Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 8===

The large four-wheel-drive vehicle arrived at the District 2 General Anti-Skill Station.

While the vehicle was navigating the parking lot, Shirai clicked the send button for the report she had compiled. However…

“Transmission error?”

“Huh, so even kids these days get it wrong sometimes.”

The combover and glasses man was not trying to tease her— he sounded more like he had spotted a four-leaf clover. There appeared to be some trouble with the network, but they were already at the station. She could hand the laptop itself to an administrative worker there.

“You’ve turned a major corner in your life once you start proudly talking about ‘kids these days’,” she said while stepping out of the unnecessarily large vehicle. “Your students won’t like you if you draw that line between yourself and them.”

“Eh? But I’m still a virgin.”

“Why would you reveal that information here!? And to a middle school girl no less!?”

What connection did that have to what she had said? She did not like how that had been a follow up to discussing his students. The Personal Information Protection Law needlessly weighed down on her shoulders. Did she really have to carry that information with her until the day she died?

This was District 2.

That district specialized in the research of gunpowder and vehicles, so its Anti-Skill station was very well equipped. It was now acting as their new headquarters.

They could not give up just because they had lost one base.

Shirai’s feet felt heavy as she walked. The scope and gruesomeness of the damage caused by the dark side was part of that, but she also could not wholly endorse what Anti-Skill was doing. She felt like a heretic, but things changed once they arrived at the Anti-Skill base.

There were very few people there.

The few adults who remained seemed listless. They were leaning against the wall or sitting down on the floor. The lack of conversation allowed a heavy gloom to hang over the place.

“What is this?”

“Half of us are no longer responding,” replied one of the officers waiting in the station. He at least seemed to still have a will to fight. “I really don’t want to believe all of them were taken out by the dark side, but I can’t deny how powerful those dark side freaks are. And they must have hit us with some kind of cyber attack. That means we can’t get an accurate count, allowing our imaginations to run wild.”

“You mean…they got away?”

“I hate to admit it, but yes. A lot of us are starting to think it was a mistake to dig up the dark side.”

None of them wanted their entire force to go down fighting.

A lot of Anti-Skill would have believed this job would only entail chasing down the criminals and taking them into custody.

But the reality they found was quite different.

Not even the murderous dark side would slaughter 2.3 million people to protect their throne, but Anti-Skill would not want to lose their own lives during a war of attrition. Not everyone thought saving the world was worth it if they or their family were killed in the process.

The problem was the ratio. A small minority would not have caused much of a problem, but once a majority of Anti-Skill had lost their nerve, the entire organization could fall apart. Especially if some of them started betraying their colleagues in the hopes that the dark side would spare them in exchange. And in truth, this base was badly understaffed.

It was an issue of morale.

Once morale dropped far enough, they could collapse despite outnumbering their opponents. And that did sound like a method criminals would prefer to use.

“This is worse than I imagined.”

Shirai breathed a heavy sigh. The “attack” had already begun. She felt a weight on her own shoulders, but she could not back out now.

Not after seeing those young twins smiling in that rotting world.

After meeting up with some other Anti-Skill officers, they guided her to the heliport on the roof.

“Phase 1 was less successful than hoped, but we did do some damage to the dark side’s hideouts and labs.” Fully-equipped Namino spoke over the artificial gale produced by the main rotor. “In Phase 2, we will strike at the dark side remnants trying to escape. Possible escape routes include the walls surrounding the city, its gates, the airport, the heliports, and the bases for loading shipments into the long-distance trucks. The brutal harmfuls are our top priority, but I also want to actively hunt down the gentler beneficials if we have the chance. At any rate, the remnants should be concentrated in the more popular spots, so we should be able to round them up if we attack there.”

“Attack, hm?”

“You got a problem with that?”

He seemed awfully sure of himself for someone who had been accused of excessive force earlier.

It made her want to ask for her own internal investigation right away.

The combover and glasses man tugged at her uniform from behind.

“(Sh-Shirai-san, you should go along with this for now. You can’t do anything if they refuse to let you join them.)”

“…”

“(And anyone would have a hard time taking the suspects’ side after the slaughter at the other station. You have to prove on-site that it is possible to arrest them normally without killing them.)”

“Understood. But stay away!! I have an anti-man barrier in place! Back up until I can’t detect your old man stink!!”

Meanwhile, the helicopter’s engine had warmed up.

She reviewed what information was available while boarding it.

Namino spoke on behalf of Anti-Skill as a whole.

“We will generally remain on standby up in the sky and rush in when a request comes in, but it would be best to make some predictions where we’ll be needed. District 23 in particular is a crowded airspace with more than five airplanes flying through every ten minutes. We would have a hard time making last-minute adjustments there even in an emergency.”

“Um.” Shirai raised her hand as was proper. “The point of Phase 2 is to cut off the dark side’s escape routes, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Then what is this?”

She pointed to the northeast of Academy City, but not toward a district bordering the wall and not toward the airport or any heliports.

Even she frowned as she asked about it.

“District 6 is an amusement park, but this says gunshots were heard there. What is that about?”