Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2 (section)

===Part 5===

The first afternoon class after lunch was always a struggle with drowsiness. That was as true for the girls of prestigious Tokiwadai as it was for anyone.

And it was worse when that class was gym.

Not only did you have to contend with the drowsiness then, but if you used up all your strength, you would zonk out in the next class. This was made all the more troublesome because their school held its students to a higher standard of classroom behavior than normal schools. They did not even want to imagine what kind of lecture they would receive if they fell asleep in the middle of class.

They needed a delicate hand on their reins at times like this.

If they did not hold back just enough to preserve some power during gym, the boredom in the following class would be too great, their batteries would run dry, and their faces would slump down to their desks.

So this was not her fault.

The word “unathletic” did not at all apply.

“Dwah!?”

“A-are you okay, Mitsuari-san!?”

They were inside the gym.

The day’s activity was volleyball.

The fluffy girl wore a sleeveless athletic uniform – in other words, the top showed off her shoulders and armpits and the shorts showed off nearly all of her bright thighs. She had her hips low and her hands together in the perfect form to receive the hard ball flying her way, but she instead received it straight to the face.

It was such a clean hit that the ball bounced straight up and was still considered in play. Her teammates would not let her sacrifice go to waste. They quickly tossed it around, made a powerful attack, and scored the winning point. The gym teacher nodded silently with arms crossed, so she seemed to approve of how they waited until they had won to rush over to aid the girl. Mitsuari Ayu, on the other hand, wished they had come help her sooner.

After using up all her strength, she fell straight to her knees and collapsed forward. The butt showing its shape through her shorts stuck up in the air behind her and she secretly wondered if she could take a nap in the infirmary if she just lay here like this for a while longer.

“Ugh… Why does this have to happen to me?”

She rubbed together her almost fully exposed thighs as she hobbled out of the gym alone. Her change of clothes was in the classroom, but she had brought her small bag with her to the gym.

As soon as she stepped out the door, her ears were assaulted by the cicada chorus.

A few classmates had offered to accompany her, but she had refused. Yes, when you wanted to throw a fit and climb into one of the beds, you could not let the school doctor know the exact amount of damage you had taken. Bringing a witness with her would only work against her.

She removed the shoes meant for the special wax that kept the gym floor so shiny and put on her ordinary indoor slippers before walking down the outdoor walkway to the white-walled school building. To really get some good sleep, she would have wanted to take a shower, spray herself down with deodorant, and change into her uniform, but making herself look hurt mattered more right now.

“Munch.”

She reached into her small refrigerated bag and pulled out what looked like a gelatin drink but was not. It was a type of ice cream that you melted yourself and sucked out to drink. It of course broke the school rules, but the world of maidens was rife with secrets. The strawberry milk flavor in her mouth now was more valuable than anything.

(Ugh. Sweet things really do make me sleepy.)

On the way, she heard a rustling sound.

It was loud enough to hear over all the cicada cries since it came from the bushes right next to her. A prestigious school considered the psychological effect of the scenery in addition to simple efficiency and logic, so there was a lot of greenery on the Tokiwadai campus. They did not actually believe in the negative ions myth, but flower beds and even artificial woods were fairly common.

“?”

Mitsuari Ayu kept the ice cream pack’s opening in her mouth and kept walking.

She only glanced over while continuing on her way. A fair number of Tokiwadai girls had unusual pets like snakes or monkeys, so she assumed one of those had escaped. An intruder here was unthinkable. It seemed far more likely she would run across an animal protected by the Washington Convention.

That was why she let her guard down.

And a moment later…

''Kabooooooooooooooooooooooom!!

A great din seemed to chew through space itself as a Gatling gun mercilessly fired 6000 rounds per minute.

Normally, she never could have survived that.

She would have been torn to pieces and killed before she even knew what was happening.

And while strictly speaking she may not have been normal, her power was a psychological one. She could not hold out a hand to produce a thick barrier.

So in this case…

“Ah.”

A surprised voice came from the bushes.

By that point, Mitsuari Ayu’s small butt had fallen to the walkway’s floor, tears had welled up in her eyes, and she had rolled and turned around so fast it swung her small bag around. The hips in her shorts wiggled back and forth while she crawled and then tried to stand back up.

How had she managed to survive that deadly spray of bullets?

An odd voice could be heard from behind the bushes.

“Eek!? There’s something on my back…ahhh!? Please tell me that isn’t a cicada! Please, Mr. Janitor! You’re keeping precious rich girls here, so do a better job of maintaining the grounds!!”

It sounded like whoever this was had pulled the trigger prematurely.

And unfortunately, while Tokiwadai had janitors, none of them was a “Mr.”

The bullets had been fired in frustration at the flying cicadas, so they hit the artificial woods instead of the walkway. Broadleaf trees thicker around than Mitsuari were splintered as easily as chopsticks.

The ubiquitous chorus was gone.

A figure came into view.

It was a girl smaller even than Mitsuari. The longish wavy hair fluttering around her was an unnaturally bright blonde, likely made through bleaching. Could she be in elementary school? But that appearance clashed with the Gatling gun and the enormous drum magazine that she dragged around like a vacuum cleaner.

(G-G-G-G-Gatling?)

Mitsuari could not believe her eyes.

She doubted this girl was only here to destroy those empty woods. And since this was the middle of a class period, Mitsuari was the only one on the walkway between the gym and school building. There was only one conclusion here: Mitsuari was the target.

Plus, this was a Gatling gun.

She thought of those as something from the action movies she rarely watched. How had one of those left the movie trailers and entered the real world? It was rumored those could slice a tank in two if you attached it to an attack helicopter and fired on the surface along a straight line.

“Ghhh.”

Since her hips did not give out and she did not wet herself, Mitsuari Ayu may have had greater-than-average coping skills when it came to abnormal situations. Or maybe it simply worked in her favor that she was so shocked that she froze in place and the ice cream caught in her throat. She did not have time to think about anything else.

“Bweh!! Cough, cough!!”

She spat out the still-solid chunk of strawberry milk ice cream and then aimed her phone’s camera toward her own forehead.

(Self-suggestion!! I need to force my body to move!!)

That paid off.

Wavy, bleached blonde hair fluttered. The attacker was holding shockingly high firepower at her hip, but she immediately hid back behind the bushes.

She could still be heard complaining to herself, but not because she was unaccustomed to fighting. She simply did not bother keeping too quiet since the roar of the Gatling gun would drown it all out.

She knew she could make up for a small mistake.

That young girl had a monopoly on that deluge of violence.

“Dammit, that isn’t what I was told. She wasn’t supposed to be able to use her power! I thought they kept their valuables elsewhere during gym class!!”

(Someone told that intruder detailed information on how Tokiwadai works!?)

She actually needed more than just the phone with the external lens to use Mental Stinger. Not even psychological powers were that convenient and all-powerful.

She needed to accurately target the other person.

Still, she held out her phone as an empty threat and repeatedly used the camera’s flash while making a mad dash away from there.

“Yikes!!”

(Hm? She fell for my bluff?)

“Amplify fear!! Now your mind is trapped in the fog of suspicion and doubt!!”

“Don’t get carried away, dammit!!”

Mitsuari swallowed a shriek, gave up on her poor attempt at acting, and focused on running.

She moved off the walkway’s path.

(Even if I am in my indoor slippers.)

Yes.

Tokiwadai looked peaceful, but gathering that many teenage girls in one place and making them live together was bound to lead to trouble. There was plenty of friction between classes, cliques, clubs, and committees. And everyone involved was ''at least Level 3''. A fight or prank done on a whim or just for fun could often be decorated with deadly force even if they did not realize it themselves.

So Mitsuari was more accustomed to death than normal girls.

Otherwise, she would have died when she encountered a dragon so large she had to look up at it. Or so she believed, anyway. And the other two with her there had been ''even less normal than her''.

“Get your ass back here!!”

(The teachers? Anti-Skill? No, this isn’t a normal intruder since she managed to get inside not just the School Garden but Tokiwadai as well!! The protection of the grownups isn’t going to stop her!! They’ll all be swept aside and blown away!!)

That firepower was enough to drown out the midsummer cicada cries.

The wide schoolyard or open walking paths would be suicide against all those projectiles. A real Gatling gun would be able to tear through the school building’s white walls like they were styrofoam or cardboard, so holing up in some sturdy location was not an option.

Thus, she did not hesitate to run inside some other artificial woods.

She ran alongside the tall fence next to the tennis court.

She was still in her indoor slippers, but she did not have time to worry about that. It helped that she had her bag and thus the unlimited card within. She kept moving her legs, which had most of the thighs exposed, and made sure she did not trip over her own feet as she ran at full speed.

She stayed off the paths and worked to leave the school grounds. Tokiwadai and the School Garden were no longer safe, so she had no choice but to try to escape them. Even a sheltered girl knew how effective a credit card could be while outside your usual territory.

“Argh, really!? That idiot’s running. Riku Onee-chan, this is why I told you to make sure she was surrounded!!”

The fluffy-haired girl was dumbfounded when she heard that voice again.

She had not mistaken what she saw earlier.

The girl really was that tiny.

She spoke crudely, but it was still the voice of a girl younger than a middle school first year like Mitsuari. Mitsuari caught glimpses of her as she ran, but she did not have time to aim her phone at her. But if that appearance was not some kind of disguise, then it had to be a blonde girl of elementary school age. Although her hairstyle and dress made it seem like she was trying to look older than she was.

She was less than 130cm tall.

A girl that small was walking around with a Gatling gun meant to be attached to a fighter or armored truck, but that was Academy City for you. In a way, her skimpy dress left even less to the imagination than Mitsuari’s athletic uniform, but there was no sign of any motors or pistons supporting her movements. She probably used an esper power to strengthen her muscles.

Mitsuari heard something slice through the air.

This was clearly different from the deafening roar of the Gatling gun. And in a battle against an esper, you could not afford to overlook any hint. Hadn’t that unidentified gunner mentioned a “Riku Onee-chan” who was supposed to make sure Mitsuari “was surrounded”?

“!?”

Mitsuari came to a stop and did not take another careless step forward while she held out her phone and slowly spun around on the spot. Stopping seemed to remind her how wildly her heart was racing and how out of breath she was. She was not simply relying on Mental Stinger. Modern cameras could be more precise than the human eye when focused on certain functions. The expanded capabilities of the attached external lens helped.

The small screen showed glimpses of something shiny.

“A wire? And it’s moving!!”

A thin metal wire was drawn taut along a horizontal line as it approached her from straight ahead, as if slicing through the scenery. In a world where esper powers were commonplace, you could not freeze in place just because you saw something absurd or unreasonable. She doubted hiding behind a tree branch or even trunk would be enough here. At first glance, she could not judge the power or accuracy of this attack, so she crouched down to the ground in a frog-like pose and let the sharp wire pass by overhead.

But it turned out the wire was not being directly moved by an esper power.

She heard small motors running.

She also heard something that reminded her of the electric shaver her father had used long ago.

(Drones!? Are two of them holding the wire between them as they charge in at me!?)

She looked up through the trees and caught a glimpse of those devices that resembled giant crane flies.

She might be able to bring down one of those drones if she held her bag by the shoulder strap and swung it around, but they had flown past before she thought of that. Just like with her phone’s camera, it was over before you realized it.

(They’re slicing right through branches as thick as my arm, but they seem to be avoiding the thick trunks.)

And the simple cutting edge was not the scariest part. She could see some kind of sticky liquid on the wire. She did not want to lick that or even touch it.

Being sliced through was not the only way to die here. That was a poisoned blade, so even the smallest nick would be deadly.

Even if it had been a split-second decision, she was ashamed of how wide she had spread her legs there. She sat up and used her index finger to fix the shorts that were riding up.

(It isn’t big and it isn’t a weird shape.)

The older girl’s words from the day before were still bothering her, so she childishly pouted her lips while thinking about her situation here.

This was a real pain.

It had sounded like the initial Gatling gun girl knew that she controlled her powers through her phone camera. So was this other person staying hidden and using drones as a method developed specifically for use against her?

She heard the bushes behind her being parted.

That would probably be the Gatling gun girl.

Staying here would allow that girl to catch up and turn her to mincemeat. But even with the expanded functionality of her phone’s camera, she had no way of knowing if she had spotted all of the wires. The drones were constantly flying around, so they could always set up a new wire in a spot she had already checked and judged safe. She was unsure if continuing on blindly would be a good idea.

She felt like a fleeing soldier driven into a minefield.

She pictured her opponent’s smile in her mind’s eye.

“Ow.”

She grimaced while aiming her phone’s external lens around.

She had a shallow wound on her exposed upper arm.

It looked almost like a cut, but she doubted it was from that wire. That would have taken off her entire arm and then made her foam at the mouth with its poison.

(Really? Did I cut myself on a leaf like a papercut?)

She could only bite her lip and bear with it.

Now was not the time to shed tears of disgrace.

She continued observing through her phone camera. The Gatling gun was the most obvious threat, but the invisible wires were there too. She was trapped between the two and could not move.

Yes.

The Gatling gun girl was approaching from behind while using an esper power to strengthen her muscles and swing around that heavy weapon. Unlike Mitsuari, she did not seem to be using any electronics or sensors.

Which meant…

(Does she simply trust her ally not to attack her? Can she not actually see where the wires are?)

There was no time to actually confirm that theory.

It would mostly be a gamble.

Mitsuari Ayu grabbed a longish stick that had fallen nearby and then turned around to look at the branches that had been sliced through at about her eye level. The clear sticky liquid on the wires was more frightening than the wires themselves. It had to be some kind of poison, so even a scrape could be deadly.

“…”

Then Mitsuari looked down.

These artificial woods were more than just thick trees. There were also bushes and underbrush toward the ground. And it was possible for the edge of a hard leaf to cut a girl’s soft skin.

That Gatling gun girl had been showing just as much skin as Mitsuari.

Still silent, Mitsuari Ayu lightly tapped the side of the refrigerated bag she used to sneak ice cream and drinks into school.

Her final trump card was in there.