Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3 (section)

===Part 6===

“So we’ll be going straight for the front door.”

Frenda grinned in the darkness while holding a multitool knife shaped like a pair of pliers.

The darkness was not due to nightfall.

The abandoned railway tunnel was in District 11. Instead of passing through a mountain, this tunnel sloped down below the surface of the city. The hemispherical entrance was covered by a chain-link fence to keep people from wandering in, but that was easily bypassed.

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, Kinuhata Saiai.

Frenda Seivelun stayed a step ahead of the other three to lead the way.

Takitsubo tilted her expressionless head.

“You can tell where the traps are?”

“In the end, I’m impressed by your courage if you followed me this far without trusting I could.” Frenda used her tool to cut a colored cord. “Broadly speaking, there are two types of trap: the high-tech electronic ones and the low-tech primitive ones.”

“Primitive like a pitfall?”

“Right. Those go back into BCE times, but the technique was really refined in Vietnam. You only need a shovel to make them and they don’t use any explosives or metal to be detected, so they’re still even more frightening than landmines.”

Takitsubo may have meant her example as a joke, but Frenda took it entirely seriously as she worked.

“Both types have their pros and their cons. High-tech traps using invisible lasers and ultrasound seem convenient at first glance, but they’re easily exposed using special cameras and sensors. For that matter, using electricity at all means they’ll produce a faint magnetic field. You know how sending out sonar all the time would be suicide for a submarine? It’s the same idea. …On the other hand, low-tech mines made from wood and glass are primitive, but they’ll slip right past a metal detector, which means you can’t let your guard down. Of course, they have the flaw of being vulnerable to moisture and impacts, so they easily malfunction.”

“Hm. So super which type is better?”

“There’s no definitive answer. So the optimal trap usage is to have a mixture of both types.”

Frenda moved aside a plastic bottle that had been given a metal cap. A smaller sealed bottle was submerged in the liquid within, so it was likely a detergent bomb made from two substances that were dangerous when mixed. But if Frenda hadn’t moved it, it would have looked like any other trash forgotten and buried in here.

“It’s called using a ‘high-low mix’, although I believe that term was originally used in reference to aircraft. But in the end, if you know from the beginning they’ll be using that strategy, you have nothing to fear.”

“You say that, but if you miss just one of them, we go boom,” said Mugino. “Not that it’s guaranteed to be an explosion.”

“In the end, I can sniff them out,” replied Frenda, using duct tape to seal the lid of a bug cage stuffed full of ants that likely were not native to Japan. “I wonder if this was a rush job for them. I can smell the paint and turpentine they used for the camouflage. Now, I’m not about to place my full trust in a hint left by the enemy, but I doubt this is some kind of strategy. In the end, they were overconfident and made a careless mistake. I bet they didn’t notice the smell because they’ve been surrounded by it for so long – that’s a mistake pros make all the time.”

Minefields were simple but highly effective.

Unlike a two-way fight, they let you defeat the enemy without taking any damage yourself.

But all the effort put into setting up the traps would lead to an assumption that the enemy would never make it past them all and make a direct attack.

If you had the skills necessary to get past the traps, then a frontal assault would function as a surprise attack.

“Takitsubo. In the end, I could use some water,” said Frenda because both her hands were full.

“Yes, yes. You mean this bottle with a straw in it?”

“Grab me a mackerel can too.”

“Are you sure you need that?”

While Frenda ate her fish, she began working less and less until she finally had no more work to do. They had crossed the dense field of traps. Frenda herself actually grew more cautious in case this was a trick to get her to lower her guard, but she never did find anything more.

“We’re almost to the Nightjar,” said Mugino, staring up ahead. “They were probably afraid of getting caught in their own traps, so they only set them up near the distant tunnel entrance.”

While the tunnel was abandoned, it still had power and the fluorescent lights for workers remained lit. Of course, this was the enemy’s home base, so it was possible those lights could be shut off at any moment. They kept their phones at the ready in case they needed them for light, but a large and extremely pointy silhouette was visible even without any extra light.

That was the Nightjar luxury train.

It was also the smart shelter the Enemy Item used when they were being pursued and needed a place to hide.

They heard a sound of straining metal.

Kinuhata immediately rushed out in front of Frenda and was blasted backwards by an explosive sound. Frenda quickly got down on the ground, her eyes wide.

“Eh? Eh?”

“Cough, there’s super something there! Be careful!!”

Something with eight-legs lurked in the shadows.

Several of them, in fact.

The drum-like bodies were likely based on the security robots that patrolled Academy City. The eight legs were abnormally long for those bodies and a .50-caliber machinegun had been forcibly attached to the side. Kinuhata had been knocked back despite her nitrogen shield.

Mugino clicked her tongue and launched her Meltdowner.

She also moved to protect Takitsubo.

“Tch. I thought the thick tunnel blocked any signals from getting in!”

“Signals can still travel inside the tunnel, so these could be remotely controlled from the train.”

That said, they were right next to the high-voltage railway power line, which would interfere with any control signals. It was best to assume these were specialized for autonomous combat.

However…

“They have cameras, so the enemy will know we’re here. This is a race against time now! Frenda, don’t let the enclosed tunnel scare you – it’s time for your bombs! And Takitsubo!!”

“I know,” whispered Takitsubo, pulling something from her track suit pocket.

It looked like a mechanical pencil lead case, but it contained an unsettling white powder.

“''I will use it today.'' If I had just used Body Crystal and recorded Hanano’s AIM Diffusion Field the first time, none of this would have happened. I put her life at risk because I didn’t want to shorten my own lifespan. So I won’t let the Enemy Item escape this tunnel no matter what they try.”

She was essentially saying she would chemically shorten her life.

It was a matter of chemistry, so one plus one would always equal two. There was no room for a miraculous result of three or four. She was implicitly saying she was fine with that. She was saying Hanano Choubi held that much value for her.

Kinuhata got up, clenched her teeth, used her arms to guard, and forcibly held back the machinegun fire while she marched forward and silenced one 8-legged drum with her fist.

“Is Takitsubo-san’s power that super great?”

“In the end, it’s not so much great as it is cheating! I wouldn’t want her as my enemy for a different reason than Mugino!!”

“Don’t call me a cheater. I’m always faithful.”

Takitsubo gave a somewhat off-kilter comment among the explosive gunfire while she licked up the powder she had sprinkled on the back of her hand.

Their enemy had no real reason to keep Hanano alive.

This was a race against time, so they would have a hard time searching through each of the more than 10 train cars while remaining alert for surprise attacks and counterattacks. Ordinarily, it would be downright impossible. But that was where Takitsubo’s AIM Stalker came in handy. One look at the area and she could accurately locate any esper – from Level 0 to Level 5 – by the faint power they emitted. And once she had “recorded” an esper’s power, she could track them even if they fled the solar system.

The fact that the enemy was reliant on traps and unmanned weapons meant their support organization had been recalled. The only people in that long train would be the Enemy Item’s three survivors and their hostage, Hanano.

So Takitsubo only had to identify which cars she sensed people inside.

“It’s not too late.”

Takitsubo forced out the words while covered in a disconcerting amount of perspiration.

If they looked inside an occupied car and found Hanano, they could protect her. If they didn’t find her, everyone inside was an enemy. If all three enemies were together, then blowing up that car would eliminate the threat and rescue the hostage all at once.

“If I can locate the people here, Mugino or Frenda can blow down the train’s wall, and we can rescue Hanano!!”

Takitsubo’s power would set it all in motion, so she didn’t hesitate to use the Body Crystal despite the risk to her.

''However…

“…?”

“Takitsubo?”

The faintest furrowing of the brow on Takitsubo’s otherwise expressionless face caught Frenda’s attention while she used an explosive resembling correction tape to burn right through one of the 8-legged drums.

The track suit girl had frozen in place.

“''She’s not here,''” she said.

“What? Who’s not?”

“''I’m not sensing anyone. This train is deserted''!!”