Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 7===

Low tremors intermittently shook the asphalt.

However, this wasn’t necessarily the handiwork of the Tessou Tsuzuri and Rakuoka Nodoka team.

“Hee hee hee. Off, off, off with their heads♪”

Alice smiled and sang a disconcerting song with the white fluffball on the back of her apron wiggling to the beat. ''Is this the unique cruelty of small children?'' wondered Kamijou, staring out from the bus station.

“So how do you suggest we end this commotion?” he asked.

“I doubt we would find any of the criminals if we returned to the station now,” answered Shirai. “If they hope to escape, they wouldn’t remain anywhere near the Overhunting.”

That meant they now had to search the entirety of Academy City for Hanatsuyu Youen, Rakuoka Houfu, and Benizome Jellyfish. Not to mention Frillsand #G who hadn’t been on the Overhunting. Even with several options, it was unlikely they would encounter anyone if they ran around at random.

So…

(This might not apply since things are so different from in Alice’s world, but it’s worth a shot.)

“We find Youen.”

“What?”

Shirai Kuroko wasn’t sure what he meant, so he clarified.

(Youen helped me in Alice’s world, but things are different now. So where would she have gone and what does she hope to accomplish here?)

“Hanatsuyu Youen the Carrier. We need to capture all of the criminals before that Anti-Skill Negotiator does, but we need a starting point. I might be able to just barely predict what she’ll do.”

That girl had the technology to manipulate any urban pest or vermin in order to send out microbes and chemicals at will. Her skills could be used to help people, but she chose not to. She would not join forces with an ordinary person, treat their wound, or make jokes with a gloomy smile.

But like a game of concentration, enough wrong answers could lead to the correct answer.

(What is Hanatsuyu Youen’s goal? ''Is she really the type to run away without a plan just because the adults are closing in on her''?)

He didn’t think so.

He had a feeling she had some goal no ordinary person could understand.

Whether she would cause a citywide panic to distract Anti-Skill while she escaped the city or she chose not to escape and instead slaughtered Anti-Skill to ensure her own safety, he felt like the Carrier would think up and act on an idea so destructive it made him feel faint.

Academy City was a big place.

But what facility would let her use her trait as a Carrier most efficiently and spread harm farther than anyone else?

“We have to secure all of them regardless, so I don’t particularly care who we start with,” said Shirai. “I don’t see why that couldn’t be Hanatsuyu Youen like you want. And once we start collecting the prisoners, we will inevitably encounter that Anti-Skill Negotiator who wants their power. Once that happens, we need to rescue Rakuoka Nodoka from the scum who has her trapped.”

With that, Shirai started to stand from the bench.

That was when it happened.

“…is…still…”

Kamijou Touma’s view dropped straight down. No, all his strength had drained from him and he fell to his knees.

“Kah…”

He didn’t even have time to shout.

An unpleasant sound came from within his body. He thought he maybe had a nosebleed, but ''the stickiness he felt while blinking'' told him there was blood below his eyelids.

He saw a doll-like blue dress and long blonde twintails blowing in a way unrelated to the night breeze. She was right there in front of him, but she looked less real than a mirage.

(Frillsand #G!? Why does she have to show up now!?)

She hadn’t laid a finger on him.

She had not shot a horrific beam of light through his chest and she hadn’t caused a massive explosion.

She had simply appeared before him.

That was enough for a wet and sticky sensation to flow from his eye and ears. After falling to his knees, he was helpless to do anything but slowly collapse forward.

He was experiencing unexplained bleeding, a headache, chills, and a fever.

Death was approaching little by little – step by step.

“What? Bh…ah!!!???”

(Damn…it. I can’t even raise my right hand. This attack…makes no sense. Agh, what am I even supposed to punch with Imagine Breaker!?)

“…still…inside…”

This was absurdly dangerous.

That monotone female voice was simply too dangerous.

His vision was tilted on its side and growing red starting from one side, but he managed to see Shirai Kuroko collapsing from the bench to the ground. His brain was hallucinating cracking and straining noises. The confusion of all his senses was worse than any pain and it felt like having an invisible hand squeezing him in its grasp.

This was Frillsand #G the artificial ghost.

Unlike in Alice’s world, she did not just launch powerful electricity and use her scientific nature to resist Imagine Breaker.

This was not a visible, physical threat like that. He didn’t understand any of it, but was she a ''much more dangerous being'' who would kill you if you carelessly looked in her direction when she spoke to you!?

At the same time…

“Yawwwn?”

He heard an odd voice.

It was cheerful, carefree, and cutely sweet. Apparently she had trouble staying up late in the real world too. She was nodding off in the middle of the crisis playing out around her.

Alice Anotherbible looked like she had stepped out of a picture book and she alone remained standing. After holding a small hand to her mouth and yawning, she placed her index finger on her chin and tilted her head to ask a question.

Yes.

The fundamental question of ''why was everyone around her collapsing?

“Ri…still…inside…”

“That won’t work on the girl,” interrupted Alice with a sleepily clueless smile.

This time, no cricket bat or hedgehog balls emerged from below her apron. This was a formless curse, after all. But Alice was still entirely unaffected by the invisible attack.

Was she built differently from the others on the inside?

Was this like how carbon monoxide was deadly to humans but harmless to insects because their blood was different? This didn’t seem like she simply didn’t feel any pain because she was that much stronger than the average person. It was a lot more like the conditions of the attack didn’t apply to her in the first place. Kamijou even had a meaningless fantasy about someone continually giving animal carcasses to a vulture in the hopes of giving it food poisoning.

Which was more unnatural here: Frillsand #G for causing fatal wounds without laying a finger on anyone or Alice for being exposed to that and smiling like it was nothing?

“A ghost can’t match the girl’s level of mystery☆”

“…”

A few solid impacts rang out.

They came from Frillsand #G, not Alice. Her neck kept bending unnaturally to the right or the left. At times, it bent more than 90 degrees.

The shadow extending from young Alice’s little feet had grown unnaturally long.

It slid out past Frillsand #G and a strange silhouette stood up from it. The emaciated and bony silhouette was far creepier than the flamingo or hedgehogs. But instead of white bones, these were clear as crystal.

It held a one-sided axe with a sharp sword blade extending from the butt end of the staff.

This was the horrifying side of fairy tales – the polar opposite of the candy and the stuffed animals.

(What is that?)

Kamijou had no advance knowledge and no one gave him the answer, but when he saw the bony creature wrapped in a tattered black cloak, he was strangely certain of the answer. Like the answer had been inserted into his mind.

(''An executioner''?)

The ominous silhouette seemed puzzled by its failure to lop off its target’s head in a single attack.

Its skull-like head tilted disconcertingly far while it spun the shaft around in its hand. It switched to the sword blade and sliced sharply at the air. Whenever it spun the shaft like a baton and aimed the point at its target, the artificial ghost’s head was mysteriously knocked aside, causing it to bend directly sideways.

Kamijou honestly couldn’t even see the axe, the sword, or even the blur of the blades in motion.

Most likely, the conditions it used to cut had nothing to do with that motion.

Maybe it was the arrangement of the fingers gripping the weapon, maybe it automatically sliced at the weak points the target reflexively tried to protect, and maybe the baton-like weapon was a spool for the threads of life and destiny and it would cut those threads, killing you instantly, if you failed to defeat it before it spun a certain number of times.

Frillsand #G was only still intact because she was an artificial ghost, but Kamijou was willing to bet he would have been decapitated before he could even try to react. He couldn’t even guess when he would need to use his right fist.

“Oops.” Alice noticed something and quickly pressed her small foot against the ground and rubbed forward with the sole. “Teacher would be mad if the girl actually killed you. Come on back, Executioner. You can’t cut the Cheshire Cat who vanishes into thin air.”

That was all it took for that powerful silhouette to collapse and disappear.

Kamijou only now realized something.

Both in Alice’s world and the real world, the pink bat and hedgehog balls would emerge and block any attack that Alice couldn’t avoid herself.

But it wasn’t about protecting her.

It wasn’t motivated by a fear of injury.

If she was hit by an attack that obstructed her movements, it would piss her off so much she would kill her opponent without even meaning to. So Alice ''made sure to block the attacks so that wouldn’t happen.

Not even the Executioner was Alice’s own power. Anything that slipped past the cricket defense and escape the Executioner’s blade would probably find Alice herself waiting for them.

“…”

Even after taking several lethal slashes to the head, the artificial ghost was still functioning.

Didn’t an old children’s story say you couldn’t behead a bodiless cat?

Frillsand #G silently pointed a finger up with her head still bent unnaturally far to the side.

A deep boom echoed from overhead.

It came from one of the photography or delivery drones that were common enough nowadays. She must have messed with its large battery, causing it to explode above Alice’s head. Even a single screw could become a deadly weapon when dropped from sufficient height. This was like creating a falling ceiling from the many fragments.

The artificial ghost’s formless attack had not let up.

Kamijou still suffered from the inexplicable fever and bleeding while he did his best to roll along the ground.

“Gah…ah!?”

(That ghost woman doesn’t just harm anyone she meets. Can she also make machines malfunction!? I-is there anything she can’t do!?)

“Hmm.”

It was Alice’s turn to act.

She removed the finger from her chin and directed her small palm toward empty air.

She had the look of a child when the stone they were kicking down the road on the way to school fell into the ditch. It was the look of someone abandoning some meaningless, self-imposed restriction and preparing to unleash whatever they were holding back.

Most likely, this wasn’t due to the electric ghost’s approach. It was something else that made Alice spread her long blonde hair to the sides.

All the assumptions were breaking down.

The cricket defense had been slipped past and the Executioner’s blade had been escaped, so it was time for Alice herself to make her move.

“''The girl kind of has to now, doesn’t she''?”

“Alice!!!!!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth like he was about to cough up blood and gathered all his remaining strength in his legs.

(I can’t do anything for Shirai. I’ll just have to hope the bus stop’s roof is solid enough!!)

He leaped to the side, grabbed Alice around the hips, and rolled into a nearby alley with her.

He heard hundreds of solid objects striking the ground outside the alley. It sounded a lot like a sudden downpour.

He kept the small girl pinned to the ground, pressed his forehead against hers, and shouted down at her.

“I told you I didn’t want any of ''that'!!”

“Mh! Well, the girl doesn’t want you mad at her.”

The way she shook her fine blonde hair side to side was as innocent as ever.

When he saw her smile and noticed he could actually see it clearly, he realized his red and distorted vision had already returned to normal.

Was that because he had moved a few meters away from Frillsand #G?

Or…

(No, this alley isn’t that far away. So is it ''seeing and hearing'' the ghost I need to avoid?)

That did sound like in ghost photos where it was the photographer or someone else in the photo who was cursed just because a ghost appeared in the photo.

He heard a windy sound and then woozy Shirai Kuroko appeared in the back alley. She leaned against the filthy wall from the side and cleaned up her bloody nose with a fancy-looking handkerchief.

“I’m impressed you could teleport in that state.”

“And I’m impressed you could get up at all. Also, you’ll feel better if you ''cough that up''.”

He hit his limit as soon as she mentioned it.

Leaving Alice with Shirai and turning the other way was the most he could manage. Something warm rushed up from his stomach, but this wasn’t vomit. He spewed a red liquid onto the alley wall. What had happened to his organs during that encounter with the artificial ghost? She was an unreasonably deadly being.

It was terrifying finding himself unable to analyze what had happened ''even after it happened to him'', but it was also creepy not knowing why she had appeared and attacked them here and now.

Yes.

(Hold on. Damn, I didn’t even consider this. If she wasn’t behind the Overhunting’s crash, ''then why is she involved in this at all''?)

“I have no idea what makes her attack, but we won’t survive again if she passes through the wall and peers into this alley. We need to leave.”

“Agreed.” Kamijou wiped the blood from his mouth. “Hanatsuyu Youen will be the easiest one to predict. Let’s start with her.”

“Sure. I just hope the other prisoners are still ''safe and sound''.”