Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume16 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 9===

He somehow managed to escape☆

“But did I really? This isn’t one of those things where they get you to let your guard down right before they jump scare you, is it?”

….Misaka Mikoto was supposed to be a middle school girl, but so why was he imagining a scene from a horror game? Specifically, one where you explored an abandoned village where all the residents had gone mysteriously missing.

He realized the Misaka Sister and the black cat weren’t with him.

Had Mikoto chased after them instead?

(Well, she won’t do anything to her sister. Or to the kitty.)

That said. He had a feeling the #3 monster was still wandering around somewhere nearby, but he appeared to have found an unexpected blind spot.

The girls dorm.

It made sense. If Mikoto wasn’t aware of the circumstances at his school, how could she predict a boy like him would escape here?

(I just hope she doesn’t use some weird hacking ability to find the truth.)

Kamijou prayed to something unseen as he hid in front of the auto-locking entrance.

Although it scared him that hope seemed so fleeting he was resorting to prayer.

Also, the girls dorm did have its bright and shining auto-locking entrance, but he had heard there were plenty of loopholes there. For example, you could apparently leave the dorm by climbing out the second floor hallway rest area window and climbing down one of the trees growing along the sidewalk. Why had that route come to be? Because a surprising number of girls would develop a sudden compulsion to sing at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night, so they needed a way to go out and do karaoke!! But if they used the main entrance, it would create a record they had left.

(So it isn’t just boys who want to do something even more if it’s against the rules.)

His school really was different from a prestigious one like Tokiwadai.

A rebellious phase was apparently important for developing a personality, but was climbing up and down a tree like a monkey night after night really good for your mental health? Seemed like that would mess you up a lot.

Kamijou opened the auto-locking entrance and walked inside.

There was no real reason to rush, so he decided to check on something he had been curious about.

But.



She was sleeping with her belly exposed.



“…”

There was no lapse in his memories.

This was the direct result of following the timeline in Kamijou Touma’s head.

Who was that woman?

He had wondered what the dining hall was like outside of mealtime. He hadn’t noticed a “keep out” sign on the entrance, so he had taken a peek inside and been hit with a major question.

A young woman, probably in her twenties, was lying face up on three dining hall chairs lined up in a row.

She wore a knit turtleneck and a short skirt. Her ears were covered in many piercings. She must have just put in whatever struck her fancy because the number on each ear didn’t match.

She wore fluffy slippers on her feet.

Her fluffy hair appeared to be bleached and dyed blonde, but it was currently tied back with a bandanna. It looked like she had fallen asleep in the middle of cleaning. But what was an adult woman doing in a high school girls dorm? It was baffling.

She looked like the pale kind of gyaru who never visited a tanning salon.

Maybe it was the visible navel and short skirt, but she sort of reminded Kamijou of a cheerleader.

Her mouth was opened wide.

She was enjoying her nap.

The apron folded up on a nearby long table reminded him of something. As did the lamé and beads sparkling on her painted nails.

…Was she the dining hall woman? Who normally worked at a bento shop?

Kamijou was honestly surprised to find she looked like this.

(Not that it really matters.)

A blanket had fallen onto the floor next to her.

A blue one.

It looked familiar. Wasn’t that the same as the one he found over him when he woke up this morning?

“So she gave it to me.”

This part did matter because he needed to thank her next time he saw her. He didn’t want to wake her just for that, so he couldn’t do it this time.

That aside, he now knew the dining hall was not open off hours. Apparently he couldn’t just pop in and grab a small thing of soba for a snack. That would’ve been ultra convenient, but that would be asking a lot of a place that wasn’t a 24-hour gyudon shop or family restaurant.

He quietly slipped out of the dining hall so as not to wake her.

The elevator was always busy in the evenings, so he used the emergency stairs instead. …He didn’t like how doing that made him feel segregated.

“Listen uuuuup. What’re you all having for dinner tonight? Want to come up with a menu with Demoness Mayu-chin?”

A few groups had formed in corners of the hallway.

Those were probably the boys who had taken severe damage from the real power of the real girls. A fake-sounding soprano voice was playing from their landscape-oriented phones. Hopefully they weren’t so desperate they would send tons of money to that anime-style 3D avatar.

And someone approached from the emergency stairs.

“Kamijou?”

Fukiyose Seiri held a large plastic bucket in her hands. Whether you imagined she was cooling a bunch of bottled or canned drinks in ice water or dumping a bunch of trash in the back alley said a lot about what kind of person you were. The point was the blue bucket had a lid and was large enough to hide in if you really tried.

“Oh, they’re resting on it,” commented Kamijou without thinking.

“?”

Fukiyose tilted her head in puzzlement, but he said nothing more because he knew he would be in trouble if she realized what he meant. Holding a giant plastic bucket seemed to have a way of pushing up a girl’s boobs.

“So what are you doing? I thought you’d get in trouble if you left your trash outside all night.”

“This isn’t trash. I’m cleaning and needed a stool. It wobbles, so will you hold it steady for me?”

“Cleaning what?”

Was that why the bucket’s lid had a dry rag on it?

He would understand if she meant her room, but who was supposed to clean the public hallways? That seemed like it should be a job for the drum-shaped cleaning robots to him.

Fukiyose adjusted the position of the bucket while looking up at the ceiling and sighed in exasperation.

“The robots only clean the floor. If you don’t clean the rest for too long, you end up with clumps of dust falling down on your head. Do you want that?”

And so Fukiyose intended to step up onto the giant bucket and clean the ceiling. The fluorescent lights were her first priority.

“I also wanted to try out this Ultra Electroduster. It uses static electricity to create a plasma blaster that collects all the dust in a single wipe. I want to see it in action for myself.”

“Buying more weird mail-order products, huh?”

If you had to search out a chance to use it, it didn’t sound very useful in everyday life.

“That aside, shouldn’t you find an actual stepladder?” Kamijou looked a little worried. “What if you break right through that flimsy bucket?”

“Why would I need to worry about that?” asked Fukiyose in honest confusion.

Kamijou was reminded that girls were as light as cotton candy.

If sturdy and heavy Mr. Misfortune tried this, he was certain he would break through right away.

“Okay.”

The black-haired girl placed her hands on the bucket and climbed up on her knees.

However, it was a light bucket.

“It’s wobbling a lot… Kamijou, hold it down for me.”

“Ehh? I’m not going to be stuck here helping you the whole time, am I?”

He obeyed even as he complained, so maybe it was too late for him.

He placed his hands on the bucket lid and placed his weight on it.

That steadied it enough for Fukiyose to slowly extend her legs below her. Kamijou naturally followed the movement with his eyes, but then he quickly looked away. Oh, right. She was still in her school uniform, which meant she was in a skirt.

“Whoa, hey. It’s still wobbling. Kamijou, hold it down bett- eek!”

Apparently it was fairly frightening for the person wobbling on top of it.

Her cries sounded a lot more pressing.

“Why aren’t you even looking this way? That’s why you can’t hold it steady. Look this way and focus!”

“You’re why I can’t!”

“I said look! If you don’t focus, it’s going to keep wobbling. You need to shift your weight when I do, so you need to watch me!!”

“Well, if you insist.”

…Kamijou had to wonder why a girl would attempt this kind of work while wearing a skirt. Because this was a girls dorm?

Then Fukiyose also noticed something.

She stopped her cleaning.

“…Kamijou.”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you looking up at me?”

“A certain classmate gets very angry when I do not obey her every command, so I had no choice in the matter.”



She stomped on his face.

With her shoes on.