Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter3 (section)

=== Part 7 ===
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A low vibration shook one section of the shopping mall. A great amount of dust filled the passageway like after a space shuttle launch. The explosive seemed to do more damage with its shockwave than its flames and all four walls of the occult convenience store were utterly blown away. There was no need to ask what happened to the things within.

But Mikoto ran as quickly as she could cutting through all the dust.

“Dammit!! They certainly are doing this in a showy way!!”

Sounds of clattering metal could continually be heard. It was the sound of Mikoto casting aside the different objects such as metal panels she had magnetically gathered from the store to act as a shield.

“That sure is convenient,” said Lessar seeming to arbitrarily praise Mikoto as she ran alongside her with a nonchalant expression. “Thanks to that, things were a little easier for me.”

“Wait, is that other girl okay? You know, the one named Bayloupe.”

“She’s fine, she’s fine. She just used a different route to escape. I can hear her yelling complaints in my ear this very instant.”

“?”

Lessar did not seem to have any kind of communications equipment in her ear and Mikoto could not detect any radio waves, but it seemed the girl was communicating in some way.

(…Are they using infrared or something?)

“That construction equipment was targeting us because we were investigating that incident.”

“Yeah. It’s possible it was trying to prevent me from giving my demonstration, but given the timing, it more likely has to do with the living bombs.”

Even in that situation, Lessar had a huge grin on her face.

“But we learned something else interesting from this.”

“What?”

“Assuming that construction equipment was an attack from whoever is behind this, then it means the living bombs are not their only weapon. They can acquire normal explosives like that and yet they are still sticking with using the crimson long-legged army ants. An explosive that can be detonated at the press of a button would be easier to simply cause a disturbance with, but they’re sticking with the ants.”

“Are you saying that their objective is hidden in creating an incident following the urban legend being spread using Code EIC?”

Mikoto and Lessar stopped and supported themselves on a pillar while they caught their breath.

“Well, it would probably be faster to just capture whoever is behind this and have them tell us that kind of thing.”

“How?” Mikoto frowned. “They even had that pain-in-the-ass remote controlled construction equipment prepared to cover their tracks.”

“Given the circumstances around you, I’m betting whoever is behind this realized you have great power during the incident with the first orange and they are advancing their plan accordingly. They sent out a remote controlled attack because they know they would lose in a direct confrontation.”

“So?”

“Can that great power of yours be of any use to us now?” Lessar pointed toward her own temple. “For example, can you track the source of the signal used for the remote control?”

“I see.” Mikoto realized what Lessar was getting at. “But the construction equipment already blew up. I doubt they are going to just continue sending out the signal.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Lessar just as a painful noise became audible. “It seems they have sent a second one.”

The sound of the treads digging into the floor ominously rang out. A giant piece of construction equipment appeared from around a corner in the passageway. As before, they had not been able to hear it until it got very close. It seemed electric vehicles were well suited to be weapons.

“Get down!!” Mikoto yelled as she pushed down on Lessar’s head.

That very same instant, the pillar was blown away with consecutive explosive noises. A rain of 7.62 mm bullets had cut horizontally across.

Thankfully, there had been no customers in the area.

“Look at the driver’s seat. The glass has been removed and a light machine gun is fixed to the arm and motor. That’s what just said hi.”

“That drum-like object in the seat might be full of bullets. If so, that thing could have 30,000 shots.”

“I guess it’ll spread around all of its bullets and then blow up.”

“You can control electricity and electromagnetic waves, right? So could you destroy its battery and interfere with the radio waves controlling it?”

“I tried to do that back in the occult convenience store to stop that one from detonating, but it just switched modes and blew up.”

Suddenly, they heard some loud dry noises. They seemed to be gunshots, but they were not the same as the ones from before. These ones sounded somehow lighter.

A few sparks flew from the surface of the construction equipment.

Mikoto thought someone must have been attacking it, so she peeked out from behind the pillar. As soon as she did, her eyes widened in shock and her body stiffened.

She had spotted some of the people who protected the peace of that city wielding handguns while hiding behind a corner in the intersection with another passageway up ahead.

In other words…

“No way… The security guards noticed this and came rushing over!?”

“Oh, my. That certainly is not the kind of reinforcements a wanted person wants, is it?”

And it looked like those reinforcements could not necessarily be relied on.

The handguns they were armed with were meant to be used against humans, so they could not penetrate the steel sheets making up the construction equipment. Because of its undercarriage and treads, they could not blow out a tire either. The security guards fired some warning shots and demanded the driver to stop, but they soon realized that no one was sitting in the driver’s seat.

That was when the light machine gun in the driver’s seat started to move.

“Get back!! Hurry!!”

Mikoto did not know if her shout had reached them or not.

Immediately afterwards, the light machine gun began its attack on the commerce institution. The wall of the corner the security guards were hiding behind crumbled like a pile of sand being struck by a shovel. It seemed the security guards had immediately turned around, but Mikoto could not tell from her position whether they were fine or not.

“…Let’s take this chance to escape,” suggested Lessar.

“What?”

“We’re up against someone who is persistent and attacking us from a safe area, but he also seems to be an idiot who loses his cool surprisingly easily. He’s leaving us, his true targets, alone in order to focus on the security guards.” Lessar waved her index finger lightly. “But I’m sure he’ll remember his objective before long. The smart thing to do would be to get out of here before that happens.”

“But…”

Just as Mikoto started speaking, some people who seemed to be the security guards peeked out from behind the corner of the destroyed passageway in a temporary break in the light machine gun fire. She recognized one of the people holding a handgun. It was the female security guard named Enirya.

Mikoto thought she was still trying to continue her futile attack on the construction equipment, but…

“Oh, watch out.”

“!?”

Immediately after Lessar let out a lighthearted warning and Mikoto hurriedly hid behind the broken pillar, Enirya opened fire on them instead of the construction equipment.

“Is that idiot still obsessing over me!?”

“I already told you. Whether it’s the construction equipment or the security guards, it will only get in our way if they are no longer focusing on the other. It would be best to have them take each other out.”

As they spoke, the light machine gun began firing on the security guards once more. The tremendous sound of gunfire reverberated through the air. On top of that, the construction equipment used its treads to move while it kept up the gunfire. It moved in the direction of the center of the intersection between the two passageways. It was making sure it could see past the corner the security guards were using for cover.

Those security guards no longer had anywhere to hide.

And at the same time, they could not stop the large piece of equipment with just handguns.

“…”

“Wait, why are you pulling a coin out of your skirt pocket?”

“Do I really need to spell out to you what I’m about to do?”

“Don’t do that…” Lessar interjected as if she were fed up with Mikoto. “It doesn’t get you anything. They aren’t going to stop seeing you as a suspect just because you saved them. And even if you are an esper, you’ll still die if you’re shot or caught in an explosion, right? That exceeds the level of risk you can take.”

“I haven’t done anything to feel guilty about.” While not knowing when bullets could come flying her way, Mikoto peered out from behind the pillar in order get her timing right. “So I have no reason to fear or hate the security guards.”

“Oh,” Lessar muttered while looking up toward heaven.

Mikoto spoke without looking in Lessar’s direction.

“You stay here. You have no reason to go with me and both of us getting taken out would not help anything. If I truly do get taken out, then you go find whoever is controlling this construction equipment. Do you understand?”

She did not wait for an answer.

The security guards did not have the time to spare.

Mikoto made sure that the light machine gun was making slight adjustments to aim at the security guards and therefore not at her. She then charged out from behind the pillar.

Immediately afterwards, the light machine gun started turning in her direction and bullets even flew her direction from the security guards, but Mikoto unhesitatingly ran toward the construction equipment.

She was a few dozen meters away.

It was only a narrow margin, but Mikoto managed to get underneath the construction equipment before the light machine gun managed to get her completely in its sights.

That’s right, underneath.

She had jumped to the ground and had slid head first between the treads on either side.

While still face down, she pressed her clenched fist against the ground like she was pressing a stamp.

Her thumb was on top.

She fired the arcade coin on top of the thumb straight up!!

With an explosive roar, the “bullet” was fired at three times the speed of sound and pulverized the construction equipment.

It went well beyond the level of blowing a hole in it.

The vehicle rose up a few meters from the ground and was then crushed in midair.

While still sprawled out on the ground, Mikoto rolled to the side.

After hanging in the air for a few seconds, the remains of the construction equipment fell down like a suspended ceiling. Mikoto had almost made it out of the way when she heard a slight electronic noise.

It was just a quiet beep.

At the same time, the glowing red point of light in the driver’s seat turned green.

(It knows it can no longer be controlled, so it’s switched to detonation mode!!)

Mikoto frantically stood up and leapt behind the corner of the intersection. Just as she jumped, she had a thought.

(Oh, crap.)

The security guards were behind that corner.

“Misaka Mikoto!!”

As Mikoto had expected, a gun was being aimed at her along with that warning.

With their backs pressed up against metal shutters on opposite walls of the passageway, Mikoto and the security guard named Enirya glared at each other.

Mikoto paid the gun barrel no heed and spoke.

“I don’t think this is any time to be doing that.”

“What are you…!?”

Enirya was not able to finish her sentence.

Immediately afterwards, the snowplow Mikoto had destroyed with her Railgun exploded. Even though she had escaped around a corner into the other passageway, a shockwave blew through the tunnel. Both Mikoto and Enirya were knocked to the side. Enirya had likely not intended to, but the impact had caused her finger on the trigger to move enough to fire a shot. It hit right next to Mikoto’s face.

Mikoto tried to get up, but then she stopped moving.

Enirya had been knocked over as well, but she was still pointing her handgun at Mikoto with a trembling hand.

“…You sure are stubborn. You had to have seen that snowplow attacking me if you came rushing over to stop it.”

“I can’t rule out the possibility that it is all an act. That thing is being remote controlled. You could be controlling it while running around.”

“I don’t really see what the point of that would be,” Mikoto said calmly despite her body still being frozen in place. “If I was truly putting on an act to draw suspicion away from me, don’t you think I would make it a little easier to understand? This doesn’t have the slightest thing to do with crimson long-legged army ants, so you might not even realize it was related.”

“…”

While Enirya glared at her, Mikoto slowly raised her hands and moved her body. She sat on the floor and pressed her back up against the metal shutter.

“The store workers certainly are staying cool despite this great disturbance. They must have some good counter measures against any damages.”

“…If you look at things internationally, your country’s service mentality is the odd one out. Once the customer buys something, the rest doesn’t matter. If a customer starts complaining and acting violently, they can just be kicked out, and once a customer takes a step outside the store, the workers have no need to deal with them. …The passageways are in the jurisdiction of us security guards, not the stores. Because of that, they have no need to deal with or resolve this. That’s the way they see it.”

“But we can’t just abandon the workers.”

“?”

Enirya frowned, but then noticed that Mikoto had unpleasant sweat appearing on her forehead.

Immediately afterwards, one of the metal shutters was torn apart from the inside and a new piece of construction equipment showed itself.

With the shutter and the shelves from the store pouring out ahead of it, construction equipment with a light machine gun and an explosive equipped appeared before Mikoto and Enirya.

And it appeared in the perfect spot to block the passageway.

“Wh-wha—!?” 

“It just powered straight through the store. It has to be like a giant tunnel in there.”

Mikoto wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand and then heard an even more ominous sound.

With the sound of treads, another piece of construction equipment appeared from around the corner of the intersection between the two passageways. Now their escape was cut off by the two vehicles.

The enemy did not use any kind of roundabout way of killing them like shooting them with the light machine guns.

The enemy was instead making sure they died by setting both pieces of construction equipment to explode immediately.

The red lights in the driver’s seats turned green.

“…!!”

Mikoto immediately used magnetism to try to gather together the remains of the shutter.

But…

A dull noise rang out.

Something stabbed from the side into the vacant driver’s seat of the construction equipment in the intersection. It looked like a spear. It had four different blades on the end making it look like a human arm made of machinery.

Someone had thrown it from the side.

Just after Mikoto had that thought, a short girl jumped up onto the construction equipment and forcefully grabbed the handle of the spear.

“Lessar!?”

“Gwaahh! You idiot!! Don’t call out my name in front of the security guard!!” the girl practically snarled out as she adjusted her grip on the four-bladed spear and forcefully twisted her waist.

Something unthinkable happened.

The top half of the construction equipment made of thick steel panels was mercilessly torn off. The wreckage was like a carrot stuck on a fork. Lessar swung it around and it came free of the blades. It then flew away and rolled a few dozen meters.

Immediately afterwards, there was an explosion.

The explosive in the driver’s seat had been detonated.

“Did you come to save me?”

“One thing.” Lessar pointed behind Mikoto without responding to her question. “Isn’t that one about to explode, too?”

“!?”

Mikoto manipulated magnetism to forcibly move the metal plate in Enirya’s bulletproof vest. She was forced back as if she had been punched by an invisible arm and then she moved of her own free will further away from the snowplow.

Lessar practically caught Mikoto as the two of them made a quick turn around the corner of the passageway intersection.

Immediately afterwards, the second explosion occurred.

Amid the smoke and dust, Mikoto heard the sound of treads.

It seemed the enemy had plenty of vehicles under their control.

That was why they were not hesitating to blow up their own weapons.

“Dammit! There’s no end to them. At this rate, we’ll never make it to whoever is behind all this!!”

“Just playing around with these bombs will do nothing but wear us down,” said Lessar while resting the four-bladed spear on her shoulder. “But if we look at this in a different way, it could be a good opportunity.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those are basically radio-controlled toys. If you head for where the controlling radio signals are being sent from like we discussed before, you should be led straight to whoever is behind this. It doesn’t look like our enemy is going to let up on the attacks any time soon… You can do that with those psychic powers you’re so proud of, right?”

Lessar pulled a few good luck charm products in clear packages from her jacket pocket.

“(…Plant Set A, a Boar’s Tooth Notebook, a Simple Rune Dyeing Kit, the separately sold Sticky Blood Color number three, and a Restorative Aroma—Magical Plant Effect Removal Sheet. Heh hehn. With these, I can probably combine a Seiðr with a battle-use auto-thinking assistance spell.)”

“Now then,” Lessar muttered. “I’ll have some fun here. You go head straight for where the signals are being sent from.”

“You…”

“Oh, this has nothing to do with owing anyone anything. This is because they plowed straight into our store. We were investigating this too, so we were likely part of the target. This is just me getting back at them, so don’t worry about it.”

Mikoto then heard a slight click.

It was the noise of the hammer being brought up on the handgun held by the security guard named Enirya who had been tossed away magnetically.

“…Where do you think you’re going, Misaka-san?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I’m going to go find the bastard who started all this and kick his ass.”

“That is not your job.”

“It isn’t her job to play around with you either,” cut in Lessar. “Actually, I would very much like for you to protect the peace of this city. I won’t stop you, Miss Security Guard. …Of course, that’s only if you are able to get past the machine gun fire and find whoever is behind all this on your own.”

Immediately after finishing what she was saying, Lessar moved adroitly to the side and charged into the smoke and dust.

There was no time to stop her.

As if in response, the repeated gunfire coming from a light machine gun rang out from multiple directions.

They did not know how many pieces of construction equipment there were in total, but things had begun to move. It was no time to be complaining amongst themselves. If they wanted to stop that disturbance, they had to defeat whoever was controlling those vehicles remotely as quickly as possible.

Mikoto turned her back on the direction Lessar had gone and ran off in the opposite direction.

Enirya seemed conflicted, but the machine gun fire forced her back preventing her from moving forward. And in the time that happened, Mikoto had already made it a fair distance from the threat of Enirya’s handgun.

Mikoto followed the controlling radio signal and headed in the direction of whoever was behind it all.

She headed down some stairs as she pushed on toward her goal.

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