Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter7 (section)

=== Part 9 ===

The giant wheel snake broke through the wall of the shopping mall and appeared outside.

However, part of Lessar was still optimistic.

The giant wheel snake was indeed a dynamic weapon with a focus on destruction, but it had likely been prepared to destroy the entire landscape of an enemy base rather than an individual magician.

That was why Lessar had a chance of winning. If the destruction was the broad wide scale type, then there would be gaps through which she could slip. The giant wheel snake was constructed out of giant circles. When a ball was put inside a box it just barely fit inside, there would be gaps in the corners. If Lessar continually moved about aiming for those areas, she could avoid the enemy’s attacks.

Or so it should have been.

Lessar suddenly noticed that the rubble made of broken building materials was being sucked in towards the surface of the giant wheels.

It was not just a collection of giant wheels. It was a giant spiritual item that had been created by a magic cabal.

Lessar had forgotten that simple fact, so she was caught off guard.

Immediately afterwards, the countless large and small wheels plowed toward Lessar with a loud grinding roar.

The road surface broke under its weight and the remains were sucked in and utterly crushed at the point where the wheels met. Lessar’s small body would soon meet the same fate.

When that giant form broke into the parking lot, Lessar was already gone.

The giant wheels chewed through everything in its way.



She could not fix her gaze on anything.

She could not feel gravity or the ground on her legs that dangled down below.

Even the flow of her blood was unstable, so she had lost the ability to think properly.

Amid all that, Lessar blinked.

“…Huh? Why am I being embraced by Floris?”

“Because I saved you,” answered Floris, a girl who also worked at Nihon Daruma.

Just like Lessar had a tail stretching out from her miniskirt, Floris had small wing-like decorations attached to her shoulders. Those decorations currently had even bigger wings of light extending from them and she was flying at high speed just off the ground. Just when she occasionally needed to adjust her direction, she would lightly kick off the ground.

They cut between buildings and flew right past the trees lining the roads, but Lessar felt no fear. Just like when riding a bus or train, the acrobatics of the driver did not feel real as a passenger.

In fact, her focus was mostly on the giant wheel snake that was chasing after them and crushing the trees and street lights before sucking them up between the wheels where they were further crushed.

Floris spoke as she worked to keep her flight stable.

“But what is that thing? It looks like a weapon that crushes things with its weight and size alone. Is it used to suppress an enemy base by crushing absolutely everything flat?”

“If it is…ew. Caliche and the others must have been squished as flat as a newspaper by their own spiritual item.”

“Wouldn’t it be set to not crush its allies? For example, it could be set to not put any weight on its allies.”

“What do you think the base of the spell is?”

“I’ve only seen it from afar, but it seems to be different from the patron saint types they’ve used so far. Those Telesma wheels probably have their foundation in the Ophanim.”

“But the quality of the power used seems to be of Michael. For some reason, he is recorded as being both an archangel and a patron saint, right?”

“They have forced power into a spiritual item that has its symbols skewed. It sounds like they would lose quite a bit of power constructing it that way.”

“I’m pretty sure there was some story related to Michael that had to do with chains. Something about linking circles together.”

“You mean binding the highest class of fallen angel for 1000 years? Hmm, now that you mention it, the absorption of the rubble might be related to that. And the lack of damage to allies could be added on by an expanded interpretation of the fact that the chains that bind evil do not bind believers.”

“So what do we do now?” Lessar looked back behind them while Floris still held onto her. “That thing’s a weapon that just crushes things under its giant form, so it will likely pursue us to the end. Given its speed and destructive power, you may not be able to lose it with just your wings.”

“Of course, I’ll be turning back partway through.” Floris responded arbitrarily. “But it doesn’t look like it’s going to just wait around.”

“?”

Lessar did not even have time to look confused.

The giant wheel snake crashed through a nearby wall and charged toward Lessar and Floris. Their opponent ignored the layout of the roads and just plowed straight through buildings to get at them.

“Eh? You’re kidding!! That thing moves similarly to a collection of gears. With that much rubble in there, it should grind to a halt like getting some cloth caught between the gears!!”

“Well, it is part of the occult.”

“I guess there’s no complaining about it then.”

Arcs of green lightning appeared from afar and attacked the giant wheel snake, but Lessar doubted they would have much effect. With a tail of sparks following it, the giant construction pressed on toward Lessar and Floris.

It started making continuous hard crunching noises.

The construction of the giant wheel snake was changing. Like the gear of a bicycle changing, it changed its pattern to one more effective for chasing the two girls.

“Have you found its weakness yet!?”

“I’ve probably come up with about the same thing you have.”

Floris turned sharply and flew through the streets while darting through the gaps in the rubble the countless wheels had created. Lessar turned her focus back to the giant wheel snake that continued following them while crushing the buildings and trees.

More accurately, she focused on the points where the giant wheels met.

“When it swallows up pieces of rubble that are too large and when it changes the arrangement of the gears, the wheels temporarily ignore gravity and distance themselves from each other. Of course, a mystical power is needed to cause such mystical phenomena. In this case, it’s Telesma.”

“Right.”

“If we time it carefully and interfere at that moment, the normal rearrangement pattern will fail and something terrible could happen. A huge amount of power is needed to move something that huge, so having that power go out of control will create plenty of destructive power on its own.”

“Right, right.” Floris raised the output of her wings of light. “But the main problem is that those are not the same as simple wheels or gears. To make them grind to a halt, we need analyze what magical symbols those wheels use and what process they use to rearrange.”

“There are two ways to do that,” Lessar suggested while moving her fingers. “The first is to continue letting it attack us like this. If you’re skillful enough to avoid all of its attacks, I can carry out the analysis slowly but surely. But it doesn’t look like you have the mobility to spare to do that and the plan to drop a nuke on Academy City is still ongoing. It wouldn’t be good to stretch this out unnecessarily.”

“What’s the second?”

“That is of course to get on it directly to get near the ridiculously huge wheels.”

Floris fell silent upon hearing that.

She finally opened her mouth to speak while continuing to quickly fly at low altitude.

“…Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“Of course. Only our scouting specialist—that’s me—can carry out the analysis of that spiritual item. You couldn’t do it, Floris.”

“If I let go now, you’ll be upside down. Even if you do land on top of the pursuing giant wheel snake, your feet will get caught in the wheels’ absorption and you’ll be thrown upside down into the gap between the wheels.”

“The axis of the wheels is not rotating. Only the wheel around it is rotating at high speed. If I can pinpoint my landing on that, I won’t get caught up in it.”

“Do you see how fast it’s moving? Don’t you think you’ll be thrown off by inertia if it makes a sharp turn?”

“If I can get close enough, the actual analysis won’t take much time at all. If I can analyze what magical symbols are used in the regulation of the intervals before getting thrown off, you and the others can defeat that giant snake.”

“If you fail at any point in that, you’ll die!! And all the data going into that plan is just speculation! If any of your assumptions are wrong, you’ll be jumping into a complete dead end!!”

“Floris,” Lessar slowly interrupted. “We have an objective here, right?”

“…”

“That objective is not to die here. And even if I do die, we need to avoid utter destruction. Do you understand? Analyzing those magical symbols is necessary to defeat that thing, only I can carry that analysis out, and I have to get close enough to touch those wheels to do so. That’s just the situation we’re in here.”

“God damn it.”

“If you understand, then let go of me on the count of three. Okay. Three, two, one…”

There was no hesitation in Lessar’s voice.

And realistically, there was no other way.

As Floris continued to fly at low altitude, she kicked strongly off the ground once which sent her flying up about 10 meters into the sky. And then she let go of Lessar.