Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

Shokuhou Misaki pouted her lips.

She was not in a special hospital room or examining room. In fact, she was out in a perfectly ordinary hallway. The people walking down the hall passed by without even focusing on that blonde girl in a nurse uniform.

She was not at all concerned about being discovered as an intruder.

There was only one thing on her mind: regret. She hated that some strange woman had appeared out of nowhere and stolen what could have been her own special memory for that holy night, but 
what did that really matter? That woman may have stolen a small lead, but Shokuhou was not so pure that she would give up over that.

(What I have to do now could not be more obvious: I have to steal him back. Heh heh heh. Now, what costume would be best?)

“Hm, hm. Hm, hm, hm, hm.”

She was actually humming when she came to a stop in a small waiting room in the hallway. A few vending machines and a sofa were tucked over out of the way, but there was no wall or other partition dividing it off from the hallway. She was still in full view of all the nurses and patients walking by. It was not meant to hide anything, so it was not built to do so.

And yet the honey-blonde girl suddenly unbuttoned her nurse uniform and opened up the front, revealing her soft skin in broad daylight. Something jiggled in the process.

She did not care about all the eyes around her.

Or rather, ''none of them were looking at her. Because she had manipulated them so they would not.

(Locker rooms tend to be physically locked, so I can’t get inside. And each department has its own keys, so finding a nurse with the key I need can be a real pain.)

“Now, what should I go with next? Wait, why am I even asking? How can I choose anything but Santa today?”

“Hey,” someone called out to her.

Shokuhou Misaki was the type to change her underwear to match her overall outfit, so she was currently 100% naked and holding her new costume up in both hands. She looked over in slight surprise to find Academy City’s ill-mannered #3 glaring at her.

“What in the world are you doing? How long have you been an exhibitionist?”

“Just changing clothes real quick☆”

Tokiwadai’s Queen belatedly recalled that the #3 could deflect her Mental Out when that girl did not “allow it in”.

“But I do understand the concept is probably new to you, Misaka-san. You can change out of your uniform during winter break, just FYI.”

“Shut up. I was asking what you’re hoping to accomplish by dressing up like that.”

“Because I want to make the most of my Christmas. In ways beyond your wildest fantasies, Misaka-san.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you would say. That idiot is in the hospital, so you need to let him rest!! If you mess with him now, his wounds could reopen!”

“And that’s what ''I'' thought ''you'' would say☆ By the way, here’s what I had in mind for keeping you from interfering.”

Mikoto’s eardrums were assaulted by an ear-splitting scream, like someone had stumbled across a murder scene.

A real nurse in the hallway was looking their way with her face bright red and a hand over her mouth. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates and she must have been too panicked to even find the words to express herself.

The nurse appeared to be new to the job and she had the look of someone with a baseball-sized lump of air caught in her throat.

“Wh-wh-wh-wha-?”

“See, Shokuhou? Someone finally noticed your perverted-”

“What are you doing walking around without any clothes on!? I don’t know what led you to do this, but get over here right now! Yes, you! ''The short-haired girl''!”

“What?” said Mikoto with her eyes wide.

But the pajama girl with a bob cut, the female doctor, and the other people in the hall had in fact come to a stop with blushes on their faces while they glanced over ''at Misaka Mikoto, not at Shokuhou Misaki.

The grinning Queen spun a TV remote around with all her bright skin still on display.

“W-wait, don’t tell me…”

“I’m the one wearing clothes while you’re the one who stripped down in public, Misaka-san☆”

That was how the scene looked to all those people.

A trick like this was a piece of cake for the #5.

“Of course, they’re only seeing what I imagine that would look like, so it’s not like they’re really seeing you naked. It’s like having your head edited onto a nude photo, so why even worry about it?”

“~ ~ ~ ~ ~!!!???”

“I even gave you a small boost in the chest department, so you should thank me really.”

“Go to hell!!”

Mikoto was not under physical attack, but she had hit her limit as a girl. She could not bear to have those people looking at her any longer.

With her face beet red, she opened the window, stepped up onto the windowsill, and shouted back at Shokuhou.

“Don’t think you’ve won yet, you moron!! You’ve altered what they can see, but the mechanical security cameras all have footage of you naked now!!”

“Oh, dear. I should probably take care of that later.”

Shokuhou spun her remote around and did not sound at all worried.

Erasing that footage would be a piece of cake for the #5.