Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

From red to black.

The sun set and night fell.

The already chilly winter air had transformed into a wind that seemed to slash at Kamijou and the others’ cheeks. To be blunt, he wanted some way of protecting his ears.

District 23 was a unique district full of airfields and rocket launch sites. To keep the various aircraft safe, the district was usually surrounded by a tall fence and strictly guarded, but it was deserted now.

There was no earsplitting noise. Had the passenger planes been grounded due to the martial law, or for some other reason?

Kamijou could scarcely believe it.

“Did they really set their second defense line here? They thought Christian Rosencreutz would choose to pass through such a dangerous district?”

“That’s what they’re saying on the Anti-Skill radio channel. Do you think that Rosencreutz guy could rewrite those encrypted transmissions?” asked Mikoto while monitoring those transmissions.

But not even she was doing that directly through her head. She was using a radio she had picked up.

It was possible CRC wouldn’t change his route because security was strict here or laxer over there. If he took the shortest route to the District 7 hospital, he would end up crossing through Districts 23 and 18. In the worst case, it was even possible he would actively choose to cross a minefield and step on every mine along the way. Because he enjoyed the loud noises.

“Look over there. There’s light,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Sh! That’s Anti-Skill’s second defense line.”

There were a lot of tanks and armored vehicles there. Kamijou didn’t know much about military stuff, but even he recognized one vehicle type. The mobile combat vehicles resembling 8-wheel armored trucks with a tank gun on top were Predator Octopuses. Just the one had made things so much easier when fleeing with Anna, so seeing a whole line of them here sent a chill down his spine.

In addition to the vehicle headlights, Anti-Skill had gathered up the kind of big outdoor lightning used at construction sites. A maze of barricades had been set up with sandbags piled up in places to construct countless encampments of various sizes. Then there were the heavy machinegun and automatic grenade launcher emplacements set up by driving spikes into the asphalt using the power of pneumatics. Runways were supposed to be delicate areas where a single stray screw or nail could lead to disaster, so gathering all of this was quite something.

No, that had it backwards.

If you ignored the potential financial losses, the wide-open runway may have been the perfect spot for Anti-Skill to use their next-gen weaponry. It at least greatly reduced the risk of a student dorm being hit by a stray shot.

But was that their real reason?

If they were using the possibility of stray shots as an excuse for their helplessness at the first defense line, it meant they still hadn’t accurately judged the threat Rosencreutz presented.

“Oh? Misaka-san?”

“Wait a second. Onee-sama, what are you doing here!?”

“Ugh.” Mikoto uncharacteristically flinched.

She apparently knew some of the Judgment members working here. Kamijou recognized the girl with twintails. He knew her name was Shirai Kuroko. But the older girl in glasses was entirely unknown to him. Something about the super-serious glasses girl with black hair told him she would kill him if he cracked a joke here. She scared him. Her strict aura reminded him a lot of Fukiyose when she was in a bad mood. W-was she always like this? Didn’t it wear her out?

“Onee-sama, District 23 is off limits. What are you doing here?”

“Um, Kuroko? Hear me out before you chew me out. See, I am the #3 Level 5, so I thought I could lend a hand now that Academy City is in trouble.”

“Absolutely not! You don’t have the authority to just decide that! Wandering around an off-limits area is enough to have you taken into custody!! And when have I ever ‘chewed you out’!? Care to explain why you chose that phrasing in particular!?”

“Sigh, and there you go (sob).”

Meanwhile, Kamijou’s eyes were not drawn to the Predator Octopuses so like the one he had recently entrusted his life to. He saw a much more disturbing weapon.

“What…is that?”

It looked like a 70m steel snake, or like an enlarged version of the luggage carrier carts often used at airports. It was made up of 10 armored cars with ground-flattening metal wheels that might as well have been road rollers. They were linked in a long line by giant metal ball joints. Each one looked to be around 7m long, 3m wide, and 2m tall. That meant they were wide and flat, which made it look like a snake lying down on the ground.

Each car was armed with gun turrets on the sides, but these were very different from a tank or warship’s weapons. They looked more like antiair weapons. A self-destruct drone launcher and a Gatling gun rotated as a single set.

“You mean the XHsACV-15 Anaconda?”

Shirai Kuroko sounded more confused than exasperated.

Because…

“The X at the start means they’re sending prototypes out to the field.”

“It is an all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Two-car armored vehicles that can bend in the middle are already made in Finland and Singapore. You could view this as a more extreme version of that concept.”

The glasses Judgment girl held a hand to the temple of her glasses and seemed delighted to provide the explanation.

A prototype.

That would explain the green jungle camouflage that only made more conspicuous here.

That said, what was this city hoping to accomplish building that weird thing?

“Unlike a normal tank or armored truck, I doubt it’s supposed to fight while driving around.” Mikoto analyzed it with a sigh. “Is it more of a mobile barricade that can rush in when there’s a riot and use itself as a thick wall to protect one side of a school from the rioters? See how its turrets are on the sides? That means it’s designed to fight with its side to the enemy, not its front.”

“R-right.”

“But putting them on both sides doubles the cost, so no sensible designer would arrange them like that. A top-mounted turret with 360-degree rotation would be lighter and cheaper. The only reason to do it this way is if the weapons double as special armor to protect itself. So if a shell or missile hits it, it triggers an outward explosion to reduce the force of the enemy projectile trying to punch through the armor. And that’s a lot cheaper with a drone launcher than a big gun. It looks like the actual radar is split between the front and the rear. Unless you accurately shot between the weapons with something like my Railgun, the shot will be diverted at the cost of one of the modular, and thus replaceable, unmanned turrets.”

“Anything is fine as long as we have something defending us,” said the honey blonde girl.

She had a point.

After all, this was District 23. The flat runway gave a clear view out to the horizon in all directions, meaning there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t want CRC firing magic projectiles here. Having those five or ten units surrounding them to create a rough encampment would mean a lot.

Kamijou then listened in the two Judgment girls:

“It’s plenty long, but at only 2m tall, rioters can simply climb over it. But if they added rolls of barbed wire, I’d be afraid of injuring them. Well, those flaws are what make prototypes so cute.”

“Is that so? If they’re going to the trouble of using a computer for the complex calculations needed to sync the engine RPMs, I don’t see why they would bother with a giant snake that can’t even separate. Procuring 10 maneuverable armored vehicles would seem more convenient to me.”

“They must still be working out the kinks to discover its true charm as a product. Besides, don’t you love the sound of the phrase ‘mysterious prototype weapon’? Hee hee.”

“Not really. I don’t understand you biker girls who get all worked up whenever you see a mech that doesn’t even cover you up.”

That conversation hinted at a lot of effort going on behind the scenes, but the thick wall still felt unshakable to Kamijou.

But then another thought occurred to him.

(Can this traditional weaponry really stop Rosencreutz?)

It was a vague, meaningless question.

His thoughts never reached the part where he figured out what else to do.

Because he was interrupted by something floating down from the night sky.

It was colored a hot pink.

Since this was the second time, Kamijou felt more relief than surprise.

“You’re alive, Bologna Succubus!”

“Natch.”

The blonde demon smiled as she spread her large batlike wings. While Kamijou’s honest reaction made her feel a touch bashful.

This time, she managed to land on the runway without running into anyone’s face with her crotch.

What had happened to Aradia and Good, Old Mary? The latter in particular had been knocked out by an attack from Christian Rosencreutz last Kamijou knew.

“Having a Transcendent with you should expand your strategic options. My Cold Mistress spell will probably only work on him once. It swaps out a human’s pleasure with pain no matter how physically tough they are, so it should work on someone ''who only acts out of passion and playfulness''. Still, it won’t work once he comes up with a countermeasure, so when to make use of that limited opportunity is the real key.”

And…

“A-a succubus?”

“Oui. You got a problem with that, mademoiselle middle schooler who still has a lot of growing up to do?”

Someone was trembling a short distance away.

The honey blonde girl ''whose name Kamijou didn’t know'' seemed to take issue with something about this.

Kamijou just wished those two with such nice bodies would avoid glaring at each other from so close together their big boobs were pushed together. Where was a high school boy supposed to look!?

“A sexy young woman with long blonde hair, an amazing figure, and a mysterious sparkle ability in the eyes who specializes in nonphysical attacks? A-am I a joke to her? She just copied everything about me! And you’re telling me she’s gotten to know him behind my back!? That’s as aggressive a move as building a big-name convenience store right next to a privately run shop!!”

“You missed ‘talks weird’ on that list of similarities,” said Mikoto.

“Talks weird?” “Talks weird?”

The blondes joined forces(?) to both glare at Mikoto.

“Anyway, who do you think you are? A young doll like you needs to wait at least a decade before she can call herself ‘sexy’. And historically and traditionally, a succubus is the orthodox choice for sexy, not a middle schooler. Seriously though, I really do recommend you wait ten years so you can truly fulfill that high school boy’s dream of a dorm manager lady.”

“Why am I getting advice from an exhibitionist pervert who walks around outside in her underwear!?”

[[Image:GT Index v09 BW4.jpg|thumb]]

It sounded like the Bologna Succubus had won the squishy battle.

This must have been quite a shock because the mystery honey blonde girl simply stood in place with tears in her eyes. …And had Kamijou ever told that demon about his dorm manager dream? Kamijou couldn’t remember in enough detail to be sure. He had legitimately died and passed out a few times during his December 31 in Shibuya, so had he mentioned it in his sleep at some point? He wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information, but he really wished she wouldn’t spread it around to other people. Because it was embarrassing!!!

And for some reason, Mikoto looked glum.

She was hanging her head with a look of belated realization.

“(Eh? Do I not even have the honor of participating in that battle? Because of the gap in chest size?)”

“?”

Kamijou got the feeling anything he said would make her want to die, so he opted to leave her be.

Just then, a pale-faced Anti-Skill officer began showing around her tablet without knowing who to ask for further instructions.

“W-we have footage from the drone… He’s coming!! He’s head straight here! Wh-wh-what do we do!?”

“We need to set all our complaints aside. Everyone, to your posts! You don’t want to let him cross this defense line without putting up a fight, do you!?”

The busty glasses Judgment girl clapped her hands and provided instructions. She was so good at it the adults of Anti-Skill were taken aback and simply obeyed. Anti-Skill was generally made up of the muscular gym teachers and guidance counselors, so how did that girl have the upper hand?

He had only been spotted by drone, but if they knew he was close enough to judge that he was headed this way, he couldn’t be that far away.

Christian Rosencreutz was coming.

Kamijou recalled how extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had been.

Nothing was going to just “work out for the best” here.

''If he lost this time, he really would die. As would the other people here. He wouldn’t be able to speak with any of them again.

The battle at the second defense line would soon begin.