Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 14===

The rooftop sniper had been dealt with.

That meant Kamijou’s group was no longer restricted to the District 7 station building.

“What!? Then why are we descending into the subway!?” protested Shirai Kuroko.

“Because of Frillsand #G,” said Kamijou “We can’t run through the crowded streets with her chasing us!! Who knows how many people we’d get hurt or worse!!”

The train accident had been at an elevated platform, but the large station served more than just one line. Kamijou held incautious Alice under his arm and Shirai carried tied-up Benizome over her shoulder while they ran down the stairs to reach the subway platform.

Shirai Kuroko made sure to hold her phone out for the ticket gate, but then her eyes widened and she shouted at the others.

“Hey! Don’t jump over the ticket gate like it’s a hurdle! If you don’t have a subway card, then go buy a ticket!!”

“Does she really think we’re going to do that!?” asked Kamijou.

“That justice exhibitionist can’t help it. She’s the sad kind of person who would obediently stop at the red light and let the pursuing wave of lava engulf her car. She is best ignored if you prefer staying alive.”

“Kya ha ha☆ The girl is playing tag with her teacher!”

Alice slipped out from Kamijou’s arm and jumped down an entire flight of stairs despite wearing a skirt. Unbelievably, she stuck her legs out in front of her so she would land on her butt. Kamijou’s eyes widened in fright, but then several balls made from curled-up hedgehogs spilled from below her apron. They gathered together into a cushion and she bounced softly off of them. Their flattened spines seemed to act like bed springs, but surely that still had to hurt, right!?

The disconcerting zap of busting air came from somewhere. The speaker used to inform of arriving trains exploded from within and a bundle of cables stuck out like a long tongue.

That was the artificial ghost.

The deadly being had no weaknesses. That powerful grudge could maybe even destroy all of humanity singlehandedly. If she caught up and placed a hand on their shoulder, they would be killed instantly by the powerful energy. Her chaotic electric storm could break through walls and pillars, so they wouldn’t fare well if that hit them either.

But now that Kamijou knew the reason behind it, it all held a different meaning for him.

This wasn’t just a deadly weapon. It was a vortex of uncontrollable emotion.

(I will save you.)

He clenched his teeth, but kept his eyes forward and his feet running.

He couldn’t let himself die here. If he did, he couldn’t save this woman who had been dragged into a great tragedy, lost the man she loved, and continued to weep and wail.

(This isn’t just about us anymore, so I swear I’ll save you too, ghost!!)

Youen still wasn’t out of breath, so she may have used an enzyme or chemical to boost her abilities. The bad girl looked entirely unaffected by the running as she asked a question.

“Are we running through the tunnels all the way to District 10?”

“Please, isn’t there a legit railfan in here who can drive one for us!?”

“Don’t ask for the impossible.”

The soles of Kamijou’s shoes lifted from the floor.

Surprised, he held onto young Alice who was running nearby.

After floating up in defiance of gravity, they shot down the subway tunnel with the speed of a bullet.

Based on his shadow cast on the wall, it looked like he had sprouted giant fairy wings. No, that wasn’t it. He was extremely hesitant to look at his back, but he was pretty sure a winged bug over a meter long had grabbed onto his back like a crane game!

“What? Eh? How is it so big!?”

“It’s called parasitic enlargement. That’s one of my toys.”

Youen’s calm voice came from unexpectedly close by. She was moving just as fast as him.

Young Alice rejoiced at being princess carried by the pointy-haired boy and tried to reach out her small hands. Toward what? Toward the thing on his back.

“Wow, it’s all black and hard and shiny! I’ve never seen such a big roa-”

“Stop, Alice! Do not confirm anything for me here!! There are all sorts of flying bugs, right!? I-I am never looking back. I will never confirm which of the giant bugs from the Hanatsuyu Youen Collection is holding onto my back!!”

“Fun fact: In the bug world, particularly among beetles, a male getting up another one’s back is a symbol of a live-giving ceremony. Hee hee. By which I mean mating!”

“Stoooooooop!!!!!!!”

He saw a blue shine. Youen was wearing a giant morpho butterfly like a backpack as she amused herself by whispering insect trivia to him. Of course that gloomy mini-villain had given herself the most beautiful option.

Alice was so delighted she kicked her legs around in her thick white tights.

“Hm, hm♪ The girl really does love you, teacher.”

“Where did that come from!?”

“Your arms are the best seat. If anyone is going to hold the girl, it has to be you. Heh heh☆”

Apparently she thought he was a memory foam pillow or something. Maybe it was like how a boy’s shaved head or broad chest was briefly popular with the girls but then abandoned at Mach speed.

Shirai Kuroko had refused to be equipped with a bug at all. Maybe Tokiwadai girls couldn’t understand the romance of bugs. She carried bound Benizome Jellyfish over her shoulder like a sack of rice and repeatedly teleported to move down the subway tunnel faster than a sports car.

A flashing white beam shot past them from behind.

That meant the artificial ghost had descended into the subway tunnel too.

They had avoided a direct hit, but that was no reason to relax.

Frillsand #G’s lightning could destroy steel and concrete with ease. If the metal rails or concrete pillars up ahead were blown up, the airborne fragments would become obstacles for the fast-moving group. Given their relative speeds, a direct hit would be enough to tear an arm off at the shoulder.

Resentment, sorrow, rage, regret, and what else?

Maybe human emotions weren’t meant to be named and organized like that.

Even a single screw or bolt was a threat here.

“Ahhh!?” Kamijou shouted in reflex.

He couldn’t even cover his face with Alice in his arms.

The tunnel was a lot less straight than he had expected and went through several curves, but the wings on his back made the turns for him and he didn’t feel like he was in control at all. Perhaps this was what it felt to ride a rollercoaster in a country with extremely lax safety standards.

With his life solidly in someone else’s grasp, he raised his eyes with real tears in them.

“Shirai!! Did you get any information out of that China dress woman!? I want a destination. We know abut that Kihara guy’s lab where he built Ladybird, but I also want to know where the artificial ghost was made!!”

“You heard him. Got any ideas?”

“…”

Benizome Jellyfish was not unconscious.

She had intentionally chosen to remain silent. The sparking and flashing lights behind them suggested Frillsand #G had noticed their escape and started moving down the tunnel. It was obvious what would happen if Shirai got sick of the woman and abandoned her here, so that silence took guts.

Pain probably wasn’t going to get her to talk either.

But…

“Those are some pretty sexy modifications to your dress there. That tells me you’re the type to use your femininity as a weapon. It means you think you’re hotter than average,” said Hanatsuyu Youen while flying alongside them using the shiny blue wings of a morpho butterfly. She pulled out a test tube and shook it, creating motion in the surface of the neon green liquid within. “Did you know spiders break down their prey’s tissue – in other words, the protein – and uses their stomach like a pump to suck it all up? Doing some real-life character creation work to the face and figure is pretty simple. But don’t worry. After melting your boobs away, I’ll make sure to give you five or even ten of them in a grape-like cluster. Got a specific number you want?”

“O-okay, I’ll talk!! Don’t give me that!!”

Benizome panicked with her arms and legs bound by rope.

That paparazzo was all about spreading people’s information around, so maybe she didn’t have it in her to hide anything for long.

“Go to the abandoned leisure spa in District 10!! The people occupying it now have built a ton of illegal cardboard, plywood, and prefab houses in the empty pools, creating something like a Little Kowloon Walled City!! It’s a criminal area where anything goes and even I have a hideout there!”

“The District 10 slums?” asked Shirai.

“Your comparison is pretty out of date, isn’t it?” added Youen. “That high-rise residential area has already been demolished. Why not compare it to Johannesburg? Well, whether you’re talking about Russia or Mexico, you have to watch out in any major city of a country where the people don’t trust the police and unregistered guns are plentiful. So you’re saying the hideout we want is there?”

“A few large trucks were abandoned in the old employee parking lot out back where they would be relatively inconspicuous. I don’t know who they belong to, but a few groups of garbage collectors were killed in horrific ways when they got close. It must have been this ghost who did it!!”

“Are you saying those trucks are the lab where she was made?”

The group exchanged a glance while flying down the tunnel.

What a ''stroke of good fortune.'' Kamijou would have loved to gather some more bizarre tech involved in Handcuffs, but they didn’t have time to travel the full length of Academy City multiple times. Frillsand #G wouldn’t give them the chance. But fortunately, the artificial ghost tech and android tech were both located in District 10.

“How does she pull off the China dress so perfectly?”

Alice sounded somewhat depressed while focused on something else entirely.

If they could pull this off, they could save Frillsand #G from her eternal rampage!!