Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Crossover Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 1===

The Divine Ship Skíðblaðni safely arrived on the beach.

The control room had been abandoned and the ship had not been guided from land, but it rode up onto the beach all on its own. Yes, just like a landing ship meant to carry personnel or vehicles onto land. Kamijou was worried it would be stuck on land like a beached whale, but since the blonde lady named Waltraute did not seem worried, he guessed this was the proper way of using it. It must have had a way of returning to sea.

And it was hardly time to be worrying about that anyway.

“Pant, pant.”

Kamijou gasped for breath like someone lost in the desert.

They had decided to disembark from the strange ship, but that was no easy task with the Divine Ship Skíðblaðni. It was over forty-five kilometers long and its three-hull structure made it nearly seventeen kilometers wide, so simply disembarking required a lengthy trek.

Quenser was supposedly part of the military, but even he was exhausted.

“D-dammit. Cough, cough. This is just wrong. I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better!! A trip to one end and back of this thing is enough material for a weekly blog, so how could anyone actually use it!?”

“Ugh. B-by the way, what exactly is a ‘three-hull structure’?”

“It doesn’t matter!! A girl isn’t going to remove a piece of clothing for each question I answer, <strike>so anyone who wants to know can do a search on their own</strike>!!”

Kamijou’s simple question was drowned out by Heivia’s desperate shout.

Waltraute looked down on the boys with a look of pity as she asked a question.

“You make this much noise just moving across a ship’s deck? How do you normally walk around?”

“This ship is as big as a city! And I don’t want to hear anything from someone who has a horse to ride!!”

As college student Higashikawa Mamoru cried out shrilly, Nanajou Kyouichirou whispered to him.

“Is my brain a lost cause if the combination of a blonde girl and a horse seems dirty to me?”

“If you wish to be reincarnated, just ask.”

The peerless and hopelessly incompatible Killer Queen’s comment was enough for him to decide to abandon his worldly thoughts.

After quite a bit of effort, they all arrived at the edge of the divine ship. Kamijou peered straight down from the railing-less edge and found they were six or seven stories up. It was taller than a school rooftop and more than enough to fill his legs with a tremor, but given the overall size of the ship, it was relatively “thin”.

There was no device to lower them to the ground in a magic beam of light like someone being abducted by foo fighters. Instead, a normal gangway was folded up on the side. The idea of being six or seven stories up returned to their minds with a vengeance.

“This isn’t some new diet where we have to lose a certain amount of weight before we can get back on, is it?”

“That would certainly be a problem. Youkai can’t lose or gain weight, so I’d be stuck in an infinite loop.”

The Zashiki Warashi in a red yukata sounded annoyed, but the Yuki Onna let out a delighted screech as she slid down the stairs on Jinnai Shinobu’s ice coffin. It looked like the kind of reckless mountain festival where people slid down a steep hill on a log.

“Damn. If the entire ship wasn’t made of wood, I could use magnetism to take a shortcut.”

Mikoto sounded like she was cursing someone, but she still managed to reach the sandy beach below.

The ocean! The beach!! The sun!! While we’re at it, let’s all change into swimsuits!!!!! …was not how things went here. Excluding the Youkai who had never-ending stamina, they all collapsed from exhaustion. If they had been thrown out into the ocean, they might very well have passed out and drowned.

Index asked a question while watching the Baby Magnum jump down to the beach in the distance and send a wall of sand flying in their direction.

“I-I’m absolutely starving. What do we do now? What are we going to do- wah!?”

The sandstorm brought visibility down to zero and they could only hear Waltraute’s calm voice.

“There is a lot that needs doing, but most importantly, I assume you miss human civilization. I recommend heading to the human world of Midgard.”

“Cough, cough.”

Mikoto coughed and used magnetism and static electricity to remove the sand from her hair and clothes.

“The human world? Midgard? What’s that?”

“Midgard is Midgard. That is the world at the base of the World Tree Yggdrasil where the humans live.”

Waltraute made it sound obvious, but Quenser and Heivia began whispering between themselves.

“(What do you think? That sounds like the kind of place where we could find a weapons shop and item shop. But I get the feeling this isn’t ‘our world’ where Frolaytia and the Oh Ho Ho are waging war year-round.)”

“(I don’t care as long as it comes from a beautiful woman. If some filthy guy started talking about this crazy spiritual crap you’d hear from the Faith Organization, I’d clock him right on the nose and ask him to explain it for real.)”

Meanwhile, Mikoto continued questioning Waltraute.

“The human world? So are you going to make us walk some more?”

“You can stay here if you want, but this land is classified as the giant world of Jötunheimr. There are a number of different types of giants, but they are generally the enemies of the gods and mankind. You are free to camp out here, but then it’s your own fault if they step on you or gather you for food.”

The bunny girl gave a light groan and Higashikawa Mamoru looked up at the gangway they had descended.

“If it’s that dangerous, why’d we even leave the boat? It sounds like we were safer in there.”

“You can do that as well. As long as I know where all of you strangers are, you can do as you wish. However, I will stay with any of you who continue to Midgard, whether that is all of you or just one. By the way, Skíðblaðni currently has no food aboard that is not a trap. You will need to gather fresh water and food in a hurry, but if you have a way of acquiring that from seawater, be my guest.”

There was nothing they could do.

The optimistic idea of catching fish with a fishing pole or fishing net flashed through their minds, but the fresh water was a lost cause. They doubted a filter made from pebbles and sand would be enough to remove all of the salt from the seawater.

And so Waltraute was still able to decide what they did. <strike>They had come to the beach yet none of the girls changed into swimsuits and they got sand in their clothes yet none of the girls decided to bathe in the ocean.</strike> At any rate, Index, the Zashiki Warashi, the bunny girl, and the others took their first step into the green field.

However…



“H-hey.”

Kamijou called out while collapsed face down.

Mikoto responded while gasping for breath with her butt flat on the ground.

“Wh-what?”

“How many days has it been now?”

“I don’t know. Three or four I think.”

He had been the one to ask, but Kamijou grew enraged at this unreasonable world when he heard the actual number.

“Oh, honestly!! Why!? Just why!? We were talking like it was a quick trip to the next town over, but we’ve been walking forever! And isn’t a single incident supposed to begin in the morning and end that night!? There’s something wrong when we’ve spent four days on travel alone!!”

“<strike>This must be a special occasion, Touma.</strike>”

Index said something, but he could not hear it over some strange static.

Higashikawa Mamoru stared into the distance where the Baby Magnum waited.

“Let me guess, there’s some reason why we can’t all just ride that thing.”

“That two-hundred thousand ton mass is floating with static electricity. If a flesh-and-blood human got close, he’d be blown to pieces,” explained Quenser. “Climbing up onto one of the main cannons like before is a different matter, but are you sure? That thing moves around at five hundred kph. If our Princess sneezed at the wrong time and pushed a lever, we could all be knocked off.”

The only ones with any energy left were the Zashiki Warashi and Yuki Onna, because they were Youkai, and the Princess, because she rode the Baby Magnum. Quenser and Heivia were supposed to be soldiers, but they were completely out of breath and sitting down with their backs against the thick trunk of a tree.

“This is awful. Just awful. I’m going to lose weight if I keep walking around like this. If you polish up these world-class looks any more, it could easily start a new war, dammit.”

“Huh? Is this the kind of forced march that makes professional soldiers complain? No wonder it’s so tough for a cute bunny in stiletto heels like me.”

“Yeah, well we normally get back by nightfall. The Object takes care of the fighting, so we get paid tax money for just watching on from somewhere close by. Anyone but the monsters in the Northern European Restricted Zone would give up here.”

“You heard them. So carry me, Higashikawa!!”

“Stop. Don’t grab onto me. And since when do we get along? I thought we were trying to kill each other!”

As the party continued to complain, they decided to camp there for the day. However, they only had a fire below a large tree and did not even have any tents.

Meanwhile, Nanajou Kyouichirou muttered something while lying on his side with a dead look in his eyes.

“Isn’t a whole lot supposed to happen when you take a trip with girls in a fantasy world? Y’know what I mean. If you were to describe it as a smell, you would call it bittersweet!! After all, there are no baths or dividers here! If you want to get clean, you have bathe in a river or spring!! And everyone sleeps in a group with no division between boy and girl!! Can’t we have something like that!? Can’t we have something to look forward to about tomorrow!!!?”

“Kyouichirou, have your suicidal tendencies come back?”

“No!! I’m complaining because I want a better life!!”

The desperate boy’s tone of voice was falling apart by this point, but Anzai Kyousuke glanced over and cut in.

“No, you can’t have any of that. There’s nothing that great about a fantasy world. It’s all based on medieval Europe, right? The tenth century? Or maybe the fifteenth? And in England, France, or maybe Germany? Well, if you learned about the actual customs of the time, you wouldn’t want any of that.”

“Stop it, college boy. Don’t destroy a high schooler’s dreams!”

“After all.”

Anzai Kyousuke sniffed at his own sleeves.

“A realistic fantasy would be filled with <strike>pungent body od-</strike>…”

“Nhnnn!!!!!!”

He never finished his sentence because Waltraute kicked the stomach of her white horse and its hind legs sent a college student’s worth of mass flying into the sky.

The tremendous sound of destruction was both comical and substantial, but it was enough to silence the fool who was touching on the greatest of taboos.

Waltraute then spoke with a refreshed look on her face.

“Fantasy is fantasy, so it is fantastically odor free. Any smells in fantasy are fantastic aromas.”

“I-I see.”

“And as I am always riding a fantasy horse, I do not have a hint of fantasy animal smell on me. After all, this is fantasy. …Do you understand?”

“Yes!! Perfectly!!”

Nanajou Kyouichirou did not want to join the other fantasy boy who had become a new star in the sky, so he obeyed his survival instincts and expressed his agreement.

Satsuki looked at him like he was human trash, but she finally turned back toward Waltraute.

“How much further do we have to go?”

“We are about at the halfway point, so we will reach Midgard in another three days.”

Kamijou Touma groaned as he listened in.

Quenser called out while rubbing his calf.

“Hey, do you think there’s anything nice up ahead? Bathing in a spring? Happening across one of them changing? Having to warm our cold bodies through skin contact? Hell, if it means resting my head on their lap and getting fed mouth-to-mouth, I’m prepared to collapse from a light illness.”

“How should I know? If there is something, there’ll be an illustration for it. If you don’t see one, then I guess nothing happens.”

“Oh, hell! So I have to count on heaven to throw some luck my way? Well, you know what!? I believe with all my heart that there’s at least a leaf swimsuit in my future!!”

With that lament in his heart, they continued on to overcome the rest of their long, long journey.

Or they should have.

Instead…