beatrice, Shinobu, Boo Boo, and Aika remained in the championship.

Index and Mikoto could still be hiding somewhere, but another possibility occurred to Beatrice.

Which of the survivors was most familiar with the White Queen’s hopeless strength? Wouldn’t that be someone from the same world as the White Queen? The Queen seemed to be an old acquaintance of Shiroyama Kyousuke’s and Aika had seemed to know Kyousuke, so the two of them were likely from the same world.

If someone like that felt cornered, would they try to face that enemy head on? Wouldn’t they desperately search for a detour because they saw that as another dead end?

In other words…

“Don’t tell me…but…don’t tell me…”

“Don’t tell you what?”

“Index and Misaka Mikoto… They might have been the final key. If we worked together and combined multiple occult powers unknown to the White Queen, we might have been able to just barely force her away!!”

“Please explain this one step at a time.”

Aika’s world had already succumbed to the White Queen, so no amount of information about it would help them.

Young Shinobu was from another world, but Beatrice doubted a 6-year-old would be much help.

Beatrice and Boo Boo were from the same world, so she could not hope for a strange chemical reaction or mutation from crossing borders there.

So…what did that mean?

Because Aika had secretly defeated Index and Misaka Mikoto so she alone could survive, were they at a true dead end now!? And that meant Boo Boo and his friend 6-year-old Shinobu would be caught in the middle.

No more questions were needed.

Beatrice could not allow someone so dangerous to approach Boo Boo and young Shinobu behind her.

“What kind of world were you born iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!?”

The blank created by Beatrice’s shock was filled with pure rage. She was no saint herself after taking out Armelina with a surprise attack right at the beginning, but the situation was entirely different here. Were they trying to survive by any means necessary or were they working together to overcome it together? Now that things had shifted to the latter, there should have been no reason to mess with things and return it to the former.

But maybe nothing had changed for Aika.

From beginning to end, had she been focused on their utter inability to oppose the White Queen?

Beatrice did not hesitate to draw her Shining Weapon rapier from the sheath at her hip. Without Magic in the form of equipment – that is, Percentage-type stat reinforcements – a single swing of the blade might burn even the girl’s bones to ashes, but that did not matter now.

She had to act as quickly as possible.

She had to keep this humanoid risk away from small Boo Boo and Shinobu.

“Metal Jet!!”

The red Holy Swordswoman roared with her arms pulled toward her chest and her sword raised. Several scorching balls of light floated around her. Her commands gave them directionality and they were released with enough force to slice apart a tank one kilometer away.

A total of eight laser-like beams of deadly heat shot out. Unlike the surprise attack to the side of her friend’s head, this was an attack from head on, but there was still nothing the swimsuit girl could do.

Or there should not have been.

And yet…

“Wha-!?”

Beatrice’s eyes widened even though she had been the one to launch the attack.

It had been bent.

The orange beams of light should have accurately skewered Aika’s vitals from multiple angles at once, but just before they reached the defenseless bikini girl, they bent and veered away from her.

That Magic created a kilometers-long version of the metal jet that could burn through the side of a tank when it was a few dozen centimeters or a meter long. No normal method of defense could do anything about it.

After the fact, Beatrice desperately scanned her memory of the event.

(…?)

She noticed that Aika had done something just before it hit. But she had not held up an invisible shield or anything like that. She had dropped an egg-like object toward her feet.

(A grenade? But it didn’t look normal. What was it meant to spread?)

“It’s true…”

Beatrice heard a voice and something slicing through the air. She noticed a strange 150cm club in Aika’s small hand. No, was it even a striking weapon? It looked more like a striped stick of candy with vanilla and mint colors.

“It’s true I don’t have my vessel without the liger. So no matter how hard I try, I can’t even summon the weakest Original Series. That is a fact.”

''Oh, no,'' thought Beatrice as her danger instincts were forcibly raised from without. She had assumed Index and Misaka Mikoto had been hit from behind after Aika approached like a friend, but that may not have been the case.

Did Aika have something capable of dealing with those two before they could utter a word?

“Hh!!”

Beatrice let out a short breath and swung her Shining Weapon rapier. Her opponent had some kind of Magical power and clearly intended to harm her. Not to mention young Boo Boo and Shinobu behind her. That was all she needed to know. Her surprise was certainly no reason to relax.

Just like this opponent cared about herself so much, Beatrice cared about someone else.

“Fire Throw!!”

Orange hellfire scattered from the path of her sword with the force of a flash flood erupting from a crack in the world. The previous attack had used points, but this one used a surface. It could not be avoided so easily.

“But a Blood-Sign is a device meant to point to the gods in written form and give their power and presence a form convenient to humans.”

“Kh.”

“In this Artificial Sacred Ground, nothing could be easier than stealing a miracle that is merely manmade.”

Aika spun the vanilla and mint stick candy in her hand.

That was all.

She did nothing more and yet the wall of fire gathered together like bathwater washing down the drain.

Finally, Beatrice’s memories linked together the events of the initial attack. Aika had dropped something like a grenade at her feet to set up a special “field” and then she had swung her hand through empty air. Something that may have been sugar had glittered. In the blink of an eye, it had melted, lost form, twisted, and formed a single staff.

The summoner whispered while wielding a magic wand.

“You can have this back.”

“Kh!?”

She casually swung the staff with the fire gathered at the end.

And it immediately erupted back toward Beatrice with as much force as she had given it. She had 100% Fire Resistance, so she could completely negate all damage from fire. Without that, she would have been turned to ash, as would Boo Boo and Shinobu behind her.

And it was not over yet.

The flames vanished. No, they were sliced apart. The borrowed fire had only been a smokescreen. Striped Bikini Aika casually stepped forward with the stick candy in hand.

At this range, a solid projectile with lots of recoil would actually be dangerous.

“Melt Cutting!!”

The rapier blade heated up with an orange light. A light stroke from the scorching blade would melt through a bank vault door and she made a side swing toward the girl’s torso because that was the hardest to dodge.

Aika did not even try to dodge.

However, her martial arts did not hit home either. The vanilla and mint stick candy wandered through the empty air. Beatrice had scored a clean hit, but she had not sliced through Aika’s soft-looking belly.

The reason why was obvious.

Beatrice’s rapier was only a Magic device taking that shape. It did not have a sharp blade attached, so it could only use Magic to cut something.

That meant there was nothing she could do when the Magic at the base was being absorbed. Even Aika’s belly could stop it.

And the Magic had not simply vanished. Aika had taken control of it. The cutting edge capable of breaking into a bank vault was in Aika’s grasp now.

(But my resistance will protect me from my own fire element!!)

Reality moved faster than her thoughts.

The stick candy swung.

It was the opposite of what Beatrice had used. Sharp icicles shot out with the force of a shotgun blast.

“Wha-…?”

(She absorbed the energy form and converted the Magic into a different Element!?)

And that made this an attack outside of her Fire Resistance. She could not negate it in the slightest and it struck her from her chest to her gut.

“Khah!?”

Sparks flew from her light armor. She had trouble breathing and staggered a few steps back. Aika pursued her. She was not overconfident. The girl probably was not that skilled at physical combat, so remaining right in front of her opponent would be best for her.

Beatrice’s legs wobbled more from the shock of being defeated by Magic than from the actual damage. She had dragged her opponent onto her home field and then been made a fool of. Of course that was a shock.

(First the White Queen and now a summoner who says she can summon anything. What kind of world are they from? How bloodthirsty do you have to be to gain that kind of skill!?)

Beatrice clenched her teeth because it was that Magic that made her special. And it was the light armor she wore that received her commands and released it. Once that was taken from her, she was back to being a girl whose life could be taken by a normal sword.

She was helpless once that Magic was stolen. With her paranormal power taken, Beatrice could not defeat Aika who could still use the paranormal.

That was a definite fact.

But could she accept that? After so much fruitless conflict, the survivors had finally decided to work together, but Aika’s surprise attack had sent them back toward conflict as she planned to throw young Shinobu and Boo Boo under the bus to survive. That may have been a logical, effective, and overwhelmingly correct decision, but could Beatrice really use nothing more than that correctness to judge this situation?

She could not.

How could she?

She was not a saint, but after making it this far, she could not let them repeat the foolishness of their starting point. But Aika had done exactly that. And without batting an eye. Beatrice wanted to stop her no matter what.

Beatrice was basically hoping for the impossible, but that was why a certain possibility occurred to her.

Yes.

Normal people could not use Magic, so what had she done to learn it?



Meanwhile, the situation was not much fun for Aika either. She was a summoner. Even if she had used some tricks to distract her opponent, she normally fought by summoning an otherworldly Material into her vessel’s body within the 10-minute Artificial Sacred Ground. On her own, she could not use any sort of paranormal power. This sorceress who constantly wore the paranormal was utterly bizarre to her.

She would make some kind of mistake in a longer battle, but she did not want to carelessly approach either. Charging in earlier had been like jumping into clear water. As long as she did not rush things, she did not need to take that kind of risk again.

(This is why I hate going outside. There’s too much I don’t know about.)

The shut-in complained in her heart, but that did not stop time.

Aika did not actually have any way of doing real damage. There was not much she could do.

(I can recklessly rush in and invade her personal space to apply pressure and force her to use her Magic like crazy. I can take control of that, convert it into anything but the fire she can negate for some reason, and fire it back. That might be the best plan.)

There were some things one could not avoid even if they knew it was coming. If a baseball flew toward their face, anyone would cover their face with their hands. And they would do the same even if it was a giant dump truck and their hands would accomplish nothing. Their body would move on its own, regardless of logic or effectiveness.

But even if Aika seemed immune to the Magic, that was not an absolute. She was not surrounded by a flame-negating aura like Beatrice was, so she would be burned to ashes if she screwed up her timing. But she could not put her guard up just because it was frightening. If she did not act like she was fearless, her legs would tremble, she would fail to draw out all of her power, and she would be too slow to avoid death.

Think of it like walking an elevated tightrope. Failing to provide one’s peak performance would mean death, but the more they focused on that, the more their anxiety and fear would grow and get in their way. To cross a tightrope with a normal heartrate, they needed a combination of willpower and experience. Anyone who could do that had already taken one step outside the category of amateur.

Aika could do that.

So she did not hesitate to step toward death with her heartrate no higher than while surfing the internet at home.

It frightened her that her opponent could wield the paranormal all on her own, but that reliance on Magic was why this would end here. Direct blows from outside did not seem very effective, so she would use poison or an electric shock to do damage from within. She had tried this twice already, so she already knew the basics of what she needed to do.

In that case, there had been no real reason to tell Beatrice how to avoid it. Giving her opponent a hint would only increase the risk of them finding a solution.

That was why Aika had another form of insurance that was not really a plan.

(Shut-ins are used to staying up late, so don’t underestimate my power over sleepiness.)

Aika lived with the ultimate white liger, an unnatural combination of a lion and a white tiger, and she used it as a couch. Felines dozed for around 20 hours a day. No matter how much they trusted each other, the beast could easily wake up without warning and spontaneously attack. It was a common event in circuses. A feline could not be trained like a canine.

She was more sensitive to the waves of sleep than most people. She could even manipulate the liger’s emotions and level of consciousness to wrap the liger in a veil of sleep that kept the beast from moving.

In other words…

(This is a strange space where sleeping means death.)

She traced her fingertips across the vanilla and mint stick candy.

(The thought of approaching that Queen sends a chill down my spine, but I can put people to sleep if I want to. If I can defeat you by interfering with your paranormal power, that’s one solution. But if I can’t, I can mix in a sweet aroma and some visual effects to wear you down mentally and gradually reduce your focus. You’re all worked up while utterly exhausted, so you’ll fall asleep far more easily than you think. As you work through that excitement, the sugary sweetness will soak its way in. I don’t want a longer battle, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll make my attack with a main goal and a backup goal for insurance!)

She stepped toward danger to attack.

She used that action to awaken her mind and calmly confirmed her goal.

(I’ll take her out here.)

She adjusted her grip on her stick candy Blood Sign,

(And I’ll take back my own peace.)

But…

A moment later, the Blood-Sign was knocked upwards with enough force for it to bend.



Aika had looked like an absolute barrier, but Beatrice saw a look of disbelief in her eyes now.

That was hardly surprising.

Beatrice had acted entirely differently from before. She had not used Magic to deflect Aika’s stick candy upwards. And that was not Beatrice’s only weapon.

“How do you think we learn Magic?”

“…Hh…”

Aika quickly spun her stick candy around and tried to adjust her distance from Beatrice, but it was too late. A summoner like Aika specialized in the paranormal, but it had been obvious she was not that skilled in pure physical combat. Her stick candy had not kept up when the rapier had hit her in the side.

“We travel to another world and use a machine to convert that world’s Experience Points into a form we can understand. We can cook a meal to learn to dance or sing a song to increase our marathon-running skill. And the nonexistent techniques known as Magic are the ultimate form of that. But,” whispered Beatrice. “Looking back at that original meaning, there’s no real reason to stick to Magic. I can use all of the Experience Points I earned in this alternate world known as the Jinnai house to instantly master a skill that would normally take years. Yes, for example…”

What was it that had knocked Aika’s stick candy upwards?

“Martial arts using my arms and legs.”

Several sounds of impact followed.

To reiterate, Aika was not very skilled in physical combat that did not involve the paranormal. She could not keep up with Beatrice’s movements that had been improved at the click of a button. Sometimes it was the thick gauntlets, sometimes it was the boots, and sometimes it was the sword’s guard held like brass knuckles. A series of blows from blunt weapons knocked the stick candy further and further back. In fact, this boundless skill would eventually surpass even Lu Niang Lan the Perfect Dragon.

Whether it was an association from the vanilla and mint striped stick candy or the girl was actually scattering something, Beatrice detected a sweet aroma, but she relied on her 100% Fire Resistance as she nullified any effects with extreme heat. A napalm bombing was one way of decontaminating most poison gases or biological weapons.

With its effects gone, it would either lose its chance to cause a problem or it would be knocked too far away to immediately matter.

She did not have to wait and find out.

She had more than just martial arts. Aika was unable to use her stick candy properly and her body was defenselessly exposed, so her normal methods would work.

In other words, Magic.

“Shockwave.”

“…!?”

After that whispered word, Aika’s eyes really did fill with shock and fear.

A moment later, heavy pressure stabbed into the bright belly exposed by her swimsuit.

Instead of flames or heat, this attack used the shockwave created by an explosion.

But it was powerful enough to bend a locked steel door and destroy the thick lock. That explosive master key would provide greater pressure than a martial artist’s foot.

Aika was blown away and rolled across the dirt ground. The vanilla and mint striped stick candy left her small hand. Finally, Beatrice felt like she had settled things for the time being.

And Aika forced out some words from the ground. Her voice was weak and it sounded like her consciousness was flashing in and out.

“…You…”

Her unstable voice was hard to make out.

But it managed to convey a certain meaning.

“…You…monster…”

Beatrice did not know what that meant.

But then something white passed by her. It was a mass of long ribbons. They wrapped around Aika’s arms and legs since the blow to her gut had knocked her out and they lifted up her slender body like a fish on a fishing pole. She was then dragged over Beatrice’s head and away.

“…”

She was there.

The Queen who ruled over the color white was behind Beatrice. Beatrice did not know what was happening there, but turning around would lead to nothing good. The answer would only bring regret. She held her Shining Weapon rapier in hand and felt her fingers trembling irregularly.

Why had Aika said that?

Why had she looked at Beatrice and called her a monster?

''“Don’t tell you what?”

When she had first heard that, she had assumed the girl was feigning ignorance.

''“Please explain this one step at a time.”

But what if it had been an honest question? What if she had not known what had happened to Index and Misaka Mikoto?

Had Beatrice been fighting from a position that protected the White Queen? Had Aika had nothing to do with Index and Misaka Mikoto’s disappearance? Had there been no dark conspiracy? Had they simply run across the White Queen by pure chance, or had they simply given into their weariness?

That would mean Aika had done nothing wrong.

That was a major problem, but Beatrice was faced with something that dwarfed it in importance.

What direction had that whiteness come from?

Behind her.

Which two people had been there before? And if the White Queen was standing there, what had happened to them?

What had Aika said?

What if she had actually attacked Beatrice in order to stop what was going on behind her?

Then getting in her way had allowed it to happen and that was why Aika had called her a monster. And for some circumstantial evidence to back it up…

“Boo…Boo…?”

She called his name, but received no response.

Unable to bear the silence, she turned around despite the danger. She could not wait another second. She wanted to know if they were safe.

And…

She saw no sign of Boo Boo’s round stuffed animal form or young Shinobu who had become his friend. Only one person stood in the yard there.

It was the color white.