Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

The excitement of beginning the third term was nowhere to be found.

“Does this look right?” asked Misaka Mikoto.

It was 8 in the morning.

Only convenience stores and casual restaurants would be open at this time, but Mikoto was inside a kimono store at a giant shopping mall. She stood quietly in front of a large mirror. She wore her short hair up and she wasn’t wearing her usual Tokiwadai Middle School blazer. She was wearing a black kimono, which seemed out of place on a 14-year-old girl. The half moon comb designs were the Misaka family crest.

These were mourning clothes.

She of course wasn’t going to attend her school’s opening ceremony dressed like this.

(This is nothing like a New Year’s furisode. It’s heavier.)

“Misaka-saaan, are you ready?”

A familiar face poked in.

Shokuhou Misaki appeared to have chosen Western mourning clothes.

Except why were they so see-through and revealing?

That looked more like a black party dress.

Specifically, it was a gorgeous black dress and veil, but it had slits all over the place with pearl accessories glittering here and there. Did that girl ever stop showing off?

For some reason, the weird girl gave Mikoto a weird look.

“Japanese clothing is a terrible choice for someone who doesn’t know how to put it on themselves. My choice is definitely going to be easier.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. That isn’t a character costume – more goes into it than just zipping up the back, I’m betting.”

“Come to think of it, you never wear long socks, do you?”

“Anything that would turn into something like melted cheese when exposed to a high-voltage current gets a no from me.”

And so she had chosen Japanese clothing.

Misaka Mikoto wanted nothing to do with garter belts or stockings.

…Still, she was glad she had gotten the scheming queen’s help since she knew how to rent out a kimono store before it opened for the day. This store’s quality was superb even with a rush job like this. But maybe that was always the demand for mourning clothes. On her own, Mikoto wasn’t sure she would have even considered getting mourning clothes. That said, Tokiwadai’s uniform was too bright for a sorrowful ceremony like this, so she had wanted something else to wear.

She wasn’t used to carrying around a small purse. For all the annoying insurance-related paperwork, she had agreed to all of the employee’s recommendations and then paid by card.

The two of them left the store together.

Shokuhou Misaki immediately began clutching her shoulders and shivering. Was she trying to accentuate her boobs?

“Brr!! It really is January, isn’t it? I thought all the slits and sheer lace would be sexy, but the winter chill is piercing right through it.”

“Huh, imagine that.”

“Wait, why don’t you understand me? Misaka-san, is your mourning clothes ability stuffed with fluffy cotton or something!?”

“Hey, quit it, don’t grab onto me, you made your choice, you exhibitionist idiot, so now deal with the consequences on your own.”

Really, those were supposed to be winter mourning clothes, so why was her skin showing through?

And wouldn’t you normally at least drape a shawl or stole over your shoulders to stay warm when outside?

Mikoto stared into the distance and muttered to herself.

“They do say children don’t feel the cold. Or is the saying that idiot’s can’t catch cold the one I want here?”

“I don’t want to hear that from the girl who wears shorts no matter how rainy or windy it is.”

Shokuhou was lucky she wasn’t wearing a shawl. Because Mikoto might have strangled her with it.

Just as Tokiwadai’s Ace and Queen were about to start grappling on a 2nd story outdoor passageway, something flashed in the corner of Mikoto’s vision.

It came from the open terminal at the interior of the large C-shaped shopping mall.

It was a taxi’s headlights.

The tall-roofed light station wagon taxi was modeled after the London ones. It was very round and cute.

Shokuhou Misaki was using her phone as she walked.

She appeared to have used a taxi hailing app.

“We can’t exactly walk through the entire city dressed like this, can we?”

“No, we can’t,” honestly admitted Mikoto.

Yes…

“You’re dressed as provocatively as a video producer desperate to get her subscriber count up. If you were walking out in the open, Anti-Skill would be on the scene in no time even this early in the morning.”

“Sigh. I really don’t want to hear that from the girl strutting around in the much freakier combination of a 14-year-old in mourning clo- gbhbhbhbhbhbbh!?”

Oh, it turned out the chain of her purse could also be used to strangle.

The mall hadn’t officially opened yet, so the escalator wasn’t running. After using it like stairs to reach the ground floor, Mikoto and Shokuhou climbed into the taxi’s back seat.

The driver was a woman. Maybe that was something the app let you request.

“Where to?”

“To the District 7 high school that was recently rebuilt. The one requiring black clothes like this to get in today.”

“Right.”

That was all the driver said.

The taxi smoothly pulled out onto the public road.

The driver thoughtfully switched off the overly bright LCD advertisement.

Mikoto’s warm Japanese clothing was fluffy enough to make fastening her seat belt a challenge. After making sure she heard it click, she sighed.

“So are we splitting the fare 50/50?”

“Sorry, but this is a hired vehicle with a contract updated every six months, so the distance of a single trip like this doesn’t really have a price. Or were you offering to pay for the full half year?”

“Go to hell.”

Their wealthy surroundings had its pros and its cons. Showing off with vehicles like this tended to escalate in any surroundings, but at Tokiwadai some girls went as far as hiring a helicopter. And unlike in the movies, they couldn’t just land on any building roof, which made them extremely inconvenient for getting around in a city.

The taxi…or was it technically a hired vehicle? Whatever it was, the car traveled smoothly.

The city had a unique feel this early in the morning.

Some of the restaurants were serving their morning menu, but most other service industry locations had their metal shutters down. The city still hadn’t woken from its slumber. In some places, both sides of the major street were rejecting customers.

No.

Was it more than just that?

“…”

Since she had nothing to discuss with the scheming queen, Mikoto looked out the window.

Academy City was torn up.

Buildings here and there were covered by soundproofing sheets and construction equipment like bulldozers and concrete mixer trucks were traveling every which way on the morning streets. At some intersections, the streetlights were dark and adults were directing traffic. They must have been using noise canceling technology, but a closer inspection showed the flashing light of welding being done this early in the morning.

Anna Sprengel, Christian Rosencreutz, and Alice Anotherbible. The repairs to the city had been delayed by one major incident after another.

(I wasn’t involved in it all, though.)

Would the outcome have differed had she been?

Mikoto wasn’t confident she could have survived an incident not even that idiot had managed to overcome.

She didn’t feel like she had survived.

She had been left behind.

That more accurately summed up her feelings.

Those who had lost their lives may have been furious to hear her say so, though.

She saw a city of white, black, and gray.

The pretty exterior had been stripped away.

Just viewing it brought a gloom drifting down onto her like volcanic ash.

She muttered a few words with her eyes still directed outside the window.

“…How much longer?”

“We’re almost there.”