Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth3
Depth 3: A Single Betrayal[edit]
Part 1[edit]
Helplessness ran rampant.
Conversation had all but vanished aboard Camouflaged Carrier Izanami.
Mikoto felt like more people weren’t finishing their meals.
She had also heard the Izanami’s sickbay was now a busy place.
A lot of the girls were asking for sleeping pills.
The rules-loving dorm manager had apparently been going nuts, but Watanabe-sensei had managed to placate her. Good thing too because if that tyrannical glasses women was loosed on the Izanami now, none of the girls living there would survive.
Because every one of them was deserving of punishment by Tokiwadai standards. All of their lives were out of balance to some extent.
And it all came down to one thing.
“Fear of a ballistic missile,” muttered Mikoto.
The Empire had already targeted them with a variety of Girlish Weapons, but this was on another level. Struggling to survive would have zero influence on their fate.
No matter what they did, the other side only had to press a button.
Their lives were in someone else’s hands.
It was hardly surprising they were under enough stress to neglect the everyday necessities.
Mikoto was currently in the deserted cruise ship sports gym. Specifically, she was pedaling the exercise bike. She was the kind of girl who could relieve stress and such with exercise.
She glanced over at the adjacent booth as she pedaled.
“You have Mental Out, so can’t you erase everyone’s stress all at once?”
“Huff, puff. Not…happening.”
A girl for whom exercise didn’t have that effect was clutching the handlebar while flushed, sweating, and tearful. Even though the bike was on the lowest speed setting, which was probably slower than walking.
Shokuhou wore a tank top and leggings for a yoga woman look while Mikoto (in a T-shirt and shorts) stared at her with a distant look in her eyes.
“I think your problem is your jiggling boobs shaking you side to side too much. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.”
“My – cough – my chest is not that heavy. They aren’t wrecking balls.”
“No, I’m pretty sure they’re your true form. Their jiggling is throwing around the flimsy body attached to them.”
“Huff, puff. I’m going to scratch you if you keep this up, Misaka-saa- ugh.”
Whatever the case, she was so out of shape she needed rehab with a nurse to supervise, not a training session. …So this was fine. Mikoto had no reason to feel inferior to her. None at all.
“15 days left.”
“Huff, puff. Nothing has happened yet, cough, but you don’t think that’s going to last all the way to the end, do you? Ugh, cough.”
“Look, if you want that serious expression to work, you’re going to have to stop sweatily and tearfully looking to me for rescue.”
Then someone entered the sports gym.
It was their underclassman Shirai Kuroko.
“Onee-sama, I need your help! Trouble has broken out in the dining hall and it’s too much for me to handle on my own!!”
“Hm? Not often you ask for help with your Judgment duties.”
Was the situation that dire?
The nature of this “trouble” was unclear, but as dainty as the Tokiwadai girls looked, they were all high-level espers. With so many in such close quarters, the damage they could cause if ignited was incalculable.
“Just follow me to the dining hall!!”
“You come too, Shokuhou.”
“Huff, why should I bother? Puff, she asked for your help ability, urp, so you go deal with it yourself.”
“You must be thirsty, Shokuhou. Here have this room temperature sports drink.”
“Gurgle, gurgle!? No! So many chemicals!!”
After providing divine punishment tailor-made for that idiot who was dehydrated but refused to drink anything she considered unnatural, Mikoto skipped taking a shower and let Shirai lead her down the corridor.
“So what’s happening?”
“They weren’t physically attacking each other when I left, but it’s only a matter of time.”
That sounded bad.
They headed to the dining hall with lonely Shokuhou Misaki (still in her sportswear and unsteady on her feet) trailing behind them.
They called it a dining hall, but it was really a restaurant in the cruise ship area.
Uncertain what she would find, Mikoto opened the thick double-doors that felt like something from a party venue.
“We have no choice but to fight! When it was the Empire, they didn’t even give us a chance to talk. We’re dead if they launch even a single ballistic missile!!”
“We should surrender and explain the situation to them! We fought against the Empire, but we never touched the United States or the Republic!!”
She was hit by voices.
Mikoto was surprised to find voices could produce such a powerful storm.
She didn’t know who all it was, but the fighting wasn’t just between two people.
A large group of girls was split in two and glaring at each other while throwing fierce words back and forth.
Would they fight or not?
It was a touchy situation.
They were all wound up so tight Mikoto feared even a loud sneeze on her part could trigger a group esper battle. Was this what they got for inducing a civil war?
“Huh…”
“See what I mean?”
Tokiwadai students would sometimes claim to have never once gotten angry in their lives, but apparently that didn’t apply when death was so close at hand.
Mikoto glanced over at the #5, but Shokuhou only shrugged.
As they had touched on in the gym, she apparently had no intention of calming them down with Mental Out.
Or rather…
(She probably doesn’t want to create any unnecessary suspicion. Like that she caused the stress running rampant on the ship and she’s treating it as a way of gathering support.)
With something invisible like the mind, there was no way of disproving such things. At that point, she would have to turn them all into mindless dolls to end it.
“Kuroko, does your position as Judgment mean anything anymore?”
“I kind of doubt it…”
“Oh, I know. We can go call the dorm manager.”
The girls instantly fell silent.
The talk of battling a military power or of surrendering was just that: talk. None it felt real to them. So it couldn’t overpower something they knew all too well.
Like finding someone trembling in fear of ghosts in a supposedly haunted house and telling them all the cracks in the old building’s walls were probably releasing tons of carcinogenic asbestos dust. That would overpower anyone’s fear of ghosts and send them running for the exit. The Izanagi was here too, so they might as well make use of it.
“Misaka-saaan. That’s only going to work once.”
She knew that.
They had to come up with a plan before everyone’s fears and anxieties exploded.
Hopefully nothing would happen before they could.
Part 2[edit]
In the middle of the night, a girl spoke in the darkness.
“If we couldn’t fight, there wouldn’t even be an argument.”
Part 3[edit]
It was still before dawn when Misaka Mikoto was woken by a deafening noise.
It wasn’t the roar of a fighter’s engines.
It was an electronic tone. Like a fire alarm or a siren.
“Ugh!!”
She groaned in bed, but the sound didn’t end even after she waited a bit.
Throwing a cardigan on over her pajamas, she staggered out of her cabin. No one could sleep with this going on, so quite a few girls were poking their heads out of their cabins to see what was going on.
“Wh-what is that?”
“I don’t know,” said Mikoto before remembering that, as much as this part looked like a gorgeous and luxurious cruise ship, they were in fact aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
Hopefully this wasn’t trouble with the nuclear part.
Accompanied by an extremely sleepy looking Shokuhou (wearing a horrible sheer negligee), Kobayashi approached while operating a tablet.
“This is an emergency alarm. Apparently the problem is related to the maintenance hangar.”
In fact, the problem was some metal objects that had been fixed along the wall in front of the maintenance hangar in order to keep them out of the way. They were each about the size of a vaulting box and more than ten of them lined the corridor.
Together, they functioned as a transformer used to regulate a high-voltage electric current. Mikoto didn’t know if it had been on the Izanami to begin with or if Kongou and the others had installed it while modifying the electromagnetic catapult.
A faint smoky smell hung in the air.
And the disconcerting sound of popping electricity.
There was a short.
“W-without these…the catapult won’t work,” said a dazed Kongou, who spent all her time in here. She was slumped down with her hand still on an alarm with its protective glass broken.
Mikoto knew what this had to mean.
For an aircraft carrier, that device was like its dominant hand. She doubted the aircraft they had here were enough to defeat a world power like the United States or the Republic, but their situation felt so much more hopeless if they couldn’t launch any of those aircraft.
The captured Girlish Weapon F-35B might be able to make a vertical takeoff, but that was just one aircraft. They couldn’t expect much more than reconnaissance from her. She could only carry so many missiles, so she could be overwhelmed by superior numbers even if each individual enemy was inferior.
This left Tokiwadai as a whole defenseless.
Also…
“Is that a soy sauce based seasoning? Come to think of it, there were several industrial-sized containers of it in the ship’s galley.”
Mikoto had noticed the powerful scent but hadn’t commented on it, but Hokaze came out and mentioned it.
The place was soaked.
The air felt as heavy as lead.
This was no accident. And the seasoning had burned onto the machinery, making repairs more difficult than with simple water. Someone in Tokiwadai had intentionally tried to destroy the homemade transformer for the electromagnetic catapult.
There was a traitor in their midst.
Mikoto looked to the maintenance hangar. YF-22A, the giant girl in a long-sleeved leotard, was in there, but she only gave Mikoto a puzzled look in response.
She must not have seen anything.
The transformer was right in a blind spot. And the exit was too narrow for the fighter-sized Girlish Weapon, so she couldn’t even stick her head through to take a peek. That too seemed intentional.
A heavy mood hung in the air.
Kobayashi clasped her hands in front of her chest, forced a smile, and encouraged everyone. To keep them from freezing up.
“A-anyway, we’ll just have to repair it. Fortunately, the electrical system only got some seasoning on it, so we should be able to-”
“How?” asked Kongou, her head still lowered. “How can you be so sure the damage isn’t worse than that? Unless you were here when it happened.”
“Eh?”
Kobayashi didn’t catch the implication at first.
She also failed to notice the people around her pulling back like a receding wave when Kongou glared at her.
“Thinking back, it never made sense. Kobayashi-san, you knew too much. You knew when the dam was about to break, you knew about the Empire’s supposedly secret deal for Frozen Fossils, and you knew exactly how much damage the ballistic missiles caused.”
“Only because I’m usually the one in charge of radar and communications…”
“And you intercepted encrypted transmissions down in the CIC? You couldn’t find all those details from a scattering of messages. Not unless you were communicating with an outside force like the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic!”
The air seemed to freeze.
Kobayashi hadn’t expected this at all, so her mouth flapped wordlessly a few times before she got her voice out.
“That’s…that’s absurd! I’ve never even set foot on the continent. How would I secretly get in contact with someone I’ve never even seen?”
“You have all that communication equipment, don’t you? And it’s the professional stuff that can support an entire fleet.”
The first shot had been fired.
And once one person began to doubt, it was hard to stop.
“If you could receive encrypted transmissions, you could send them too. You struck a deal with someone you’d never met without ever taking a step outside the CIC. Was it for money? Or power? Or maybe they’ve already decided when they’ll launch their ballistic missile attack on the Izanami and you agreed to sabotage us in exchange for helping you escape to safety in a submarine or something.”
The tension in the air was palpable.
This was all just wishful thinking. Kongou was only looking for some kind of escape route. But that one drop of hope stimulated the other girls with that entirely fictional story.
Kobayashi shouldn’t have faltered.
When suspicion turned to the communication equipment, she should have demanded Kongou provide evidence from the usage logs or recording tapes. The burden of proof lay on the one making an accusation, not the other way around.
But she didn’t.
So Kongou leaned forward and raised her voice.
“You and only you had a reason to destroy the carrier’s catapult. For anyone else, it’s nothing but suicide!!”
Most likely, the fact that the entire hangar deck hadn’t been trashed by an esper power meant the sabotage had been done by someone who knew a fair amount about how the catapult worked. So wouldn’t the most likely candidate be…Kongou? But no. She wasn’t a good enough liar to cause a scene like this in order to cover her tracks.
“…”
“…”
But Mikoto suspected it was one of the two swim team members who were always assisting Kongou with her work: Wannai and Awatsuki.
One look at their pale faces as they huddled together a short distance away was enough to know that.
Of course, they hadn’t done it because they were working for the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic. They had probably thought it would be best if the Izanami lost its ability to fight. They probably naively assumed the world powers would cease to see them as a threat if they couldn’t fight anymore.
Mikoto had no proof.
It was all speculation. And in this unusual situation, stating a guess that came to mind would only end with others asking for evidence and proof.
She couldn’t let this continue.
Mikoto scratched her head and called a name.
“Shokuhou.”
“Mental Out? Don’t bother! Kobayashi-san is Shokuhou-sama’s friend, so she would just say she looked in her mind and found she was innocent, but is that true? Who knows!”
Kongou immediately snapped at her.
As if she were afraid to have control of the conversation taken from her.
But Mikoto had successfully shifted the focus from Kobayashi to herself.
Mikoto gave a quick nod to Kobayashi who had frozen up a short distance away.
Kongou failed to notice and spoke while red in the face.
Although that flush may have come from an emotion other than anger.
“Kobayashi-san and Shokuhou-sama are in the same clique. And come to think of it, it doesn’t make sense that you, the #5, would fail to notice what was happening. Yes, that’s it. I bet it wasn’t just Kobayashi-san. The entire Shokuhou Clique was in on it!”
It wasn’t a bad argument.
With Mental Out and any psychological esper power, it was crucial to maintain the trust of those around you.
That scheming Queen would be well aware of that.
But in this case…
“That’s not possible.”
“And why not, Misaka-sama!?”
“The Shokuhou Clique is the largest group in Tokiwadai.”
“If you think being outnumbered will silence me, you are sorely mistaken!”
“It isn’t that. It’s a miracle we can run this giant carrier at all with less than 200, so what would happen if the largest clique went on strike?”
“Oh.”
Kongou froze.
That she could rationally assess that question suggested she wasn’t motivated by anger here. She was yet another victim influenced by the risk of a ballistic missile attack.
“Shokuhou wouldn’t need to order Kobayashi-san to sabotage the catapult in the night. If she raises the white flag, the carrier stops. But she didn’t do that. I don’t know who is behind the damage to the catapult’s transformer, but I am confident the Shokuhou Clique as a whole isn’t responsible.”
“…”
“So what reason does Shokuhou have to lie about what Mental Out tells her? She doesn’t have one, does she? If she did want to stop the carrier, she wouldn’t have to hide it.”
Part 4[edit]
The danger had been defused for the time being.
Work had begun on repairing the electromagnetic catapult. It might take time, but it apparently wasn’t beyond repair.
But the atmosphere inside the Izanami was unpleasant even after the sun came up.
What were things like among the teachers aboard the Izanagi?
At breakfast time, not many gathered in the restaurant they were using as a dining hall. Only a scattered few. Most of the girls grabbed what they could, gathered in small groups, and ate in different places across the ship.
Shokuhou grabbed a vegetable sandwich and breathed an exasperated sigh.
“This is your fault, Misaka-san.”
“Huh?”
“Because you brought up the possibility of the largest clique going on strike. You shouldn’t have brought up that kind of hypothetical when things were strained enough already.”
…Had that been a mistake?
It had seemed better than letting Kobayashi be attacked over a nonsense accusation.
It was possible the restaurant’s emptiness was a sign of people’s distrust in the Shokuhou Clique since they “could be hiding anywhere”. No one wanted some offhand comment to be overheard and reported on.
“It’s true we are the largest clique, but we don’t have people running every section of the Izanami. The biggest threat here is that we will tear ourselves apart – the exact same thing we used against the Empire.”
This wasn’t really about the Shokuhou Clique.
Maybe it really had been a bad idea to remind everyone that a strike was possible.
Now they couldn’t predict who would stop doing their job. That meant they couldn’t even count on this sandwich and corn pottage being available to eat tomorrow.
(A strike is meant to be paired with a demand, but there’s nothing we can do if they say they won’t work until we can ensure we’re safe from ballistic missiles.)
But…
“Then what should I have done back there? While still saving Kobayashi-san, of course.”
“ ‘We damaged the catapult as a surprise readiness test, so stop taking it so seriously. Ha ha ha.’ ”
“…”
Was that girl a demon?
The worst part was that that probably would have been fairly effective even if it was a lie.
“Truth ability isn’t the only way to save people. Isn’t that right?” Shokuhou brushed her long blonde hair off her shoulder. “Then no one would be to blame and they would all feel silly for being angry and slink off on their own. But this clueless meathead just had to turn me into everyone’s punching bag.”
An upperclassman was shrinking down shyly nearby.
It was Kobayashi.
“I-I’m so sorry my carelessness caused all this to happen.”
“What are you talking about, Kobayashi-senpai? You didn’t do anything wrong. All the blame lies with your clique leader who hadn’t prepared for that situation.”
“That’s right. The one who threw oil on the fire thinking that would extinguish it was this meathead moron here.”
“Huh?” “Huh?”
When those two glared at each other from close range, Kobayashi finally smiled a little.
“I’m so lucky to have both of Tokiwadai’s Level 5s worrying over me.”
Ultimately, the cause of the strained atmosphere aboard the Izanami wasn’t Kobayashi, Kongou, the swim team pair, or the Shokuhou Clique. Those were all minor issues.
It was the girls’ fear of the ballistic missiles.
Everyone knew what the main problem was, but no one had found a solution.
That oppressive atmosphere could drive people mad. Ordinarily, they would present a solution in order to give everyone some fresh air to breathe.
“Hey, Shokuhou.”
“What now?”
They had to discuss the fundamental issue.
In other words…
“Are we going to fight or not? And in either case, what do we do about the ballistic missiles?”
Part 5[edit]
They had gathered in the CIC.
With Shokuhou, Hokaze, and Kobayashi there, the place looked a lot like a Shokuhou Clique hangout.
“The greatest threat of a ballistic missile comes from its altitude and speed,” explained Kobayashi from her usual seat. “They are literally sent outside the atmosphere where they can travel with zero air resistance until reentry, so their speed can reach a maximum of greater than Mach 10. That altitude also puts them well outside the range of any surface anti-aircraft weaponry. Shooting them down from the surface is just about impossible.”
“Are the ballistic missiles here girls too?”
“We don’t know. But the Harpoon and air-to-air missiles we’ve seen here looked like ordinary weapons, so presumably the ballistic missiles are also ‘just weapons’ with no girliness to them.”
That was good news at least. Mikoto breathed a sigh of relief.
Ballistic flight might sound complicated, but it could be thought of like a long throw in baseball. It was just that the top of that arc left the atmosphere in this case.
To shoot it down, you had to throw a rock from the side and hit the ball before it could land in the other player’s glove.
And with perfect accuracy.
“Ballistic missile defense is split into three stages,” said Mikoto. “First, shooting the missile down between when it is launched and when it leaves the atmosphere. Second, shooting the missile down while it is flying through space. Third, shooting the missile down between space and when its warhead detonates.”
“Of those, the first has the best odds of success,” said Shokuhou. “The missile is, after all, fighting against gravity, which lowers its speed. And its altitude is low. Also, it’s just one missile – the warhead isn’t splitting up and it isn’t weaving this way and that☆”
“Really? You know better and are testing me, aren’t you? We can’t use the first stage. The ballistic missile launch bases are at the center of the continent and we can’t get close.”
“That leaves us two options.” Shokuhou waved two fingers and winked with her back against the wall. “We use stage 2 and bring down the missile in space, or we use stage 3 and bring it down after reentry.”
“The third one has problems too. The Queen touched on it already. We do have a chance of shooting down the missile if it remains in one piece throughout its descent, but if the warhead splits, if it weaves hard in the air, or if it releases aerosolized fuel over a wide area, we cannot shoot it down.”
“That means we go with stage 2. We find some way to shoot down the missile while it’s flying through space.”
That would be a challenge if the warhead did split apart while in space, but in this case, they could assume every warhead was targeted at the Izanami and Izanagi on the ocean rather than targeting several cities spread out across the map. In other words, it would be an MRV, not a MIRV. Even if it did split apart, the speed and course wouldn’t change much until reentry. If they had a way to shoot down one warhead, the same defense system in the same position would be able to bring them all down.
“But how exactly do we do it?” asked Shokuhou with a shrug.
Mikoto ignored her. Did that spoiled pair of boobs just assume Mikoto would answer anything she asked?
“Kobayashi-senpai, when you say space, how high up are we talking?”
“Medium orbit…if that’s a real term. Geosynchronous orbit is at an altitude of 36,000km and space stations orbit at an altitude of about 400km, but ballistic missiles reach an altitude between those two. Somewhere between 1000 and 3000km, I think.”
Three thousand kilometers. That height was probably longer than the Japanese archipelago.
“Civilian space planes that take off in midair go up to around 100km, right? I assumed it would be more like that…”
“That idea isn’t entirely wrong.” Kobayashi suddenly contradicted herself. “Because ballistic missiles will fall back toward the surface. They drop in altitude on their own. If you want to intercept them in space but just outside the atmosphere, you can expect to contact them lower than the space telescopes and shuttles, but higher than the ballistic space planes. So between 110 and 120km.”
That sounded more realistic than sniping them from 3000km away.
Sniping them from 120km away would still be a challenge, though.
“All we have available to us are carrier aircraft,” said Shokuhou. “At best, they can maybe reach an altitude of 25km.”
It was a simple subtraction problem.
If they were assuming the120km figure, then shooting down the ballistic missile in space would need something with range of 95km.
“But our fighters are only equipped with small air-to-air missiles. It differs by type, but those have a range of around 20km, right? That’s 75km too short. Shooting down a ballistic missile flying outside the atmosphere with that seems like too great a feat to me.”
If they had a giant strategic bomber available, they could have used an ALBM or something, but they didn’t have what they didn’t have. Not that those could be used on a carrier anyway.
“I say flying a fighter up to ultra-high orbit is a good start,” said Mikoto.
“That’s not the hard part,” said Shokuhou. “The question is what we’ll shoot once we’re up there. It would need greater speed and force than any of the air-to-air missiles we have here.”
Again, they didn’t have what they didn’t have. They would have to construct something with what was available on the Izanami and the Izanagi. So they could remove a fantastic laser weapon with 100% accuracy from their list of options.
However…
“I might just have an idea.”
“?”
Part 6[edit]
After leaving the CIC, Mikoto went in search of someone.
She started by checking the maintenance hangar.
She wanted the person who had been working on the electromagnetic catapult before dawn even arrived.
It was technically fixed, but any malfunction could get someone killed. She must have wanted to run as many tests and checks as possible. Mikoto hesitantly called out to her from a distance.
“K-Kongou-saaan?”
“Ahh!!!? What do you want when I’m so damn busy!?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
Part 7[edit]
The sunset dyed the sky red.
The enemy hadn’t waited.
“I’m reading a large object incoming from outside the atmosphere to the north-northwest at Mach 10.5. It’s a ballistic missile from either the United States of Narmeli or the Cutalularia Republic!!”
“That’s exactly what we want!!” shouted back Mikoto in her formfitting flight suit as she ran across the maintenance hangar.
Even the best plan needed real results to gather trust.
The plan had been to use a large piece of debris or some stardust moving outside the atmosphere at greater than Mach 10, but a real ballistic missile was much appreciated in this case. If she could shoot this down and prove that a ballistic missile attack was no threat, the trouble within the Izanami would go away.
YF-22A (the giant girl in a long-sleeved black leotard) had been on standby in the maintenance hangar and her eyes widened now.
“Wh-what’s going on!?”
“It’s time to settle this. Kongou-san, prepare the Shinshin for takeoff. You aren’t going to say it isn’t ready, are you!?”
A ballistic missile was flying this way at Mach 10.5.
Every second counted.
As soon as the Shinshin two seat custom was launched from the carrier, Mikoto took action.
Specifically, she raised the sharp nose nearly vertically and accelerated as if piercing into the heavens.
She broke through the thick clouds into the empty evening sky.
The fighter rattled unnaturally. Alerts she had never seen before flashed on the monitor. She was at max speed, but a stall warning appeared. The air was so thin the main wings had nothing to slice through. It also appeared to be affecting the water fuel’s burn rate.
(Oxygen. You take it for granted, so it’s terrifying when it’s suddenly not there. Now I really feel like I’m in another world!)
Maybe they should have prepared a special oxidant to keep the water fuel burning without the oxygen from outside.
No longer was she in an orange world.
On one side, the black starry sky. On the other, a blue spherical surface.
Wasn’t the sunset an illusion created by the air refracting the light and absorbing certain wavelengths? Mikoto was reminded of that fact now that the atmosphere was so thin and she had left behind the rules of the surface.
The altimeter displayed 24,000 meters. The canopy’s exterior was freezing over.
Just a bit further.
Only 1 more kilometer. Just 1000 meters!!
“Got you.”
There was no air to limit the visual range and she was freed from the limits of the horizon, but she was still too far away to see it with the naked eye.
Still, it appeared on her radar.
The fighter’s radar could only scan out to 200km, but it could cover a much wider range when linked to the carrier’s anti-missile radar.
A monster was flying straight this way.
“Railgun 01. I’m starting.”
She suppressed the panic growing inside her.
She forced herself to ignore the engine’s whine and the coating of ice creeping across the canopy.
She only had one chance at this.
She had to make it count.
“Lock complete. Final check clear.”
An ordinary air-to-air missile wouldn’t work.
She could intercept the ballistic missile in space with an anti-air laser that could slice through any flying object at the speed of light, but she didn’t know where to get a toy like that.
But.
She could do something similar.
(I knew I could count on Kongou-san.)
If air resistance could be ignored, then this super weapon could theoretically max out at the speed of light by increasing the voltage endlessly.
The fighter’s stealth had been sacrificed to attach a 155mm caliber 19m long cannon to the top, albeit a bit to the right to ensure the canopy could still open and close.
(Not only does she have the skill to make this, but it’s just like her to get to work the instant I asked for it. Yes, none of us are the bad guy. We all just want to protect the Izanami and Izanagi so we can get back home!)
“Fire!!!”
In other words, she had an aircraft-mounted anti-ballistic-missile strategic defense railgun.
The Shinshin shook hard. It just about lost its balance at 25,000m, but Mikoto somehow managed to keep it steady.
You could think of it like a smaller and lighter version of the electromagnetic catapult.
But it was powered by Mikoto’s esper power. When she provided it an instant maximum of a billion volts, the weapon further amplified that to produce what she thought had to be a powerful weapon indeed.
What she saw seemed no different from light.
So despite firing it herself, she didn’t have time to follow it by eye.
Unlike a sniper rifle powered by gunpowder, she didn’t need to predict the target’s future position based on its distance from her.
It had already hit.
A white dot suddenly expanded into a massive explosion outside the atmosphere.
It was hard to tell at such a great distance, but that had to be more than 10km across.
It wasn’t a cluster bomb or thermobaric. It was even more destructive light.
But just before reaching its target, it had been blown away outside the planet.
She had won.
“Ksshh!! Ksssshhhh!!”
The noise over the radio was awful.
The enormous explosion in space may have rapidly compressed the magnetosphere covering the entire planet.
Come to think of it, this wouldn’t cause a magnetic storm or an electromagnetic pulse, would it?
Maybe that wasn’t a huge deal since they were over the empty ocean, but she decided to make a radar and visual check for civilian ships on her way back to the carrier. She didn’t want anyone to die adrift because their electric-controlled engines stopped and their shipboard radio couldn’t send out an SOS.
“Ksh. …gone. Railgun 01, can you hear me? This is Izanami. Early-warning radar confirms the ballistic missile is gone. You successfully intercepted the missile!!”
Even as Kobayashi’s celebratory voice reached her ears, Mikoto’s mind was far away.
She was looking at the planet.
That enormous and deep, deep blue spherical surface was floating in the dark. She could see the Y-shaped continent that differed so much from Earth. Everything felt free and equal up here, yet it also forced her to recognize that the world was finite.
Why were they doing this?
Who was devouring the limited planet?
She sighed softly.
“Railgun 01 to Izanagi and Izanami crew. How was that?”
After a short delay, a cheer burst from the radio. It reminded her of the scenes on the news after a rocket launch.
She had proven it was possible.
It would depend on the distance of course, but a ballistic missile crossing continents would take between 10 and 20 minutes from launch to impact.
So as long as they had a way to intercept it, they had plenty of time to get a fighter up in the air after detecting the launch.
The continent’s ballistic missiles were no longer a threat.
As long as they had the railgun-equipped Shinshin and the #3 to pilot it.
Part 8[edit]
The deck was abuzz with energy.
Even before the Shinshin had fully stopped on the Izanami’s landing runway, girls with eyes glittering rushed over and Mikoto felt a chill in her heart. They mobbed her once she exited the Shinshin. She felt like they were even trying to lift her up. She only had bits and pieces of memories after that. Like bottles of carbonated drinks being shaken and popped open much too close to the fighter and all its delicate equipment.
Then came the party.
And that night.
Late at night.
“Phew.”
Her stomach still felt funny, but Mikoto changed into her formfitting flight suit.
She exited her cabin and walked to the maintenance hangar.
Shokuhou was there.
“Honestly. You are so easy to read, Misaka-san.”
“Shokuhou…”
“Are you going?”
“I’d rather not, but I really don’t see any other way.”
Mikoto shrugged.
Because…
“The ballistic missiles were the prized weapons of the United States and the Republic. The ability to intercept them with 100% accuracy greatly alters the military balance. Whether they want to crush it and forget it ever existed or to steal the tech for themselves, they will do everything in their power to pursue the Shinshin Custom.”
The ballistic missiles couldn’t sink the Izanami or Izanagi, so couldn’t they just hide out at sea until the time limit arrived?
That was one idea, but it wouldn’t work.
“They can fire more than one ballistic missile at a time.”
“Right. If they fire dozens of them at once for a saturation attack, the one Shinshin won’t be able to stop them all.”
And if the railgun-equipped Shinshin remained inside the Izanami, that was the most likely outcome.
But there was a way to use this.
The United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic’s current top priority was the Shinshin and only the Shinshin.
By leaving the Izanami now, Mikoto could draw their attention.
It’s excellent stealth capability had been sacrificed to attach the extraordinary railgun, but that would let her protect Tokiwadai from the ballistic missile threat.
That had been her plan from the start.
And it had finally worked.
“…”
Of course, Mikoto had to return to Earth. If she wasn’t on the Izanami or Izanagi when the time came, she would be stranded in this world.
14 days remained.
No, 13 now.
(I will be back by the last day. I promise.)
“Oof.”
“?”
Mikoto’s thoughts were cut off.
For some reason, Shokuhou had ascended the simple gangway that resembled a pool lifeguard tower and climbed into the rear seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t kick you out all on your own, can I? Your meathead ability knows no bounds, so I just know you would cause trouble everywhere you went and create more and more enemies for Tokiwadai.”
Mikoto sighed.
How was she supposed process being pitied by that wicked girl?
The #3 hit the button to close the clear canopy.
“Well, if you insist.”
“Oh, you acquiesced quick. Hee hee. I bet you just want company so you won’t be lone-”
“Unlike me, you aren’t wearing a flight suit, but if you insist, I can take off like this!! Feel free to pass out since you’re only wearing your summer uniform, but don’t you dare piss yourself. If you humiliate yourself like that, I will never, ever, ever let you live it down. Good luck.”
“Um, hey, wait, noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!?”
The electromagnetic catapult launched the railgun-equipped Shinshin into empty space.
Misaka Mikoto began to work on a plan while accompanied by Shokuhou (whose soul had partially left her body).
She couldn’t climb too high or attempt any high-g acrobatics. The fighter could handle it just fine, but her stomach was still stuffed from that party. The carbonation was especially concerning. If she pushed it too far now, her body might actually rupture.
But if she was careful, kept it slow, and stayed near the ocean surface, she could still fly.
Her goal was one of those Sky Pirate Islands or Sky Pirate Ports where anyone could find shelter as long as they had money.
There were still two world powers left. What could she do with the one Shinshin against the United States of Narmeli and the Cutalularia Republic? There was much to consider, but she knew this first step was the right one.
She could not rely on the Izanami or Izanagi anymore.
She would be putting them in danger if she did.
And since the Shinshin couldn’t fly forever, she needed a runway to land on and fuel to fill her tank.
Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki.
It was all up to the two of them.
“This is where the real challenge begins.”
Part 9[edit]
In the Izanami’s maintenance hangar, a girl in a long-sleeved black leotard cracked her eyes open while pretending to sleep.
It was YF-22A.
“…”
