Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume12 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

The Doppler effect distorted a passing siren.

An Anti-Skill special vehicle must have passed by on the nearby main street.

“Kh.”

Kamijou jumped because he was dressed from head to toe in white burial clothes. They were more like a Japanese bathrobe than a kimono.

Apparently he was a fugitive. He really had returned to life, so why did he have to avoid the main streets and stick to the back alleys? He had no idea what might happen to him if he was caught.

(D-d-d-dammit, Kingsford!! I’ll grant that you kept your promise to send me back from hell, but couldn’t you have done more than the bare minimum there!? Of course it’s going to be a big deal and cause a panic if a corpse suddenly gets back up more than a day after dying!!!)

The January rain was another problem.

He could feel it soaking through his clothes, penetrating his skin, and stealing away his body heat. And yet his feelings didn’t just numb over. It wasn’t often that being “chilled to the bone” felt more literal than figurative.

Setting aside the scientific values, he was pretty sure snow would have been preferable to this.

“Alice, are you alright?”

“Hm, hm♪ The girl is A-OK as long as she’s with you, teacher☆”

His breath was white and his body shivering, but little Alice was smiling in the very same rain. Even though her storybook dress had short sleeves. She held onto Kamijou’s arm from the side and refused to let go.

She was being very huggy and squeezy.

But come to think of it, the Bologna Succubus was also a Transcendent, but when she had been injured in Shibuya at the end of the year, hadn’t she suffered and shivered from the cold?

Maybe this was another area where Alice Anotherbible was abnormal.

“?”

Alice tilted her head with a full smile and an “eh heh heh” of laughter.

The little girl might be fine, but she was so soaked it worried Kamijou to see her like that.

…He did find himself more comfortable with this little version of her, maybe because he was more accustomed to her this way. He still wouldn’t want her walking around the streets in that black leather outfit like this though.

Kamijou was in burial clothes and Alice wore an apron and dress ensemble that looked straight out of a storybook. Plus, they were both soaking wet and without an umbrella. Kamijou was barefoot. This country’s constitution guaranteed many types of freedom. He knew that, but he was still pretty sure being dressed like this anywhere but Shibuya on any day other than Halloween would end with the authorities taking him into custody. And not the gentle “how about you come talk with us” kind – the forcibly restraining him kind.

“A-a-a-anyway, I’d like to get somewhere warm.”

“Are you cold, teacher? Then the girl will warm you up!”

“Alice, we’re not at the ‘stranded on a snowy mountain’ stage yet!!”

He wanted time to think.

He wanted to relax and rest somewhere warm, but he knew he would be kicked out for violation of the dress code if he tried to go to a convenience store or a chain cafe while dressed so strangely and soaking wet.

The shared offices the size of phone booths would be empty, but he didn’t think those had their own heating systems. He could get in easily enough, but he would freeze to death going there in January while soaked.

Kamijou Touma sighed softly.

The sigh came out white.

Little Alice innocently ate up his breath.

It might all seem like a joke, but he was in a fairly serious situation.

He had to make a decision.

“I guess the only place left would be my dorm room.”