Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 8===

The situation had changed.

They hesitantly turned back the way they had come and then followed the blue signs to the east. They of course made sure to continue jumping from snowy rooftop to snowy rooftop to avoid accidentally running into Anna on the streets.

Yet it was them that were in trouble if they lost sight of Anna.

She was the only one with the vaccine or antidote they needed. They had to prevent her from reaching the hospital.

But they also knew Anna would show up at the hospital eventually, so couldn’t they lie in wait there instead of trying to chase her around?

No, they could not.

Two Level 5s had attacked without slowing her in the slightest, so the hospital would be destroyed the instant she arrived there. It did not matter whether or not the sick boy who kept coughing up blood could win in the end. Everything there – the people and the things – would be destroyed in the process.

And that might be enough to break him.

Because he would carry the weight of things he had no responsibility to carry.

“Whoops.”

They had to be careful while jumping. If they knocked some snow off the edge of a roof, they might just be noticed.

They had arrived in District 15.

This district looked very different. It was Academy City’s largest shopping district, so it was flooded with young people dressed up as Santa or a reindeer. There were also some weird costumes like a box or a turkey with short arms and legs attached. There was apparently an attempt to break the record for the world’s largest cake, so the excitement was not going to end until the cake had been sliced up and everyone had a chance to snap a photo of their piece.

There were no umbrellas to be seen.

The view of the phone cameras was apparently more important than anyone’s health, so those view-blocking pieces of waterproof fabric would get you judged guilty.

Which made her easy to spot.

“There she is!”

A pedestrian deck was constructed up above a pedestrian scramble, making for a very busy area, but a girl who looked to be only 10 was walking above the road there mixed in with the crowd. From time to time, some young people carrying bottles of beer or sparkling wine (those were actual adults and not just high schoolers, right?) would pour some of their drink on her while laughing. The thin red cloth barely covering her was actually being accepted by the people here, so District 15’s happy and cheerful Christmas was a strange time indeed. A young wife in only an apron would apparently be accepted as no more than a costume on this day.

Shokuhou was disgusted since she preferred a classier atmosphere.

“This is worse than I’d heard.”

“All these lights are nearly blinding me, so it’s easy to lose track of her. Help me double check her location.”

The partying was already out of control, but a girl must have decided this was her chance and began an unauthorized concert out on the street. Around ten bodybuilders were lifting up a German luxury car (probably one of theirs) like a palanquin and smiled for the camera while filming an ad for a sports gym. This white Christmas was growing deadly cold, yet both the girl with a bare midriff and a megaphone and the oiled-up group in only trunks did not seem to care. District 15 really was a strange place. Enough so that the TV cameramen who had showed up hoping to get some good footage had to cover the lens with a hand to avoid filming the overly risqué costumes and the people misbehaving for the camera. It was easy to see why no one was paying much attention to Anna.

Had she chosen to use the elevated path because the ground level was packed in as close as a crowded train during rush hour? Although it did look like there would have been other options.

“She really is staring due east!” shouted Mikoto while focusing on something other than the people.

A blue sign was installed on the pedestrian deck. It was half frozen over by sherbet-like snow, but it was still readable: ''Straight Ahead – District 7.

(She’s moving from west to east? And District 15 leads right into District 7.)

Shokuhou must have been thinking the same thing because she arched one of her shapely eyebrows.

“There are plenty of landmarks there, but the last place we want her is there too: the District 7 hospital where he was taken.”

Anna was walking along in such a defenseless way she might as well have been daring them to attack her.

And if they managed to entertain her, she would be willing to come to stop and watch the show. But the instant she lost interest, she would resume walking toward that hospital. And once she arrived, she would destroy the entire building with the dying boy inside. Her steady pace gave off the same precision fear as a time bomb or a cruise missile.

Shokuhou kicked her legs like a small child while being princess carried.

“So what do we do?”

“Stop trying to act cute, pork buns.”

“The next time you call me that, I’m breaking through your mental barrier with Mental Out.”

“Oh, really? Well, I chose not to call you ‘sweet buns’ because I thought it sounded wrong, but if that’s what you prefer. Also, she’s using a device to navigate, isn’t she? Then we need to move in close and attack.”

“Did you learn nothing from last time!? We can’t hope to win with our direct fighting ability!!”

That was not something two Level 5s should have been saying.

But if they did not accept their disadvantage, they could not keep up with reality. They would be left behind by the times.

Mikoto let out a white sigh.

“Which is why that’s a diversion. Our real plan is to hack her phone and mess with her navigation to send her in an endless circle. I don’t really know how much of a monster this Anna Sprengel person is, but that’s a normal electronic device she’s holding. We can redirect her somewhere more convenient for us and then figure out how to keep her from defending herself. We’ll invite her into a whiteout. It’s time she learned how scary it is to get stranded out in the snow in a high-tech city of 2.3 million!!”

“I see,” said Shokuhou Misaki.

The diversion part would have to be done by Misaka Mikoto since physical fighting was her specialty. Everyone involved already knew Shokuhou Misaki’s Mental Out did not work on Anna, so the Queen honestly had nothing to do here. She just wanted Mikoto to get it on with it and become a noble sacrifice that would extend that pointy-haired boy’s life.

Except she had forgotten something.

Her dislike of the other girl was a mutual one.

“Okay, do your best to act as disposable bait. If she actually takes a bite of those sweet and sexy buns, I promise to never forget your sacrifice.”

“Bwah, wait!? Th-this is an 8-story building!! You can’t just toss me off of here, Misaka-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!!”

After a count of three, Mikoto tossed the weight she was princess carrying. Shokuhou felt an odd floating sensation, but she could not actually do anything but scream while dropping down. And with that much noise, everyone in the area ended up looking up toward the source. That included Anna Sprengel in the middle of the crowd.

And a crescent moon smile had torn across her face.

It was the cruel smile of a small child thinking about squishing the bug held between her fingers.

“Ha ha☆”

“I am so sick of being used as a toy for weirdos with no common sense!!”

While Shokuhou flailed her arms and legs, the transmission of force must have come together just right because she spun around in midair and her feet landed cleanly on the railing of the pedestrian deck.

(A-and Misaka-san didn’t even help my landing ability!? Was that musclebound moron really trying to kill me!?)

“Of course I helped. I just did it wirelessly.”

That response came from the same pedestrian deck as Anna.

They were less than ten meters apart. Misaka Mikoto was crouched down in an animalistic stance as she took aim at the little girl’s navel. And she rushed in with enough force to dislocate Anna’s spine with a single tackle.

At the same time, a disconcerting sound came from all over Shokuhou’s body. No, the skintight suit covering her was being ''electrically'' controlled.

She leaped from the railing, flipped as gracefully as a ballerina or figure skater, and used the centrifugal force to sweep her heel around in a roundhouse kick. It was aimed for Anna’s face. Specifically, her eyes.

She did not need to score a clean hit.

As long as it blinded Anna or forced her to evade, it would create the opening Mikoto needed.

“Wait! Misaka, why!?”

Shokuhou Misaki finally bristled and yelled about being used as a sacrificial pawn, but the seemingly ten-year-old girl reached a small hand out toward the approaching heel and casually grabbed the Queen’s ankle. With a swing of her arm, Shokuhou transformed into a projectile to intercept Mikoto.

Mikoto did not really care. She focused on her magnetic control.

Instead of catching Shokuhou who flew in while rotating like a defective boomerang, Mikoto stepped on the girl (specifically on those loathsome twin pork buns on her chest) to take a leap forward.

This did not produce a “boing” sound effect, nor did it enhance her jump in any noticeable way.

(Really?)

The honey-blonde girl was mad now (and too much of an amateur to realize she needed to focus on her landing right now), so she pulled a TV remote from her bag and aimed it at Mikoto.

That girl who liked watching TV despite being the Queen of social media raised her voice.

“There are TV crews here, so you can kiss your social life goodbye after I make you strip down and dance in the nude, Misaka-saaan!!”

“Don’t interfere! Now is not the time!!”

With a dull zap, Mikoto’s head shook to the side. The #5’s Mental Out did not work on the #3 as long as Mikoto rejected it. All it did was give her a minor headache.

Without that, Mikoto would have crashed into Anna Sprengel, slammed her to the ground, and pinned her down. As a teenage girl, she hated having to win by using her weight, but there was no way such a little girl could overpower her like that.

But.

Something scorched the empty air.

If Mikoto had stayed on her previous course, her upper body would have been reduced to ashes before she even reached Anna.

Anna did not appear to be holding any kind of special weapon.

She had simply blown a kiss in an oddly mature way for her body size.

(What? This isn’t like that junk she was using before!)

The soles of Mikoto’s shoes scraped at the pedestrian deck. She had landed a bit to the side of the girl instead of on top of her.

She had not intended for that and she doubted Shokuhou had either.

Still unarmed, Anna laughed.

She crossed her fingers in an odd way for simply clenching and unclenching her fist.

“Hilarious. You should really keep the unathletic one in charge.”

“I! Am! Not! Unathletic!!!!!!”

That must have been something Shokuhou Misaki refused to let stand because she tearfully hopped back up while rolling and writhing on the ground (because she had been too focused on revenge to prepare for her landing).

Anna waved a small hand and took a single step back.

That brought her right alongside a redheaded high school girl in a knit cap who happened to be on the same pedestrian deck.

“Oh, no! She’s taking a hostage!!”

“Hey.”

But what happened next came as a complete surprise.

Instead of holding a blade up to the girl, Anna whispered in her ear.

The girl had been trying to earn more views on social media by filming as much of the partying as she could, but she had not had the courage to dress up in a costume herself.

“''Did you hear that? A mere middle schooler is worried for you. Doesn’t it make you want to die of embarrassment when you’re in high school''?”

“What?”

“''How long were you planning to be a mere cameraman while walking around in the snow without an umbrella? Don’t you feel lonely standing there adjusting the camera’s focus? It’s your phone, so shouldn’t you be there in the center of the screen? And you have a new power to show off, don’t you? If you could only use the magic properly, you could tear down the illusionary hierarchy built by science. And isn’t today the perfect day to throw out your inhibitions and make yourself the star?''”

Miss Sprengel’s whispers made the girl gasp.

Those words were like a sweet and slow-acting poison.

“''Sigh. Maybe my hopes for you were misplaced.''” She delivered the finishing blow. “''You’re just going to sit here all alone on Christmas and let that power go to waste, aren’t you? People like you, who have the power to change their future but refuse to do so, are doomed to live and die in obscurity.''”

Those words must have carried a great bewitching power because the knit hat girl immediately changed her mind.

“The power of a four-legged animal can be extracted from a single finger. Picture a line extending from the center of your heart to the tip of your middle finger and let the fire essence roar!!”

A bright flash of light was followed by a sound more like melting metal than burning.

And that was accurate because the pedestrian deck was melted and sliced through.

“What in the—!?”

“Ah ha ha.”

The knit cap high school girl’s response was strange.

She could have easily become a murderer just then, but it was joy that covered her face. She sounded like an elementary schooler whose esper power had first shown real results.

“I did it, I did it!!” She kept her palm held out toward Mikoto and Misaki. “I actually did it!! I forced the famous #3 to gasp and fall back. Hey, were you filming that? A selfie isn’t enough for this! This needs to go viral! My power was real after all!!”

Mikoto was overwhelmed by how unusual this was, but then she heard some laughter growing more distant. Anna Sprengel was slipping through the crowd while whispering a few statements each to the boys and girls she set her sights on. With some she used a grudge, with some talk of making easy money, with some an inferiority complex, and with some a desire for unity. She chose the perfect words to work their way deep inside each individual’s heart.

That was all it took to unleash something.

The middle and high school students enjoying their Christmas pulled out some objects from their pockets and bags. Some were plastic wands, some were metal medallions, and some were cards made with an automatic business card printer.

They all shouted something, but Mikoto could no longer perceive it as words.

Their voices shook the entire deck like the cheering at a stadium and their voices produced beams of light, explosions, ice spears, and even humanoid forms that rushed toward Mikoto like a flash flood.

Mikoto’s intuition told her this was very bad.

She could tell these were not the esper powers she was used to dealing with.

She reflexively tried to leap up with her magnetism to avoid it, but she felt some resistance at her right leg.

Someone was clinging to her while squishing those two chest buns against her leg.

The girl really did have tears in her eyes at the prospect of being left behind.

“What kind of servant are you, you violent maid!? You need to look after your Queen when she has this kind of once-a-millennium beauty, Misaka-saaan!!”

“Bwah!?”

She lost balance and both of them fell from the railing and off the pedestrian deck altogether.

But that may have been the best move they could have made since a few beams of light scorched the sky above. Mikoto could not have been more reluctant to admit it, but she might have been shredded by that barrage if she had followed her original escape plan.

Instead of falling to the ground, she used magnetism to attach themselves to the underside of the pedestrian deck. The unexpected movement managed to shake off all the gazes from above and below the deck.

“Any idea what that was!?” she asked.

“It wasn’t ordinary esper abilities, that’s for sure. If it was, then two Level 5s like us wouldn’t need to hide up here like bugs.”

“I agree, but that isn’t what I was talking about. If you had a ‘special power’ dropped into your lap out of the blue, would you really just start using it to kill? To be honest, Anna’s words weren’t that attractive. In fact, you’d be extra skeptical of any offer made by a little girl wearing only a thin cloth. Con artists normally try to look as legitimate as possible while giving an extremely calculated sales talk! So why did it work for her!?”

Mikoto was asking the Level 5 with the strongest psychological power if there had been any “interference” at play there.

“All she did was talk to them.” The Queen bluntly rejected that idea. But, “That can work if you already have your target’s personal information. Specifically, if you have already researched all of their internal problems, such as inferiority complexes, traumas, and mental tension in need of catharsis.”

“But how could she…?”

Mikoto trailed off as she found the answer.

R&C Occultics.

That enormous IT company had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and took fortunetelling requests from all around the globe. Which required the names, genders, ages, birthdates, blood types, and other crucial personal information about the requester and the person they had a crush on. (Did it also work with more platonic feelings, a boss you disliked, or someone you wanted revenge against?) Even the reason someone wanted the fortunetelling was a treasure trove of information on their doubts and worries. The possibilities someone rejected for themselves and the words they wanted to hear someone else say were a very good indicator of their psychological scars.

Giant IT companies loved to show off how personal information was a new form of monetizable asset, yet they also did everything they could to extract it from people without paying them for it, so analyzing their users’ browsing history to display the most effective advertisements was a walk in the park for them. If you dug deeper into those techniques, you would be able to influence the nonphysical mental world through psychological analysis, scoring people’s humanity, creating a cyber cult, and more.

In other words, you could develop a master key that would have no effect on the other 7 billion people out there but was carefully designed to stir something inside that one person and push them toward a certain action. Of course, it required such a massive prior investment that it was generally not worth the effort.

But this extraordinary idiot had actually done it.

This fool had ignored all of the warning bells from wiser people and done it anyway for one simple reason: because she could.

“By the way.” Anna Sprengel’s cruel laughter arrived from somewhere in the crowd. She sounded like a child who had never been taught the value of life. “Psychology deals in individuals and groups. Just like a single person running for the entrance during a good sale or at a concert will inspire everyone else to do the same, the actions of a few have a way of spreading through a larger group. To be clear, controlling a group is much easier than controlling an individual.”

Mikoto heard a gurgling sound.

She raised her guard against whatever was coming, but that “flash flood” from before did not arrive again.

Puzzled, she hacked a nearby street camera and displayed its footage on her phone’s small screen.

“What the hell?”

Was it Mikoto or the knit cap high school girl who asked that?

The girl who had wielded that strange ''new'' technique known as magic was holding her hands to her mouth. A dark red liquid was spilling from between her fingers. There was far too much sticky liquid dripping down to the pedestrian deck for this to be a simple scrape or cut.

“Eh, eh? Wai- bh. Cough, cough, cough!! What’s happening to me!?”

She extended her bloody hands hoping to find some assistance, but no one reached out to help her. In fact, the other boys and girls who had used what was (apparently) called magic were all coughing up blood and collapsing much like her. No, it went beyond coughing up blood. The blood vessels in their body were bursting, the dark blue marks of internal bleeding appeared on their skin, and some of them must have had the blood vessels in their eyes burst too because the whites of their eyes were stained red.

There was no answer to be found here.

Of course there wasn’t when no one understood the mechanism known as magic.

Their minds clung to speculation to escape the fear of not knowing and that groundless information inspired new hatred.

In other words…

“The #3 did this.”

There was deep resentment in their voices.

They refused to admit to their own fear, so the resentment settled in deep and inspired simple aggressiveness and hostility, all so they could avoid looking at their impending doom.

They were driven by an invisible fear.

Civilization had regressed to the age when germs were called a witch’s curse. If they caught a cold from being out in the winter chill, they would blame Mikoto. If their throat grew hoarse after shouting too much, that too would be Mikoto’s fault.

“She used EM waves somehow!!”

“That’s right. Why else would our blood vessels start bursting!?”

“It’s her or us! Electrolysis can easily break down our vitamins!!”

Mikoto had trouble breathing.

Even Shokuhou asked a trembling question while below the pedestrian deck that had clear icicles hanging down from it.

She had doubt in her eyes.

“I seriously doubt you did, but you didn’t actually do anything, did you?”

“No, I have no idea what this is. In fact, I can’t even cause that with my powers!!”

Mikoto shouted back, but that did not make it any less awkward. Yes, Mikoto and Shokuhou knew more about the situation than any of the other students, ''but not even they knew what was happening.'' And without knowing that, she could not be 100% certain she had not accidentally caused this somehow.

If Kamijou Touma had happened to be here, he could have explained it right away. He would have said this was the obvious ''side effect'' when a scientific esper used magical spells. He would tell those students to stop if they wanted to avoid destroying all their blood vessels and nerves.

But the majority of people living in Academy City did not have that knowledge.

And without the knowledge to avoid the damage happening to them, they could only turn to meaningless superstition.

Kill the witch and all the world’s problems will be solved. Break the Muramasa because that sword is disturbing the peace of the world. In the West and the East, there had always been cases of absurd mass hysteria where people attacked a minority to achieve peace of mind.

People were more frightening when inspired by fear than by anger.

Because they could no longer decide for themselves to lower their raised fist.

“Hey, what do we do? She already saw who we are. Oh, god. This is terrifying.”

“Shut up. We can’t back down now that the fight’s started. If we don’t take her out, she’ll just hunt us down in revenge!!”

“Get her!! Before she can attack again!! This invisible attack can get you through your dorm’s walls, so we need to kill her nowwwwwwwwwwwwww!!”

“Misaka-san,” said Shokuhou, but Mikoto was on the move before she even finished. With the Queen still in her arms, she used magnetism to swing around from the bottom of the pedestrian deck like she was on a trapeze. She flew in a large C to arrive high overhead just before the point below the deck was filled with beams of light and great heat. That part of the deck actually melted and the remainder tilted like it had lost its balance.

The #5’s eyes were wide as she clung to the #3’s hips.

“We can’t get the vaccine or antidote if we lose sight of that monster. And she’ll destroy the hospital when she gets there. Where did Anna Sprengel go!?”

“I don’t know!! But these people collapsing take precedence right now. Did Anna do something to them!?”

Every time the terrified students used magic, they would harm themselves more, but they mistook that for another mysterious attack from Misaka Mikoto, grew even more terrified, and clung to magic again to rid themselves of that fear. Unfortunately, no one here could prove to them they were trapped in a hopeless vicious cycle.

Kamijou Touma was not here.

Even so, Misaka Mikoto focused on what they had to do while she flew upside-down in the air.

“Shokuhouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!”

That verbal slap to the cheek got the Queen to gasp and grab her remote.

Yes.

Anna Sprengel and Misaka Mikoto were exceptions, but Mental Out would work just fine against this ordinary group of ordinary people.

A single button froze the world around them.

All those boys and girls had been shortening their own lives with magic like someone obsessively checking to make sure they had locked the door before heading out, but now they all came to a stop.

The negative spiral had been broken.

At the same time, the only person still moving stood out like a sore thumb. A small form was using the stairs to descend from the tilted deck.

It had to be…

“Anna Sprengel!!!!!!”