Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume13 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 8===

Aboard the transport plane, Kamijou had been most afraid while they rattled along the frozen runway, but everything stabled out once they were up in the night sky. Even though now was when they were truly approaching death.

He was surprised enough to find they had parachutes small enough for Alice and Anna Sprengel, but then he noticed Kihara Noukan rummaging around a corner of the cargo space. Even though he was a golden retriever. Was there really such a thing as a canine parachute in this wide world?

“It’s an extreme sports product. Manufactured by a start-up with some mistaken ideas about what a pet product should be. They also made dog snowboards and dog diving suits. Even though the animals can’t understand or enjoy the concept of being in a viral video. In the end, it’s a product made by humans for humans.”

The voice coming through the earphone was as prickly as ever.

…Just how much information reached the new board chairman on any given day? This didn’t sound at all relevant to the current global threat.

Kamijou also noticed Blodeuwedd the Bouquet modifying the harness of the parachute she was issued. Equipping it to her thick metal coat probably was a challenge, but was it safe to mess with it on your own?

“The missile attack has started,” said Accelerator.

“I see.”

“The stockpile’s only so big, so you only get one chance at this. Jump out into the sky at the designated point and drop down near Coronzon. Miss this chance and you don’t get another shot at it.”

“I’m aware.”

After that exchange, the #1 fell silent.

He seemed displeased with something.

Accelerator whispered the next words over the transmission.

“…Complain about having to do this.”

“Later. I’ll complain all you want when we’re looking back on it.”

A red warning light lit up and the wind raged in.

The pressure rapidly changed.

In the very back of the transport plane, the door meant for loading and unloading vehicles lowered. It formed a gentle slope and led toward a heart-stopping view of the city far below.

“Time to go.”

“The #1 has to see everyone else go?” said Accelerator. “There really is something wrong with this world.”

It was finally time.

Great Demon Coronzon had probably noticed by now. So they couldn’t hope for the best-case scenario. Their next best bet was to put her in a situation where she couldn’t stop them even if she knew what they were doing.

That meant launching every last missile left in Academy City. Mixed in with all those flying objects, Kamijou’s group would be dropping down toward Coronzon.

“Your drop destination is the former site of the Windowless Building in the center of District 7. Not long now!”

An adult man stood next to the open slope and shouted over the roaring wind. It wasn’t clear if he was from the city’s light side or dark side.

“You will be dropping along with the missile attack! So there is no making a U-turn to try again if you mess up. It would stand out too much. We will be arriving above the drop point shortly. Make sure you jump the first time! It is currently 10 PM sharp. Begin jump!!”

At this point, Kamijou just had to steel himself.

He clenched his teeth and took a running start down the slope leading into the sky at over 2000m up.

He forcefully kicked off the end of the slope.

Gravity vanished.

He jumped.

Did he not feel the ordinary fear of heights in that moment because it was such a dark night? The city night was lit unusually sparsely, making it hard to judge the distance to the ground. …Which was actually a dangerous factor leading to landing accidents when making parachute jumps.

Alice and Takitsubo Rikou zoomed right past him.

Apparently your positioning changed your speed.

Kamijou had been spared tumbling uncontrollably end over end, but not because of any athleticism on his part. The parachute bag on his back was wriggling on its own to adjust his air resistance and balance.

Even so, he was at an altitude of 2000m.

That wasn’t very far. In fact, it was frighteningly short for a fall.

As the wind roared up at him, he checked the small LCD on the shoulder strap to find his free fall speed was more than 200km/h. A mere 2 kilometers was nothing.

(I hope that bastard watching on from his ivory tower of a prison did the math right!!)

Something like a cylinder with collapsible wings dropped by right next to Kamijou. It was about as thick around as a two liter water bottle, but its length was well over his height.

“Wait, a missile!?”

If it detonated now, he was dead.

He was free falling from higher up than a skyscraper roof, but this new development eliminated the ordinary fear of that situation.

Also, this didn’t look like a missile that flew in a straight line before piercing into the target.

“What is that? It’s more like a little fish swimming through the sky. A whole school of them!”

“It’s nothing special,” said Accelerator. “Just a ''turretless'' next-gen tank. If you want to blow up another tank, a self-destructing drone has much better range and precision than an ordinary tank gun. Then all you need is to build a large-scale production line to bring down the cost of each drone stuffed full of semiconductors. Then to load a single tank with as many drones as possible, you replace the top of the tank with as many multiple launchers as will fit.”

The explosive covered in what looked like small smartphone lenses weaved sharply about.

This was more than simple speed.

This bleeding-edge deadly technology would read the trajectories of autocannon fire and auto grenade launchers that used radar fuses and then evade them as it approached its target. Once this swarm of slaughter locked onto you, there was no escape and it seemed to work just fine against magic.

“There really is something wrong with Academy City,” said Kamijou.

“Hey. By claiming and sitting on the military patent for this, we can keep the outside world from making any.”

Apparently the new board chairman had thought this through.

Kamijou just hoped it didn’t backfire.

At any rate, it sounded like he didn’t need to worry about any of the missiles pouring down from the sky accidentally hitting anyone. They could stay put and the ''swimming drones'' would avoid them on their own. In fact, it might be safer if no one panicked and tried moving around. …That did bother Kamijou a little because it reminded him of how people had to go through annoying processes and complete tedious registrations to make the processing easier for the machines.



He soared through the night sky.



He plunged into the valley between buildings.



The city that had looked so tiny rapidly spread out around him.



The LCD on his shoulder strap must have been linked to an altimeter. His parachute opened on its own without him having to pull anything. With a sound like a sheet beating at the air, he felt a squeezing across his body. The complex harness had distributed the weight.

“Gweh!!”

But that didn’t make it gentle. This didn’t feel beautiful it all.

Light as a feather this was not. The point of a parachute was to let you fall from a great height without dying and that was it. Maybe it was similar to how being shot through a bulletproof vest still hurt like hell and immobilized you for a bit.

It wasn’t over with the parachute opening.

In fact, he felt like he was still moving pretty quick with it open. The speed felt similar to attempting a slope while seated on a bicycle.

There was no light.

The swimming drones were detonated here and there in the sky and illuminating the world like camera flashes, but the contrast of the shadows was too strong and it only disoriented him.

The pointy-haired boy was aiming for a wide-open street with three lanes both ways…but it turned out to have a lot more stuff than he had expected: streetlights, trees, a wind turbine. Each one would kill him instantly if he collided with it. And the surrounding buildings created some highly irregular wind currents. In fact, the way the wind was dragging him backwards was terrifying.

“Damn, I wish I’d gone for a building rooftop!!”

“Do you want to die impaled on a street wireless LAN antenna or lightning rod?”

He heard a voice.

Was that Dion Fortune drifting along right next to him?

“More importantly, keep an eye on your altimeter. We’re almost at the ground. Don’t miss the moment of impact because it’s dark and there’s snow. You’re out of the fight here if you break your leg!!”

What exactly was he supposed to do?

Just as he wondered that, all the streetlights at a large intersection unnaturally lit up.

Had the rumored new board chairman done something again?

That showed Kamijou the distance to the ground…but it was way closer than he’d thought!?

“Oh, shit!!”

He bent his legs in preparation to cushion against the shock. The wind carried him over and he crashed int some low bushes between the street and sidewalk, but he supposed that was better than colliding with a thick and solid tree or streetlight.

As soon as he landed, the unnaturally lit up street lights unnaturally extinguished themselves.

(Hey, not so fast!)

He had to feel around in the darkness. He fumbled around until he managed to release the parachute harness from his body.

“Where’s the Windowless Building!?”

“The wind blew us pretty far off course. I caught a glimpse of it earlier, but from this far, Hamazura and Takitsubo might contact Coronzon before us.”

Not good.

They weren’t sure they could defeat that great demon with all of them fighting together. It was too dangerous for anyone to go ahead of the rest. Especially for the non magic experts.

Kamijou heard some large wings flapping overhead.

The Bologna Succubus was flying around while carrying iron-maiden-like Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. She was drawing out a big figure 8, so it didn’t look like she was taking the shortest route somewhere. Perhaps she was trying to draw Coronzon’s attention. They had mentioned magic side people reacting more sensitively to magical tricks.

But where was Alice Anotherbible?

Where had Anna Sprengel gone?

Or Qliphah Puzzle 545?

And Kihara Noukan?

(Damn, we keep losing the people that act like trump cards!)

Regardless, they were short on time. They were right at Coronzon’s throat, but that meant she would use each minute and second they delayed to plot a recovery. He wouldn’t even have time to check if everyone was alright.

Dion Fortune was not shaken.

In fact…

“We’ll just have to make do with the people we have. No matter how carefully you plan it out on paper, battles always come down to what you can do with the cards reality gives you!”

“But getting too accustomed to ad libbing means a complete lack of control.”

“Since when were you the careful planning type?”

…

Looking back, every single one of his fights had been ad libbed from beginning to end!!

They had been separated for now, but they would all be heading to the same place from their different landing spots, so he could only trust they would meet up where Coronzon was.

He was a good distance away from the former location of the Windowless Building, but it was a straight shot down a major street. There was no time to lose. If he was worried about Hamazura and Takitsubo, he had to rush there as fast as possible.

While running, Fortune kept to Kamijou’s left-hand side.

She was keeping her distance from Imagine Breaker.

As much as she looked like a young girl, this part of her may come from her nature as a tarot deck and original grimoire.

But they ended up stopping before long.

Because something blocked their way.

Creatures like two meter crabs and snakes made of blonde hair.

…But that wasn’t all.



''Roar!!!



A sudden blast of wind blew through.

The red snow on the ground was thrown into the air and Kamijou felt like he had been struck by an ocean of blood. If Dion Fortune hadn’t immediately grabbed his left arm and tugged, the surprise attack probably would have bisected him. Right down the middle.

Something scraped along the ground. Leaving behind a strange, sharp, and sinister scar. Kamijou briefly saw it as the earth itself hemorrhaging blood. And when the red snow guided his his gaze along the scar…he saw someone.

Wearing black mourning clothes.

With a palette knife in her right hand.

With feline symbols all over her.

And the thing she was riding like a steed was…could you even call that thing a cat? The enormous and lithe beast shadow was made of black paint and stood two or three meters tall.

“You’re…kidding,” groaned Kamijou.

Calling this a reunion would be inaccurate. This was likely a different individual from the woman he knew.

But come to think of it…

Before, in the UK, Great Demon Coronzon had taken measures to stop Kamijou, Aleister, and the rest. She had released several pawns based on members of the Golden cabal. The Dion Fortune here now was the only survivor.

That had included big names like Westcott and Mathers…but come to think of it, there was one Golden magician who Coronzon had never used.

Dion Fortune gave the answer.

She spoke the name of the trump card Coronzon had saved until the very, very end.



“''Moina Mathers''…”



The name sounded subtly different from the one Kamijou knew.

But it likely referred to the same person.

She was the wife who had supported Mathers, one of the Golden cabal’s three founders. She was an engineer who had used her artistic talent to design realistically producible versions of the many spiritual items thought up by the Golden cabal. She was the black cat witch.

She resembled Mina, but the Moina that Coronzon had created really was different. The eyes behind the veil were pitch black. Sticky shadows lurked within them and they were so dark it seemed like they would absorb everything.

And Kamijou was hit by the fear of the unknown.

Thinking back, Mina Mathers had always fought alongside him.

To put it another way, they had never fought each other until one or the other was unconscious.

(You’re kidding…)

Out of all the Golden magicians, the black cat witch was the one whose strength as an enemy he couldn’t judge…

(We ''must'' stop Coronzon and Adikalika. We don’t have time for this risky battle that we might not even be able to win!)

Kamijou gulped.

At the same time, the girl next to him stepped forward.

“I’ll do it.”

“Fortune?”

“Honestly, this is a great opportunity. I was already thinking it was high time I conquered my trauma related to ''her''. I mean, she surrounded my house with black cats that were just meow, meow, meow, meow all night long, keeping the entire neighborhood up. She used an astral technique to gouge into my fragile maiden’s back. And there’s plenty more she needs to pay me back forrrrrrrrrr!!”

She suddenly exploded.

There was a lot of personal resentment mixed in, but Dion Fortune didn’t seem willing to back down.

If Fortune and Moina were going to clash here, then Kamijou had to get moving. He couldn’t stick around and waste Fortune’s determination to give him some time even if it meant wearing down her own life.

“Thanks!!” he shouted.

He thought he saw a small smile when Fortune briefly turned to look at him.

She was always saying hers was an interim position and she was only filling the vacancy.

But…

“She’s doing a pretty good job as archbishop if you ask me.”

Kamijou simply ran.

First those blonde hair monsters and now Moina Mathers… Was that really all? How many trump cards did Coronzon have hidden away?