Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume2 Chapter1
Chapter 1: This is the Real Battle — Home_Ground_Hospital.
Part 1
Kamijou Touma found himself lying in a bed.
It was already morning.
He also detected a strong disinfectant smell. Sadly, he found the scent very familiar. He was used to this sort of awakening.
He was in the hospital.
In fact, he was in the usual hospital where that frog-faced doctor worked.
He had checked his phone countless times, but the clock never turned back for him.
Which meant…
“December…25. I’m in the hospital on Christmas of all days.”
Complaining was not going to change that.
Dawn had arrived and his presence in the hospital meant he had survived.
This location carried that unbreakable guarantee of safety.
He understood that more than just intellectually – he knew it from experience.
And thinking back, his Christmas Eve had been pretty awful. His body below the covers was so wrapped in bandages that his movements were as stiff and awkward as an ancient civilization’s clay robot. He did not want to know how many injuries he had in all and he definitely did not want to see them. Counting just the ones he was aware of, he had been stabbed in the side with a knife, lacerated by metal and glass shards, blown away by a few blasts of next generation magic, and punched square in the cheek by a rich, sexy, macho former rescue squad member.
And to top it all off…
…
He silently brought his fingers to his lips. The sensation still lingered there, so that must not have been a hallucination caused by the lightheadedness brought on by blood loss. He still was unsure what to think about it, though. He had a feeling he would get beaten up by Index, Orsola, and some others if he chalked it up to the outdated stereotype of Westerners being more open about kissing.
(St. Germain.)
He had no idea what any of it had been about, but he did remember that name.
It had looked like a black pill now, but that would have originally been a magician.
(Then my first kiss tasted like St. Germain? Wait, what does that mean? That it tasted like some gross old man from the past? Oh, god why!? How am I even supposed to categorize this? Happy? Depressing? I can’t figure this one out!!)
Q. A mysterious and breathtakingly beautiful woman asks you to kiss her while she has some strange old man’s used sock rolled up and stuffed in her mouth. What do you do? Also, this is your very first kiss, so no matter the circumstances, the memory will stick with you for the rest of your life☆
Kamijou Touma found himself covered in an unpleasant sweat.
“Oh, no. I don’t think I can get the taste of my mouth!! No, why is the old man sock so powerful!?” Anyway.
He felt like bloody tears were about to flow from his eyes and his memories of those final moments were still unclear, but he did know he had vomited up a lot of blood. He was amazed he had not died of blood loss and it made him wonder just how many liters of blood he had flowing through his veins.
But he was fine. He had to be. His spirit was as strong as ever. He had not heard back about any tests run in the hospital, but he did not hurt anywhere and he could move everything just fine. Plus, he had not coughed up any more blood. The crisis was over. He could even poke at his abs without any pain whatsoever!!
But deficiencies hit you without mercy the instant you became aware of them.
He started feeling faint while still lying down in bed.
(Ah, ahhh…I-I need iron. I could devour some liver and spinach right now.)
That was not the request a teenage boy’s appetite would normally make on Christmas, but he knew his odds of getting it were low. After all, this was a hospital and they might not let him choose his food based on the severity of his injuries. Which day of the week was it? Once he recalled the answer, he realized he would be served a saltless rice porridge that felt tasted like microwaved glue and a disappointingly thin piece of grilled salmon that felt like it was made from plastic.
“Man, if only I’d been hospitalized on a Friday. Then I’d have gotten seafood curry.”
It saddened him to realize he had been in this hospital enough to know what food they served on what days.
And then…
“Heh heh heh. I appreciate the monologue, Kami-yan. Now I know exactly what you’re doing here.”
“Wait? Th-that voice!”
It came from beyond the curtain. This time, he was apparently in a large room containing multiple people divided by curtains instead of a private room.
And the curtain next to him was flung open from the other side.
“Mwa ha ha ha!! Join me in the depressing hospital Christmas life, my unpopular brother!!”
“I’m stuck being hospital pals with you!? How badly did you burn yourself with that microwaved boobs mousepad!?”
It was his classmate Aogami Pierce.
He had heard the boy had burned his hands after ignoring all of the usage warnings and throwing his boobs mousepad in the microwave on the 24th, but he had not expected to find him with bandages or casts covering his arms. Everything past his elbows looked like it could blast off like a rocket.
Also, snow was still falling outside.
It was indeed a white Christmas. But for these two boys, that only meant it was a little chillier by the window.
Robot Kamijou gave Rocket Aogami a look of pity.
“That actually looks pretty awful. I mean, you can’t do much of anything without using your fingers. What do you do about food?”
“Not to worry. There’s this old trick called floor humping. You lay down on your stomach like this and then rub your thing between your body and the floor like this.”
“Shut up! No! I was not asking about that!!”
“There are rumors saying getting used to this modifies your body to the point you can’t enjoy the real thing, but that’s just a superstition, so don’t worry about it.”
“Enough with the demonstration! The only thing I’m worried about right now is your sanity, inchworm boy!! It’s 7 in the morning and your bed is by the window! People outside can see you!!”
“Don’t you dare take this so lightly, Kami-yan!! Deprive a nerd of this high-level one-man mental activity, and what do they have left!!!???”
“This is not a topic that warrants manly shouting! I won’t ask you to stop being a nerd, but can’t you please be the kind of nerd who creates an innovative new type of OS or something!?”
“Tch. I’ve never been a fan of American-style moe, you know? Be honest, what do you think about how they keep turning American comic superheroes into girls? It’s official and not just fan stuff, so I’m really not sure what to think about it.”
“I’m the kind of nerd who never laughs at people’s efforts to create something new.”
“Don’t hide behind that idealistic hogwash. Oh, I get it. You’re scared, aren’t you!? I loathe all of you self-styled ‘influencers’ who use clickbaity headlines to gather enough attention to earn ad revenue off their half-assed weaksauce criticism! Ban them, ban them, ban every last one of them!!”
“Just so you know, your life is as good as over once even us nerdy outcasts find you unbearable to be around.”
“I’ll kill you!!”
“You’re on. It’s time you left this world, you freak!!”
Different sorts of nerds could never see eye to eye. That sad history of conflict played out again here as the world’s most meaningless battle began. Those two pill bugs simply could not remain rolled up below the same stone together in peace. However, one of them was a rocket boy with his hands covered up and the other was a clay robot with bandages around his entire body. Neither one could bend their joints very much, so despite announcing their intent to kill, their scuffle ended up more like a fight between old-fashioned tokusatsu kaijus. None of it looked very impressive.
In the midst of the mayhem, something slipped from Aogami Pierce’s pocket: a notebook-sized tablet.
“Time out, time out!! Wait, Kami-yan! That internet device is my one remaining lifeline!”
“Hey, Seri!! Gather up all the browser history, bookmarks, and videos saved to the device and the cloud and then post them all online!!”
“Stop!! Don’t give her that kind of crazily unspecific command!!!”
For better or for worse, modern voice commands apparently checked for the user’s voiceprint, so Aogami Pierce escaped that one alive.
That awful friend got down on the floor and protectively held the device close like a child protecting a puppy from parents who refused to let him have a pet.
“Do you know how much effort I put into finding a wholly prepaid device? There’s no personal information on the device itself, so as long as I don’t use my own wireless LAN, no can ever link the things I search back to me!! Do you get it now, Kami-yan? What would you type into the search bar on a device like this!!!???”
“I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is a mirror of your own heart.”
“Female doctors? No. Nurses? No, that’s not quite what I want either. …Gasp!? That’s it! A dental hygienist!!”
Aogami Pierce forcibly pulled the curtain closed again.
Kamijou was left all alone on the other side, but then he realized the other boy was lying in his bed operating the device. Operating it via voice.
“Hey, Seri. Take me on a journey of freedom. Yes, yes, I accept, I accept!! Is there anything like this on the top video’s page?”
“Hey, wait! Please wait!! You aren’t actually trying it here, are you? Yeah, there’s a curtain between us, but we’re still in the same room. Please don’t make me spend my Christmas like this!”
Aogami Pierce was not listening.
Kamijou’s voice did not reach him. In fact, that bastard was probably wearing wireless headphones or something.
Just then, Kamijou heard solid footsteps from the hallway. They sounded like someone wearing heels. It was still early in the morning, so he doubted visiting hours had started yet. That meant this was probably a nurse going around to the hospital rooms to take temperatures and serve breakfast.
Which meant they would be coming here.
And if he could hear their footsteps, they had to be extremely close.
“Aogami! Aogami!!”
“No, not like that. I don’t want anything dark, so no tearful faces please. I want the kind of young woman who will take good care of you, but not where you’re just a complete horndog only interested in your own pleasure. I want something more heartwarming, if you don’t mind.”
“Seri won’t know what to make of such a long command!! And why are you more polite with Seri than with me? But that aside, you’re in serious trouble here, Aogami Pierce!!”
It was too late.
The footsteps had arrived in front of their room. Their step was light enough that Kamijou assumed it was a woman.
Farewell, my friend. May you rest in peace!! prayed Kamijou Touma while squeezing his eyes shut.
“Good morning, Kamijou-san. No trouble ability with your condition, I hope? It’s time for breakfast☆”
This was odd.
She was definitely dressed up like the nurses of this hospital.
But.
As nice as her figure was, she was very clearly a middle school girl, so the outfit just looked wrong on her. And in a medical facility where cleanliness was king, it was odd for her long, honey-blonde hair to be left falling down her back like that.
And Kamijou was immediately disturbed by his own analysis here.
Since when was he so perceptive?
(H-have I really been in the hospital so much I’ve become an expert on nurses? I hadn’t noticed it before, but maybe I’m past the point of no return here.)
So who was this girl?
She spoke like they were friends, but he could not seem to remember her.
Yet he did not see how he could ever forget someone who looked like that.
The honey-blonde nurse(?) laughed.
“Yes, I know you don’t know who I am. My name is Shokuhou Misaki. Not that you’ll remember I told you that.”
“Shokuhou?”
What a strange name.
He felt like he would never forget a name like that once he heard it.
“See?” said the blonde girl while pointing at her large chest. A nameplate smaller than a stick of gum was clipped there, but the meaning of the characters written there seemed oddly reluctant to enter his brain. It was like how you could not make out any one face in particular when staring blankly at the audience in a packed stadium.
“So text doesn’t work either, does it?”
The honey-blonde girl let out a sigh.
She had the look of someone who had avoided getting her hopes up but still found the expected result painful.
“Well, the problem is in your brain, so I guess that makes sense. It would only be more confusing if there was some weird loophole like videos worked while photos didn’t.”
“I’m not sure what this is about, but sorry.”
“Your apologies hurt most of all,” she said rapidly under her breath.
She was still smiling, but she had apparently needed to let that comment out.
Kamijou only felt confused.
“So what brings you here, Miss Whoever?”
“I was thinking I would remove those bandages. You’re fed up with them already, aren’t you?”
“Eh, wait! I don’t want any treatment from a fake nurse!!”
“I checked inside a few people’s minds and it turns out they intentionally gave you an excessive amount of bandages to scare you. Because otherwise you’d run off and tear your half-healed wounds back open. Your injuries apparently aren’t actually all that bad.”
So were these like the plastic trumpet thing placed around a cat or dog’s head to keep them from scratching at their ear? Kamijou could not believe it, but the honey-blonde girl removed his giant cocoon of bandages with surprising skill.
Once the seal had been removed, his body began to tremble.
“I-I can move. My clay robot limbs can move so smoothly!!”
“Your resilience is a constant reminder that the human body is a mysterious thing.” She sat her shapely butt down on the bed next to him. “I went to the trouble of using Mental Out, the strongest psychological power, to sneak into the hospital, so I really wish you would show the appropriate appreciation ability. Also, I came here for revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“No need to get scared. It isn’t against you.”
She silently puffed out her cheeks from within. She looked like a sexy queen, but she was surprisingly childish deep down.
“(I can’t believe Misaka-san went as far as abandoning me and then forced him to have such a gloomy Christmas Eve. What was she thinking? And then she shows such a lapse of defensive ability she lets some mystery woman come along and steal his lips!? If you didn’t leave yourself so wide open, that kind of lazy long pass could never fly right past you like that!)”
“E-excuse me, but what exactly do you mean by revenge? If I’m being honest, it terrifies me to have someone mention revenge and immediately start muttering to herself with a shadow over her face. Wait, said you were some kind of powerful esper, didn’t you? You aren’t working for Neoka, are you!?”
“Oh, shut up!! Okay, I’ve had enough. That woman may have stolen your first kiss, but that just means I have to take all of your other ‘firsts’ myself!!!!!!”
“What kind of desperate move is that!? And does the entire world know what happened to me now!?”
“I reluctantly let Misaka-san have the 24th, but that means the 25th belongs to me!!”
Just then, the person hidden behind the curtain began to speak.
“Dammit, I can’t find a single dental hygienist video. God must be telling me now is not the time to remove my pants. The genre must be too niche at present, so I have no choice but to wait for it to flourish in the future.”
“?”
“Oh, no,” said Kamijou. “I don’t know where this is going, but you need to hide!!”
The girl let out a quiet shriek one second before the curtain was mercilessly thrown open.
“Huh? I could have sworn I heard a nurse in here, Kami-yan. When’s breakfast???”
“I sincerely hope you really did stop before doing the deed, but I’m still not touching you until you’ve been sterilized with the hospital’s most harsh disinfectant spray.”
Kamijou Touma sounded casual, but he was keeping a secret from his friend.
He knew that fake nurse could not let anyone discover her here, so he had pulled her into the bed and hidden her below the covers.
“(Mgh, gh, um, excuse me, but what is happening here!?)”
“(Shut up. Do you want this to blow up into a huge deal!?)”
“(Well, um, none of that is actually a problem since I can use Mental Out to- ahhh!! Th-this is – oh, wow – a boy’s chest!? Ahh. Never mind, I don’t care anymore. I’ll just let this happen.)”
She was hard to make out, but the mystery nurse began muttering to herself and then stopped struggling like her battery had died. Much like someone who had succumbed to the temptation of a kotatsu.
Aogami Pierce tilted his head curiously.
“What are you doing, Kami-yan? And should you really remove your bandages like that?”
“I-I’m playing a life simulation game. I just caught this cute thing, but she’s a little feisty and won’t obey my commands. It makes her hard to take care of.”
“Oh, so you’ve got a gadget too, huh? But it’s not light’s out anymore, so you don’t have to play it under the covers like that.”
“(Well excuse me for being feisty.)”
“(Ow, don’t pinch me there!)”
“(I won’t obey your commands, remember?)”
Kamijou was moving both his hands around below the covers quite a bit, but Aogami Pierce did not question it.
“Come to think of it, since you don’t have to register a phone number with those handheld game systems, I’ve heard you can modify them to make truly private searches just like a prepaid phone. But you can only use wireless LANs, not whatever-G.”
“Why bother telling me that?”
Kamijou also doubted that would work so well.
If everyone knew about a loophole, it was bound to be secretly filled in. Plus, Academy City was chock full of strange technology and espers. The defenders could use every trick in the book as well. He doubted a Level 0 could emerge victorious in that world.
But the oblivious boy sounded very proud of himself.
“Heh heh heh. I’ll teach you how to do it later on. It’s time you entered the adult world, Kami-yan. We’re not in our dorms, so we don’t need to follow the dorm rules. We might be trapped in this room, but the world is at our fingertips!!”
“(Hm? What is he talking about???)”
“(You’re better off not knowing. And I’m relieved to find this mysterious blonde gyaru is surprisingly pure.)”
“(Surprisingly?)”
“(Ow!? What is this strange new feeling!? Did you…bite my chest!?)”
“(Goo goo ga ga☆)”
He had gone to the trouble of sheltering the honey-blonde girl, but now she was getting out of hand. At this rate, he was afraid she would rapidly evolve into a little tyrant. He just had to hope this was not a case where the evolved form was much more brutal.
“What’s the matter, Kami-yan? You have the look of a man awakening to a new fetish.”
“Ih’s nuffing.”
Part 2
Visiting hours were from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Visitors had to fill out the necessary fields on a form and then take it to the general building reception counter on the 1st floor.
Misaka Mikoto breathed a gentle sigh while returning the provided pen to its stand. This was not her first time visiting an injured person in the hospital, but she was still not used to this formality. Couldn’t they let you through after automatically receiving the required personal information from your phone like at a train station’s ticket gate?
(No. Do that and people like me could walk right through.)
Everything was being automated and digitized these days, but by including some outdated analog steps within the giant cogs of the machine, they could increase the overall security level. And in a workplace that dealt with people’s actual lives, the extra inefficiency was worth it.
On the other hand…
“This kind of relationship is a real pain to explain.”
Students made up 80% of Academy City’s population, so most people probably circled the school-related options like “friend”, “upperclassman”, or “underclassman”. The smaller option for “club member, classmate, etc.” was probably unique to this city. But there was a chance of someone questioning it if you were from a different school. Especially when you were in middle school and you were visiting someone in high school. But she could not select any of the other options to avoid such suspicions. Misaka Mikoto was of course not that spiky-haired boy’s sister or daughter, after all. So it was such a pain figuring out what to say.
There was one option that would let her sidestep all the trouble even with different schools and ages: boyfriend/girlfriend.
She froze in place while her mind flashed back to that moment indelibly burned into her mind’s eye – the moment when those lips touched.
(It doesn’t bother me.)
Now, did she realize she had a frown on her face right now?
(Kissing isn’t everything! I’ve given him a lap pillow before!!)
Then she gasped.
Her mind was headed in a strange direction, so she had to tap the brakes and calm down.
(Wait, wait, wait.)
Misaka Mikoto refused to admit defeat even as the young female receptionist in a red Santa-like outfit gave her a puzzled look.
(Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!! Why am I turning this into a competition!? There isn’t even a set goal here, so that would be like driving straight toward the cliff in a game of chicken. Why do I even have to take this all so seriously!? All I’m doing is circling an option on a form.)
“F-friend!?”
She pressed down too hard while drawing the circle and the pen slipped. It scraped audibly across the paper and ended up as an oval that mostly circled “friend” but also grazed the “boyfriend/girlfriend” option.
She could not believe this was how she was spending her Christmas.
Was that supposed to be her way of calling herself more than a friend but less than a lover?
Meanwhile, the nun in a white habit who had arrived with her was hopping up and down in front of the reception lobby’s big Christmas tree.
“Short hair, can we go see Touma now? I’m worn out already.”
“Why do you know your way around the hospital so well? And why do you have that cat on your head!? Can you really bring it into a hospital!?”
“I’ve already decided what I’m going to tell Touma: He shouldn’t let people kiss him if it’s only going to make everything more complicated. Grr, grr.”
Mikoto bristled and yelled at her, but a nearby nurse simply smiled and waved while walking by. “Oh, back so soon?” she said as a friendly greeting. “The hospital isn’t a playground, okay?” The gentle nurse looked like an alluring housewife with a mole by her lips and she must have been from the pediatric department because she gave the nun a piece of candy.
This only inspired further questions for Mikoto.
“Why do the people here know you so well???”
“Without Touma around to cook for me, I’d starve to death. And that would be a real tragedy!!”
The doctors and nurses could not dress up in a seasonal costume since they had an actual uniform to wear, but the receptionist and other administrative workers had all changed into red clothing. This seemed to provide a glimpse of the standards and licenses that were generally invisible to ordinary people. All the decorations were in full-on Christmas mode as well. The Christmas tree in the reception lobby was the most obvious example, but Santas and reindeer cut out of colored paper were attached to the walls, the doors had round wreaths on them, and a small stuffed snowman sat on the reception counter.
The tree was tall enough you had to crane your neck up to see the top, but it was entirely made out of plastic children’s blocks.
The Christmas music playing at a gentle volume made it all feel like part of a department store during the Christmas season.
Of course, this was all done for the benefit of the hospitalized people. The hospital felt obligated to make sure the children in particular did not miss out on the seasonal events. Just think of it in terms of the biggest seasonal event of them all: what if it were announced that summer break was canceled for the year? So the hospital put a lot of effort into things like this.
In addition to the number displayed for people waiting to pay or for their prescription, there was a large flat-screen monitor that helped enhance the holy night mood.
“This year, we’ll be using the real occult to capture Santa Claus! This program is brought to you by R&C Occultics.”
“…”
It was so absurd Mikoto just about laughed out loud.
Yet it required a bit of effort to peel her eyes off of the screen.
The two girls then cut across the lobby to the elevator hall.
Index spoke in a singsong way while popping the strawberry milk candy in her mouth.
“Which room is Touma in?”
“#904. Ugh, that’s the closest room to the nurse station and the ICU. It can be hard to tell since he looks fine, but maybe his injuries are worse than I thought.”
“Nurse station?”
He was being kept in the position where a doctor or nurse could come running at a moment’s notice. That might sound like getting the VIP treatment, but it was actually a “room of death” with a quick turnover rate because patients closest to death tended to be placed there.
“The room is also nowhere near the emergency exit, so I think I know what’s going on here,” added Mikoto.
“?”
They boarded the elevator and hit the 9 button.
This hospital was in a city of science, so they ignored the superstitions about the numbers 4 and 9 when it came to floor numbers.
(Superstitions, huh?)
“Hm? What’s wrong, short hair???”
“Nothing,” said Mikoto while shaking her head in that cramped box.
She could not really call it an ill omen when it had been right in front of her eyes all along. She had seen magic. And she had seen it before the rise of this strange new IT giant called R&C Occultics. But the answer right in front of her had not registered with her. Her eyes had skimmed right over it.
The elevator arrived at their destination floor and the door opened to either side.
Index tilted her head at a rustling sound.
“Short hair, why did you bring flowers?”
“That’s what you do when you visit someone in the hospital.”
“You can’t eat flowers, silly. I brought this – an apple cake!!”
“You just want to eat it yourself, don’t you?”
Mikoto sounded somewhat exasperated as she walked down the hallway. She had already checked where his room was, so she did not need to ask for directions at the nurse station.
However…
“Hey, wait…………I told you………..!!”
“?”
She heard a familiar voice coming from elsewhere before arriving at the room in question. Puzzled, she glanced over to find an amenity room.
The word amenity technically referred to “pleasant” things, but that name did not do much to tell you what the room actually was. Was it maybe a room for light exercise for people confined to a bed during a long hospital stay?
“I’m telling you, this is weird!! I can do it on my own! I really can!!”
Whatever it was, he was apparently in there.
Sensing some kind of invisible pressure and feeling unidentified warning bells going off in her head, Mikoto felt a prickling feeling in her chest, but Index apparently felt none of that. With her cake box in hand, she flung open the metal sliding door without even knocking first.
“I’m here, Touma!! Can we eat this apple cake now!?”
As the door opened, they appeared before Misaka Mikoto’s eyes.
Yes, plural.
The pointy-haired boy was submerged in a giant nursing bath and four girls who looked just like her were approaching him from all sides.
Her mind went blank.
The concepts of time and space were cast out of her mind in that moment.
But no matter how hard the teenage girl tried to deny what was happening here, none of it would become any less real.
The large, round bath’s floor had steps along its round edge and there was a stainless steel railing to make it more accessible. What was she trying to say here? This was an ordinary bath, so it was not somewhat cloudy like a hot spring’s water. Everything below the surface was perfectly visible and unhidden!!
None of them was wearing a single shred of clothing. There was nothing but bright skin to be seen with no more than white soap bubbles to cover it up. A shell bikini or even simple bandages would have provided more of a defense.
Misaka Mikoto went red in the face.
“B-b-b-bubbles!? Are you insane!?”
“Not to worry. These bubbles provide the perfect defense in a system Misaka calls ‘wet underwear’, says Misaka #10032 to put your mind at ease while she puts her hands on her hips and pushes out her chest.”
“Please don’t call it that!! People will definitely get the wrong idea!!”
“?”
At any rate, the room was full of soft skin and bubbles.
The mysterious Four Generals (who looked identical and all had lightning powers) kept blank expressions while void of both clothing and bath towels.
“Do you itch anywhere? asks Misaka #10032 as she uses a professional-sounding question to take the initiative while showing off her heart necklace to remind you of our time together.”
“Now that you are in the hospital, you are on Misaka’s home turf, says Misaka #10039 to show her motivation while placing a dollop of white bubbles on the tip of her nose to show off her cute side.”
“Misaka is actually covering her important bits with bandages to fit the hospital theme, but now she is too bubbly to see them, says Misaka #13570 while working to stimulate your imagination.”
“Misaka is unsure what any of this has to do with Christmas, says Misaka #19095 while honestly finding this ‘says Misaka’ thing a real pain and hoping we can just abandon it.”
A strange babbling voice could be heard at the center of it all.
Kamijou Touma, demon lord of love and desire, was apparently in no state to actually enjoy the soft skin surrounding him. After all, he was covered in various injuries and the bathwater was painfully soaking every last one of them. Those clones were apparently unaware that people hoping to commit suicide by slitting their wrists would soak the wound in water to keep it from closing up.
Also, Mikoto realized she had something more important to do than get zappy.
(Kh.)
She immediately covered Index’s eyes with her hand. But not because she wanted to snap a photo in the style of a sexy selfie.
(She’s going to realize there’s clone tech at work here!!! They’re even calling themselves Misaka #Whatever! I might be able to explain away one of them as a sister, but that doesn’t work when there’s this many of them and they all look identical!!)
“Ahh!! Forget you saw anything here!! There was nothing at all in here!! Okay, okay!?”
“Wow, there really was nothing in there.”
“Whew.”
“Grr, grr!! Why wasn’t there anything like a sponge, body soap, a washbasin, or a shampoo hat in there!? And there were four of them, so why weren’t any of them using shampoo? His hair will be all stiff. Also, that girl called 10032 should take that necklace off when she’s in the bath because silver rusts surprisingly easily! But don’t worry! I can teach you a trick from my spiritual item maintenance knowledge! If it gets too discolored, you can polish it right up with some lemon juice!!”
“I said forget what you saw, not remember it in excessive detail!! Look, you can have a gummi if you promise to forget everything you saw here! It’s cyanogenic glycoside flavor!!”
“Yum. I’ll take whatever you give me, but I can’t forget something once I see it. Munch, munch.”
Those poison gummies had been a brief hit after non-fruit juice technology was used to create 100% safe reproductions of famous poison flavors. Not that anyone (well, anyone still alive) could actually prove that they really did taste like cyanide, wolfsbane, or tetrodotoxin.
The food had temporarily pacified the white beast, but things here were not over yet.
“I don’t want you doing stuff like this when you look just like me!!”
“Which do you like more: this squishy softness, this smooth slickness, or this jiggly plumpness? asks Misaka #10032 as she zooms into the lead and opens a wide gap between herself and the competition. While also opening up her body.”
“I! Said! Stop!!”
Then Mikoto spotted two colors not found on those Four Generals.
She saw honey-blonde hair and a pink nurse uniform in one corner of the large room.
“My, my, my, my. You can’t help but tease him can you, you naughty girls?”
“You were here too, Shokuhou!? Don’t just stand there! Use your Mental Out to get those four to stop!!”
“Oh, come on. They’re being selfish, but it would be cruel to stop them now that they’ve found something they want to do. Even if I am less than pleased they stole him away just when I thought I could have him to myself☆”
“Don’t you get hearts in your eyes, you old hag! And why are you acting like the overly indulgent parent here???”
“Don’t you dare call me a hag, you meathead gorilla with no maternal side whatsoever!!”
Shokuhou Misaki threw a plastic washbasin, but it flew more than 90 degrees off course and crashed right into Kamijou Touma’s head. How was that even possible? Misaka Mikoto had a succinct explanation for the mysterious phenomenon.
“I see you’re as unathletic as ever.”
“I am not!! I, uh, totally meant to do that!!”
That would suggest Shokuhou Misaki did want to lash out at that moron on a deep, subconscious level. Misaka Mikoto understood the feeling, so she sent some sparks flying from her body.
“And don’t think you’re getting off the hook just because so much happened at once. I’m keeping track of it all just fine.”
“Wait, this wasn’t my fault!” protested the boy. “That expressionless group grabbed me from my bed, carried me down the hallway, and chucked me in here! Also, baths and lightning are a bad combination, if you weren’t aware!! You might as well be throwing a hairdryer into the bath with me!!”
Shokuhou Misaki beckoned the four girls over and they left the nursing bath in perfect unison.
The honey-blonde girl must have indeed carried some darkness deep down because she made no attempt to defend the pointy-haired boy.
“I believe violence is your domain, Misaka-san.”
“Wait, I don’t want to be known for that!!!!!”
Just as she tensed up too much over that comment, the bath turned into a scene from a suspense drama.
Part 3
“So.” Kamijou Touma was wearing pajamas now and he still had Index’s jaws latched onto the back of his head. “What’s going on here? Is everyone in the world trying to kill me now???”
They were in the restaurant at the entrance of the hospital.
The swarm of clones was apparently satisfied, so they had returned to the research sector where normal patients were not allowed. Although he still had to keep his guard up since they could reappear at any moment.
“Touma, I brought this apple cake, so let’s eat it!”
“And where did you find the money for that!? I bet you used the funding I had hidden away to cover the end-of-year period where we can’t use the ATMs. Index, did you find that envelope I had taped to the back of the washing machine!? Was all the bleeding and electricity not enough!? Is the world intent on killing me through indirect financial routes as well!?”
Kamijou Touma would probably be restricted to hospital food during his stay here, but there were loopholes. Visitors could bring him food and he could visit this restaurant to speak with visitors.
Of course, the hospital would discover he had been sneaking food as soon as they ran any tests, but since he was here for cuts and contusions, not an internal illness, he did not really have to worry about the dietary restrictions all that much. And he was a growing high school boy, so he wanted to eat meat, meat, carbs, meat, salt, fat, and meat. He was not going to spend his Christmas with only slimy porridge to eat.
He grabbed the menu from the round table.
“Th-the prices will be reasonable since this is a hospital, right?”
“What, are you short on money? Since it’s an emergency, I could always lend you some.”
“I am not turning into a high schooler who owes money to a middle schooler!! It’s not happening! I’d be trading my dignity for money!”
“Are you trying to piss us off?” asked both middle school girls while pinching his cheeks.
Kamijou Touma was intent on having a feast since it was Christmas, so he ordered the fried chicken meal. Mikoto and Shokuhou could not see the connection between his intentions and his actions at first, but it eventually dawned on them as their imagination slowly caught up. Imagination speed had a way of slowing for the generations that could look anything up on their phones at any time.
“The fried chicken meal…is your idea of a feast???” The nearly-dumbfounded honey-blonde girl finally asked. “U-umm. I don’t mean to pry, but surely you aren’t thinking that qualifies as that one standard item of the Christmas meal, are you?”
“No, it’s not meant to be the turkey. They have a special Christmas fried chicken sale at the convenience stores, right? And if I want some fried chicken, this is my only option! Everything else would be too expensive!!”
(End of Preview)
