Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume5 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 8===

With a roar like a motorcycle engine, Kihara Hasuu swung his chainsaw side to side. Hamazura and Sodate both wanted to silence him as soon as possible, but they couldn’t rush the chainsaw without any kind of plan. If they suffered a fatal wound, Risako would blame herself and they couldn’t let that happen.

“Kee hee.” The chainsaw-wielding old man laughed. “Hee hee hee, ah ha ha ha ha!! You think you can reject logic with hogwash you lack the power to back up? Emotion cannot make up for a poor argument. And it’s time you learned firsthand what happens when your argument is lacking!!”

Hamazura spat back a response.

No, it wasn’t just him. That man was no longer with them, but several people here had inherited his spirit. So Hamazura would not be broken by mere malice.

“We lack the power to back it up? Of course we do!! Drencher and Frillsand #G stood out from the pack during Handcuffs, but even they agonized over their inability to protect those children. It all began there and ultimately led to him fooling the entire dark side while remaining a good person!!”

“Mister died in the end, but he didn’t just give up on everything from the beginning. Pain and suffering can give you the strength needed to keep moving. It doesn’t just break you and distort you – it can be used to push you in the right direction! That conversion was mister’s greatest strength. So I will never give up on finding a way for everyone to return alive. We might not have what it takes and we might suffer defeats along the way, but we will still search for a way to make everyone happy!! Just like mister did!!!!!!”

So they didn’t need an unnatural method of bringing back the dead.

Drencher Kihara Repatri’s determination, spirit, and powerful kindness lived on as the solid core supporting these other people. And they would use it to drag Risako up from the darkness. His life may have been lost, but he was still with them. No one could replace Drencher, but they could inherit his mission. Could they feel his pulse when they held a hand to their chest? Hamazura and Sodate didn’t need to confirm that with each other.

Could they risk their lives to protect someone?

They wouldn’t have appeared in this subterranean world unless they could give the same answer as that man.

''Kihara Hasuu.

''We will exorcise your ability to stubbornly cling to the world of the living.

“!”

Hamazura kicked up a tarp as a distraction while he grabbed Sodate and hid behind a nearby pillar. With the rattling of a chain, the tarp mysteriously erupted with orange sparks as it was shredded.

Sodate glared into the distance, biting his thumbnail.

They were helpless to fight back, but the small boy did not turn away from the threat.

Just like that young man had once challenged the depths of a great darkness.

He was willing to fight back if it would help them find happiness.

“What now? I swore to myself I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of Risako again! So I’ll do whatever it takes. If we can’t get that chainsaw from him, could we keep running away until it runs out of gas?”

Running away wasn’t embarrassing. It was a solid tactic.

That implication showed that Sodate really had inherited Drencher’s spirit. No one was talking about flimsy pride here. If they really wanted to win and rescue Risako from this nightmare without making her sad, they had to protect their own lives too. This time, they would reward that man who had fought against the city’s darkness because he couldn’t allow a world where children were set up to “bravely” die in the name of scientific advancement and expansion of the city.

But even though running away was a valid tactic, they would almost certainly be caught and shredded before the gasoline ran out. Their opponent was an old man, but the limited underground space worked against them.

(If only there was a way to immediately and safely stop that chainsaw.)

The delinquent boy worked his mind. He wasn’t out of his element here. He knew a lot about engines after his days of stealing cars and robbing ATMs.

“Hamazura!!” shouted another boy from further away.

It sounded like he wanted to convey something even if it meant coughing up blood.

Like he wanted to tell Hamazura something even if it meant giving his position away to Kihara Hasuu. He too was risking his one and only life for Risako.

Hamazura couldn’t see him, so he may have been behind a pillar or container.

“''That’s where I screwed up''!! Kihara Hasuu is using something else too. Cough! Something that amplifies the chainsaw’s sparks. I think it takes advantage of this Taboo place, but don’t forget that the chainsaw isn’t the only threat!!”

''I see,'' thought Hamazura.

“Oh, it’s just flint.”

“?”

It was understandable for young Sodate to tilt his head here. It was actually unusual for a high schooler like Hamazura to be this familiar with how lighters worked.

“Everyone should know that rubbing flint makes sparks, but you can’t actually make sparks with just flint. You need a metal to strike the flint with.”

“Eh? Really?”

“Technically, it’s the carbon mixed in with the powder of the crumbling metal that glows orange from friction.”

This amplified that.

It also let the chainsaw slice right through the pillars and floor made of concrete.

In that case…

“Does it absorb the carbon in the object to produce more sparks? And with the carbon removed, the object is a lot weaker than before?”

That meant the concrete pillar wouldn’t shield them. Unlike Frillsand #G, Kihara Hasuu had overcome an artificial ghost’s compatibility issues with Academy City’s Greatest Taboo and he even used them to his advantage. The weak old man’s chainsaw only worked inside the Taboo, but it could slice through and break any object, launching the pieces like a shotgun blast.

Hamazura picked up Sodate’s small body, turned around, and fled behind a nearby pillar.

No, he pretended to.

The crackling of electricity exploded from nearby. After luring the ghost in, Hamazura had dumped a bucket of water on an emergency power transformer among the nearby train equipment.

The untouchable immortal ghost clearly ''blurred''.

“Gbbbhladfghbh!?”

“The ghost lady could pass through walls and pillars, but she always avoided the microwave in the container kitchen. I don’t know why, but if you work like her, that has to be a weakness!!”

“Tch!! E-e-e-electromagnetic waves!?”

An electromagnetic pulse attack made by detonating a nuclear bomb outside the atmosphere was an incredibly effective way of destroying electronic equipment and networks, but receiving the go ahead on using a nuke was no easy task. That was why a cheaper E-bomb had been developed to scatter powerful microwaves from its detonation point.

Sodate wasn’t just another target needing protection. He threw down his cards and challenged their enemy himself.

“I don’t need any special power. I’ve lived with a ghost long enough that I know more about them than ''a beginner'' like you!!”

They had to stop thinking of a ghost as something special.

If their enemy was supported by electricity, then he would carry all the corresponding weaknesses. It was best to think of him like an exposed wire with no waterproofing. Saltwater, static electricity, microwaves, EMPs – he might even have more weaknesses than an ordinary human. They had just been going about it the wrong way until now.

They had found a way out.

Or had they?

A moment later, the entire underground space shook with a deep tremor.

“Hey, um, you said he’s been removing the carbon from everything, right? And that makes it all weak?”

“Y-yeah. What about it?”

“Then.” Sodate gulped and looked to something. “''Is this pillar we’re leaning against going to last''?”

Several thick cracks ran through it. The carbon may have been removed, so they couldn’t blindly trust in the safety of reinforced concrete. And what happened once the pillar couldn’t take the weight of the ceiling?

A burst of heavy air pressure passed by from top to bottom. It reminded Hamazura of the arrival of a great mass when he was waiting for a train on the subway platform.

That interpretation wasn’t inaccurate.

Several chunks of concrete larger than a big truck fell from above.

“Watch out!!”

He had no choice but to pick up Sodate and roll away.

(This is bad!! Risako is still dangling from the ceiling. She isn’t going to fall from that height without warning, is she!?)

The ceiling split and dropped pieces a few more times, so their footing was far from stable. The firm turntable now felt like a bed with bad springs.

No, that wasn’t it.

The tremors weren’t just from the falling concrete. The ground was also bucking up below them.

“D-don’t tell me…”

“Oh, god!! How far does this space go!? He hasn’t removed the carbon from the crust here to release the earthquake energy, has he!?”

The tectonic plates found deep underground were always pushing against each other, so if one were made more fragile than the other, all that force could be released like a spring snapping back.

(At least he’s limited to the objects in this space. Humans are made of carbon, so if it worked on us, he could extract all the carbon from any organ he wanted!!)

But the exact conditions were still unknown. There might be something that would make them a valid target, like the mythological rule that anyone who ate the fruit of the underworld would become a resident of the underworld.

By the way, looking up at the ceiling during an earthquake was apparently a unique trait of the Japanese since hanging cords and chains for adjusting the brightness of ceiling lights and floor lamps were ubiquitous in Japan. In other countries, people would focus on other things, like the ripples in a cup of water or the shaking of a candle flame, so maybe those reactions were a reflection of someone’s time period and nationality. For example, the way people recently began associating “everyone’s phone going off at once” with danger.

Anyway, Hamazura and Sodate’s immediate reaction to their anxiety was to look up to the ceiling.

Almost like someone had intentionally guided their eyes there.

With their eyes directed up and away from the space directly in front of them, Kihara Hasuu appeared from behind the pillar and held his chainsaw to the side. A horizontal sweep would be enough to bisect the both of them.

But a blinding flash of light from above made the attacker flinch just beforehand.

Should they be surprised that a ghost could be blinded, or impressed by how occult it was for ghosts to recoil from bright lights?

The cylindrical underground space resembled an ancient colosseum. Someone stood on the catwalk running along the perimeter. They had shined a light down.

“Use this. Hurry.”

The blinding light pointed elsewhere.

It shined on a fire extinguisher – a foaming model meant for chemical fires.

Hamazura leaped toward it.

Gasoline chainsaws were simply designed, so they lacked a water radiator. They used air cooling, just like a motorcycle, so they would burn themselves out with their own heat if the engine was covered in something fluffy like cotton. A bubbly chemical fire extinguisher compound would work just as well. The chemical bubbles would readily pop and cling to the engine, so Kihara Hasuu couldn’t just wipe them away as long as he was prepared to burn himself. (Could ghosts even suffer burns?)

There were other threats, like the structure’s collapse and the earthquake, but it would mean a lot to safely rob the old man of that deadly weapon.

The ghost wielding the roaring engine briefly directed his attention upwards and away from his soon-to-be victims.

“You? Are you another Kihara?”

“Sorry, but I owe Risako up there after Handcuffs. Damn, I knew she had a good heart, but I never imagined faking my death would come back to bite me like this. So this time, I’m going to set aside my own interests and give it my all. Because I could never forgive myself otherwise.”

A small orange flame waggled up on the catwalk by the wall.

It burned at the end of the cigar held in a golden retriever’s mouth.

“Also, I was never someone who would hold back just because my opponent is another Kihara. Kihara Hasuu, I don’t see a shred of romance in you. You are killing for no reason – not for science and not for Academy City. Which makes this something I must deal with.”

“So you decided to rely on this ragtag group? Then you bet on the wrong horse. I don’t care if my opponent is a Kihara any more than you do. If you get in the way of my fun, then I will kill you. I’m not going to complain if you operate under the same rules.”

Hamazura realized he couldn’t just look back and forth between the two sides of this incomprehensible discussion like he was a tennis referee.

(The entire conversation is a distraction to give us time to act. Nice one, you big dog!!)

He pulled out the extinguisher’s safety pin and aimed the hose toward Kihara Hasuu. Specifically, at the chainsaw’s engine. This projectile was entirely harmless, but if its big bubbles covered up the air-cooled engine, its heat wouldn’t be able to escape and the engine would stop.

Something felt wrong and his hope was shattered in an instant.

The lever had bent in his hand.

Kihara Hasuu ruled this territory and he had the power to extract all the carbon from objects.

“Shit!!”

Hamazura clicked his tongue and threw the extinguisher itself. If the old man swung the running chainsaw, the canister itself would burst and scatter its bubbles along with its nonflammable pressurized gas. He would end up coated with the stuff all the same.

But that hope was shattered too.

The extinguisher’s metal canister burst in midair before it could touch the blade. With the carbon removed, it hadn’t been able to withstand the internal pressure.

(That’s worse than I thought!! Did I rely too much on the extinguisher!?)

An impact hit him from the side.

Sodate had tried to tackle him out of the way, but as desperate as he was, he failed to move the high schooler. Kihara Hasuu raised the chainsaw diagonally in preparation to slice them both in two.

There was no time to think.

The red extinguisher had been shredded and flew their way like metal blades. Hamazura used his body to guard Sodate from that, but he was painfully aware he couldn’t stop the chainsaw. He knew that, but he had no other option either. A direct hit from the scattershot meant to pin them down could be fatal to Sodate.

All he could do was shut his eyes and clench his teeth. He heard the violent roar of the chainsaw swinging diagonally down toward him.

And.

The dull sound of destruction continued on and on.

Yet the pain never arrived.

He slowly opened his eyes to find something standing up to the chainsaw. Long hair too brightly orange to be human spread out before his eyes. A special fiber suit resembling a racing swimsuit covered a slender body powered by electricity and filled with an electrified machine oil gel.

Since she was inorganic and existed here, Kihara Hasuu should have been able to alter the distribution of carbon inside her.

Yet her joints did not collapse and her raised arms were not sliced through like tofu.

She was clearly more than just a machine.

Which was why her slender arms were enough to match the chainsaw!!

“La-”

Hamazura Shiage knew her.

The girl had wanted to prove her worth as an esper android who could free Academy City’s children from all the dangerous experiments. Yet she was a product of tragedy because that cruel researcher had designed her so she required human brains to survive.

With a dull clang, the chainsaw blade was knocked back.

“''Ladybird''!?”

The android built by this Kihara had resumed functioning to stop him.