Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

Academy City’s District 6 was a special area where the entire district had been made into a giant amusement park. That was used for research and experiments into the service industry and the field of amusement and it had all the necessary facilities: the amusement park itself, pools, hotels, and theaters. There was no end to the suspicious rumors about the place: there was a secret casino hidden below it, seeing an unfamiliar mascot meant a kidnapper was lurking, and more.

Today was December 25, Christmas Day.

Night had already fallen by 6:30 PM. Given the crowds, Hamazura assumed the line might stretch all the way outside the district (so he was considering finding some way to sneak inside), but once they arrived, he found there was not much of a line at the ticket counter across from the ticket gate.

The hardcore fans would buy their tickets online or have a full year pass, so very few customers actually approached the counter on the 25th. Unlike a restaurant or café, there were no services at the counter that required the customer’s physical presence, so things moved quickly.

“Welcome. We have a couple’s discount, so you get 20% off the standard rate. Make some lovely memories, you two.”

The receptionist smiled from behind the thick plastic barrier and Hamazura blushed a little. It felt different when someone else said it.

“By the way.” Takitsubo held his jacket so ''he'' would not get lost while they passed through the silver revolving door. “This is the land of miracles where dreams come true, isn’t it? Why would a counterfeiter be hiding here?”

“That might be exactly why one ''would'' be here. You expect delinquents in the back alleys, so the investigators would never think to look for someone hiding here.”

The world changed once they were through the gate.

The sun had set, but the amusement park was aflood with all sorts of lights: lightbulbs, LEDs, glow-in-the-dark paint, fireworks, etc. The lit-up merry-go-round and coffee cups were like something directly out of a child’s dreams. The large Ferris wheel and roller coaster track seemed to be directly overhead. The entire district must have qualified as private property because children were cutting across the large spaces with electric scooters and carts that were not allowed on public roads. There were far too many attractions to see them all on foot.

Clearing the snow from this place could not be easy.

But that snow was piled up where it would be out of the way and children were playing in it. They were building snowmen and igloos. The people running the place knew how to turn a spontaneous weather accident into another attraction.

“It’s Christmas,” said Takitsubo with her breaths visible. She was holding onto his jacket and pouting her lips. “So I really wish we could have come here just for fun.”

Some weird gentleman frog mascot and an alien-looking rabbit mascot had gotten into a fight, but when a clown tried to stop them, they both ganged up on him and sent him tumbling across the ground. An overeager child then tackled the frog after the spirit of justice awoke inside him. The frog doubled over and groaned.

“(Ugh!? S-stupid kids. Show them a moment’s weakness and they attack.)”

“(Just bear with it, sister. We can survive tonight if we stay in these ''world’s smallest hideouts'', remember?)”

“?”

Takitsubo gave the mascots a puzzled look before asking a question.

“Hamazura, where is this person?”

“This way.”

A brass band arrangement of standard Christmas songs was playing while several parade floats moved slowly down the main street. A bear with horns was waving from one of those. Hamazura slipped past the crowd holding balloons coated with glow-in-the-dark paint and stepped into the shadows with his girlfriend at his side. They were on their way to an area different from the resort hotels.

These were known as the secret residences.

Obsessive fans would often ask to stay long term in one of the park’s luxury hotels, but this was an even more extreme version of that. The fans who did not want to let the magic die could rent a villa or residence in the park along with their full year pass. And after seeing the prices on the drink vending machines, you could guess just how inflated the price of a house here was.

Hamazura and Takitsubo walked to the address they had found using the contact information recorded in that borrowed phone. As large as the park was, very few buildings were clearly designated as residences.

So they walked to the ultra-luxury residential area illuminated with indirect lighting. The residences came in various styles from around the world, but they were probably each based on the setting of a fairy tale movie. They were interested in a gawdy Western mansion made of red brick.

Or more accurately, the few tents set up alongside the metal fence surrounding its yard.

“This is a surprise. I thought craftsmen like this were really picky about temperature and humidity.”

"It might be so they can pack up and make a run for it at a moment’s notice.”

“Living out here can’t be easy even if they’re using tents and sleeping bags meant for snowy mountains. What if the snow didn’t let up all night?”

“Humans can endure anything…as long as they can imagine something even more frightening.”

One tent was a living space, one was a lab, and then there were a few others. They all belonged to the counterfeiter known as Perfect Film. He could be contacted through the metal box next to the large residence’s grounds that had been tampered with to get access to the fiber optic network. If the signal was traced, they could escape while suspicions were still on the scapegoat. And the pursuers would have a hard time making their move when the decoy was a giant amusement park or one of their VIP guests.

However, this defense was the same as for neuroptera and uropyia meticulodina.

They remained undamaged because no one could find them, but damage was unavoidable if even a single person did find them. There were no solid defenses when using a synthetic tent as a hideout. If Perfect Film refused to cooperate and holed up inside, they could always break down the tent from the outside.

That was lucky.

Hamazura forced himself to see it that way. Not everyone on the dark side was an embodiment of murder like those twins in the Anti-Skill station. If their negotiations did not work out and they ran into trouble, they would at least not cause any trouble for the other guests.

“Let’s go, Takitsubo.” He looked ahead to their destination. “We both need a passport.”

She did not respond.

Puzzled, he looked over to find the track suit girl had collapsed onto the snow-wet ground.

He did not even have time to shout her name.

With a dull thud, the world flipped around more than once.

“…!?”

He had no idea what had happened.

Something inexplicable was happening, but his breath was knocked from him and he could not even get his voice out.

Once the bizarre weightlessness left him, he slammed down onto the hard ground. A hand covered his mouth before he could unclog his throat. Someone had climbed on top of him. He understood now what had happened and his fear had caught up with reality, but this person’s weight had him fully pinned down. She was a young woman and he was bigger than her, but he could not even budge. He had a bad feeling about this. His experience in the back alleys told him she knew what she was doing.

She was a sexy woman in her early twenties. She wore her black hair in a bob cut that fit around her head like a helmet and she wore a gawdy cowboy hat over that, but below that she wore a red China dress with the stomach replaced by a lace material that let her navel show through. She had Japanese, Western, and Chinese elements all in one outfit. A duralumin case containing who-knows-what hung from a belt she wore diagonally across her body.

The boots woman casually spoke to the boy whose hips she was straddling with no sign of shame about the large slits in her skirt.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there. Don’t give me that. I can’t have someone intruding on my hunting ground while I stake the place out. I turned down all my wonderful Christmas plans for this, so let the birdwatching club have this one, okay?”

Hunting ground. Stake the place out.

Those short terms sent a very bad feeling down Hamazura’s spine.

“Wh-what!? Are you Anti-Skill? Or the dark side!?”

“Huh? Don’t give me that. All Anti-Skill ever does is put up wanted posters and then find every little nitpicky excuse they can to not pay up. To be blunt, that’s not a stable business. And the dark side is even worse. Once they have the information they want, they come back to silence you!”

She grinned and accurately adjusted the position of her hips to render his resistance useless. And she continued speaking while squirming in a way that would like highly questionable to anyone who happened across them in the darkness.

“What you need are some old-fashioned connections. Weekly Mind’s Eye, Emanating Light, and that sort of thing. Selling your best shot to a magazine like that is the most surefire method. Even if that just gets it used in some gruesome show for housewives.”

“…?”

Something about this seemed off to him.

That woman with a jellyfish decoration on her hat was not like Anti-Skill who had turned into murder machines after some crucial gear went missing, but she was also not like those dark side twins who had destroyed an entire station together.

He gulped and asked a hesitant question. If he was wrong about this, he would not survive. Nor could he save his girlfriend. That thought was enough to tear his heart apart.

“What are you doing here?”

“Snapping photos.”

She winked below the brim of her cowboy hat.

That sounded like a normal enough thing to do at an amusement park, but…

“After all, I’m not after just any old part of the dark side—I’m going deep. Hey, don’t give me that. This is more than some silly infidelity story that no one will care about in two weeks’ time. A single snapshot here could have me set for life. But I wouldn’t arrive in time if I intercepted Anti-Skill’s radio transmissions and came running. I can’t be playing catchup. For a real scoop, you have to make a gamble and lie in wait.”

“A scoop?”

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_168.jpg|thumb]]

“That counterfeiter will make such delicious bait. Don’t give me that. A shot with just him in my finder wouldn’t earn me squat. But you’re here because you’re in a bind right now, right? I just know some major dark side figures are gonna be drawn to this plank of Carneades.”

“…”

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t know what the plank of Carneades is. You know, that thing where there’s a single plank floating in the ocean and killing the other guy for it doesn’t count as murder. So I’m leaving him be. That way I can get a scoop that makes history.”

“Y-you mean…”

This was it.

Hamazura played a verbal game of tug of war as carefully as if he were removing the fuse from a landmine.

“You’re a paparazzi that targets the dark side?”

“Don’t give me that. I don’t like that word.”

The red china dress beauty sighed and lifted her hips.

But even as she freed the boy, she moved her face in close to speak.

“The name’s Benizome Jellyfish. You’re still small time, so if you promise not to get in the way of my miracle shot, I’ll let you go☆”