Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume15 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 14===

The vertical tremor was noticeable even here.

How many times was that now?

He had run away.

He had put a lot of distance between himself and the fighting.

Hamazura Shiage was currently in…what was this room even called? It was part of the airport’s “backstage” zone. All around him and even overhead, narrow conveyor belts branched out in all directions. He assumed this was where the suitcase tags were mechanically read and the suitcases were routed. Which meant whenever your luggage ended up traveling to some other country without you, this was where it went wrong. In that sense, he couldn’t help but dislike all this cold, precision machinery.

Another tremor.

“…”

Hamazura knew it was meaningless, but he couldn’t help but look back the way he had come. Over and over again.

…Was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet alright?

There were people with special power. There were monsters with power beyond anything Hamazura could imagine. But he also knew that strength was not absolute. Even Coronzon had been an individual who could lose her life if she took it too far.

He relied on others because he was afraid.

And that fear led other people to lose their lives instead of him.

That way of thinking probably felt insolent to those with ridiculous strength, but still.

“Yo☆”

Someone popped out next to him.

It was Blodeuwedd the Bouquet. She looked to his face and grinned.

“What are you still doing here, Hamazura? I thought you’d have escaped the airport by now. Wait, don’t tell me. Did you wait cause you were worried about me? Ha ha ha. How cute!!”

He didn’t have it in him to deal with her teasing.

Hamazura shouted, wide-eyed.

“Wait, but, um, what happened with that katana woman!? And all the others too!?”

Even now, the low tremors shaking the entire airport continued intermittently in the distance. With the intensity of an artillery battle. But if Blodeuwedd the Bouquet was hanging around here, then who were the Anglicans fighting?

He soon had his answer.

“You mean that Saint and Good, Old Mary? Well, I expect they’re fighting ''a whole bunch of hair'' thinking they’re fighting me. The Hanged Man happened to be among the hated beings who emerged. He’s said to be the villain who gave vanity and makeup to human women. Perfect for a deception spell☆”

“Aneri, explain.”

He only got a double buzz of refusal.

The AI must not have understand what she was talking about either.

(Hair monsters, huh?)

Hamazura started to recall someone else.

Apparently those things were still fighting. Which meant…

“So not even a monster like you could actually defeat the enemy. …So there’s that katana woman and…Good, Old Mary? Is she really that dangerous a final boss?”

“Her attacks aren’t all that impressive. She’s primarily a healer, so she’s a real pain in the ass if you have to keep fighting her and she keeps buying time. The best plan with her is to find a way to stop fighting and get out of there.”

…So the tremors shaking the entire airport didn’t qualify as “impressive”? They apparently lived in a very different world from Hamazura.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet cutely tilted her head.

“There’s no real reason you have to say here in the airport, is there? The Anglicans are backed by the country of England. Give them time and they will overwhelm you with numbers. That means sealing off all the exits and searching through the entire locked room they created. If you don’t want me to kick your ass for worrying so much about the enemy’s lives, I recommend escaping before those idiots can set up a perimeter.”

His cracked phone buzzed twice. To reject that idea? No, AI Aneri may have been upset at being beaten to making that recommendation. Could data even feel upset?

Hamazura didn’t want to be caught by those Anglican people either.

But what was he supposed to do?

“I’d love to escape, but where am I supposed to go in this giant airport?”

“Hmm? If you don’t have any ideas of your own, I could always break through one of these walls for you. With a nice, solid punch.”

“Help me, Aneri! Peacefully!!”

He was reliant on someone else either way. …Assuming Aneri counted as a “someone” that is.

Aneri displayed a map of the airport taken (illicitly) from somewhere and added recommendation arrows to it. Instead of just showing the shortest route, it provided the route least likely to be watched or guarded. However, they came across a door with an electronic lock along the way.

He held his phone up to the reader on the wall and the sturdy door opened as if this were a cheap magic trick. This actually worried Hamazura more. Wasn’t an airport supposed to have especially strict physical security to prevent terrorist attacks? This seemed awfully lax.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet gave the cracked screen an impressed look.

“Huh. I feel silly only asking now, but does that phone do security cameras too?”

“I don’t know how it works, so ask Aneri.”

He felt like Academy City was overflowing with things where he had no idea how they worked. …This was hardly a new state of affairs and, for better or for worse, there may have been things no one could explain the inner workings of.

They opened a few more electronic locks, passed through a back area lined with plastic boxes…and finally arrived at a small back entrance for staff. The door had another smart card reader. It didn’t even take three seconds.

Blodeuwedd the Bouquet gave him a puzzled look.

“What’s the matter? Get on out of here, Hamazura.”

“But…”

It hadn’t been very…smooth.

There had been a slight pause or “hiccup” when opening this door’s lock compared to the others. It hadn’t even lasted a full blink of the eye, but that was why it stood out so vividly, like a lagging video.

Aneri was using a loophole – a vulnerability – the airport staff had completely forgotten existed.

That meant the airport would never use the loophole.

Yet some other data had been flowing through it, conflicting with Aneri’s command?

“…”

Hamazura considered it for a moment.

“Aneri. Where’s the closest access point to here? A big international airport like this must have dozens of them.”

The exit was right there, but this amateur suddenly decided on a change of plans. However, Blodeuwedd the Bouquet didn’t protest. She was likely confident in her ability to slaughter any pursuers if it came to it.

They turned back and electronically forced open another door.

The chilly room beyond was lined with computers the size of vending machines. He didn’t even need to hook up the phone with a cable. Once through the door that jammed EM signals, a wireless connection was enough to exchange data.

The flood of internal data didn’t tell Hamazura much.

So he had AI Aneri flag any information requiring a closer look.

“What the hell?”

Hamazura frowned as he viewed the cracked smartphone screen.

Black_Oneday.

He had no idea what that English text meant. That one unnatural phrase was scrawled within the otherwise orderly script.

Could it be?



“Is someone other than us hacking in here too?”

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