Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter3 (section)

=== Part 3 ===
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“I don’t understand. I just don’t understand!! There are tons of people going by out front. We’re just 10 meters away from being in broad daylight!! Why do we have to change here!?” yelled Misaka.

She had changed into and out of a dress the day before, but the hurdle between indoors and outdoors was just too great.

On the other hand, Lancis spoke completely calmly.

“If we just head down the alley and around the corner, we’ll be right at one of the staff entrance’s to the leisure pool. There are too many people going by within the facility and stripping down in the passageway would stand out too much.”

“Well, that may be true if you think about it logically, but for a maiden of 14 going on 15 who’s about ready to head back to the first half of her teens, an area in the open where all sorts of footsteps can be heard is not the place where she is going to reach for the hook of her skir-dgbh!?”

Mikoto had been quietly complaining all by herself, but she had started coughing upon looking down at Lancis’s waist.

Lancis was already completely devoid of clothing to the point that Mikoto half expected to hear a “supo~n” sound effect. 

This led Mikoto to go back to yelling.

“How!? How can a teenage girl do that!? How can you put your hands on your hips and strike a daunting pose with a sleepy look in your eyes!!!???”

“?”

“Tilting your head again!?”

It seemed things would truly not continue until Mikoto headed down that path herself. Mikoto reached for the hook of her skirt half in desperation. After a small click, she then undid the zipper.

Her mentality crossed a certain line.

After the skirt dropped to the ground, she still had shorts on, so she was still technically safe. However, her tension still somehow snapped at that point. She energetically continued while giving slight cries of encouragement to herself that had not a hint of sexiness to them.

With the lower half of her body oddly breezy, Mikoto grabbed the swimsuit package. However, there was no sign of the clear plastic bag tearing no matter how she pulled on it.

(Ohhh!! I’m having a fierce struggle with something ridiculous while in a ridiculous state of dress!!)

While watching that furious battle, Lancis spoke up.

“…Yours is a bikini, so couldn’t you have at least put the bottom on before removing your skirt?”

[[Image:RAILGUN_SS2_03_010.jpg|thumb]]

“Mgyaahhh!!!!”

Being given that suggestion once it was too late, Mikoto’s blushing reached its maximum. However, this must have made her put extra strength into her struggle because the swimsuit package made a tearing noise and ripped apart like a rice cracker.

(I need to get this on and cover myself up as quickly as possible!!)

Mikoto quickly grabbed up the triangular piece of cloth. However, a bikini and a two-piece were similarly shaped but different in the details. In other words, both sides were as narrow as strings and the one Mikoto was trying to put on was held on by tying the strings together.

The fierce struggle reached its second stage.

She just had to tie two bowknots, so it should not have been too difficult, but having to cover things up as she caught glimpses of things on the road seemed to be sending Mikoto’s head to the boiling point. Her trembling fingertips would not complete the simple task no matter how many times she tried.

Meanwhile, the nude girl named Lancis continued changing at her own slow pace.

“Chiralism is reaching a new age…”

“I don’t want to hear that from a girl who is so open that there’s nothing to just ‘catch a glimpse’ of!!”

“Tah dah. My swimsuit is a V slingshot, the gold standard of the sexy swimsuit.”

“Since you were just completely nude, there’s no surprise to that!!”

Mikoto yelled abuse at the other girl, pole vaulted over the wall of embarrassment, and headed into the third stage of the fierce struggle which was changing into the top. Finally, Mikoto managed to finish changing.

“…Done. No, I can’t relax. Being out on the streets in a bikini is embarrassing enough on its own. I can’t let my reference point be destroyed by this.”

“Mh. If I don’t adjust some angles, some unwanted hair will be visible…” said Lancis as she stared at her crotch and started tugging on the cloth. As a fellow girl, Mikoto did not want to look directly at that pose or that action.

After having her mentality worn down terribly, Mikoto followed Lancis to the leisure pool’s staff entrance. They had stuffed their clothes into the clear packages the swimsuits had come in. The school uniform would retain its characteristic look even when folded up, so Mikoto was a little worried about the fact that the packages were clear, but it was still less noticeable than carrying the uniform out in the open.

The staff entrance was not locked.

They passed by men and women in racing swimsuits who seemed to be workers a few times, but they just waved and did not try to stop the girls.

“Their swimsuits are quite different from ours, but they don’t seem to mind.”

“Workers with different duties have different types of swimsuits. Those were most likely the lifeguards. The waitresses and such would probably be closer to what we’re wearing.”

“(What kind of duty is there that makes that V slingshot not seem suspicious?)”

“Heh heh heh. In a facility where all sorts of fun and pleasures gather, some services will have a bit of sexiness added in. When that happens, swimsuits can transform into all sorts of psychedelic things.”

“Hm, is that so?” Mikoto said with a feeling that felt like incomplete combustion.

Along with Lancis, she headed to the poolside outside of the passageway.

Now that she actually saw the facility, she thought it was actually quite something.

The area was two or three sizes bigger than the entire area taken up by a school building, the schoolyard, and the gym.

Heading around the outer edge was a waterway-like pool that made complex curves. A number of waterslides twisted and turned above their heads and the inner area surrounded by the waterway-like pool was filled with many smaller pools. Each pool must have had some special feature to it.

Mikoto looked around the entire area to see if any pool security guards were patrolling around.

“It doesn’t look like there are any shops. I guess there won’t be any appearances by a questionable waitress.”

“It’s set up so you order through the Semipublic AR and a waitress comes out to the location the order was made from. By paying extra, you can get them to come out wearing various outfits.”

“Hmm. So, how are we going to get through? Are we going to circle around the outside edge?”

“30 meters away at 10 o’clock. …Don’t turn your head. The one wearing the lifejacket is a security guard. He hasn’t noticed us because he’s helping a lost child, but he’ll probably notice us eventually if we just walk along the poolside.”

“What do we do?”

“Splash.” Expressionless as ever, Lancis pointed toward the curving pool that headed around the outer edge of the area. “Getting in the water won’t look suspicious and we’ll be harder to find if we hide everything but our heads underwater.”

“I see.”

Mikoto and Lancis headed for the water’s edge without any warming up exercises. Mikoto thought it would be least suspicious to elegantly put her legs in first, but from the boys and girls of a similar age she could see, the proper thing to do at the leisure pool was to just dive in making a large splash.

Mikoto and Lancis had the plastic bags with their clothes in them, but the people around them were playing in the pool with their things in clear bags.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Mikoto and Lancis unhesitatingly jumped from the poolside.

Mikoto felt herself pierce the wall of water. She could hear the water rushing past her and the muffled noise of the splash. A chill wrapped about her body seeming like it would rob her of all her body temperature. For an instant, Mikoto mistakenly forgot the situation and just enjoyed how good it felt.

Immediately afterwards, she returned to her senses.

The reason for this was simple. Mikoto was wearing a bikini that was made of strings and cloth.

In other words, the force of the water had started to slide the top of her bikini up as she had plunged into the water. If it continued in that direction…

“Cough cough cough!!”

With her head still underwater, Mikoto frantically covered her chest with both hands and used all her strength to stop the cloth from continuing on its independent course. She then slid the cup portion back to its original position.

Paying no heed to her choking in the bubble-filled water, Mikoto reached her hands back behind herself to check on the knots in the bikini’s strings. It seemed the knots themselves had not suffered any damage.

(Ahh, no!! I don’t want to narrowly avoid death in a situation like this!!)

That was when her gaze met with another’s under the water.

Mikoto had fumbled around at super high speed to check on her own swimsuit, but she now saw Lancis who had jumped in at the same time.

The V slingshot had been shifted in an unthinkable way by the water and Mikoto could clearly see a certain spot she would much rather not.

“Cough cough!!”

Mikoto used all her strength to hold down Lancis who was fully enjoying the water paradise with her arms spread wide into the air. Letting a girl stay in a situation like that was unforgivable for a fellow girl.

Once the two of them had their appearance back to a bare minimum level of acceptable, Mikoto finally lifted her head out from the water.

Lancis’s head was floating there next to her.

“…For now, let’s just float along with the current of the pool.”

“How far are we going to float?”

“To the third staff entrance. It’s on the complete opposite side. We’ll pass by a security guard station on the way, so make sure to look completely natural while we do.”

And so the two of them began travelling through the water like ninja.

Mikoto and Lancis headed on like crocodiles traveling through the Amazon River looking for prey.

It had nothing to do with their situation, but Mikoto realized that it did not matter if they were wearing a bikini and a slingshot if they were in the water like that.

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