Toaru Majutsu no Index:MvM2 Depth5
Depth 5: Disaster Rescue[edit]
Part 1[edit]
Q1. What do we do now?
A boutique in the Izanami’s cruise ship area had swimsuits. As well as swim rings and rubber boats. Mikoto took a liking to a bright pink one-piece swimsuit with a lot of frills. The frills were the best part. Because they obscured the small size of her chest. And so Misaka Mikoto was floating face up in the pool, lost in thought.
It was night.
The dark sky plus the night pool’s underwater lighting created a super grown up atmosphere.
“We could fight the Empire and win. We have our own Shinshin and F-2As plus the captured Girlish Weapons: YF-22A, four F-14Ds, four F-15Cs, three F/A-18Es, and three F-117As. With that much at our disposal…”
“You’re just being silly now. All that isn’t enough to fill a single ordinary carrier. How many warship girls did we see on standby at their capital’s harbor? If they send those after us, we’re done. They would overwhelm us with numbers ability.”
Shokuhou Misaki had also changed into a swimsuit and was floating in the same pool. Hers was all thin strings and looked more like something you would be forced to wear after losing a bet. She was lying face down on a rectangular air mattress floating in the water. While kicking her feet.
Why even bother changing into a swimsuit and visiting the pool if you weren’t going to let a single drop of water touch you?
(Also…)
A normal carrier, huh?
The Izanami had a lot of its space taken up by the unnecessary decorations making it a “camouflaged” carrier, but the bigger problem was that the Tokiwadai students numbered less than 200. A normal carrier would have a crew of thousands.
They had a fair number of the (non-girl) F-2As, but they were hopelessly short on pilots. Even with so much handled electronically, it was honestly something of a miracle they could run the carrier with less than 200, so they just didn’t have people to spare on the fighters.
Mikoto kicked some water into the air as she floated on her back.
“We can stay away from the continent and travel by sea as much as possible. We can produce water fuel, vegetables, and even chicken eggs, so we don’t need to return to land. Once we’re out of flight range for fighters loaded with anti-ship missiles, we’ll be safe. In this case, heading as far south as possible might be best.”
“That is better than all-out war, but I don’t think it will be that easy. The flight range is a meaningless calculation. Our ships can’t outrun them if they send a strategic bomber built for long-range attacks across national borders and to the other side of the continent.”
They had held this discussion a few times already.
And they still hadn’t arrived at an answer.
(Even with the top brass brainwashed,) they had already lost the best option of a ceasefire and peace with the Empire. That meant going for the next best option, but did that mean fighting or running? Could they escape if they kept moving, or could they hide somewhere and go unnoticed?
26 days remained.
They still hadn’t decided on a general plan, so for now they were just getting the ships away from the continent.
However, if the Empire had an airbase on a remote island like Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean, they could be cruising right up to an enemy nest. Mikoto and the others did not have a complete grasp of this world’s map or power balance.
“Still, at least they didn’t launch a bunch of nuclear ballistic missiles our way. If they had made a nuclear attack as soon as we were far enough away from the continent, this all would’ve been over.”
“They really aren’t going to do that, right?”
“I did spy on all the residual thoughts left in the international meeting hall, which is full of plotting day in and day out☆” The #5 winked while squashing her boobs between herself and the air mattress. “Apparently the three major powers have agreed to something called the Triangle Pact. To prevent an accidental nuclear war, they have made it so at least two countries need to input a launch code to launch any of their ballistic missiles, nuclear or otherwise. Of course, if one country gets pissed and suggests using them, the discussions will fall into chaos and they’ll never reach an agreement, so the pact effectively prevents any nuclear warheads or missiles from ever being used no matter how many they’ve made.”
So if one of the major powers began a destructive rampage, the other two could then instantly crush them.
Mikoto was honestly impressed by that. It was a far more peaceful way of putting a lock on nukes than the sloppy management of Earth’s mutually assured destruction. She wished the UN’s VIPs could learn a thing or two from this way of including the disagreements between major powers in the calculations for keeping the peace.
So…
“That means we don’t have to worry about any nuclear ICBM attacks.”
“Of course, that isn’t the only threat.” Shokuhou brushed back her long blonde hair as she lay on the floating air mattress. “If only we could speed up the countdown on that device aboard the Izanagi.”
“Or remove it from its pedestal and carry it around with us. The Izanami and Izanagi are too big for us to buy time with a game of hide-and-seek.”
That said, the return device(?) probably required power from the giant ship to function. They didn’t want to remove it and restart it only to find the countdown had reverted to the beginning.
But anyway…
“The biggest threat for now would be a strategic bomber that can fly more than 10 thousand kilometers.”
“Probably so,” said Shokuhou.
“Especially a stealth one. The ships’ early-warning radar could miss its approach, so our only option is to keep a few planes in the air on shifts.”
Part 2[edit]
Letting their extra strength soak off into the pool naturally made them sleepy.
But when Kongou Mitsuko came crying over the radio, Mikoto visited the Izanami’s maintenance hangar and found the giant fighter girls were arguing.
The disagreement appeared to be between an F-14D and an F/A-18E they had captured after the battle at the Imperial capital.
A giant school swimsuit girl and athletic bloomers girl were grappling.
What were they doing here instead of using the crane to return to the landing ship?
“How could you start dogfighting above the densely-populated capital!? You’re nothing but a coward who doesn’t care about the people’s lives, Toxin 01!”
“No, that was the best option at that time. I don’t care what you or anyone else says, Kitty 01. I did nothing wrong.”
“Have you no shame!?”
“Kitty 04 to squadron. Let’s teach her a lesson by pressing her bare boobs against the glass wall!!”
“Hey, hey, hey!! shouted Mikoto, trying to interrupt, but the fighters did not stop yanking at each other’s hair and clothes. While they looked like cute girls, they were around 20m tall, so she was decently afraid of being trampled. …Also, the F-14D with the call sign Kitty 04 appeared to have been secretly watching late-night dramas and had learned some indecent things from it.
While the Girlish Weapons didn’t seem to mind switching sides in a fight, did they generally agree on trying to protect people’s lives? They were fighting pretty fiercely here, but they weren’t firing any bullets. Perhaps they didn’t want any stray shots or ricocheting bullets to hit Wannai, Awatsuki, and the other girls watching nervously on in the maintenance hangar. They probably would have been shooting otherwise.
The F-14D kept yelling even after she was pulled away.
“You need to learn your lesson!! If you don’t, you’re not getting any more water fuel!!”
“Ugh… You want me to go hungry? Wahhhhhhh!!”
“Oh, Kitty 01 made Toxin 01 cry.”
“How could she!?”
“Wait, you mean I’m the bad guy here!?”
(Are they simple and easy to use, or does this just make them more dangerous? I can’t decide.)
They were seriously resolving their argument with food?
Mikoto sighed in exasperation.
And…
“…”
A short distance away, YF-22A was watching the commotion in silence.
She felt a disturbance in her chest.
The F/A-18E probably did deserve criticism for beginning a battle over a city on her own discretion, but it was the nature of the Liheilstaut Empire that had planted that way of thinking inside her.
She understood that the plan had been to lure Shokuhou Misaki, the Tokiwadai group’s leader, away from the rest and restrain her…but why do that in the densely-populated capital?
Maybe you could say that detail helped deceive Shokuhou.
And in fact, the term “capital” didn’t have much strategic value outside of the country’s pride.
The people didn’t seem to recognize what it meant, but the Liheilstaut Empire had already distributed its ministries and other administrative functions to other important cities so that the Empire could continue on just fine even if it was decapitated.
In an emergency, the leaders of the country could move their base of operations elsewhere. Preparing a second or third home base (in secret) in case of invasion of bombing was not all that unusual.
That may have been why they were willing to risk their capital for a single operation.
But.
Could they not calculate how many people would be harmed in the process? Had they really balanced that negative against the positive of fooling Shokuhou?
What was the point of the military and of a weapon if they couldn’t protect all the unarmed people?
“…”
Part 3[edit]
The next three days passed without incident.
23 days remained.
“It’s so hot…”
“Onee-sama, do not undo all the velcro on your flight suit. It is indecent. And stop flapping the stomach slit.”
Yeah, but she was on standby with nothing to do and the sun was beating down on her. It was nice the formfitting suit would prevent sunburn, but it did nothing about the heat.
She was willing to bet she could fry an egg on the landing runway.
The flight suit was designed to protect her even if she was dumped out at high altitude with a parachute, so it was mostly meant for cold temperatures. She could fasten all the velcro then, but the problem was in the heat.
“Ugh…”
The slits had seemed silly at first, but she had discovered just how necessary they were. Without that kind of ventilation, this heat would kill her.
Keeping that formfitting suit sealed tight would leave her drenched in sweat and possibly even with sweat rashes.
Oh, how wonderful was the power of air.
“So 23 days left now,” said Mikoto, still fanning herself.
They were looking at more than three weeks left of pursuit by the three major powers, so they couldn’t relax yet. Even if the past three days had been uneventful.
It was on that third day that something happened.
However, that something was not the arrival of a Liheilstaut Empire strategic bomber or being caught by a submarine packed full of torpedoes.
“Senpai, you said you wanted to discuss the weather map?”
Mikoto stepped into the windowless CIC.
Kobayashi, who was normally staring at the early-warning radar screen, swiveled her chair around.
“Yes, there was something I wanted to discuss with you personally since it will probably influence what happens next.”
She displayed a simple map based on what they knew of this world’s geography and overlaid it with the isobars and weather front lines that resembled distorted stumps. Those things usually seen at the start of the weather forecast.
Any Tokiwadai student would know how to interpret it.
“What…is that?”
“A massive cumulonimbus cloud. And it isn’t alone. Several of them are linked together. It may be a fairly unique linear rainband.”
They had no way of knowing if that was normal in this world, or if this qualified as unusual weather.
Moisture changed the reflection rate of radar waves, so they could be used to measure the cloud thickness and precipitation amounts.
Switching to a display of rainfall amounts created a screen full of red.
“It’s only an estimate, but this shows more than 200mm a day. That’s equivalent to a massive typhoon. And instead of passing through quickly, it could continue for days on end unless the band of clouds shifts.”
That sounded like a natural disaster.
Not even a sturdy military weapon would be unaffected by a weather change on that level.
This was indeed important information.
But.
Mikoto hadn’t known anything about it until she arrived in the CIC. Not even that it was raining. In fact, up in the cruise ship section of the Izanami, quite a few of the girls were casually lying around in swimsuits getting a tan (while the dorm manager wasn’t looking, of course).
Also…
“Is this divine punishment?”
“Could be.”
“As soon as we leave the continent, the Liheilstaut Empire has to deal with this. I guess god really is doing his job. Nothing gets past him.”
Not that Mikoto knew much about god. She had grown up in a city of science, after all.
Mikoto had a vague image of some white-haired and bearded old man standing a cotton candy cloud and holding a knotted staff.
“But I don’t think they have time to sit around and talk about it,” said Kobayashi, switching the radio to a civilian frequency.
Was the broadcast station incredible for reaching this far out at sea, or was the Izanami’s equipment incredible for accurately picking up such a weak signal?
Either way, the radio broadcast had ended its ordinary programming for some emergency news.
“If you live in Dorgionix, you need to evacuate to higher ground immediately! I repeat, the Imperial Ministry of Environmental Development has announced that the Slendard Dam’s water level has exceeded 98% and is rapidly reaching its limit. You are not safe even if you aren’t near the rivers! The dam could break at any moment!! Please check on your neighbors and work together to evacuate to higher ground by car or whatever means available to you! I repeat!!”
The announcer was shouting far louder than was usually considered appropriate.
That showed just how serious it was.
“What is Dorgionix?”
“The Empire’s second largest city. It has a population of more than 9 million. It is an industrial city built with reclaimed land in a fan shape alongside the sea, which means it is almost entirely flat.”
“…”
That meant it would be engulfed.
There was no saving it if the dam broke.
“The radio is telling them to evacuate to higher ground, but if a population that size makes a rush for the narrow and winding mountain roads, congestion is unavoidable. Most of them won’t make it.”
“But it’s their second largest city, right? Surely they have a lot of skyscrapers like the capital did.”
“Apparently they considered the image of a jumbled industrial city to be humiliating, so Dorgionix has strict landscape preservation rules. Including a limit on the height of all structures. If the gravity dam – said to be the Empire’s largest – breaks, I doubt any of the city will survive.”
…Oh.
Mikoto understood the gravity of the situation now.
But…
“Why did you want the advice of a pilot like me? Even if we ignored the risk and brought the Izanami to the coast, we can’t carry 9 million people, can we?”
“Rescuing them by sea would be a challenge. We can’t hold them all and there isn’t time. So I was hoping you could do something by air, Misaka-sama.”
“Such as?”
Asking that so quickly was as good as saying she was willing to help.
Kobayashi smiled a little.
She zoomed in on the map and surrounded a few points with red circles. They were each located alongside the rivers branching through the mountains.
“Based on the military and civilian radio signals coming in, they appear to be starting an emergency release of water from the Slendard Dam, but too much water is flowing into the dam from multiple rivers and the water level keeps rising.”
“But a fighter can’t change the weather. Unless you have a meteorological weapon in your back pocket I could use to scatter the rain clouds.”
“There is something you can do. The dam’s water level is rising both because of the rain and because the smaller floodgates elsewhere are malfunctioning. I would guess they were bent by the unexpected pressure caused by the extreme increase in water. The remote signals from central control won’t open them.”
“So if those smaller floodgates could be forced opened somehow…?”
“The water would be distributed through the different rivers and the gravity dam wouldn’t break. If the emergency release of water is greater than the amount coming in, the dam’s water level will fall.”
The current water level was above 98%.
There wasn’t much time.
But what if there was a way to fly at supersonic speed and launch air-to-surface missiles pinpoint targeting the floodgates?
“It’s not too late… Okay, I’ll head to the maintenance hangar and warm up the Shinshin’s engine! Kobayashi-san, you get the necessary authorization and whatever needed to send me out!!”
“It will be risky. The Izanami is already far out at sea, so you will barely have enough fuel for a round trip even when loaded with an extra tank that sacrifices your stealth. When the Empire notices your approach, they will surely scramble interceptors. Since you need to make a return trip, you cannot waste any fuel, which will make it a tricky battle.”
“That’s not what matters!!”
Mikoto didn’t even need to think about it.
But just as she was preparing to run out of the CIC, she found someone else standing in the exit.
It was Shokuhou Misaki.
“No.”
“Move, scheming Queen. There isn’t a moment to lose!!”
“Think about it. The Empire has tons of fighters, so why aren’t they sending any of them to Dorgionix?”
The Queen’s words alone stopped Mikoto in her tracks.
That was admittedly…odd.
It didn’t make sense.
That was the Empire’s second largest city and an industrial city to boot. Flooding there would likely trouble them on the military front too, so why weren’t they acting on a plan so obvious some middle schoolers could come up with it?
“Listen. The dam breaking will flood Dorgionix. On its own, that is a natural disaster. With a natural cause, they have no one to hate. But what if the Empire attempts to prevent it and the dam breaks anyway? Then the city was flooded by the Empire’s failure to blow up the floodgates and it becomes a man-made disaster. Which means the people will have someone to hate.”
“You mean the Empire is afraid of being blamed for the failure, so they aren’t going to do anything? But so many of their own people are at risk! And they have a way of saving them!!”
“I thought Tokiwadai students had a better grasp of politics than this. Vague terms like ‘maybe’ are not found in the political world. Without 100% certainty, they will stand back to avoid the risk. That is the key to a long career as a politician.”
Basically, Shokuhou Misaki was asking why they should go out of their way to create a man-made disaster when it would only be a natural one otherwise.
If they attempted a plan without 100% certainty and it failed, the people – fairly or not – would focus their enmity on the Tokiwadai group. And with the backing of the furious people, the Imperial military would be much more free to act. When their situation was tenuous enough already, why take on extra risk?
True, that might be the wise decision.
But it wasn’t the right decision.
It couldn’t be.
So Mikoto knew what she had to say.
“I’m going to save them.”
“…”
She wasn’t like the Queen.
It was Misaka Mikoto’s ability to say these things without hesitation that made her Tokiwada’s Ace.
“You’re worried about what happens next? Let’s say we could have saved 9 million people but didn’t. If people found out about that, our situation would be far worse.”
“And if you screw this up and let the Slendard Dam collapse?”
“If that happens, you can just give them my name. Tell them it was all my decision. Then the Empire’s concentrated wrath won’t be directed on Tokiwadai as a whole. Does that satisfy you!?”
Part 4[edit]
Only some hurried footsteps remained of Mikoto.
Shokuhou Misaki still stood there.
This was the difference between those two.
They understood that, but they could never cross that barrier of their own nature.
Mikoto had demonstrated that all too well.
Shokuhou’s aide’s voice called from within the dark CIC. She didn’t speak loudly, but her voice was firm.
“…Queen.”
Kobayashi understood the difference between the Queen and the Ace.
Which was why, just this once, she had chosen to seek Misaka Mikoto’s advice first.
Ability and efficiency. Benefit and loss. Safety and risk.
There was one answer that could not be reached by pursuing those details.
Namely, what was right.
That was why the Queen had chosen not to stop her.
Because she understood.
She did, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it herself.
She was Academy City’s #5 Level 5, the strongest psychological esper in name and fact.
She pouted her lips childishly.
“Stupid Misaka-san.”
Part 5[edit]
Mikoto’s Shinshin two seat custom accelerated down the maintenance hangar’s electromagnetic catapult toward the narrow exit. It took off as if from a tunnel.
A transmission arrived from Kobayashi.
“Izanami to Railgun 01. Head north for now. I predict you will be swept off course by powerful winds once you enter the stormy area. There are no landmarks on the ocean, so keep an eye on your instruments to stay on course. Don’t rely on your senses.”
“Railgun 01. Roger that!”
The refreshing blue sky transformed into dark clouds in only a few minutes.
She heard loud sounds like small masses bursting.
At this speed, rain didn’t fall from above – it crashed into her from the front like laser beams. The fighter didn’t have wipers, so the only way to keep her view clear was to trust in the power of the water repellent and use her own speed to blast the raindrops away.
She saw an occasional flash of light.
That was lightning.
(Come to think of it, I’m flying in a big piece of metal over the open sea. What happens if lightning strikes the fighter? It’s full of delicate equipment.)
This was barely within the Shinshin’s range.
Since she had to make a round trip, she didn’t have time for anything extra. The Shinshin ordinarily seemed to slice effortlessly through the air, but now she felt like she was forcing the nose into the solid headwind.
It’s balance was off.
The Shinshin’s anti-radar design meant all of its armaments were stored inside for stealth.
But now it had an extra fuel tank forcibly attached below. She couldn’t count on any of its usual stealth functionality.
The Imperial radar bases would definitely detect her.
She barely had enough fuel for the round trip. Once this began, she couldn’t avoid a battle with the odds stacked against her.
But difficulties for herself she could accept.
(Now, if the enemy is buffeted by these winds too, it should be a little easier to pull away from them with my spee-)
“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. I have an extra tank too, so you should be able to see me on your radar.”
“!?”
Mikoto first looked down at the screen and froze but then twisted around, eyes wide. She couldn’t turn around well with the seat belt, but she could still tell.
Something was following her.
“What do you think you’re doing!?”
“Brat 04. You have to ask? The Liheilstaut Empire is my country. If its people are in danger, I need no other reason to come flying.”
And she wasn’t the only one.
Two more dots appeared on the radar farther back.
“Teleport 02. You didn’t forget about us, did you, Onee-sama?”
“Rampage 03. I am here too. If I let you take all the glory, the Queen might just start crying.”
Mikoto held a hand to her forehead and sighed.
They were almost to the Empire’s second largest city of Dorgionix. They barely had enough fuel, so there was no time for arguing.
Still, Mikoto felt a greater weight than when the risk was to her alone.
…But Shokuhou Misaki always stood at the top ordering others around, so was this pressure a constant companion for her?
(Yeah, right.)
Still, this was no longer a personal whim. She of course had to keep the gravity dam from breaking and flooding a city of 9 million, but now it was also her responsibility to get every single member of 101 Squadron back to the Izanami and Izanagi.
Mikoto refocused her mind.
She now held the position of squadron leader.
Countless artificial lights twinkled through the thick curtain of pouring rain.
“Izanami to 101 Squadron. That is Dorgionix!!”
“Railgun 01. Roger!”
Mikoto adjusted her grip on the control column.
This was where it really began.
“Follow me, everyone. We need to destroy the stuck flood gates and protect the city!!”
They entered the metropolis’s sky from the ocean side.
In the blowing wind and the downpour that was like a head-on barrage, they heard the distorted deep cries of a siren like the one signaling the start of a baseball tournament. Mikoto initially thought their arrival had been detected and this was an air raid siren, but that wasn’t it.
(It must be a disaster evacuation siren.)
There wasn’t time.
They needed to reach the mountains beyond the city.
While passing over the siren-filled city, she could see the traffic clogging the streets below. As she had feared, the civilian evacuation was getting nowhere.
“Rampage 03. We can’t afford to fail, can we?”
“No.”
The dam came into view.
It looked like a cup full to the brim with water. The emergency water release produced something like a waterfall, but the thick concrete still looked ready to crack and collapse at any moment.
Mikoto switched her display to ground attack mode and set it so any metal detected above a certain size in the stormy mountains was highlighted in white. Some of the quicker people would have managed to evacuate into the mountains before the congestion got too bad, so she couldn’t afford to blow up a car or cabin.
After her radar detected metal in the natural scene, she would zoom in the camera view, locate the flood gate along the river, and lock on using visual identification.
That was of course the ideal, but…
(Argh, it’s all white and hazy. Visibility in the pouring rain is too poor for the camera to work! I need to get closer!!)
“Onee-sama! If you descend any lower, you will crash into the mountainside. This is far more dangerous than using your phone and walking!!”
There wasn’t time.
But once she got a lock, the rest would be easy.
“Railgun 01. I have a lock. Someone double check!”
“Brat 04. No one detected on the surface.”
“Teleport 02. Ditto. No civilians came to check on the river or flood gate, so free free to bomb it.”
That was good to hear.
The flood gate wouldn’t move and it wouldn’t return fire with anti-air weaponry. To make sure the mountainside didn’t get in the way, Mikoto raised her nose to gain some height before flying in an inverted U to flip upside down. While rapidly descending toward the mountain, she launched an air-to-surface missile as if dropping it vertically.
Lightning passed right by her.
“Whoa!!”
The bright flash caused the image identification missile to briefly veer off course, but it found its target again and stabbed into the mountain slope.
The floodgate exploded.
Mikoto twisted her fighter around to level flight before she crashed into the ground.
“Railgun 01. One floodgate down!!”
“Izanami. Understood. You have 9 targets left. How many are necessary depends on the rate of the dam’s emergency water release, but it would be best to destroy them all.”
She now had data on the floodgates from the camera. She set a program to detect similar objects and more than 15 box cursors appeared along the mountainside like the facial recognition indicators in a camera app.
(That’s too many. Is it the rain? That must be causing a few false positives.)
Some RVs stuck in the rain may have been falsely identified as floodgates, so she would have to visually confirm them all anyway.
“Railgun 01 to squadron. You saw how I did it, right? There’s no time to waste, so we need to split up and-”
It happened suddenly.
A shrill missile lock alarm filled the cockpit. Uncertain what was happening, Mikoto made a quick roll to the right, but then the empty space there exploded.
A thick lightning bolt had struck a flying air-to-air missile.
If not for that, she might have been shot down.
(What!? Who!? Where!?)
A dot appeared on her radar for just a few seconds before disappearing again.
The lightning had electrified the air and the aircraft’s surface, preventing it from absorbing the radar waves properly.
Meaning…
“There’s something out there? Be on the lookout for Imperial stealth fighters!!”
“Brat 04. I have visual confirmation. At least one YF-23 and two F-35s. I saw a lift fan, so they must be the B-type with VTOL capability.”
Mikoto glimpsed something through the white curtain of rain.
Two types of stealth girl used the dark forested mountainside to hide.
The YF-23 was a high performance stealth fighter that had competed against the YF-22A. In terms of pure stealth, it was rumored to outdo the YF-22A. For whatever reason, in this world it was a black bikini woman in a tube top (maybe to constrict her chest?). Black diamond-shaped wings spread out from the joint near her shoulder blades. …On Earth, it was a mysterious fighter that left people wondering where it stored its missiles during flight, so where was she storing her weapons?
The F-35B was a stealth fighter developed at the same time as the F-22A. Here, it was a giant black-haired girl in a black sailor uniform. The wings on her back resembled YF-22A’s. Perhaps it came with the stealth, but just like YF-22A, she had flat metal panels extending from below her main wings and around her belly. That would be the weapon bay full of missiles and bombs. She had a single engine nozzle on the back of her hips. But it looked like it was made to point downwards if necessary. …So despite her gloomy and plain appearance, she apparently lay prone and spread her legs wide when doing a vertical takeoff or landing. In her sailor uniform’s skirt.
(They look silly, but they’re a troublesome group. Their specs mean my Shinshin and YF-22A’s superiority won’t be enough here!!)
Those three must have realized they were spotted because they moved away from the mountainside and scattered radar waves as they climbed sharply skyward.
Fortunately, the mountain was not densely populated.
They could engage in a dogfight here.
“Railgun 01 to squadron. 01 and 04 have equivalent stealth, so we’ll take them on. 02 and 03, you focus on blowing up the floodgates! You’re the star today, Teleport 02. If that giant gravity dam breaks, this is all for nothing!!”
“Argh. Teleport 02. Roger that!”
“Brat 04. Roger. It’s a shame, but we should cut free our extra fuel tanks. We need to win this!!”
101 Squadron split sharply into two groups.
A black sailor uniform F-35B tried to pursue Shirai and Hokaze, but YF-22A sprayed her with radar waves to draw her attention.
It had begun.
Mikoto, YF-22A, and the three Imperials fought for a position on each other’s tails, so they were flying sharp circles through the sky.
(Is it really only these three? I hope there aren’t any other stealth fighters hiding nearby.)
Shirai made a disgusted comment as she worked on her task.
“Why would they come get in our way here? Even if they want to fight, couldn’t they wait until after we’ve blown up the floodgates!?”
“Because they don’t want us to blow them up.” Mikoto swallowed bitterly. “The Slendard Dam is Imperial national policy. I don’t know if it there was a design flaw or if these conditions are unprecedented, but if a dam built by the country threatens a city, the people will revolt. But if we screw up here and turn it into a man-made disaster, the people’s anger will be directed at us instead. …The Imperial leaders are already planning to let Dorgionix flood – 9 million residents and all.”
“Rampage 03. Is that why the Imperial Air Force only sent in stealth fighters that won’t appear on radar? So their interference won’t appear in the official records!?”
Even with the extra fuel tanks gone, the lightning electrifying the surface of the aircraft meant neither side’s stealth was perfect.
Mikoto’s Shinshin and the black tube top bikini YF-23 soared through the storm, their paths twisting around each other.
(Our specs are about evenly matched, or hers might be a bit better. But if I use the winds to boost my maneuverability, I can get behind her!!)
The invisible winds of the storm roiled around like a living being, but there was some predictability to the wind direction thanks to the mountainside’s influence. Mikoto could make use of the tailwinds and headwinds.
But then…
“Argh, my flaperon isn’t moving like I want. My fuselage feels so heavy. Railgun 01, help! She’s about to get on my tail!!”
(Uh, oh. The wind’s working against her!)
YF-22A’s movements were sluggish, suggesting the buffeting winds were reducing her maneuverability, so an F-35B was about to get behind her.
She would eventually be killed like that.
Mikoto intended to abandon her dogfight with the YF-23 and go rescue her, but something moved sharply in to block her course.
It was the other F-35B in a black sailor uniform.
“Damn!!”
She was cut off from YF-22A.
“Brat 04 to Railgun 01. She’s on my tail! I can detect her radar waves! You need to get her off of me before she gets a lock!!”
Mikoto was busy dealing with both the YF-23 and an F-35B. She couldn’t go to YF-22A’s rescue right away, but YF-22A would be shot down if she didn’t.
(Damn, what can I use right away!?)
“Railgun 01 to Brat 04. Lower your altitude and continue straight! Stay so close to the mountainside you’re nearly colliding with it!!”
“If I fly straight, she’ll get a lock! I’ll be shot down!!”
“You won’t! Look for the metal tower on the mountain 5km ahead. Make a sharp turn there!!”
That was directly ahead of her in a fighter that flew more than 300m every second.
YF-22A yanked up her nose and began a loop-the-loop.
Unable to respond to the unexpected action, the F-35B fly right past the top of the metal tower.
And she ran into an invisible mass there.
The air. Turbulence slid sharply down the mountainside.
Her black sailor uniform was blown upwards and her armor and wings were pulled upwards too.
Wahhhh!!
Mikoto thought she heard that scream within the blowing wind.
…You couldn’t underestimate natural phenomena. If conditions aligned just wrong, the power of the waves could slice through a cargo ship weighing more than 100 thousand tons or a mass of wind accelerated as it slid down a mountainside could break apart a 40m aircraft.
By observing the terrain and getting the timing right, that could make a decent replacement for an air-to-air missile.
“Report, Brat 04!”
“Um, one down. One of the F-35Bs.”
But it was still two against two.
They couldn’t relax yet.
They were about evenly matched with the F-35B and the YF-23’s specs were a little better.
Still, Mikoto and YF-22A had hope.
Something exploded in the distance.
Shirai or Hokaze’s F-2A must have destroyed another floodgate.
“Izanami to 101 Squadron. The Slendard Dam has passed its estimated time limit, but it remains intact. That proves the amount of water entering the dam has lessened. Keep going!”
Just then, the YF-23 pursuing the Shinshin suddenly veered away. Even though it might have gotten a lock on Mikoto if it had stayed there.
“?”
(That direction!!)
“Railgun 01 to Brat 04! Shoot down the escaping YF-23. That’s our top priority!!”
“Okay, but why are you so concerned about-”
“That bitch is going to launch a missile directly into the dam!! Because she knows they can’t stop 02 and 03 from blowing up the floodgates at this rate!!”
Were they that intent on blaming the dam’s destruction on Tokiwadai?
But if the Slendard Dam didn’t break at all, no one had to take responsibility in the first place.
Fortunately, the enemy was only heading straight for the dam at full speed. That simple motion allowed Mikoto and YF-22A to get a lock while pursuing.
Even though, looking just at their specs, the YF-23 may have been superior.
Maybe she had prioritized approaching and attacking the dam over her own safety.
An air-to-air missile caught up.
Her main wing exploded, she lost balance in midair, and the black tube top bikini YF-23 crashed into the center of the dam’s reservoir lake.
“Railgun 01. One down. The YF-23.”
“Looks like the last one is withdrawing,” said YF-22A as she watched the black sailor uniform girl departing in the direction of Dorgionix.
There was no need to pursue her.
“Teleport 02. The final floodgate is destroyed!”
“Rampage 03. Double check of destruction is complete.”
“…”
Now the #2 city of Dorgionix was safe.
Mikoto had only thought of this as a world where tanks, fighters, and other weapons were giant girls.
But what was this?
Not only had the Liheilstaut Empire abandoned 9 million of their own people to die to dodge responsibility, but they had worked to actively kill them.
This was more than just anthropomorphized weapons. Something was wrong at a deeper level. This really was a different world from Earth.
Part 6[edit]
The thick clouds had cleared up.
Of course, the linear rainband wasn’t gone. Mikoto and her squadron were just that far away from land.
It was over. Somehow.
But Mikoto was exhausted and hadn’t gained much at all.
They hadn’t even managed to capture the enemy fighters that had crashed in the mountains or dam. And while the YF-23 and F-35Bs’ personalities left a lot to be desired, not gaining those high performance stealth fighters was a major disappointment.
The Imperial industrial city of Dorgionix would probably continue to produce Girlish Weapons like that, which would then pursue Mikoto and the rest.
(But we did a good thing.)
“…”
Mikoto sighed softly while gripping the control column.
Izanami and Izanagi were waiting in place for them. Their aircraft had barely enough fuel for a round trip, so the ship couldn’t carelessly move and put more distance between them and the continent.
Shokuhou had been right.
The situation was only getting worse. If they hadn’t bothered with Dorgionix, they could have moved the ships further out to sea and perhaps reduced the risk of attack.
“Teleport 02. You don’t have to worry about that, Onee-sama.”
“But I was being selfish.”
“While I am worn out, this is the pleasant kind of worn out, so I don’t mind.”
“Rampage 03. Same here. I would feel much worse if we had let the dam break. You did the right thing, Misaka-sama.”
Mikoto smiled a little.
It was important for one’s sense of purpose to be something unseen. If she followed strict morals of her own will, it could help prevent unnecessary trouble aboard the ships.
She hadn’t been wrong after all.
She was finally confident of that.
“Onee-sama, you land first. You used up the most fuel in that intense dogfight, didn’t you? So hurry.”
If they kept insisting the other go first, they really would run out of fuel.
Mikoto had no choice but to go in and land.
The runway was only 300m long. She was rapidly decelerated by catching a hook on a taut wire.
Wannai hooked the Shinshin up to the tractor and towed it over to the large elevator.
With that, her flight was complete.
It looked like Shirai’s F-2A was coming down next.
“Teleport 02 to Izanami. I am beginning my landing. Phew, get the wire ready.”
She crashed.
Shirai’s F-2A veered just a bit off the runway and slammed into the cruise ship’s mall.
“Eh?”
It happened so fast.
Mikoto had seen it happen, but she still couldn’t believe it.
The fighter exploded a moment later.
Orange flames and a shockwave swelled out.
Mikoto was helpless.
“Kurokooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”
Fatigue was a serious issue.
Her underclassman had already reached her limit. This was the result of Mikoto getting her involved. It had happened because Shirai had been forced onto this extra mission.
(It’s my fault.)
They hadn’t put together a dedicated firefighting team. They didn’t have the personnel to spare, so whatever girls were free grabbed fire extinguishers and hoses and ran over. The missiles and ammunition must have ignited along with the fuel because a few even bigger explosions followed. They couldn’t get close with that going on. Even though the pilot was still inside all that fire and steel.
(It’s my fault!!)
Mikoto was watching in a daze when someone appeared right next to her.
A twintails girl was sitting on the Shinshin’s main wing.
“Kuro…ko?”
“Yeah. I would have died in that fire if I couldn’t teleport.”
A whistle shrieked loud. That was Kongou Mitsuko. Hokaze’s F-2A and Girlish Weapon YF-22A were still in the air. They had to get the runway cleared and ready for a landing before those two ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.
Part 7[edit]
The carrier was burning.
The fire was contained to the cruise ship camouflage and it likely wouldn’t affect the actual carrier’s functions much, but that wasn’t the real problem.
This massive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was meant to carry thousands, so trying to operate it with less than 200 had been impossible from the start. They were all elites with extraordinary specs, but doing more than ten times the work of an ordinary person meant more than ten times the fatigue.
YF-22A thought to herself as she slowly circled the carrier waiting for the landing runway to be cleared.
It wasn’t just Shirai Kuroko. The entire crew of the carrier and landing ship had been working nonstop with little rest or sleep, so they were reaching their limit. Order would break down before long.
These people had fought to protect the Imperial people even though they were enemies, but they were being pursued by the Empire that had readily abandoned its own people. And these people were on track to be broken by their own fatigue before the battle even began.
“…”
What had they done to deserve this?
They had suddenly been thrown into an unfamiliar sea on an unfamiliar ship, they had been unilaterally attacked by the Imperial military on suspicion of violating their territorial waters, and yet they had still risked their lives to rescue the Imperial people.
Which side was in the right?
That wasn’t really a question. If she found herself hesitating even momentarily, she needed to choose what she thought was right.
Only then could she put this world back on the right path.
“Brat 04 to Carrier Izanami.”
“What is it, Brat 04?”
“I thought I would give you some simple advice since you don’t know much about the local geography and international situation. Are you all interested in a way of receiving plenty of supplies and rest?”
Between the Lines: A Break and a Progress Report[edit]
Everything is progressing nicely. Honest.
How rude. That was not “cope”. Who said that? You’re nothing but a troll trying to get a rise out of me.
Yes. I am sure some of you kindhearted guests are concerned about the harsh events you have seen.
But you have nothing to worry about.
Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki’s girly fun is coming. With swimsuits. As the one holding the rod, I can feel the fish nibbling on the bait. This is all necessary prep work needed to land a big one.
I know I said I would use an enclosed space to get them flirting, but you have to crank the difficulty way up before monsters like them will recognize the suspension bridge effect.
I am sure you have all noticed the depth number decreasing.
I called this a salvage project, but it is more like fishing.
When fishing, you can’t start reeling in the line full speed right away. If the fish struggles, you will only break the line. Or you could even break the rod.
Instead of trying to bring your catch in right away, you have to let it swim and wear itself out.
Only then do you reel it in and yank it on out of the water!!
Landing a big one requires finesse and technique.
So don’t you worry.
The depth will soon reach 4, which is the midpoint.
This is where the salvage project really begins.
