Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter3 (section)

===Part 8===

“Phew.”

Kamijou Touma wiped the sweat from his brow inside the parking garage filled with flames and smoke.

One of the three sisters(?) was missing. The presence he had felt before was gone, but since she had had a gun and another of them had used drones, that was no guarantee of safety. It was cruel, but he would have to use the two defeated enemies as insurance.

(I hope she wasn’t taken out by the carbon monoxide. She was given that hemo-whatever countermeasure, right?)

He was of course at the most risk. He did not know the exact concentration of carbon monoxide in here, but with the alarm still going off, it would be best not to linger. If he waited here in fear of the enemy he had lost track of, he would eventually collapse.

The poison woman and the Gatling gun girl lay limp on the floor, so he picked them up to use as shields.

He had to get back to the upper floors.

They were girls, but with two of them and with them unconscious, they were very heavy. But he could not drag them along the floor littered with shards of glass and concrete, so he found an all purpose wheeled cart, loaded the tall woman into it, and used a plastic rope to tie the little girl to his back like a baby.

(I can’t last much longer in here!)

He did not have a headache, but thinking so much was making him feel sick. He could not let the real carbon monoxide sneak up on him while he suffered from the placebo effect brought on by his own anxiety and stress.

He had needed a shield against the unseen enemy.

When figuring out which one to carry, that adolescent idiot had wanted to go with the sexy young woman with the big boobs, but she was a poison user who could kill with a single needle. He wanted to avoid close contact with her even while unconscious.

On the other hand, the little girl alone was too small to provide much coverage as a shield.

(But that gun would punch right through my body if it hit me, right?)

So even if the surviving enemy aimed at him through the smoke, he did not have to worry as much about being shot from the front. Unless she was willing to sacrifice her sister in the process.

In the end, there was no such thing as 100% safety.

There could be an unseen fourth enemy, or the survivor might leave the building and then fire a barrage of missiles and rockets to bring down the entire parking garage. After all, he had already seen esper powers and a Gatling gun here. He could not rule out any possibility.

This human shield was really just a good-luck charm to rid him of his anxiety.

(Maybe it’s wrong to calm myself with close physical contact with an unconscious little girl.)

“Senpai! Mitsuari!”

He called out to them because visibility was so poor.

After coming all this way, he did not want them mistaking him for an enemy through the smoke. He could just imagine them stabbing at him with a makeshift spear made by taping a knife to the end of a mop.

And…

“You made it back alive, boy?” asked Kumokawa. “Hm, and with plenty of souvenirs, it would seem.”

“A-are those supposed to be your victory prizes?” asked Mitsuari. “This isn’t ancient Rome.”

Kumokawa grinned and Mitsuari trembled.

At least they seemed to be doing well. Perhaps it was asking a lot for people who had spent their time in relative peace, but he wished they could intuit that he had been dealing with a hellish festival featuring a handgun, a Gatling gun, carbon monoxide, and poison needles.

The genius (←riichi) busty (←ippatsu) high school girl (←dora) crossed her arms.

“What happened with the enemy?”

“They seemed to be a group of three, but I lost track of one. They seemed focused on the hostage I had and she hasn’t attacked since, so I’d like to believe she gave up. Unfortunately, I can’t say for sure. She had a gun, so we might not be safe. Plus there’s carbon monoxide, so we should get out of here if we can.”

“Eh? You mean you defeated them all on your own?” asked Mitsuari.

“I don’t see any other way of explaining these two he has here,” said Kumokawa. “I doubt he paid some money to hire some extras.”

“…”

In her gym clothes and indoor slippers, Mitsuari silently watched Kamijou lower the little girl from his back.

Kumokawa Seria sighed.

“Well, good job, I guess. You upheld the promise you made.”

“This is nothing so cool. I only did what it took to survive.”

“You can say that after walking toward near-certain doom when you didn’t have to? You protected lives here. And not just the lives of your allies – of your enemies too.”

In what may have been a sign of her trust, the upperclassman girl smiled a little and started to rest her head on unsteady Kamijou’s shoulder from the side.

However…

“Nhh!!”

An odd sound interrupted.

No, it was Mitsuari Ayu. Just before the super high school girl of his dreams could touch him, the other girl slipped in between them. That meant he only got to feel the bony flatness of a skinny middle school girl.

What was this?

Did his misfortune really need to give him a post-battle bonus?

He clenched his teeth.

“Senpai, when did Mitsuari grow so attached to you?”

“To me? It’s clearly you she is attached to. And there’s nothing weird about a sheltered girl having a thing for a knight in shining armor.”

It was unclear what that meant, but Mitsuari herself clearly did not agree. She squeezed her eyes shut and continued shouting “nhh, nhh!” in protest.

But there was no reclaiming a lost opportunity.

While mentally weeping tears of blood at his inability to rewind reality, he faced the more immediate problem.

“Senpai, how are we going to get out of here?”

“Yeah, the bike blew its tire when we landed.”

“Plus, it couldn’t carry me, you, Mitsuari, the hot one, and the little girl.”

“I adore you for including all five of us. But anyway, the best plan would be to switch to a vehicle capable of carrying all of us.”

Kumokawa got to work picking the lock of a nearby car. She picked up some kind of long wire, but what was this? Instead of inserting it into the keyhole, she appeared to be jabbing it vertically down into the power window.

“Don’t try this at home.”

After unlocking it as smoothly as if she had the key, she opened the door, climbed inside, and broke the plastic cover below the steering wheel. Once she connected the wires within, the engine started right up.

Apparently high school girls these days could drive not just motorcycles but cars too.

That seemed to clash with his basic image of high school girls, but whatever.

“Tie the two unconscious idiots up with packing tape and stuff them in the trunk. That is the most mercy I am willing to show.”

“The fight is over, so can’t we all just get along!?”

Kamijou protested, but he knew they were short on time and had no choice but to obey. He was already well aware that the poison woman had used carbon monoxide.

The tires squealed and Delinquent High School Girl Kumokawa-senpai drove the car down the slope to the next floor. On the way, Kamijou spotted some scrapped cars and the abandoned Gatling gun. He felt like leaving that there was a bad idea. He was afraid it might explode like a firecracker in those flames.

After descending a few of those slopes, he lost track of what floor they were on.

The seatbelt alone must have felt insufficient with how much the car was shaking because Mitsuari was pale in the face and clung to him in the back seat.

“Are we going to drive all the way down? But the ground floor must be engulfed in flames!!”

“Why do you get all the fun when you’re just along for the ride?” asked Kumokawa. “Maybe I should go for another bike ride with that boy seated behind me.”

“Senpai, I don’t like the sound of whatever you’re planning!”

“Anyway, I wanted to get as far down as possible, but this is probably the limit.”

“Um, but what are you planning to do? Wait, Senpai, why are you turning the wheel that way!?”

“Why?” she said casually while stepping on the gas pedal.

The view out the windshield showed the concrete wall meant to keep cars from falling off.

“Cause this is a shortcut.”

Beating on the driver’s seat headrest accomplished nothing.

A moment later, a mass of metal weighing more than a ton flew out into empty air from the second floor.