Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume4 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 1===

By 7 in the morning, the yellow sun was rising, but it did nothing to change the minus-20 chill.

Did everything look so white due to the sand blown into the air by the wind? It also could have been diamond dust created by the moisture in the air freezing. The frost and ice kept everything frozen despite the sunshine.

“Uhh,” groaned a young and somehow fretful voice.

The girl of around 10 was clinging to Kamijou Touma’s hip from the side. Her eyes were shut in sleep.

She had long silver hair and brown skin.

She wore a thin white camisole that almost seemed to let her skin color show through, denim shorts that left her thighs fully bare, and knee socks. Over all that, she wore a thick leather flight jacket with an English logo on the back. Kamijou guessed it was the brand name: Space Engage.

Curious, he traced his Transla-Pen over the words and the machine gave him a translation.

“Blank character, enter into battle.”

“There’s no way that’s what it means. I swear this piece of junk is busted.”

The hair decorations on either side of her head were modeled after blue chrysanthemums. In Japan, chrysanthemums were associated with everything from tempura to funerals, but what did they mean in America?

Meanwhile, Index had her hands somewhat exasperatedly on her hips while she glared at the overly touchy little girl (and at Kamijou).

“…Touma.”

“Wait! ''I'' don’t even know why she’s doing this, okay? What are you saying I even did wrong here? Keep in mind that I can’t speak English.”

With the mystery girl sleeping like that, Kamijou could not leave the salty and greasy family restaurant that Americans called a diner. The most he could do was let her sleep in one of the booth seats with her arms around him from the side.

It terrified him to stay in one place like this.

But until they were certain the sand magician had located them, this would work for temporary safety.

It was like finding yourself stuck in some hidden corner while playing hide-and-seek or cops-and-robbers. Once you were there, you couldn’t bring yourself to leave. Kamijou’s weak heart was reluctant to leave the walls of this building. Since everyone had disappeared without the power going out, they could use the lights and heat without giving away their position. He started to wonder if they would actually be easier to find if they started wandering around outside and he started to fear even approaching the windows.

Meanwhile, Stiyl and Kanzaki had gone on a few scouting missions until dawn, using the Cheap Party diner as no more than a temporary base. They made it sound like no big deal, but they would have been at risk of being sniped by the sand magic every step of the way. Kamijou could never have done it. And searching the area around the diner had not turned up anything useful.

They had found no clues to the fate of the joint force or the current status of R&C Occultics.

Nor had they found any clues to the whereabouts of the 30 million residents of Los Angeles who had been in the wrong city at the wrong time.

Kamijou gently reached for the brown girl’s neck to check the inside of the thick jacket’s collar. He found a name stitched there: Helcalia Grocery.

“Grocery, huh?”

“The name sounds Indian-British to me,” said Index from the same booth.

“But if she moved here from England, her nationality would be American…yawwwn,” replied 15cm Othinus, yawning from jetlag on the table.

Stiyl and Kanzaki were out of the diner for another search.

Kamijou was interested in something other than the girl’s country of origin.

When he pressed the button on the side of the smartwatch he had found in the Academy City base’s safe, the name Melzabeth Grocery appeared. Was that this girl’s older sister or mother? At the very least, it seemed unlikely a sister even younger than her could have been responsible for coming up with and hiding that message on the watch. It was unknown how many more secrets were hidden in the watch’s small scratches and smudges, but it had at least directed them to this girl.

What had that felt like?

While the fearsome “disappearance” was fast approaching, Melzabeth must have known she could not escape, but even as her teeth chattered and her hands trembled, she had worked to leave a message to some unknown person who might never even receive it.

(She was counting on someone like me to follow the message, so I have to make sure it counts.)

“Zzz…hm?”

The girl’s regular breathing came to a stop.

She stirred and then rubbed her eyes with her small hands.

“Oh, she’s awake, Touma!”

Index’s bright-faced comment caused a change. A dramatic one. Helcalia Grocery scrambled behind Kamijou’s back to use him as a shield. The front of her flight jacket was open, so he could feel her warm body heat through her thin camisole.

On the table, Othinus put her hands on her hips.

“She does not like you.”

“That isn’t Index’s fault,” added Kamijou, sounding exasperated.

The blame lay squarely with that rotten priest from Necessarius. She was only 10, but he had still pulled out a rune card and wielded his flame sword the instant he saw her. All while saying any information related to her identity and the LA disappearances could be extracted from her corpse’s head.

There was no way she would know the whole picture here and anyone would be scared after being threatened with something that violated the laws of physics.

Kamijou Touma had intervened despite not understanding a word of the English argument that ensued, so now she saw him as her only ally. Hence why the girl of (presumably) 10(-ish) would not leave his side.

However, Stiyl Magnus had not simply been carelessly aggressive. The now-hated priest had calmly explained his actions afterwards.

“By having her reject me and open up to you, we can get a more accurate testimony out of her. And since you will share that with the team, it works out for me in the end. Rejoice – we finally found a way to make your womanizing tendencies useful.”

“No matter how you slice it, he’s still a scumbag for doing that.”

“I’m hungry. I want to eat vegetarian meat for breakfast.”

All of a sudden, she was talking to him.

The nightmarish flood of English rushed right at him. His score of 43 on his last English exam left him unequipped to tell if she was just speaking in an authentic accent or if she was still too sleepy to talk clearly. Surprised, he glanced over at Othinus to find her nodding off. The jetlagged god was still haughtily crossing her arms and legs even as she napped on the table.

This was a job for a modern convenience: the Transla-Pen. That device could translate back and forth without needing to sync with a phone, so even a boy who failed his English exam could communicate with a modern LA girl…right?

The mic was in the head of the pen, so he held it like was doing karaoke and awkwardly spoke into the still-unfamiliar item.

“Um, uh…can I ask you some questions? If you’re still not up to remembering it all, that’s fine too.”

But he had no way of knowing if it was translating his words correctly.

Especially when Helcalia responded by drowsily gnawing on his upper arm. Was she the type to start chewing on the elastic band of her sports cap when she was hungry?