Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter3
Chapter 3
Dawn came and the brilliant white midsummer sun once again rose into the blue sky.
Seeing the sunbeams falling down, it almost made one forget that it was actually September.
Uiharu Kazari was looking up at the explosively shining sun while wearing a pink one piece swimsuit with a floral print.
“Hey, Uiharu. Quite fading away over there and get over here, you midsummer girl.”
“Saten-san. Don’t call me a midsummer girl. And what does that mean anyway?”
Uiharu looked over and saw Saten Ruiko approaching and seemingly irritated about something.
“Hm. It looks like you got a nice suntan from playing outside all day yesterday. Let’s see. Let me see the before and after of your tan.”
“Wait, ah!? Please don’t pull on the strap of my swimsuit!! Is that what you meant by a midsummer girl?!”
Uiharu protested, but Saten stretched out her swimsuit and stared at the line between milky white and light brown.
“My hair is long, so if I just stand there, I have parts that don’t get tanned. That’s why I used a strong sunblock, but I think it was too strong. I’m completely white. That’s pretty boring, so I wonder what I’ll do today. Maybe I should put my hair up so I can get a good tan.”
“W-wait! Don’t peel the brown parts! Th-that’s disgusting! You’re going to make it look terrible in the end, Saten-san!!”
“Don’t worry! You can play a lot today so it will tan up again!! Ga ha ha!”
That was when Mikoto arrived. They had eaten breakfast together, but they had split up to head back to the hotel before meeting up on the beach again.
“Hey. Sorry it took so long.”
“Oh, we don’t mind…Huh? Shirai-san isn’t with you?”
“That’s what took so long. Her sexy swimsuits were simply too destructive, so I had to go through all of her luggage to see if she had a swimsuit that was at least a little better. And I finally found one. It was a completely normal swimsuit.”
“S-so…?”
“So I’m here to introduce her reincarnation with this simple swimsuit!!”
Mikoto swung her arm over pointing in an odd direction. Standing there was Shirai Kuroko with a bored expression on her face. The swimsuit she was wearing was no more revealing than a school swimsuit. It was a white-ish one piece. It had a few straight lines on it and it was much more normal than her ridiculous swimsuit from the day before that had been nothing but a few lines.
But Uiharu and Saten were taken aback.
They looked like they were about to vomit.
“I-it doesn’t suit her at all!! Wh-why does it seem so off for Shirai-san to be wearing a normal swimsuit!?”
“How unfashionable can you get!? That looks like it would be in a cheap grab bag in a shopping district!”
Shirai Kuroko, the Japanese samurai, seemed to have become rather famous because even the surrounding (male) foreigners were making a disappointed commotion.
“Oh, it’s something simple today.
“You idiot. That’s normal.”
“The Japanese bushido certainly is dreadful to have grabbed our interest like that.”
Shirai gnashed her teeth.
“Th-this is why I didn’t want to wear something like this!! And if wearing something like this disappoints everyone, then I should have just worn a showier swimsuit!”
Steam seemed to be coming from Shirai’s head as she yelled, but Mikoto had a triumphant smile and Uiharu and Saten drew back. Shirai Kuroko finally ran out of patience and reached out for her ultimate weapon.
“Here we go!! Secret switch activated!!”
“Wha-!?”
“D-don’t tell me this is the ultimate sexy swimsuit that can transform and combine!? …Huh?”
The three of them put themselves on guard, but the swimsuit did not come apart revealing skin.
The white swimsuit seemed to be made of an outer cloth and an inner cloth. By using the intentional notches in the outer cloth, the blue color of the inner cloth made patterns on the white swimsuit.
Immediately afterwards…
“U-ugh!?”
“Wha-? …Eh? ...Wait! Th-this is..!!”
“I don’t understand why, but Shirai-san looks incredibly sexy!”
Mikoto, Uiharu, and Saten’s faces suddenly turned red. Shirai’s swimsuit was still the unfashionable one piece type that anyone from a young child to an old woman could wear. It truly was an extremely unfashionable white piece of clothing that was disappointing in how revealing it was.
And yet…
“Heh. This is your fault, onee-sama. I did not want to use this ultimate weapon, but you forced me to wear it today.”
“Gh…Gfh….What is that mysterious swimsuit…?”
“It is a collection of the best of Academy City’s technology. It was designed with the courtship displays of 38,000 animals in mind. Everything that living beings find to be sexy was gathered together so that it has sex appeal that will not only arouse men and women both young and old, but it will also arouse every kind of animal!!”
“Wait, aren’t the showier courtship displays usually done by the males…?”
“Complaint sealing courtship bomber!!”
“Mgyaaaaaaaahhhhh!?” Mikoto screamed upon seeing the courtship swimsuit.
She tried to overcome its effects, but it seemed Shirai’s swimsuit used more than the visual effects from the lines. It had small speakers installed inside and even had (electronically disseminated) pheromone scents woven into the fabric. That terrible swimsuit attacked via each of the five senses. Most likely, it would have a courtship flavor if you licked it and a courtship feeling if you touched it. In fact, with such a strange piece of technology, it may have even entered the realm of sixth sense courtship.
Which meant…
“Ahah…I’m the one wearing it, and even I’m feeling a little woozy…”
“Gwaah!! The idiot at the center of it all is receiving the most damage!? H-hey, Kuroko! At least tell us where the off switch is before you collapse!! Are you trying to turn this entire beach into an indiscriminate storm of courtship!?”
Mikoto’s vision was getting a bit distorted and it was all tinted a pale pink like she was seeing some kind of illusion. If something wasn’t done about that tactical courtship bomb, it could easily end up being reported on the news as a joke story.
“O-Onee-sama…”
“What, Kuroko!? J-just tell me where the switch is! If we don’t get that thing off soon, I’m going to make it stop even if I have to rip it apart!!”
“…Eh heh.”
“W-wait, why are you smiling? Why are you pulling your lips back and staying so silent!? Just hurry!! You can wear that sexy swimsuit from yesterday or whatever, just get rid of that new generation high-tech weapon!!”
In the end, Shirai had remained limp and silent, so Mikoto had searched about her swimsuit until she finally found the off switch.
Saten sighed heavily on the beach.
(Shirai-san certainly looked happy…)
Saten recalled Shirai Kuroko’s expression when she had been kicked in the back and sent back to the hotel. That futuristic swimsuit’s effects should have been gone, but an odd disturbance remained in Saten’s head.
“Uiharu, I’m a bit thirsty, so I’m going to go buy a drink.”
“O-okay. I was just about to go rest, so I’ll be lying over there getting a tan.”
After hearing Uiharu’s exhausted response, Saten walked from the artificial beach to a narrow promenade made of bricks.
(But…)
Saten thought to herself as she walked along.
(What was that yesterday?)
Saten may have usually seemed rather thoughtless (and she basically was), but that did not mean that she never thought about anything. There had been that hangar-like area in the center of Liberal Arts City and the destroyed flying fish-like crafts. And there had been the conversation between Mikoto and the official named Olive. It seemed something had been settled between them, but Saten had been left out. She had no idea what had happened and she could not relax until she did.
(On the way back to the hotel, Misaka-san said thoughtlessly getting into a dispute would draw unwanted attention from the teachers and might cause problems for the other students. She also said causing trouble could ruin the entire trip, so I shouldn’t make too much of an uproar over it…but why did she go in there in the first place?)
Truth be told, she had not slept well the night before. It may sound stupid, but she had felt like her window could shatter at any time and a special forces-like group would swing in on ropes like in a movie.
But nothing had happened.
The sky and the sea were blue and Saten Ruiko was in her swimsuit as usual.
(Misaka-san seems to be silently observing things…and I know someone like me can’t accomplish anything by worrying about it, but…)
She sighed and pushed her worries away to a corner of her mind.
The scenery of the area she was in seemed to be modeled off of Hawaii or Guam because the gently curving promenade next to the beach was lined with palm trees. After walking a bit further, she came across a stand selling drinks made by sticking fruits and milk into the juicer right there. The stand was really just a remodeled RV, but the undercarriage was thicker like an off-road vehicle perhaps so it could drive on the beach.
Saten looked over the menu that was written in English, Japanese, and Chinese.
(I guess the basic is a combination of banana and milk. Oh, but vanilla is something else entirely. Hmm? They have coconut. I’m pretty sure I’ve had a coconut soda before, but I wonder what a real fresh coconut tastes like…Wait!? They’re selling coconut milk like it’s nothing!!)
The shop was selling various nostalgic things, but Saten chose the coconut drink for the roundabout reason of it seeming “tropical”. She used the IC card around her neck to pay for it and took her cup from a man with very wild arm hair.
(Now then, time to see what real coconut tastes like.)
As she walked along the path leading back to where Uiharu was, she mixed the contents of the cup with the straw.
Suddenly, she heard a nearby thicket rustling. The thicket was made up of shorter trees planted behind the palm trees lined up along the promenade. The combination of the path, the palm trees, and the shorter trees was somewhat reminiscent of a Baumkuchen. The thicket was something like a green afro on the ground and it was rustling and moving in front of Saten’s eyes.
Generally, there were two different types of reactions people had upon seeing something strange.
Some would raise their guard and move back and some would be interested and move forward.
Saten Ruiko was most certainly the latter type.
(Wh-what? What what what what is this?)
She strayed from the promenade and pushed aside the giant afro thicket.
Immediately afterwards, two brown arms stuck out of the afro. Before Saten could react, the arms grabbed her arm and her waist and pulled her into the afro.
“Dwaaaaaaaahh!? Dammit, my drink!! I still don’t know what fresh coconut tastes like!!”
The instant she lost her balance and tripped, the contents of her cup spilled onto the sand. After seeing the coconut drink being absorbed by the earth, Saten glared at the one who had done it.
But she did not complain any further.
The owner of the brown arms used some strange kind of throw to hurl Saten further. Saten now lay on her back on the sand with the brown person on top of her. The person’s thighs were used to keep Saten from moving her arms and a brown arm was used to seal Saten’s mouth.
“Mgh!?”
“…You’re not an official. Tch. I got a simple tourist involved. I was hoping to beat one of them up and steal their clothes…”
Those words were spoken in some foreign language by a girl who looked to be around high school age. Her shoulder-length black hair was wavy and her eyes were piercingly black. The sunlight seemed to emphasize the tight lines of her brown skin.
The brown girl kept her hand over Saten’s mouth and then spoke in Japanese.
“If you yell, I’ll kill you.”
Saten Ruiko’s response upon hearing that was quite simple.
She used her small mouth to bite the brown hand over her mouth.
“Gwoh!?”
The brown girl yelled in a decidedly unfeminine manner and she removed her hand from Saten’s mouth due to the pain. At the same time, Saten opened her mouth wide.
“S-someone help! I’m being mugged! Ah, how do you say it in English!? U-um…Help!! Pinch!! I’m in a pinch here!!”
“Hey, I said I’d kill you if you yelled, didn’t I!? Dammit…just shut your mou-…ow!! Don’t bite me! Don’t bite me, you stupid bitch!!”
The brown girl looked around the area as she desperately tried to cover up Saten’s mouth again. When she did, that mouth closed on her hand like a bear trap. After being bit two or three times, it must have pissed her off because she grabbed some white sand and thrust it into Saten’s mouth.
“Mghgmghgh!?”
“…I-if you don’t shut up, I’ll show you just how full your mouth can get.”
Saten finally quieted down.
She coughed up the sand, but the brown girl did not get off of her.
“Ueh. Cough. Wh-what was that for…?”
The brown girl’s thighs finally loosened up just a bit and Saten looked up dumbfounded.
“Yesterday, a Mixcoatl crashed here.”
“?”
“That is the name of our vehicles that were fighting with the scientific airplanes. One of them crashed on the beach yesterday, right? I came here to rescue my comrade who was aboard, but I had to lend my one-man reconnaissance model to the injured pilot, so now I can’t get away,” the brown girl said in a fairly sulky and desperate way.
She turned her head aside and the feathered decoration in her ear lightly waved.
(I didn’t understand any of that…)
Saten had no idea what was going on, but she had no choice but to continue looking up at the girl who was sitting atop her.
Liberal Arts City was a ridiculous place where everyone wore their swimsuits everywhere, but even there, that brown girl’s outfit stood out. However, that was not because it was exceedingly revealing like Shirai Kuroko’s swimsuit.
She was wearing some sort of Indian or tribal sort of outfit. It was not made of the shiny materials common in costumes. Instead, it was faded and stained like it had been worn for a long time.
Swimsuits tended to be made of synthetic fibers which gave them a scientific taste. The brown girl’s tribal outfit stood out amid that.
“…Damn, I guess I have to change my plan. Hey, I’m gonna make use of you,” the brown girl said while looking down at Saten. “Walking around in the open dressed like this will just bring the annoying officials to me, so I need a swimsuit like the one you’re wearing so I can hide among the crowds.”
“Why me…?”
“I could always just steal the one you’re wearing now. It may be simpler to just kill you,” the brown girl said bluntly.
Saten could not tell how serious the girl was being.
“I don’t want to kill a civilian if I don’t have to, but if you refuse to help, if you say you’re going to buy me a swimsuit and just run off, or you go running to the officials…Well, let’s just say you should just do what I say.”
“Boo.”
Saten literally booed, but then she felt something cold pressed against her throat.
The brown girl had stretched out her arm. She was holding something, but Saten could not see what it was because it was pressed against her throat.
“An obsidian knife may be a rare sight for you, but it can peel off skin, remove organs, and scrape the muscles and fat off of bones. This knife was originally made to use on human flesh.”
“…Really?”
“If you don’t want me to use it, listen to what I have to say. This is not made to sever without giving any pain. If it cuts your flesh, it will hurt. Do you understand?”
Saten nodded quickly.
Seeing that, the brown girl finally moved off of Saten.
Saten brushed the sand off of her back and butt while she grumbled in her heart.
“Dammit… Fine, I just have to buy you a swimsuit, right? So what are your measurements?”
“84, 58, 81.”
(Damn. I lose on all counts.)
“What’s with those glazed eyes? I don’t care about the color, but get something that’s easy to move in.”
“Okay, okay.”
Saten pushed aside the afro-like thicket and started to head back toward the promenade.
“Oh, right. What’s your name?”
“Xochitl.”
“Hmm,” was Saten’s arbitrary response.
(Hm? If she needs a swimsuit for camouflage so she isn’t found by the Liberal Arts City officials…then she can’t walk out in the open, right?)
“Gwoohh!! I’m outta here! I’ve gotta make a dash for the safe zone…Gyh!?”
“I thought you’d do that, you idiot!!”
The brown girl stretched out her arms again and pulled Saten Ruiko back into the afro.
Xochitl spoke with her head hanging down and a dark smile on her face.
“…You seem to be mistaken about something. Having the swimsuit does nothing more than make it easier for me to blend in with the crowd. If I wanted to, I could secretly move from cover to cover and chase you down. I would just prefer a safer plan that is a little less risky.”
“Fwa ha ha! Do you really think I’m going to remain silent after hearing something as dangerous as tha-…fgh!?”
Saten’s words were cut off because Xochitl had pulled something from her pocket and shoved it up Saten’s nose. An extremely unpleasant sensation moved its way up her nose.
“Gwooohhh!?”
Saten brought her hand up to her face, but the mysterious object had been completely embedded in her nose. She rubbed at the bottom of her nose, but could not feel anything there. It seemed it would be difficult to get whatever it was out.
“What the hell are you doing to a maiden’s nose!? And what was that!?”
“You want to know? It was one of these.”
In Xochitl’s hand was an odd rod that looked something like half a Q-tip. She then pressed a sort of button in her other hand. With a slight sound, small thorns emerged from the end and the entire rod started vibrating like an electric toothbrush.
“It isn’t what they’re made for, but they’ve become popular tools of torture in recent times. The mucous membrane in the nose is sensitive. Having it scraped off is rather painful.”
“…”
Saten’s face paled.
“It would be rather bad for you if it was activated while it’s still in your nose. If you don’t want that to happen, then go buy me a swimsuit. Oh, and don’t recklessly try to pull it out. Its remote controlled, so I can activate it at any time.”
