Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter5 (section)

===Part 6===

A continuous grinding sound came from the concrete wall.

Meanwhile, Misaka Mikoto scattered sparks from her bangs while clinging to the ceiling of the exhaust-filled tunnel.

“Drat, simple jamming wasn’t enough to stop it! Kuroko, you take care of the ambulance. I don’t know what’s going on inside, so be careful!!”

“I’m relieved to finally have a job other than taxiing people around.”

With that casual comment, Shirai Kuroko vanished into thin air. She intended to teleport inside the speeding ambulance and work the steering wheel and brakes.

It helped a lot that Uiharu had noticed a report of the stolen truck and linked it to this incident. By combining the direction of the blood trail with witness reports about the truck, they had realized the two intersected at this long tunnel. Dead men tell no tales. If Inoue’s plan was to kill his target and any possible witnesses, his best bet was to crush the entire ambulance and make it look like an accident.

“GK> Since they’ve started teaching programming in elementary schools, anyone can make a virus these days. Humans can’t keep up with all the problems, so we have AIs tag things based on risk. So if something isn’t tagged high priority, it won’t be sent to humans to create an antivirus. And the standards for tagging aren’t all that great…”

Of course, it was unlikely the criminal would stay on the ambulance to the end.

He was a professional criminal, so he would not choose a one-way ticket out of desperation.

(Where did that Inoue guy go?)

She heard the sound of a metal door slamming shut.

“Sa10> Misaka-san, tunnels like this have emergency exits at set intervals. He can escape outside even partway through!”

“GK> Why do you know that, Saten-san?”

“Sa10> It was key to an urban legend about people disappearing after their car broke down in a tunnel. A group was apparently capturing them for some kind of weird ritual.”

At any rate, Mikoto only needed to know where her target was.

She moved from the ceiling to the emergency walkway positioned a step up from the road. Then she used magnetism to tear the emergency exit door off its hinges. She was up against a corrupt Anti-Skill officer, so he was probably armed with a gun. She decided to keep the metal door with her as a shield.

“GK> Inoue Kasha has the code list and infiltration skills of an Anti-Skill officer, so he might take control of any electronics or net-connected cameras in the area. Be careful.”

“Understood, Uiharu-san.”

“GK> Really, if only the Zero-Day Link online risk management AI was more reliable. Reality is crawling with digital criminals who can slip through the huge gaps it leaves.”

This was her first time inside one, but the emergency exit turned out to be like a small tunnel running parallel to the large tunnel. The single long pathway continued on ahead of her, but there were also stairs leading up at set intervals. You never knew where a fire would start or where the tunnel would collapse, so they prepared as many exits as possible and installed plenty of doors leading there in case of an emergency.

(Now there’s no way to know which exit he used.)

“Uiharu-san, can you access some satellite footage? Or grab all the security camera footage from around the emergency exits! I need to know where Inoue escaped to!”

That was when some strange static crackled from her phone’s speaker.

She held it away from her ear on reflex.

“Jamming!?”

After shouting, she felt an unpleasant sensation down her spine.

Just like people reflexively looked up during an earthquake, certain things could trigger certain responses in people. For example, if something odd happened with their phone, their gaze would be drawn to that small screen.

It came from right behind her. A merciless blow struck her in the back of the head.

“Kah…”

The metal door fell to the floor despite supposedly being supported by magnetism.

Misaka Mikoto could emit microwaves in all directions to accurately detect and intercept an explosive’s shrapnel as it tore through the air, so it was shocking for an attacker to sneak up on her like this.

Still, she had been careless.

Even a hit from the side of a notebook would daze someone if it was to the back of the head. That was not a spot you could afford to let someone attack you. She was lucky that she had not lost consciousness…no, that she had not been killed.

(Are you kidding me!? What happened!?)

“!!”

“Whoa now.”

Bluish-white sparks crackled out.

She forcibly jumped forward and planted her feet on the wall of the narrow emergency passageway, but her eyes were still shaky and refusing to focus.

“You can use your power on your own nerves? Is there anything you can’t do?”

(I…)

An unpleasant sound caught up to her, but she sensed it more through her bones than from her ears.

(I dislocated…my thigh!!)

This was a trick she had learned from the Queen of Tokiwadai Middle School’s right-hand girl who handled most 
of the physical work since the Queen herself was so hopelessly unathletic, but just being able to control electricity was not enough to pull it off. Mikoto’s power was strong enough that she had to be very careful to avoid frying her own nerves or breaking her own bones.

She had no choice but to bite down on a handkerchief.

She suppressed the pain and used both hands as if shoving in a large hook.

She jammed the dislocated hip joint back into place!!

“Gahh!!”

Clear drops fell from her tear glands regardless of her emotions.

Of course, her opponent would not have just waited while she did this.

She forced her eyes forward again.

She used her tear-blurred vision to focus on the identity of the threat.

“Ino…ue!!”

“What is shouting my name supposed to accomplish? Silly girl.”

Inoue Kasha.

That keeper of the peace spun a dark and skinny object in his hand. It looked like a bored student spinning a pen, but this was no idle task.

He was calculating the distance between them so he knew how many times to let it spin when he threw it.

“…!!”

She saw it.

The throw came from directly ahead.

And yet…

(No reading…on my microwave…scan!?)

That shock was immediately followed by a scorching pain in her right shoulder.

It had stabbed into her.

She had been stabbed.

It did not feel like metal, so it was probably some kind of aerospace material. It seemed to be the kind of hard plastic used in riot suppression shields and police batons. But whether it was metal or not, it should not have vanished from her microwave radar.

People instinctually feared lightning, but one theory said that was not just due to the bright light and loud noise. After all, lightning was different from a boiling tea kettle. Because so very few people knew what it was like to be struck by lightning, it was best to assume that fear came from something other than knowledge of the pain. The sound arrived after the light. The aforementioned theory said people feared the strange sensation of experiencing a single phenomenon through different senses at different times.

What had happened to Mikoto was similar.

She could not shake the odd feeling of her mind and body being separated. Like when dozing off, she felt like she would come down with sleep paralysis if she let her guard down.

“Oh, too bad. I was aiming between your eyes. And with it sticking in your shoulder, I guess you’ll figure out the trick before long.”

“Kh.”

If she had used her eyes and ears instead of relying on her power, she might have been able to dodge it. At times, having too many data sources could be a problem.

She heard something swishing through the air.

This time, it was a black whip about a meter in length. Unlike in manga and video games, real whips were useless if they were too long. Try swinging around a jump rope or garden hose and that becomes readily apparent. A weapon with a similar feel to a belt was not as hard as a sword or a spear, so it could not stop enemy attacks very well. But it could produce great destructive force with just a snap of the wrist and it could lash someone from a variety of angles while moving along irregular trajectories. Its power was clear when you remembered it was used in circuses to tame ferocious beasts like bears or tigers that could shrug off a 9mm bullet.

Of course, this was not standard Anti-Skill equipment.

And Inoue did not hesitate to target Mikoto’s right shoulder where the throwing shaft was still stabbing into her.

(Is he some kind of security goods freak!?)

It was less of a surprise this time when the microwaves emitted from Mikoto’s body detected nothing there. She covered her wound by essentially shoving her left shoulder in the path of the whip.

And then…

“Have another.”

“Dammit!!”

He prepared another throwing shaft in his other hand. At this close range, it was more like a single-use spear than a throwing weapon.

She could no longer swing her body to either side.

She clenched her teeth and took a powerful step forward.

That might seem reckless at first, but it was a split-second decision. A whip carried the force of the snapping wrist to the optimal location. To put it another way, the attack would fail if the target moved closer than expected. It would hit, but it would not be a clean hit.

The whip hit her left shoulder with a dull snap, but it was knocked back and hit the throwing shaft that was meant to slip through the gaps.

She had narrowly escaped.

And once he was in grabbing range, it was Mikoto’s turn. She could bring down most adults by grabbing onto them and releasing a high-voltage current.

But…

“Not gonna work.”

“Gh…ah!?”

A rusty flavor and smell exploded at the tip of her nose.

It felt like she had run face-first into a concrete wall. Inoue had easily lifted his knee to stop Mikoto’s attempt to tackle him at the hips. Her vision faded while the broken Anti-Skill officer stepped back to adjust the distance between them.

He was up against the Railgun, yet he chose to fight at a distance.

The fact that this was not pure foolishness may have been enough to prove Inoue Kasha’s skill.

“Pant, pant…”

(Damn, I can’t read his movements. He’s right there, but I can’t even grab at his clothes!!)

Mikoto had experience with back-alley fights.

But that was only while using her powers. If she had to fight a pure martial arts match in a square ring with weight and all other factors made equal, she would be unable to rise very far in the ranks.

She was so used to having that microwave radar scan that she could barely function when it was unexpectedly taken from her.

“You don’t need to feel bad about this. Really, the fact that an amateur girl has lasted this long against a professional fighter is impressive.”

“Don’t talk down to me…”

“Also, I’m sorry to say that these unnatural injuries mean your corpse can never be discovered. I’ll process it and then bury it in the mountains or something. You’ll be treated as a missing person. I really would have preferred to have your corpse found to give your friends and family closure, but it is what it is.”

“How many times have you done this!? You monster!!”

There was a heavy thud.

Inoue had released another throwing shaft in the middle of their conversation and it hit her in the center of the chest, but it bounced off.

This was not thanks to her powers.

Instead of dodging to either side or below, Mikoto had stepped back. That was reckless against a projectile flying straight toward her, but she had given this the appropriate thought.

Inoue whistled.

“So you’ve given up on the microwaves, have you? But doing everything with brute force is so ugly, don’t you think?”

“Pant, pant…”

The throwing shafts were not thrown in a straight line like a paper airplane or dart. They were spun end over end for a more stable trajectory. They were more like a tomahawk in that respect.

Since it made a full rotation every n meters, changing the distance between them would prevent the sharp end from hitting her and she could survive a hit to a vital point.

Mikoto brought her empty hand to her right shoulder and forcibly dislodged the throwing shaft there.

The pen-sized weapon was entirely black, had a rough texture, and had a burnt smell to it.

Only one possibility came to mind.

“Carbon materials? I’m honestly impressed.”

“I really would have preferred a ferrite coating over these cheap carbon things, but have you seen the price of those US boomerangs? Even with all the wealth in that rich country, they only sold 21 of them. There was no way a civil servant’s pay was enough for that kind of quality material.”

“So you were using EM absorbing materials.”

Those materials were used in a surprising number of fields, including spacesuits and anechoic chambers. By absorbing EM waves instead of reflecting them, there were no reflected waves to detect. They instead vanished silently. With origami-looking stealth fighters and bombers, the angles of the body would also be adjusted to redirect the waves it could not absorb, so the waves would at least not make a U-turn right back to the radar.

…Her mistake had been meeting him a few times beforehand. An Anti-Skill officer could get all the data on their powers from the Bank. Misaka Mikoto, Shirai Kuroko, and Sakibasu Yuri. He would have come up with a plan for dealing with those high-level Tokiwadai students who were connected to the case.

“Now, my tricks using a housewife’s handy tools aren’t going to surprise you anymore.”

There was a flapping sound.

It came from Inoue.

“So no point in holding back. Since I can’t hide it any longer, I might as well use it openly.”

He was dressed in ordinary black bulletproof clothing, but he also held a thick, dark gray sheet similar to a matador. It was somehow reminiscent of a stealth fighter’s surface and it negated Mikoto’s radar scan, but it also easily covered Inoue’s upper body, which kept her from using his eye and finger movements to predict his next move. Things that struck or stabbed were not the only threats. Even without any direct destructive power, this tool was more frightening than an obvious blade or bullet.

Mikoto sent sparks from her bangs while sharply swinging a hand from right to left.

She magnetically sent the metal door toward Inoue in sync with her hand’s motion, but he easily ducked below it.

But she had not expected that attack to defeat him.

“It’s too late to clench your teeth now,” she warned him.

“This isn’t like those throwing shafts and riot suppression whip. This kind of handheld shield was used with microwave power transmission from a space station. You can’t force your way through it with a high-voltage current or mimicking a microwave oven.”

She launched a lightning spear anyway.

The trail of bluish-white sparks was diverted away with a matador-like swish of the thick gray sheet, but she ignored that. While he was busy doing that, she jumped from wall to wall to slip into his blind spot while forming an iron sand sword as her real attack.

However…

“Oh? You went to the trouble of bringing iron sand into the concrete tunnel for yourself?”

“!?”

(Can he see the EM waves and flow of magnetic energy? It’s like he can see through everything I do!!)

She fought in the air while using even the walls and ceiling as a foothold and her weapon was an iron sand sword that could freely change shape like a whip.

But it was she who gasped.

A sharp high kick slipped through the gaps left by her curving blade. This was a narrow emergency exit tunnel and she was in midair, so she could not dodge it.

“Gah!!”

“Telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, precognition, and electrical control. This city is crawling with espers who have all sorts of powers, but those of us in Anti-Skill need to take control of the crime scene without relying on any of that.”

She just barely managed to connect her magnetism to the rebar in the floor to make a half spin out of the way before falling onto her back. She was Academy City’s #3, but he seemed to be saying the power rankings were a child’s status symbol and meant nothing in the adult world.

“You espers were developed to be managed, so why would you ever be able to defeat the technology of those managing you? The city would collapse otherwise.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the technology. The problem is when people like you use it.”

“Believe it or not, I am a pacifist.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You are the ones who keep forcing me to kill more people. All these extra victims could have been saved if you hadn’t gotten some half-baked ideas in your head and decided to get involved in a case you couldn’t hope to solve. If you had just let me silence my one colleague here, it would have been over.”

“Your name has already been sent to the Anti-Skill and Judgment networks.”

“Yes, and that’s why I have to really put my back into this job. I need to eliminate every last witness to prevent any conclusive evidence. They’ll be suspicious and they’ll probably have me monitored for a while, but that won’t last forever. Still, this is tragic. How many innocent people do you think have to die before I can regain my life now?”

He beat the air with the large sheet.

He covered his body with the EM-absorbing sheet and charged straight toward her.

Would the next attack be with his well-trained arm or leg?

Or would it be another security good like tear gas or a tonfa?

(My lightning spear and iron sand sword don’t work. In the worst case, he might even be able to predict and handle a Railgun shot. So what do I do!?)

“Ohhh!!”

Mikoto gave a roar as she ducked low and charged toward Inoue herself.

Yes.

She stopped using her powers entirely.

“?”

For the first time, Inoue was shaken by doubt.

Without her powers as the #3 Level 5, Misaka Mikoto was only a normal middle school girl. She was not trained in martial arts such as karate or aikido.

It came down to a knee blow.

The dull blow hit the girl in the center of her body.

She had of course been unable to avoid it.

But…

“Kah, hah…ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“You’re still going!?”

This was different from before.

The pain had not stopped her.

She forced down that instinct. Humans were not bears or tigers. They would not necessarily obey just because you hit them with a whip.

Mikoto instead clenched her teeth and wrapped her arms around him. She held onto Inoue’s torso.

“Nhh, you might be able to predict how I use my power. I imagine you’re using some kind of device to read the faint changes in the EM waves and magnetic energy. But I can cancel all that out by not using my powers. I just have to stop relying on electricity!!”

In both boxing and karate, you could not hit your opponent properly if they were close enough to embrace you. Blows made by rotating the body required you to swing your arm or leg, so the centrifugal force was directly linked to the force of the hit.

That was why Inoue Kasha had always stayed a certain distance away from her.

He had actually challenged the Railgun from a distance, but that had been necessary for him while he used the killing techniques listed in Anti-Skill suppression tactics textbooks in the “never do this” category.

A straight punch converted the rotation into a straight line like a metal crank. A hook or an uppercut directly used the rotation to throw the fist. But in either case, he could not put his weight behind the blow when his movements were obstructed by the girl clinging to him. His only remaining option was to act like a child throwing a tantrum and hit her in the sides with just the movement of his hands.

This would not reduce the damage to zero.

Mikoto clenched her teeth even harder and gave a roar.

“Now, what if I release my full power at point-blank range like this? How about we find out? I have no reason to hold back now!!”

“…!!!???”

He was clearly panicking now.

That squirming was enough for her.

He could not claim he had not known. This had to be what Inoue Kasha had most feared.

An unavoidable high-voltage current pierced the corrupt Anti-Skill officer’s entire body.