Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter5 (section)

===Part 11===

Supposedly, humans would quickly lose their mental balance if they were placed in an environment where their senses failed them. The experiments using blindfolds and tubes around the arms were well-known, but it was also speculated that the many reports of seeing monsters in the mountains during a blizzard came from that same fact.

“…!!”

Was the hot sandstorm in which Kamijou found himself creating that effect in him?

He could barely see his hand in front of his face.

He had lost his bearings, and he was afraid he would forget which way was up if he let his guard down. Was that how the world looked to the hakama girl?

He clenched his teeth and bore with the pain, but his mind was turning inwards. And that was not necessarily a good thing. He was gradually losing sight of who he was, like he had stared into the mirror for so long he began to wonder who that was reflected there.

What was he doing?

He wanted to rescue Mitsuari Ayu, so he had chased after L.S.S. But Matsuo Ryuusuke had been taken out of the fight almost immediately and yet the danger was not at all over.

His mental GPS was screwed up.

Where was he right now?

What could he do to escape this labyrinth?

“…ay…?”

So.

When he heard a voice from deep within the white noise of the raging sandstorm, he initially assumed he was imagining things.

“Hey, are you okay!?”

“Whoa?”

Gokusai Kaibi, the middle sister, had grabbed his shoulders. She worked as an assassin. She lived in a fundamentally different world from him, but she was giving him an entirely ordinary look, like she was worried he might have heatstroke. That gap from his expectations seemed odd to him.

And she was not alone.

“I can’t believe this. I would have much preferred to find that high school girl since she might actually be able to pay us, but I just know she’ll refuse to pay if we abandon you.”

Rikuri, the oldest sister, was there too.

“Did you swallow some sand? Don’t worry! Humans are surprisingly tough, so playing in the sandbox won’t kill you!”

So was Amazora, the youngest sister.

Knowing he was not alone was enough to snap his mind out of it. His senses woke back up after a state similar to being blindfolded and placed on a soft, fluffy bed. Being surrounded by an assassin trio in the mountains may have qualified as a crisis under normal circumstances, but he did not see it that way right now.

They were on his side.

And if he had a side to be on, there had to be an opposing side as well.

That finally put things in focus for him.

The Beginning Child was wandering around after being awoken from her long sleep. She was not even thinking about fighting. Matsuo Ryuusuke could no longer stop this. He did not know where Mitsuari Ayu and Kumokawa Seria were, but since they were on this mountain too, the risk to their lives would be increasing by the moment. And they could not allow the Beginning Child to reach the city below the mountain in her current state.

“You, the oldest one…Rikuri was it? You specialize in poisons and drones, right?”

“Look at this.”

In lieu of an introduction, sexy Rikuri turned her mobile device’s small screen for him to see. The displayed footage was wobbling in a way that suggested this was coming from a flying drone, not a stationary camera.

It looked like there had been a gas explosion in the forest.

A figure was collapsed near what remained of the blown-up villa.

“Mitsuari!?”

“It’s a miracle she wasn’t engulfed in the magma or enveloped in ice while that close. Or maybe being so close to the Beginning Child actually placed her in a safe zone.”

The plant-based device(?) would have been destroyed when the hakama girl awoke, but Mitsuari was still unconscious. There were still some plant remains tangled around her hair or skin.

She was safe for now, but for how long?

If she was only safe due to the Beginning Child’s immediate vicinity acting like the eye of a storm, then it was bad that the hakama girl had moved along with Kamijou and the others.

The footage vanished into static as they watched. That was not an issue with the device. The sandstorm that had hit Kamijou had reached the drone. Rikuri sighed and the footage eventually cleared to show it was being taken from much further overhead.

“I somehow managed to keep it from crashing, but I can’t send it any lower than this. Then it really would lose control and stall.”

Mitsuari would be caught in it all if she remained there.

They could not let the Beginning Child continue on any longer.

She had killed Matsuo Ryuusuke. Not out of anger or resentment but with an indiscriminate roar. She had not even glanced in his direction. She probably had not even noticed anyone was there.

How could they be certain the same would not happen again?

“What should we do?”

“…”

He forced himself out of his thoughts.

This was what he wanted from Rikuri’s drones.

“If you can use that thing for poison and medicine, can you also use it to disinfect and sterilize? A method that doesn’t require approaching the Beginning Child would be great.”

“That is possible. This drone is a new model modified from one used to disseminate agrochemicals. It depends on the level of sterilization you want, but using a combination of ethanol and disinfectant should eliminate 99.999% of it.”

“Then you, the short one.”

“I’ll cry, Onii-chan.”

“Amazora was it? You fire your Gatling gun around. But you don’t have to hit the Beginning Child. The light and noise are what I want.”

“What should I do?” asked Kaibi with a sigh and a hand on her hip.

Kamijou grabbed an acorn from a nearby tree branch.

“Do you have a way of firing something of about this size? It needs to travel…yes, let’s say between 10 and 20 meters.”

“A blowgun should do the trick. Knowing how to build your own replacement weapon is the standard when your gun is off limits.”

The Beginning Child was extremely powerful.

Under the modern era’s system, she would probably be ranked at Level 5.

But she did not try to hide her power.

He was pretty sure he knew the conditions it required.

“Then let’s do this.”

He was not alone.

He would not let anyone here be left alone.

“We have one shot at this. It’s time to go to war with our predecessor.”