Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 17===

''This isn’t good,'' calmly assessed Tessou Tsuzuri.

She could no longer simply ''beat down'' Rakuoka Houfu. A new player had entered the field and her options were growing more limited. The worst part was the great unknown of the Kaai-Youen twins pair. If they were working to fix everything like that boy wanted, she could ignore them and wait for the criminals to destroy each other, but if they had regained their original violence, waiting like that could be a critical mistake.

An Anti-Skill Negotiator’s tactics always came down to taking and using pawns.

It was a lot like chess except for the fact that she was on the board herself.

And no matter how unusual an example she was, she was still Anti-Skill deep down. She focused on the combined power of groups, not the overwhelming force of an individual. Her own specs were irrelevant.

“Un.”

“Un.”

She heard something like giant gas bubbles floating to the surface of a swamp and popping.

No, the popping bubbles were growing from the cream-colored slime surrounding Youen.

“Deux♪”

“Deux♪”

And Tessou’s original association had been accurate. These were giant gas bubbles.

“Trois☆”

“Trois☆”

“!? Tch!!”

A single spark of static electricity would trigger a massive explosion. Had they used their crazy microbes to rapidly turn the raw garbage into petroleum? Worse, this wasn’t just an indiscriminate gas explosion. It was directed in a single direction to accurately launch shards of metal like a sniper shot. And when the Decomposer and the Carrier were behind it, those “arrowheads” were likely coated with a horrific poison.

When you didn’t have the pawns necessary to accomplish anything, the only option was to retreat.

“Sh!!”

Tessou Tsuzuri ''kicked Rakuoka Houfu’s knee with her sharp heel to use him as a shield'' and then ran toward the exit. A second and third projectile tore through the air to reach her…and she doubted it would end there.

“Tch. We need a more creative way to boost our power.”

“Hey, hey, hey. I like the looks of that can of caviar you’ve got there. I’ll be borrowing that☆”

“Eek! Stop! That prize belongs to Alice!” shouted an out-of-place voice.

“?”

Confused, Tessou twisted around to look.

At that exact moment, a much more powerful shock hit her from behind. She immediately lowered her head, but that didn’t stop the sharp scratches from raking across her cheek.

Rotten gas had expanded inside the can until it exploded.

The attack had come from the can’s lid. She had just barely dodged that, but the scattershot of caviar had still broken her skin. It was like a needleless tranquilizer dart.

(Oh, no! The fish eggs burst inside the wound!)

The only pawn still available to her was Benizome Jellyfish. Rakuoka Nodoka had been mostly taken out of the fight with the drowsiness of an extra-strength allergy medicine and this place was crawling with the more bizarre side of the dark side: Rakuoka Houfu, Kaai, and Youen.

Tessou needed to get a fresh start.

She could imagine some kind of microbe or chemical was circulating through her body. There was no such thing as a panacea, so she couldn’t eliminate the risk without knowing what exactly was inside her. She used pure willpower to steady her shaky vision and pulled out the radio used to control her pawns.

(These dark side scumbags are all messed up in the head. It might look like they’re all working together now, but they’ll turn on each other in an instant if I sow some confusion!!)

“Goddammit! Nodoka-chan! Benizome too! If you don’t support me, I’m pulling your tongues out with the Fishing-!!”

Just as she clenched her teeth and rushed out of the building, something dropped toward her like a guillotine blade.

If she hadn’t rolled to the side, it might have functioned much like one too. Without her reflexes, she might have lost her head despite noticing it in advance.

It was a shield.

One of the clear shields Anti-Skill used for riot control.

She belatedly realized it had not in fact missed. Broken pieces of the radio she used to send commands to the Fishing Tongues were flying through the air.

Whoever this was had prioritized freeing the hostages over dealing a deadly blow to their enemy.

They had abandoned the option of a surprise attack and even introduced the possibility of being attacked in return.

“What?”

She knew who this had to be.

She knew an Anti-Skill officer who was especially fond of using a riot control shield. The woman excelled at using a shield instead of a weapon because she disliked aiming a gun at children, even if those children were rogue espers.

“Yomikawa…-senpai? What are you doing here?”

The bottom corner of the shield scraped against the ground as a low voice answered her – the voice of an Anti-Skill officer whose stance hadn’t changed one iota after being drenched in the sticky darkness during Operation Handcuffs.

“What, you need to hear from me why I’m here before you’ll accept it?”

No, not that.

This was nothing so cliché. She wanted to know how exactly this woman had appeared here now.

Yomikawa Aiho worked in District 7, so she wouldn’t show up at the District 10 garbage incinerator for no reason. That meant someone had told her what was happening. But who?

“Be-”

When the answer hit her, Tessou Tsuzuri entirely ignored the situation and gnashed her teeth.

“''Benizome Jellyfish''!! You damn scoop junkie!”