Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun PSP SS
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: A Superfluous Story, or A Certain Incident’s End
Note: This SS was written by Kamachi Kazuma, was published in PSP Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: The Complete Visual Guide, and acts as an epilogue for the Railgun PSP game.
Part 1
The term White Alligator could be dug up on the level of an absurd rumor, but the accuracy of information on that mysterious unit would decline rapidly once one attempted to find out what exactly it was.
The first thing to come to one’s mind upon hearing the name would be the white alligators said to live in sewers.
One theory said it was an experiment forcibly training children based on the stories of those alligators having undergone a mutation in response to their harsh environment.
Another theory said it was a unit that mainly used the sewers for surreptitious movements.
A third theory said it was using the sewers as a metaphor for the “darkness” that would draw in and devour the unprepared.
Yet another theory said it had started as a powers development program created to destroy the restrictions set by a certain list whispered of in secret among researchers, but had developed into a business model that mass produced stable Level 4s to be used against Level 5s.
Each of those theories had a certain level of credibility and yet had enough conjectures added in to make absolute confidence impossible. The very existence of White Alligator seemed like nothing more than an unsure rumor spreading among the children.
Presently, only one thing was certain.
The identity of White Alligator was unclear, but those such as her definitely existed.
Part 2
Academy City was wrapped in the darkness of night. That description was only appropriate for that highly populated city filled with artificial light because it was referring to the industrial District 17. No unnecessary decorative lights were present and only the bare minimum of streetlights were present. The countless lights in the automated factories created the characteristic scene of an industrial area at night, but the darkness was still greater.
“This is the place,” said Misaka Mikoto. “According to the urban legend Saten-san picked up on, a refrigerated storage facility that already used massive amounts of electricity is being used to hide the power usage of the life support device that is controlled by a special amperage. And this is the only refrigerated facility that’s actual power consumption is off some from its spec sheet but still has stable usage.”
In the darkness of the night, a pale light lit up Mikoto’s face. It came from the screen of a PDA. Even as the display continued to scroll automatically, she put the device back in her skirt pocket.
“…‘The Whereabouts of Saitou Souta’, hm?,” said another girl standing next to Mikoto. The girl had brown hair and wore the summer uniform of Nagatenjouki Academy, one of the most prestigious schools in Academy City. She was a Level 4 with a power known as Military Oil. She was a former elite of the dark side whose history as a member of White Alligator had made sure she had dealt with plenty of dirty jobs.
She was Aizono Mio.
She had undergone first aid, but she still had fresh wounds. However, they both understood that they did not have time to carry out any more thorough treatments.
“What were you looking at that PDA for?”
“I was checking on something. I’m waiting for the results of some analysis.” It was then Mikoto’s turn to check with the other girl on something. “Listen up. Saitou-sensei is being held in here in a comatose state. Once we rescue him, you will turn yourself in to Anti-Skill as you promised. If you try to run away, I will not hesitate to fire this time.”
“I know, I know. More importantly, I have no time. Even now, Anti-Skill and Judgment are doing their best to track me down. Even a generous estimate gives me only this night. If you slow me down even slightly, I will leave you behind and finish this on my own.”
“Okay.” Mikoto punched her lightly clenched right fist into her left palm. “Then let’s get started. Let’s tie up all the loose ends.”
Part 3
Despite what Mikoto had said, they did not charge straight into the refrigerated storage facility. This was due to a comment made by Aizono Mio.
“This facility is likely a trap.”
“Whose trap?”
“Someone who doesn’t want anyone coming after Saitou-sensei. For one thing, I can’t believe that a rumor about his location would so conveniently pop up right when everything else was finished. I can only imagine that someone purposefully spread the rumor.”
“Do you think this someone knows who we are?”
“I doubt there are many other people that Saitou Souta would work as bait for.”
“Then what is our enemy planning to do? I doubt this person is going to think normal firepower is going to be much help against a Level 5 and a Level 4 working together.”
“True, true. If it was me, I know what I would do. I’d set nerve gas to be triggered the instant we stepped into the refrigerated storage facility. Once it was obvious our minds were too muddled to activate our powers, I would then immediately blow the building to smithereens with a bomb. Kaboom!!”
As usual, the change in her tone of voice sent a shiver down Mikoto’s spine.
“I’ve been wondering. Why does your tone of voice always change at times like this?”
Aizono Mio cleared her throat and said, “That’s just the way I am. I am automatically set to be interested in that type of thing.”
“And I don’t like how you talk down to me.”
“If you say a word more, I’ll turn you into a chunk of wax.” Aizono then changed the direction she was headed. “Anyway, entering the facility isn’t going to help, so let’s check the surroundings. If this was done according to the standard, we should find a vehicle.”
“Why?”
“Explosions are a bit noticeable. They’ll have had an escape vehicle prepared before setting up the explosives. They will! It’ll be at a point distant enough to not get wrapped up in any counterattacks from their target but close enough to immediately pick up their comrades and escape.”
“I told you not to talk down to me.”
“Shut up about that or I’ll dissolve your bra and panties and give you an oil massage.”
Feeling a strange chill, Mikoto fell silent. She only then realized that she was in danger of being left nude in the Floating Garden Observatory of the twin towers.
After circling around the refrigerated storage facility, they spotted a 4-door car oddly parked on the street. Aizono approached the driver’s side and…
With no forewarning, the 4-door family car was suddenly sliced in two.
The shape of Aizono’s hand had changed. More accurately, the black oil wrapped around her arm had formed the silhouette of a sword. Her clothes had also changed at some point. She now wore a special dress that was both a liquid and a solid.
“Yessss☆ Thanks for your hard work, you brave maid. Now, could you tell me where the hideout is? Where were you told to bring your companions in this piece of junk?”
“Wait…W-wh-what are you…!?”
The driver frantically pulled a handgun out of the dashboard.
However, he then noticed that something was wrong.
He felt a sticky feeling on his palm like he had picked up chocolate left in the car during the summer. Before he could even frown in confusion, the feeling slipped off of his hand. It took him a few more seconds to realize the handgun made of layered plastic that was harder than a hammer had melted.
“Hurry. Up. And. Tell. Me.”
“E-ee!? No. I’ll never talk!”
“Sigh. So you’re so far down on the chain of command that you don’t even understand how outmatched you are here.”
A sound like a rope being bent was heard. The next thing the driver knew, gasoline flowing from severed pipes surrounded his body, covering even his face.
“I suppose a nice oil massage would get the message across a little better. Have you ever wanted to be burned at the hands of a high school girl? Hmm. It’s a bit dark and hard to see. I think I’ll borrow that lighter of yours.”
“Burn!? A-are you an idiot!? I really will burn!”
“Now, it’s time for the bride and groom’s candle service!!”
Mikoto realized Aizono might actually do it, so she cut in.
“W-wait a second!! The wires were severed when you cut the car in two and this will be no joke if that’s ignited by the lighter!!”
“Ahh!! You idiot! Don’t come toward me while sending sparks everywhere like that!!”
“Eh?”
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!”
With a great explosive noise, the turkey that was the star of the party was served up.
Aizono immediately slid backwards along the ground as if pushed by the orange explosion while Mikoto used magnetism to jump back as far as she could.
The experienced former elite’s face had gone slightly pale.
“I-I can’t believe you. Roasting a completely defenseless underling for a gag is an off the charts level of cruelty. …Can I call you mistress?”
“No, please don’t!! Also, this wasn’t my fault! The explosion came from the trunk. A detonation signal was sent an instant ahead of time!!” Mikoto shouted back indignantly.
At Mikoto’s feet, the relatively strong driver who normally would have declared his victory over the hardships of life was lying in a daze like a girl who had been knocked over and licked all over by her undisciplined pet dog.
Just before the explosion, Mikoto had used iron sand to absorb and isolate the gasoline surrounding the driver’s body, and had then used magnetism operate his seatbelt buckle and pull him toward her.
“Nnyah?” Aizono tilted her head to the side in confusion before the younger girl. “So that explosion was planned ahead of time?”
“Yes. If they finished us off in the facility, that would have been that. But they also put a bomb in the trunk if it wasn’t enough. This double trap makes it seem more like they’re only trying to buy time rather than seriously trying to defeat us.”
“But what is the person behind this trying to do with the extra time?”
Mikoto and Aizono looked over toward the rescued driver. As the large man sat on the ground, he had tears in his eyes.
“N-nooooooooooooo!! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything, just don’t hurt meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! I don’t wanna buuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnnn!!”
“Mistress, it seems you’ve awakened the maiden within this tough guy.”
“I told you it wasn’t my fault! If you give even one more unnecessary comment, I’ll surround your body in a low frequency hell!!”
Part 4
Apparently, those gathered to be members of White Alligator had all been girls in their early teens. Supposedly, this was based on a theory that things like high sensitivity, the durability girls had in order to withstand the pain of childbirth, and the unstable mentality of early puberty would be optimal for that special type of powers development. However, none of this is known for sure either.
The fact that this selection of members for White Alligator was made for purely logical reasons rather than for vulgar desires may have saved those girls from a worse fate.
However, these logical reasons led to their powers development being carried out such that their bodies were worn down and built back up, so their actual fate could hardly be said to be a good one.
The members making up White Alligator were all Level 4. This perfect equality was too much to be a mere coincidence, so it clearly must have been planned.
If White Alligator really was a project meant to mass produce Level 4s as a stable source of strength, then the cruelty of those in control of the project came into view.
The members making up White Alligator all had one thing in common.
And this thing in common could not merely be explained by the fact that they were developed in a special project.
Part 5
Mikoto and Aizono hid within a manhole.
“For a sewer, it doesn’t smell too bad in here. And the water looks nice and clear.”
“In the third generation sewer system, microbe purification plants are being tested out. They’re fairly large so the microbes have air to breathe. I’d say the water quality is better than the public pools full of chlorine.”
“With such a clean environment, this looks like it would be heaven for bugs.”
“It’s actually too clean for them. With no foundation for the food chain, bugs can get in but they can’t live here. The difference between the general idea of a sewer and what this actually is made it an excellent place for us to hide or move around in.”
“Us?”
“The gators of White Alligator. I doubt I have to tell you what story the name comes from.”
With the talk of microbes and purification, Mikoto was a bit worried their feet would be eaten into, but Aizono started walking through the water, so there must not have been any issues of that sort. In fact, the mere idea of some kind of killer amoeba was a bit farfetched.
“So does anyone else use White Alligator’s sewer routes?”
“Yes, according to the driver’s smartphone,” said Aizono as she waved around the small device that was doubling as an information source and a light source.
Mikoto frowned and said, “If that facility was a decoy, then the real thing must be elsewhere.”
“Assuming this smartphone isn’t a part of some further trap in case the driver was defeated, Saitou-sensei being transported is true. The refrigerated storage facility was just a diversion to buy them enough time to cut off any pursuit.”
“So they’re moving him at this very moment?”
“In this clean sewer, yes. But,” added Aizono cautiously, “I still can’t see what they’re after.”
“?”
“Saitou-sensei only has value as something to keep me in line. Saitou-sensei himself is a completely normal person with no connection to the dark side of the city. I don’t see why they would merely change his location rather than use him as a hostage or eliminate him now that he is no more use.”
“Come to think of it, when you were targeting Academy City with the Magnetic Debris Cannon, I didn’t see anyone come forward trying to use him as a shield.”
“I had complete control of the cannon, so they may have been unwilling to show themselves for fear that I would alter its aim and specifically target them. But now it seems we need to consider a different possibility.”
“You mean that there is some value in having Saitou-sensei apart from using him against you?”
“Yes, but I have no idea what that could be. As I said, he has nothing to do with the darkness. In fact, him being a completely normal person is what made him such an effective hostage.”
“It doesn’t really matter. Let’s just stop them and rescue him.”
“…It doesn’t matter?”
“I mean that it doesn’t matter what their reason is. We just have to save him, right? I wasn’t saying anything about Saitou-sensei himself.”
“I see. Yes, yes. You’re right. Ha ha. Sorry about that.”
Aizono quickly put on a forced smile, but something like a black blade was wrapped around her right hand. She had tried to play it off as a pure maiden, but something more than that could be seen.
The blade wrapped around her right hand then returned to being a portion of her uniform.
“I suppose now we just need to provoke those behind this to get them worked up. We can send out an email to them all. Let’s see, something like ‘an informer told us where you are, so we’ll be right there’. What wording would be best to get the boss mad and suspecting his subordinates? This would be best if it spreads. What phrase would seem to fit anyone on a cold reading?”
“…You’re terrible,” muttered Mikoto.
Part 6
Academy City’s infrastructure networks were designed on the theme of decentralization. The wind turbines throughout the city were a well-known example, and the third generation sewer system was another example. Instead of centralized treatment plants, microbe storage and cultivation facilities were scattered throughout the sewers. If the number of microbes increased too much like in a red tide, ultraviolet sterilization lights placed in important points of the sewers would activate to regulate their numbers.
Even if those decentralized infrastructure networks were targeted in a terrorist attack or the like, Academy City could continue functioning. The system had enough redundancy built in that the rest of the system could easily deal with the excess burden left if a single location was destroyed. That allowed them to avoid the worst possible situation.
This was within one of those microbe storage and cultivation facilities.
The area was about as large as a school gym and it had multiple metal pipes lined up within it. Each pipe was as wide as a school classroom and about three stories high. With stairways built next to the pipes and midair passageways crisscrossing above, the area seemed cramped despite how large it was. The area was said to have once been used by White Alligator as an indoor shooting practice range. However the “practice” in question involved espers firing at each other with real bullets.
On one of those strangely clean midair passageways that had absorbed plenty of blood which had subsequently been broken down by the microbes, a girl wearing pants under a short dress leaned her back against the metal railing.
The cell phone in her hand had no static over the connection even in that underground space.
“…Yes. A job’s a job, so we’ll finish this. There is no need to worry about Saitou Souta, but is he really that valuable?” she said into the phone.
“It is not your job to determine anything’s value, Hyoudou-kun.”
“True. Well, I’ll play my part as the soldier and do the physical work. I wasn’t given a life with anything to live for besides the reward for a completed job.”
With that simple reply, the girl called Hyoudou ended the connection and called out to a colleague down below. The colleague was a girl wearing a brightly colored sports brand track suit.
“Kohina, how are things with the ‘cargo’?”
“A real pain in the ass! In fact, you help too, Maki!! Just the person would be fine because I could stuff him in a body bag and carry him like that. But he needs this life support device with him, so we need this inflatable boat. I have to crouch down, grab it with both hands, and push. As I said, it’s a real pain in the ass! I’m going to have back pain at my age!!”
“Sorry, my job is to go ahead and make sure everything is all clear. What about Sayori and Yuri? Are they complaining again?”
“You’re the same as them, you wage thief! I’m the only one doing any work around here! Sayori said she was the rear guard and has just been lazing around behind and Yuri keeps saying it’s too dark or too scary or that there aren’t any guys around here and walks off!! I can tell she’s lying! That’s not how you’re supposed to use fake tears!!”
“The mission will be over soon enough, so stick with it until then. I’ll give you these potato sticks. They’re cheese flavored.”
“You’re not going to win me over with potato sticks!! And don’t bring out strong smelling things like that in the middle of a mission!!”
“Then I’ll just have to throw them away. And there are so many left.”
Kohina fell silent for a bit before saying, “Th-the potato sticks did nothing wrong.”
“Negotiation complete.”
Hyoudou threw the box of snacks over the railing where Kohina caught it with a sulky expression and started munching on the contents.
“Really, our job is already done. Just wrap up Saitou Souta, boat and all, and stuff him in the storage and cultivation tank. Then we just have to leave some obvious signs for our pursuers and leave with the dummy boat. Once no one is after Saitou Souta, a different unit disguised as cleaners will come recover him.”
“Heh.” A twisted smile appeared on Kohina’s face. “I’m not really one to talk, but you’re pretty twisted. That produces nothing. Do you like the taste of other people’s misfortune that much?”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone rampaging right along with me.”
“What did you think I meant by ‘I’m not really one to talk’? Anyway, if you want revenge, why don’t you carry it out with your own hands? That’s much more healthy. And then it might actually be worth helping you.”
“That would be too boring.”
“You really are twisted. You’re on the same level as someone who can only get turned on by seeing their lover assaulted by some stranger.”
Silence fell.
Silence only interrupted by the crunching of snacks being consumed.
And then the two sensed it at the same instant.
Most likely, Sayori and Yuri had sensed it too, wherever they were.
“…This smell.”
“Napalm!?”
Just as she cried out, Aizono Mio’s Military Oil exploded without restraint.
Part 7
And Misaka Mikoto cried out.
“Have you never heard of the concept of restraint!? This time, every person there must have been roasted black. And even if they escaped the explosion itself, the leftover toxic gases like carbon monoxide filling the area will take them out!! And what about Saitou-sensei!?”
They were at the entrance of the facility, but they could not peer inside. A roasting wind and gases were bursting out through the entrance. Oddly enough, the flames themselves could not be seen, but that may have been because all the oxygen in the area had been consumed.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I gathered all the information I needed. I can hear voices from quite a distance by spreading out a thin rubber membrane. Saitou-sensei is inside a metal tank.”
“…You can do that?”
“It also works well for contraception☆ But maybe you’re a bit young for that.”
“From some of the things you’ve said, I’d say you’re a virgin, too”
“Oh, are you hoping for a catfight? I’ll have you know I’m undefeated when it comes to oil wrestling!!”
“Things like that are exactly what I was-…”
Mikoto trailed off and took a step back.
At the same moment, countless beams of light ran through concrete wall separating the facility from the sewer. With the wall sliced to pieces, a great amount of oxygen was sucked into the facility.
The flames that had been forced out flared back to life, but the flow of fresh oxygen also diluted the toxic gases such as carbon monoxide.
Of course, Mikoto and Aizono had not done it.
It was those inside the facility who had wanted the fresh oxygen.
“What?” said Mikoto with a displeased frown.
She was not surprised at the mere fact that someone inside was still moving around after that explosion. After all, she could name a person or two who could withstand a direct hit from a napalm attack.
Aizono Mio could do the same.
In fact, with her Military Oil power, she likely knew even better how many people could survive it.
“…Seriously? Ahh, I should have realized this. It makes sense. I may know how the dark side works as a former member of White Alligator, but I should have been more cautious given how perfectly I was able to predict the enemy’s actions.”
Black figures appeared amid the orange flames on one of the midair passageways.
A total of four enemies appeared.
It was not just the flames lighting them from behind that made their coloration seem black.
They wore the same composite armor dress made of oil that Aizono Mio wore.
“We’re up against other former White Alligator members. That is why I was able to so accurately predict their actions.”
