Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.