Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter1 (section)

===Part 5===

They began pouring with sweat as soon as they stepped outside.

They were all wearing short-sleeved summer uniforms. However, this had more to do with the excessive air conditioning in the burger place than it did with the sweltering night created by the heat island effect of a metropolis like Tokyo. It had been chilly enough for their spines to tremble when they stepped inside and it had altered their standards without them noticing.

“Man, it’s hot,” said Kamijou.

“I understand the urge, but don’t mess with the fire hydrants around here,” said Kumokawa.

“I don’t want a shower that badly!!”

“Phew, I think I need to take a long bath tonight. Especially after eating that extra food.”

“Why?”

“Girls have our reasons. It’s primarily about washing away the sweat, but only an ascetic monk at a Buddhist temple can maintain their weight through nothing more than eating in moderation and exercise.”

The beautiful older girl apparently put some effort into maintaining her body. She was a very different person from wild Kamijou who just ate and slept when he wanted.

The trains and buses stopped running when the school curfew went into effect, but there were still plenty of private cars and motorcycles on the roads. It looked like taxis and motorcycle couriers were doing good business and the large trucks and tanker trucks were just as busy at night as they were during the day.

Kumokawa held her skirt down against the wind caused by a large truck with the L.S.S. corporate logo on the side driving by. The glorious being that was a high school girl was very different from some old man who walked bowlegged up the train station stairs. Her casual mannerisms did not feel at all unpleasant and in fact seemed weirdly sexy. …Why the excessive detail on this subject? Because that was what drew Kamijou Touma’s eye!!

Meanwhile…

“Phew.”

Mitsuari sighed after walking out ahead a bit.

Her actions contained a dangerous naivete very different from Kumokawa’s upperclassmanly ones.

Showing that fluffy girl back to the School Garden where Tokiwadai Middle School and its dorm were located was the quickest method here, but she would occasionally stop, reach into her skirt, and do something in the buttocks area. It was weirdly alluring despite her immature body, so Kamijou was unsure where to look. It seemed more like she was reaching there without thinking instead of doing anything on purpose.

But what was she doing?

[[Image:Biohacker_1.jpg|thumb]]

Kamijou grew incredibly uncomfortable while he tried to figure out where to look, but more mature Kumokawa spoke up in his stead.

“Hey, how long is it going to take you to fix your underwear? Adjusting it once should be enough. This is embarrassing to watch.”

Mitsuari realized what she was doing once it was stated that bluntly.

She frantically held the butt of her skirt with both hands, blushed bright red, turned around, and snapped back at Kumokawa.

“Y-you’re the one that did this to me!!”

“All I did was pin you to the table. It was you who pointlessly kicked your legs until your underwear rode up in the crotch. You only have yourself to blame.”

Angry Mitsuari pulled out her phone, so Kamijou snatched it from her grasp while Kumokawa grabbed her arm and pinned her to the sidewalk.

“Bgyuh!?”

“Senpai, what kind of move was that? An Anti-Skill technique?”

“It’s my own personal style. That muscular style of martial arts is beyond my abilities.”

The scariest aspect of esper powers was the great variety of supernatural phenomena that could be produced from the mind. It went beyond a soccer player letting the ball slip past them. Oftentimes, it was too late by the time you even realized you had been attacked.

So having a visual trigger like this was convenient.

Tokiwadai Middle School students had to be at least Level 3. Kamijou did not know the details of the Mental Stinger power, but using it while the target was within arm’s reach was basically suicide.

“Ah, hey!? Wait, my skirt!”

Kumokawa twisted the girl’s arm behind her back and pressed her soft cheek and growing chest against the ground. Kamijou was surprised to find how oddly sexy it was to see a rich girl crawling on the ground in defeat. It probably helped that she could not support herself with her hands, so her butt stuck up in the air, leaving the color of her panties as visible as could be.

“Black, huh?” commented Kumokawa. “Is that the Silk Spider by Morgan & Claudia? I’m a little annoyed that that’s the movie limited edition.”

Kamijou was unsure what part of that was the brand name, what was the product name, and why there would be limited editions. Girls lived in a strange world. At this point, he would not have been surprised to learn there were also high-mobility and one-of-a-kind versions.

The pointy-haired boy tried to find somewhere else to look, but Kumokawa showed no mercy.

“Yeah, I was right. In fact, it’s riding up even more than I thought. How did this even happen? Does underwear ride up more easily depending on the shape below?”

“Gwah! Please stop talking about the shape!! Why are you looking that closely!?”

“Take a look here and tell me what you think, boy. The crotch doesn’t normally bulge out quite this much, does it? Ha ha ha. And check out this mole here.”

“Stop trying to trick me into looking! I won’t look and you can’t make me!! So you can rest easy, Miss Red Ribbon Bows Given Spiderwebby Accents With Black Lace!!”

“You’re clearly looking enough to pick up on the basic design concept! I’m going to jab my fingers through your eyes and scrape out the brain cells containing those horrifying memories, liar boy!!”

She was past trying to rely on her Mental Whatever power.

At this point, it felt less like they had rescued the girl and more like they had taken over the sexual harassment right where the delinquents had left off. It was enough to make Kamijou blush even brighter than Mitsuari herself.

“Keep this up and I’m pretty sure it’ll haunt my dreams, so let’s stop here, Senpai!!”

“How thoroughly were you burning all of that into your memories!?”

He turned his head away to keep himself from looking and waved his hands while begging the upperclassman girl to release her.

“Well, if you insist.”

As soon as Kumokawa released the twisted wrist, Mitsuari hopped up fast enough to stir up the sweltering night’s air and tried to swipe her phone away from Kamijou, so the self-defense lady had to pin her down again.

“Have you learned you lesson?”

“Heh heh. I have, I have!!”

They could no longer take her at her word, so Kumokawa Seria smushed the girl’s face into the world’s ugliest pig face and snapped a photo with her own phone. Once they had some photographic insurance, they finally released her.

Just to be safe, Kamijou removed the battery and external lens from Mitsuari’s phone and returned the separated parts one at a time.

“The School Garden, huh? I didn’t realize we had a dimension of girliness right here in District 7. I live here and I’ve never been there.”

“Of course you haven’t. It wouldn’t be much of a no-boys-allowed zone if they let in people like you.”

So it was a restricted area.

Academy City had 23 districts in all, but unlike the large shopping district that was District 15 or the aerospace-focused District 23, District 7 was – for better or for worse – known for being a nondescript mishmash of things. The population density and level of development was also a mixed bag. It was bustling with energy in the busier places, but it was entirely deserted in the emptier places.

Things grew quieter as the three of them walked together.

It even felt like the night’s heat had suddenly gone away.

They were approaching a collection of prestigious girl’s schools and the atmosphere would be ruined if modified motorcycles were roaring around all the time, but Kamijou still grew more and more timid.

It was not that there were no buildings around.

Nor was it getting any darker.

But it still felt like there were fewer and fewer people around with each step they took. It may have been like the difference between a school during the day and at night. No, like the difference between a school in use and one that had been long abandoned. The actual city around them had not changed, but the altered atmosphere made it look entirely different.

Perhaps you could call it an omen.

To be blunt, Kamijou Touma did not have the sharpest instincts. He would not notice anything was amiss right up until the surprise party crackers went off all around him. Even though there was nothing he could do to change things without sensing the preparations being made around him. 

So this was not a testament to some sixth sense of his.

It was more like the threat lurking below the surface had finally taken tangible form.

“Grr.”

They all stopped when they heard something unbelievable.

“Wh-what?”

Fluffy-haired Mitsuari took a step back and bumped into Kamijou.

It may have been an instinctive attempt to distract herself from the fear.

Something was up ahead on this road with too few streetlights, but it was not something that should exist in a concrete and asphalt metropolis. In fact, it should not have been found in the zoo or even in the depths of the Amazon.

Tigers and killer whales had no natural predators, but this intimidating presence would cause even them to turn tail and flee.

It was an animal.

Kamijou felt like his legs were going to give out. He had yet to see the whole thing, but the intense gaze piercing him contained the kind of killer intent that a mechanical camera lens could never reproduce.

It was watching them.

It was hunting them.

“Ah.”

He finally noticed a glint of light in the darkness. No, there were two arranged side by side. They had to be eyes. They reminded him of a cat’s eyes, but he had not noticed them until now because he had been looking at his own eye level.

These were much higher.

He had to tilt his head up to see those glowing eyes at the same height as a three-story building.

What was that? Not even a tiger on its hind legs or an elephant known for its giant body were that tall. Could it be a giraffe since they were made to have elevated heads? No, the eyes were too far apart for that. This head was bigger than that. Also, the eyes were not positioned on the sides of the head to expand the visible range in order to detect danger, as was common with herbivores. These eyes were positioned on the front of the head for the depth perception needed to judge the distance from one’s prey, as was common with carnivores.

This should not have been possible.

He could flip through an animal encyclopedia all day and never find an answer.

A tremor shook the ground.

It took him a moment to realize that was an excessively large footstep. And the threat went beyond the legs. He also heard something like large sheets beating at the air. The silhouette came into focus as the creature approached them.

It was large enough to rival a three-story building in height.

It looked something like a bipedal carnivorous dinosaur.

That was shocking enough to make his heart skip a beat, but it did not end there.

Thin, bat-like wings spread out from its back.

And with the sound of oxygen being sucked in, an orange glow flashed near its enormous maw. Almost like the sparks at the end of a flamethrower.

“A…”

That clinched it.

He knew the answer now, but the name that came to mind was unbelievably unrealistic.

That silhouette was covered in slimy green scales like a lizard.

He had never imagined his knowledge from fantasy video games would come in handy here.

“A dragon!!!???”

He did not understand.

But a moment later, that great maw opened wide and fire burst out in a straight line as if from a flamethrower.