Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

“Shit.”

The girl was less than 130cm tall.

Her wavy blonde hair had obviously been bleached and her gaudy minidress looked out of place on her slender frame. It must not have been fitted properly because the shoulder straps were slipping off and, if she were to lean forward, the dress would likely create a tunnel revealing her undeveloped chest. However, no one who laid eyes on Gokusai Amazora would have paid any attention to that.

Something else seemed far more out of place.

She was carrying a giant Gatling gun made from 6 barrels, each capable of firing 20mm rounds, and she was dragging around a drum magazine full of those rounds. The magazine had small wheels attached in a very DIY way, but no one would mistake it for a household vacuum cleaner.

She used a single hand to casually drag along the weapon despite its barbell-like weight and she used her other hand to vigorously scratch at what was more her butt than her thigh. The skirt was short, but the dress also provided little protection for the armpits or chest.

She was dressed maturely, but her behavior was so childish it may have made other girl’s her age blush.

“Why do they have to bite me in all these awkward places? Those wild bugs are just plain rude! You know I’m atopic, Riku Onee-chan! This was the wrong job for me. Oh, hell! Why can’t every last kind of creepy crawly go extinct!?”

She was willing to yell and shout because she already knew stealth was not an option while dragging such a large piece of equipment through the forest. She could not wield it skillfully enough to follow the basic rules like not stepping on leaves or breaking twigs.

But the bare-thighed little girl’s complaints led to an unexpected conclusion.

“Bugs are biting you? Amazora, those aren’t mosquitos, are they? We make a living with murder, so we can’t leave any blood behind on the scene.”

“Bweh!?”

She rapidly whipped her blonde head around every which way, but she had no way of knowing which bugs had sucked out her blood. That was not something she could investigate by hand.

However, the second sister, Kaibi, showed no mercy.

“So. What are you going to do about it?”

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

But when god closes a door, he opens a window.

In this case, it came in the form of intervention by the biggest sister.

“Yes, yes. Your trusty big sister will send in a drone and check things out for you. A mosquito full of blood will weigh more than twice one that isn’t, so they fly subtly differently. I can analyze the camera footage to figure it out real quick. And I can grab those flying blood-suckers with my poisoned wires, so none of the evidence will remain on the scene.”

“Wahhhhhhhhh! Riku Onee-chaaan!!”

“Rikuri Nee-san, she will never get any better if you spoil her like this.”

“She learned her lesson, so it’s fine. And besides, if my cute little sister got scared and wet herself, that would just mean more evidence. And even I would have a difficult time digging up the ammonia-smelling dirt with one of my drones.”

“I knew you weren’t really on my side! Shoo shoo!!”

3rd Sister Amazora took all her emotions to the extreme. Her job was to pursue their target while 2nd Sister Kaibi and 1st Sister Rikuri helped her keep track of the details.

That was how they worked as a team.

The short girl was like a hound. Her job was partially complete as long as she made a lot of noise, pursued the prey in the hunting ground partitioned off by Rikuri, and filled that prey with plenty of fear. Once she had guided them to the perfect spot, Kaibi would supply the finishing blow as the hunter.

(What is wrong with that she-cat? I get running, but why that way!? I need to get this over with already so I can have Riku-Kai Onee-chans rub anti-itch cream on me. I won’t scratch until then. I won’t. That would only make it itch worse. Ughh, gwaaaaahhhhh!?)

Her innate inability to focus may have been her undoing because she did not notice anything until she had already parted those bushes with her long blonde hair fluttering behind her.

She had failed to notice the sharp leaf edges lightly cutting her bright thighs.

She had also failed to notice the mystery goo splattered on the bushes around here.

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

For the first time, the girl with the giant Gatling gun came to a complete stop.

In fact, her mind itself had gone blank.

“Riku Onee-chan, wait. Where are you sending those drones of yours!?”

Instead of that familiar voice, she was answered by a long tree branch flying in from somewhere. She reflexively swung around her Gatling gun and blew away the surrounding trees with a spray of gunfire while her short skirt fluttered wildly, but that was not what mattered.

The stick was as long as a mop handle.

And the clear goo on the end gave off an obviously artificial sweet smell.

Yes.

The drones piloted by 1st Sister Rikuri were not the only ones who could use that poison. Anyone could use what had been left on the scene already. For example, they could scoop it up with a long stick and rub it somewhere else without ever touching it themselves. It was a lot like digging up someone else’s landmine and reburying it elsewhere. Anyone could have figured out that the 3rd sister was following the target around, so what if the poison had been smeared on the hard leaves at hip height, where the path of the narrow animal trail would block it from view?

That made it a game of probability.

But there was no guarantee that the target had only placed the poison here.

What if she had desperately set up poison locations all around this area to fill in all the gaps and then waited for the attacker to cross that deadly line?

“R-”

So what if that tiny, tiny cut had allowed in her oldest sister’s prized product?

An itchy, unpleasant sensation ran up Amazora’s thighs and then across her entire body.

“R-r-r-r-r-regroup!! You two! Riku Onee-chan! Bring me the antidote! Regroup, regroup, we need to regrooooooooooup!!!!!!”