Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Epilogue (section)

==Epilogue: Four Girls+α==

[[Image:Railgun_BW13.png|thumb]]

Misaka Mikoto stared out the school’s window.

Tokiwadai Middle School once more took up one corner of the School Garden. That of course meant a section of District 7 and not some newly formed sky city.

That plan had fallen apart after Empress Resanerié’s defeat. The debate representatives who had been assisting her had not known of her true objective, so their motivation hadn’t lasted long once they began to lose.

“I’m amazed it all worked out in the end.”

“Did you say something, Misaka-saaan?”

Sparks crackled between the two of them.

“I didn’t know you could manipulate enough memories to erase an incident of that magnitude. Your Mental Out is starting to look like pure evil to me.”

“I can’t make such a broad command without Exterior’s help.”

“The end result was the same.”

“It’s your obsession with the ends rather than the means that leads you to childishly take the shortest route to your goal, Misaka-san.”

Shokuhou Misaki had not in fact altered the memories of Academy City’s 2.3 million people or the earth’s 7 billion.

She had focused on a few specialists and online influencers.

Everyone thought it had all been a surprise event put on by the five schools meant to show off the School Garden’s technology. That explanation claimed it had been a largescale demonstration meant to overwhelm their rival schools of Nagatenjouki and Kirigaoka.

That was enough to convince most people.

Although Mikoto thought it looked more like the people were so desperate for some kind of simple explanation that they leaped at that one as if grasping at straws.

(Maybe the absurd scale of the entire School Garden taking flight actually helped us out there.)

Shokuhou winked.

“And, Misaka-san, you modified all the electronic records from cameras and sensors, didn’t you? Memory ability is so vague and untrustworthy, so that level of freedom scares me a lot more.”

“I can’t do anything that broad without the Misaka Network. And that’s made up of the Sisters, so it feels wrong for me to connect to it without their permission. For that matter, there are more computers and mobile devices around the world than there are people. I can’t possibly hack them all. There would be a real shortage of semiconductors if I tried.”

“The end result was the same, wasn’t it?”

“The way you pretend to understand and stop thinking tells me you really are a fellow middle schooler. It’s almost cute.”

Mikoto had only hacked a few Tokiwadai servers.

When the adults from outside the School Garden investigated, they would find a plan for the surprise buried deep on the servers and that would make the explanation more convincing.

People were easily tricked.

And the people who were afraid of being tricked tended to check one layer deeper for confirmation.

They never considered the possibility of further layers below that, so they convinced themselves the layer they had searched out themselves was the end of it.

A certain someone had once concluded those two girls could easily commit the perfect crime if they worked together.

(I can’t believe I had to take a lesson from the people running those Sisters experiments.)

Mikoto frowned in utter disgust.

It had also helped them that Resanerié’s megaphone had used an itching chemical to help manipulate the listeners’ emotions.

Afterwards, none of it felt real to the affected people, like they had dreamt it all.

That said, it scared her that Academy City was so flexible everything could go back to normal after such a major incident. She appreciated it at the moment, but it reminded her a little too much of when so many clones were being slaughtered in the streets and no one noticed.

She needed to be careful.

People tended to accept any cruelty or absurdity with little resistance when that was the more convenient option for them. Mikoto and Shokuhou’s Level 5 powers were the ultimate example of that. They barely noticed anymore since it was so normal for them, but nothing could seem more absurd to the ordinary people who couldn’t use those powers.

Needless to say, this was a double edged sword.

If they grew too accustomed to using these absurd powers, they would end up no different from the researchers lurking in the dark side. In fact, they had already seen more than one Level 5 who had fallen to Academy City’s darkness.

(Well, we should consider ourselves lucky there isn’t any friction left between the students and teachers.)

Memories were malleable.

When people were forcibly presented with an objective “fact”, they would cling to it. Just like people would conclude their memory was wrong if the spellchecker didn’t recognize the spelling they remembered.

Shokuhou had focused her efforts on the popular people who set those standards. Mikoto had planted decoy documents to corroborate what they said.

No one wanted to go back to their school life with lingering memories of executions that nearly happened, so the students and teachers would accept the conclusion presented to them.

The School Garden’s flight had been a surprise event.

The students’ calls of guilty had been a group psychology experiment carried out under special circumstances, so it had been no more than a legal game.

Each and every one of them simply thought they hadn’t been informed.

Even the teacher who had nearly been hanged would accept that as the truth because it was a much more comfortable thing to believe.

No one there had known anything about that at the time, but once they were given the explanation after the fact, they would adjust their own memories to match.

Only Shokuhou could rewind a mind after receiving the true spoilers.

“I hear you didn’t alter Resanerié-san’s memories.”

“After all the changes I did make, it probably would have been easiest for her if I had simply erased all memory of her horse.”

Shokuhou sighed before sticking out her tongue like a small child.

“But I didn’t like that idea.”

“An unusually good decision for you. It won’t be easy for Resanerié-san, but I’m sure she thanks you.”

“I notice you’ve changed what you call her. Hee hee. Resanerié''-san''?”

“Might as well be polite now that I have no reason to fight her. (And now that I know the whole truth, I hate to admit I find her kind of cool.)”

“''Sigh. Someone really needs to keep an eye on you, Miss Ace.''”

“''Learn to hide your hotblooded side better before saying that, Miss Queen.''”

Mikoto heard the cheerful high society voices of the afterschool students.

“I can’t believe how little it takes to transform the students here into ''that''. It’s kind of scary.”

“Their lives are scheduled out from good morning to good night, their manners, etiquette, academic performance, and esper power are all criticized, and they’re even forced to conform to a complete stranger’s aesthetic sense. That’s like asking them to become ticking time bombs of stress. The most dangerous part is how most of them aren’t even aware of their own stress, so they don’t do anything to relieve it. That’s why the tiniest pinprick is enough for them to explode.”

“You seem awfully relaxed, Shokuhou.”

“And you seem ultra carefree, Misaka-san.”

Now that they had shared the bare minimum of information, their meeting was at an end.

The two Level 5s turned away from each other and walked toward opposite ends of the hallway. Mikoto and Shokuhou weren’t all that different from the other students, but they hadn’t fallen for Resanerié’s tricks. That was because they were aware of their stress and thus worked to relieve it.

So a pinprick wasn’t going to get much of a reaction out of them.

“Now, then.”

(The real MVP this time was Kongou-san for getting the School Garden back in place. I really can’t thank her enough.)

Despite everything that had happened, Yugure Tsumebakei still wanted to take her entrance exam for Tokiwadai. Mikoto didn’t know what the girl’s dream was, but she apparently had something she really wanted to do at Tokiwadai. There was nothing Mikoto could do for her now. Whatever her circumstances, she would pass if she had what it took.

Mikoto pulled out her phone and arranged to meet with the daughter of Kongou Airlines. The usual swim team duo was apparently with her.

“There’s that done. Now I can invite the others to hang out.”

She met up with Shirai Kuroko.

“Onee-sama.”

Shirai teleported them both out of the school. Once out of the School Garden, they were in District 7.

“Oh, there they are. Misaka-saaan!!”

“Hey, Misaka-san, have you heard the rumor of the Blue Gekota? Oh, who am I kidding? You probably knew about it before I did.”

Uiharu Kazari and Saten Ruiko were waiting for them. Kongou Mitsuko’s group would be at the meetup point they had arranged in this same district.

Mikoto flicked something with her thumb: an arcade coin.

“Honestly. Never a dull moment in this city.”

[[Image:Railgun_BW14.png|thumb]]

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Railgun_Chapter4|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Railgun_Afterword}}
</noinclude>