Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

The point of scorching heat rapidly spread until his entire body was on fire.

Kamijou collapsed to the ground. He clenched his teeth, but he couldn’t hold in the scream. His body felt like a vortex of agony, so he wasn’t even sure where the injury was on him.

“Gah, ahhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

He couldn’t even get up and the hand holding his shoulder was mostly a reflexive thing. It was only then that he realized the metal dart had pierced his shoulder.

The disgusting feeling of the metal sticking in where it didn’t belong was more powerful than the simple pain.

Hanatsuyu Youen’s jaw dropped as she stared at him screaming and shedding meaningless tears. Shirai Kuroko pushed her terahertz goggles up to her forehead and rushed over.

Alice may not have understood the gravity of the situation because she laughed and mimicked his screams in genuine delight.

“Wh-what do you think you’re doing, you ape!?”

“Don’t ask me. But if you feel even a twinge of regret after seeing this blood, then stop teleporting those things at people. You’re both using way too much deadly force! Why does Academy City insist on bringing everyone closer to death the higher you go!? I’m starting to think it’s the ordinary Level 0s who are the safest and most at peace!!”

Meanwhile, Youen finally regained her composure and whistled with her hands clasped behind her head.

“Wow, this wasn’t my fault. Maybe I should go tattle to the teachers.”

“You villain!!”

“Here’s the thing, justice exhibitionist. If you don’t want him to die because of you, then you’d better step aside right now. I’ll fix this silly blunder of yours.” Youen held a hand to the center of her unnaturally large chest and winked. “If you need sterilization or disinfection, I can produce some ethanol or Bifidobacterium. If you need a pain relief chemical, I can extract it from a mosquito or tick. The quickest way to stop bleeding is to control the coagulation and sewing up a blood vessel requires some sturdy animal thread, right? There are so many options there, from silkworm silk to spider silk. The silkworm is praised as the most plentiful beneficial bug in the world, but it’s really just a grotesque moth larva. This is sounding a lot like my area of expertise, isn’t it?”

“You…?”

Shirai Kuroko couldn’t find the words.

She seemed to know Youen form somewhere and it appeared to come as a complete shock that Youen would ''choose to save an injured person’s life''.

However…

“N-no!! Unlicensed medical procedures are against the law! Especially if we are talking about unhygienic surgery using urban pests and vermin!!”

“Sigh. Yet again, justice proves it kills more people than us villains ever could. I can’t imagine why this softhearted idiot would protect me, but this means ''I owe him twice''. And I don’t care what you say – I’m not going to let him die until I’ve repaid him with interest.”

“…”

“Paying back your debts sounds like a system unrelated to good and evil to me.”

The two girls’ gazes clashed while they crouched on either side of collapsed Kamijou.

But they didn’t have all day.

Kamijou was still groaning in agony from the deep wound and the unsettling feeling of the metal in his shoulder, but he still managed to reach out an empty hand to draw Youen’s attention by tapping her on the side of the hip.

He couldn’t get his voice out even though the wound was in his shoulder.

His position lying on the floor had allowed him to notice something before the others.

The artificial ghost’s face had just appeared out from a nearby concrete wall.

Whether it was natural or artificial, that was a real ghost. That meant the laws of physics might not apply. But could she really just pass through solid walls? That was cheating in a different way from teleportation. A foe that could do that without warning could sneak up on even by the most experienced combat veteran!!

Did Shirai and Youen even notice the bug zapper sound?

Unlike with the train crash, there wasn’t time to leave Alice and Youen with the teleporter.

Frillsand #G released a massive high-voltage current in all directions.

The white light was brighter than welding at close range and the rumble of the concrete walls and ceiling coming down shook the boy’s eardrums.

“Shi…rai!!”

All he could do was shout her name and give her a shove.

A moment later, something blurred and he saw another scene on top of reality. He wasn’t sure why, but the phone in his pocket heated up so much he feared it would burn him.

He had misinterpreted what happened last time. It wasn’t being hit by the high-voltage current that sent the strange hallucination into his mind. Yes, his phone and the station’s devices hadn’t malfunctioned because they received a direct hit from that thick beam of electricity.

The entire area around the artificial ghost was faintly electrified.

(My…hair? So that’s it. Static electricity or something is surrounding the entire surface of my head.)

The scene played out in hellish slow motion, but he still had no way of avoiding the ghost’s attack. Imagine Breaker couldn’t negate it. It was possible he could reduce the risk of death from the agonizing shock if he let the hallucination take over. Even if it only increased the odds he could get back up and fight back next time.

A moment later, the mass of high-voltage electricity pierced straight through the center of Kamijou Touma’s body.