Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter1

==Chapter 1: I’m Sick of Running – Break_Through_MCV.==

===Part 1===

HsMCV-08 Predator Octopus

Class: Next Generation Mobile Combat Vehicle

Crew: 4 (but can be 0 while controlled remotely or used as a drone)

Measurements: 10m long, 2.8m wide, 3m tall (not counting antennae)

Weight: 20 tons (not counting ammunition, fuel, crew, and additional armor)

Max Speed: 250km/h

Max Climbable Slope: 60 degrees (varies based on slope conditions such as moisture or ice)

Engine: Diesel engine with electrical assistance

Drive Method: 4-wheel and 8-wheel drive modes. Front 4 and rear 4 wheels can be turned independently

Sensors: Anti-personnel, anti-air, and anti-vehicle multipurpose microwave radar, facial recognition and object search using optical imagery, IR detection, audio detection, and laser range finding. Also includes detection and countermeasures to locks of same types

C4I Communications: midrange ground radio, close and midrange IR laser, close range ultrasound, high-speed satellite communication. Combined, these methods provide a baselevel equivalent to a front line communications base.

Armaments: 120mm tank gun (can use various shells as well as launch anti-ground and anti-air drones), 40mm auto grenade launcher, 12.7mm heavy machinegun.

Defenses: multipurpose smoke emitter, anti-missile metal net launcher, auto attitude angling program to reduce damage when hit



“Huh, that’s a weird thing to see parked here. Stopping for lunch maybe?”

Hamazura Shiage, a delinquent boy wrapped in plenty of gauze and bandages, made that comment in front of a large discount store that was open for business so soon after New Year’s. But since this was District 12, the floor above it seemed to contain a shrine or church or something.

The dark gray 8-wheel vehicle designed for urban warfare wasn’t something you normally saw while walking around town, but fire trucks and ambulances would also stop by convenience stores for food when there was no emergency to respond to. You would sometimes see photos of it people had posted on social media.

Takitsubo Rikou tilted her head in her pink track suit.

“Probably part of the martial law they talked about on the emergency message sent to our phones. Remember when they beeped like they do before an earthquake?”

“Martial law. You can’t be serious. Surely it’s only training and they forgot to check the right box or something. Y’know, one of those false alarms where they don’t even give you any free gems to apologize. But now that you mention it, the convenience stores and supermarkets do all have their shutters down. I thought they were just closed for the holiday, but maybe not. This could be bad…”

“At least you’re out of the hospital. If you had been there any longer, they might have shut you inside in the name of protecting the sick and injured.”

Those two were only all the way in District 12 because they wanted to avoid the crowds at the few stores that were still open among all the closed shutters. But what if that wasn’t people after holiday sales and were actually buying up what they could before everything shut down?

Meanwhile, Takitsubo Rikou spoke to him with her usual blank look.

“We’ll be fine as long as the global search engine and that penguin logo discount store are still open for business. The Earth isn’t in danger yet.”

“I hope you’re right…”

With the deep rumble of diesel engines, a convoy of military vehicles drove past them. Another of the 8-wheel armored vehicles was in the lead, a trio of military trucks carrying materiel and ammo followed, and an anti-air tank with a radar and two humongous autocannons took up the rear. What were they planning to fight?

Takitsubo didn’t seem to mind as she removed one of the plastic baskets by the entrance and placed it in the cart.

“The others said they were sick of New Year’s food, didn’t they? So how about we have roast beef tonight?”

“I’m pretty sure Mugino and Kinuhata meant they don’t want any more fancy food, not just the Japanese kind. I bet they’d love it if we made curry udon.”

“Or a rice bowl? Okay, how about we make roast beef bowls as a compromise.”

“Wow, it’s the exact same ingredient, but it sounds way cheaper now!!”

===Part 2===

The aisles were cramped.

Kamijou was already feeling loopy from the theme song being played ad nauseam.

He held a shopping basket as he ventured into a modern dungeon packed full of every sort of product: food, cosmetics, toys, video games, camping goods, and even bicycles.

He stared at the boxes of masks stacked up by the entrance.

“Is the flu going around or something?”

Discount stores – especially the entrance area – could be used as a scientific form of divination. The in-season items they hoped to sell the most would be shoved to the front, reflecting the current trends.

Aradia picked up a box of over-the-counter cold medicine from a stacked pyramid of them.

“These colorful capsules are supposed to be medicine? Really, Academy City’s love of strange chemicals knows no end. These kinds of problems are for your local villagers and witches, not some scientist up in his ivory tower.”

“Hold on, Aradia. You aren’t seriously saying all-natural medicines made from tree roots or whatever have no side effects and you can’t overdose on them, are you? Ugh, that stuff is so gross.”

“You don’t have to look away when you say that. And come to think of it, didn’t that little god say you bought that sturdy foreign duct tape at a discount store? Hee hee hee. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not bringing that up for any particular reason. I’m only stating a fact, so I’m not going to hurt you or anything.”

Was he imagining it or was there a burning fire behind her dark expression?

It was just like a discount store to lazily be pushing ordinary cold medicine when it was the flu going around. And some of the masks in the clearance section were for sports and may not have done much at all to prevent the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, little wicked woman Anna was focused on something else entirely.

The bare-skin girl(?) who probably never caught a cold or the flu spoke up.

“All the alcoholic drinks have been moved to the back and locked up. Is that because of the martial law?”

That wasn’t something a high school boy like Kamijou paid much attention to.

Would people cause trouble because they were drinking or because they had been denied their drinks?

“This is awfully ironic.”

“What is?” Aradia tilted her head.

It was January 3 and Board Chairman Accelerator had apparently declared martial law across Academy City. Or so they were saying on the show displayed on all of the TVs advertised at their holiday sale prices. The given reason was to bring a swift end to a battle that had broken out at a foreign consulate, but Kamijou knew it was so they could hunt down his group (or Anna really).

“Fool. This shop is still open with martial law declared. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“The time will come when we can’t buy food and water?” asked Kamijou in shock.

Little Anna grinned.

“We’re on the run, remember? It’s too late to search out supplies once we need them. Our 8-wheel vehicle has plenty of horsepower, so it couldn’t hurt to stock up. Unless you want to risk your life for a cup of water later on, I recommend buying thrice the supplies you would consider the bare minimum. So for now, two or three days’ worth?”

Thanks to the martial law, no one would question the tanks and armored trucks driving down the streets or the unmanned attack helicopters and self-destruct attack drones flying through the sky.

“Damn. Does that bastard have to be taking his board chairman job so seriously?”

“He’s assumed the mantle well – including the part where he makes stupid decisions,” said Anna. “Hee hee. Anyone who sits in the executive seat seems to end up thinking the same way.”

Yes, this also meant that no one paid any real attention to the Predator Octopus that Kamijou’s group was driving around. No one reported it or tried to stop them.

It didn’t matter how much firepower someone had if they couldn’t locate their target. What could you call that but ironic?

Ideally, they would make their way to District 15 right away.

If Academy City learned of the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plans and that Anna was in the unique position to stop it, they might decide they needed her.

(Sigh. Down blankets and microwaves. They really sell everything here. Can’t I just live here? Are pets and other living animals the only thing they don’t have?)

Kamijou amused himself by checking out some colorful clothing cases that probably weren’t as useful as they looked. Maybe he just needed something to distract him from the fact that they were on the run.

But while the pointy haired boy entered old man mode, something concerning was underway behind him.

“Anna, you look much too conspicuous for someone on the run. Shouldn’t you wear actual clothing instead of holding that cloth up to your chest? Your butt could use covering.”

“You’re one to talk when it comes to clothing, bare navel bikini witch. And is it scored for easy tearing? Hoping someone will rip it off of you?”

Kamijou’s smile remained but a tear trickled from the corner of his eye.

Before they even addressing how much skin their clothing covered, he really wished they would note the fact that both of them were walking around barefoot in the frigid January weather. Thanks to the diagonal slash Aradia had received from a certain butler, her already revealing bikini had been hastily repaired with thread and needle. That looked 100 times more precarious than an ordinary bikini knot.

He was doing his best to pretend he didn’t know them, but he too was making a pretty wild fashion statement with his coat’s missing right sleeve. You could call it Kanzaki style.

But he couldn’t run away from reality.

So he turned around.

“Are you sure we don’t need a cart?”

“Stick to the one basket, fool. If you don’t set an upper limit for yourself, you’ll start shoving everything you see into the cart. Like this stamp-sized mobile router. It looks interesting, but how would we even use it?”

Small Anna was right.

Discount stores were experts at using the low prices to fuel impulse buying, so it was best to assume an amateur like him couldn’t fight it. The store had experts in psychology and economics on their side, so the vague feelings of an individual could never win.

“What about you, Aradia? Kamijou-san is a little overwhelmed by the wide variety of stuff they have here.”

“There’s a lot I want, but food should probably be our priority. …What is this long, angular bar? Ew, what kind of meat even is it?”

“It’s just chicken!! They gather up all the small pieces left on the bone and press it together for an economical food! Why does it scare you so much, Aradia!?”

The nature-loving forest witch goddess kept her distance from the block of meat that couldn’t look more processed if it tried.

“We want a quick source of nutrition, so…how about bananas? But raw ones don’t keep for long, so the chips might be best. Honey, nuts, and dried fruit sound like good options too.”

Was there any hidden meaning in that or not? She was probably focused on foods that would keep, but that lineup sounded like it would make you thirsty. And were banana chips really that nutritious? Kamijou had always thought they were junk food.

(Do they sell minifridges here? They do have microwaves.)

Kamijou took a bunch of stuff from the shelves and stuck it in the basket. With three of them, the basket was getting pretty full after a few minutes. Especially when cooking wouldn’t be an option. Also, not being poor was a wonderful thing. Running around Shibuya while being killed repeatedly by Aradia had been worth it. He did wish she would apologize at least once, though.

“What about water? Should we buy some?”

“There was a 50 liter tank in the vehicle. And try to picture our entire daily routine. We’ll need water for washing our faces and bathing.”

“Ugh, then will we have to buy toothbrushes too? Oh, god. I have all this stuff back at my dorm, so this is all wasted money! This is worse than accidentally buying a manga volume you already own. Can’t we stop by my dorm real quick? I know all this stuff is already there!”

“You know we can’t, fool. They will absolutely be watching it. Do you want to die?”

This was all Anna’s fault, so why was she being so condescending about it?

Kamijou wasn’t about to give up yet, so he looked elsewhere while trembling.

“Oh, they’re selling fukubukuro.”

“What are those? Giant fortune cookies?”

“Fool and country witch, don’t even think about it because no one bag will have everything you want. Remember, these are an assortment of unsold products at an already super-cheap discount store. Besides, Mr. Misfortune here has a solid 0% chance of choosing a good one.”

Aradia gently placed an arm around the shoulders of the boy who thought he was going to cry if this kept up.

Anyway, he never imagined he would be carrying a shopping basket and checking out the fresh foods and daily necessities sections while chatting with a witch goddess. Since she had quite literally killed him in Shibuya on December 31, it really did prove how strange life could be.

Aradia herself picked up some body soap and skeptically read the back of the bottle.

“It’s not just the food – everything in Academy City is creepy. What is this collection of chemicals? How do you even use it?”

Kamijou wondered how you could even make soap without chemically processing oil in some way.

“It’s quick-drying body soap,” he explained. “You rub it into your skin, wait a bit for it to bring up all the filth, and then peel it off. It’s popular with poor students who can’t even afford to fill their tub with water.”

“We also need new clothes for you. Who tore off your right sleeve anyway?”

“You and Anna need new clothes more than I do. Why are you both showing off so much skin for free? At this point, it should definitely be behind the paywall. And were you unaware that January is midwinter in the Northern Hemis- ow!? Stop kicking me, Anna!”

And so they also checked out a section across the store from the food.

They wanted a new coat for Kamijou, but there were plenty of other useful items like an electric heater and a collapsible bed. But if they started buying everything, the contents of his wallet would quickly run out, so Kamijou had to fight the urge.

Then he felt a tug on his sleeve.

He looked down to see Anna Sprengel holding something. It appeared to be a video game box. Her small size made it look like a little sister begging her big brother for a game, but then he saw the title: Jiggly☆Witch Trial.

“(Hey, hey. This says it’s a touchscreen game where you capture witches hidden around the city and reveal their identity using some lewd interrogation techniques. Is this part of the retro game rerelease boom? It’s been marked down a lot, so it’s a great price. Let’s buy it, fool. Hee hee. Japan really is a crazy country.)”

“(Do you wicked women have a sixth sense for stuff like this!? No, we aren’t buying that! Aradia would explode! And in a way that left my bones and organs visible! This isn’t the time for jiggly stuff!!)

“(Read between the lines, fool. That’s what I want to happen. Specifically, I want to see her kick you in the balls so hard it lifts you 2cm from the ground. Oh, now look what you made me say. How embarrassing.)”

“You trying to be tsundere works so poorly it’s triggering a bunch of unheard-of errors in my brain.”

Maybe discount stores had a little too much variety.

A short distance from Kamijou and Anna’s whispered conversation, Aradia (who was back in full Transcendent mode with her feet freed from the duct tape) was viewing a different product on the wall. She would likely grab Kamijou’s hair and rip his head from his body like a vegetable from the ground if she found out what he and Anna were discussing, so what had her so preoccupied?

(A picture book?)

“The Little Mermaid… Oh, what a tragic story. The sea witch gave the sheltered mermaid exactly what she wanted and even rooted for her, but everyone treats her like some kind of troublemaker!!”

“Are you sure that’s the tragedy of the story!? Are you sure it isn’t the princess who turns to foam!?”

After calming down the witch goddess who was trembling with her hands over her mouth, they continued shopping. At Aradia’s request, they put a few rolls of fabric in the basket. What was she going to use them for?

Even after their shopping was complete, they couldn’t let their guard down. The checkout area was loaded with traps.

“I want a roasted potato.”

“Do you go for any kind of natural food, Aradia?”

Kamijou Touma’s poor life was over. He had the results of his year-end job. So he carried the shopping basket up to the college girl cashier without hesitation. However…

“Oh?”

Anna’s small foot kicked him in the shin.

He really hoped she didn’t make a habit of it because that little girl’s foot hurt like hell.

“No using your phone, fool. Pay with cash. Why is it even still powered on? Do you want to die?”

“?”

“Anything you do with your phone is recorded. Not counting my special model where I fully swapped out the chips inside.”

He didn’t understand any of that, but he decided it was worth listening to the little wicked woman since she had run a global IT company. He paid in cash as told and left with the products in shopping bags. The two enormous yellow bags were both crammed full. Was this what it felt like to be rich? There was a parking meter on the curb, but the vehicle parked there was a mobile combat vehicle that looked like a tank gun sitting atop an 8-wheel chassis.

Anna pointed elsewhere while holding her dress against her flat chest.

A very temporary-looking 10m metal tower rose up from a small park there.

“That’s a phone interception antenna tower. It can see any data moving to and from your phone.”

“Are you serious?”

“Martial law, remember? Your right to privacy goes right out the window.”

Kamijou panicked when a helicopter loudly passed by overhead, but it didn’t seem to have found them. Because they didn’t hear any sirens or phone alerts in the area. Several transport helicopters flew elsewhere while using thick cables to carry barricades made by arranging thick steel beams in an asterisk shape.

(Come to think of it, who makes Academy City’s defense weapons? I get the feeling they don’t contract out to an ordinary company, but does that actually make a profit?)

“Fool. Everything from the production to the deployment of Academy City’s weapons is done in the name of technological research. The funding is 100% tax based, which means their budget is effectively endless. And they also create downgraded versions they force onto the cooperative institutes around the world, so they never go in the red no matter how many they produce. Just by saying the weapons have been field tested in Academy City to ensure safety, they can take Anti-Skill’s old, worn-out weapons, remove the components they want to keep secret, and force those cooperative institutes to buy them for 3 times what they’re worth. Quite the economical display of recycling, don’t you think? Even more underhanded than calling yourself a religious corporation to avoid paying taxes.”

Could Anna rattle off all of that unpleasant trivia because she spent so much time online?

A blimp with a large screen drifted through the January sky. Even that scared Kamijou now. What if it started dropping bombs? After seeing all those tanks and armored trucks driving around, he had lost sight of what was possible or not.

The ecological city of spinning three-blade wind turbines felt like a stage backdrop now.

(And you could even say that we’re the ones who caused this.)

The one saving grace was that he was still confident he had done the right thing.

They put a coin in the parking meter and reentered the vehicle. That was a rare experience for a high schooler.

Aradia tore apart her own clothing.

She used the fabric she had bought to sew back up the part that had been temporarily fixed. She was quite handy.

“Silk dyed with hyssop and rosemary flowers… Why did they only sell mesh fabrics?”

“Those are probably ventilation fan covers designed to keep bugs out. Ones made without chemicals.”

Kamijou put on his new jacket.

“So what did you two buy?”

Aradia dug through the yellow bags and then grimaced.

She had the look of a mother disappointed in what her child had spent his allowance on.

“A jelly drink, a nutrient block, and cup noodles? Oh, no. You were aware the point was to buy enough food to get by because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to shop, right?”

Kamijou had tried to choose things that were easy to eat and would keep, but the nature-loving, banana-obsessed woman did not approve. She viewed the contents of the yellow bags (advertised as made from plant materials) like they contained the mystery food from a dystopian SF movie.

“My selection is a lot healthier,” said Aradia.

“Ew, insect snacks!?” said Kamijou. “I’ve seen those for sale before, but I thought they were for people who lost a bet or for people to buy as a joke!”

“They’re a next-generation protein source. With this salted caramel flavor, it’s a lot like munching on popcorn.”

“…”

Kamijou had thought edible insects would be on the way out now that high-quality tofu meat was available, but it didn’t sound like Aradia had bought them just to freak him out. She made sure to remove her food from the bags to keep it separate.

He was worried about the dietary habits of this goddess who lived in the sacred forests of Europe. If she could reliably capture insects, he felt like she could use those as bait to catch fish.

“What’s that look for? Sigh, your Eastern culture weeps. This country has a wonderful culinary tradition of cooking insects like grasshoppers and hornet larvae. Your people stand at the forefront of the world there, so it would be a shame to let the tradition die.”

It was hard to tell if this goddess was extremely old-fashioned or cutting edge. And Aradia appeared to be the kind of person who relied on snacks and chips for nutrition when she was short on time. Like the messy young woman who ate snacks all day because she didn’t know how to cook.

“This stupid banana woman and her lewd outfit.”

“What was that you let slip just now?”

“Wait, no! I apologize, so please explain to me what you plan to do with that clenched fist, Transcendent! Good, Old Mary isn’t here now, so that’s t-t-terrifying!!”

Anyway.

She circled behind him and gave him a (gentle) two-handed noogie.

“Nweee? But, Anna, this 8-wheel vehicle really is conspicuous. There are people snapping photos with their phones.”

“Foolish fool. This thing weighs more than 20 tons, which is twice the weight of a dump truck. If we tried to hide it inside a turntable parking garage, it would break the elevator.”

Meanwhile, Anna didn’t seem to have an issue with chemicals. She even licked her lips as she grabbed a muscat flavor jelly drink. The weirdly alluring mannerisms on the young-looking body caused Kamijou’s brain to glitch a little.

He looked away, but that had him looking at Aradia who had ended the noogie, sat in the gunner’s seat, flipped her clasped hands around, and stretched them forward while her back trembled.

“Uhhh… I really am feeling weak. Is that cause I haven’t been getting much exercise?”

“Or maybe it’s just awkward being in such a cramped space?”

She gave Kamijou quite the depressing glare for that comment.

“No, I think it has more to do with being left wrapped up in duct tape for days on end. I’m just glad I don’t have any bedsores.”

What could he do but apologize?

An amplified voice outside made it through the thick armor.

It had to be absolutely deafening outside.

“Indefinite martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Please avoid heading out and remain in your dorm or home.”

The announcement was probably coming from the blimp’s screen and it repeated.

“Water, food, and other necessities will be supplied to you if you contact your dorm manager. Please remain calm and stay where you are.”

“They’re kidding, right? What dorm manager? I’ve never even seen an adult at my dorm. Being locked in the same building as a pretty young dorm manager in an apron sounds like heaven to me.”

“What makes you so sure the manager would be a young woman?” 

What could he do but clear his throat and look away from Aradia?

Just like with the school doctor, it was about having dreams. But he got the feeling she would punch him square in the face if he said that out loud.

Aradia must have picked up on his adolescent fantasies because she frowned cautiously before speaking.

“Do they really expect a bunch of teenagers to stay indoors just because they say it’s dangerous outside? And who knows how long they can get away with it, but that discount store was open.”

Small Anna had her legs elegantly crossed up in the command seat while she messed with a monitor that could apparently pick up civilian frequencies in addition to the military ones. That meant it got TV and radio. The New Year’s holiday was winding down, so everything was returning to normal while the TV stations were still doing live variety shows. The set was still flooded with New Year’s props, but the entertainers were dressed normally now.

“Martial law might sound scary, but there is nothing to worry about. People were already staying home more due to the Kotatsu Syndrome, so will this even have that much of an effect?”

“Plus, it’s the holiday. Everyone’s exhausted from working so hard, so this is the perfect chance to relax at home☆”

“Also, the hospitals across the city have been asked to prepare for soldiers arriving as emergency patients. They have to reserve 40% of their beds for that, so everyone else is asked to refrain from visiting the hospital except in true emergencies. Your careless action could be a nuisance for our civil servants.”

Kamijou frowned.

Don’t go outside. Stay home. Don’t use the ordinary services. Being asked all that during winter break seemed like it would cause a lot of stress, but everyone on TV was reacting positively to the violation of people’s freedom. Or maybe it was more accurate to say any opposing views had been removed in advance.

“Fool, this is martial law.”

Anna Sprengel wagged her finger and gave a response he wasn’t sure really counted as an answer. He wasn’t sure what she had used since there was no remote, but she called up a TV guide.

Even Kamijou noticed something then. There should have been a few movies playing during the holiday, but all of the war and disaster movies had vanished from the schedule and were replaced by unusually long shopping shows.

And those ads were unusually cheerful.

“Have we got a New Year’s campaign for you! Every single roll is guaranteed an SSR or better and you earn 10 times – that’s right 10 times – the usual rate of magic gems, so make sure to pour all that XP into your favorite character. This is our New Year’s gift to you here at Samurai Street!!”

“That’s probably part of the plan to keep everyone inside,” said Anna. “Note that the event is nothing more than manipulating numbers.”

“?”

“The idea is to keep everyone glued to their tiny screens so they aren’t interested in going outside, fool. Instead of taking away the option, they give them a more attractive option. It’s a common tactic rulers use against people like you. And major campaigns from every company at once won’t raise any eyebrows during the holiday.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but he felt a chill when he saw the nasty grin on the face of that wicked woman who had created a global IT company and manipulated 7 billion people.

(The new board chairman must have put a lot of thought into this.)

Aradia didn’t seem too interested in the ordinary media because she started rummaging through the yellow discount store bags.

“We bought a lot, but did we think to buy a mirror?”

“Why not use the fool’s phone? The black screen works just like a mirror.”

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Kamijou watched as the witch goddess looked into the mirror(?), placed her hands on her face, and began stretching her cheeks. Was that…a massage? This new discovery about a girl’s daily life was kind of surreal.

(Wait. That green light on the side of the screen doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it?)

“Is this recording? Why would you record someone in such an unguarded moment, you pervert!?”

It finally hit home to Kamijou (while receiving a much less gentle noogie this time) that he was living with girls here.

He got the feeling that sharing a single living space like this was going to cause many more problems.

“Anyway, fool, let’s review our situation.”

“Okay. We bought what you said we needed, so what now?”

Kamijou was released by the sexy and intellectual young woman, so he reached for the chocolate-flavored nutrient block he had bought.

It seemed the closest to a snack to him.

“We’re being directly pursued by three forces right now: Academy City, Aleister, and the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

If any of those three captured Anna Sprengel, or Kamijou and Aradia who were assisting her, they would be in serious trouble. For Anna in particular, there was a growing trend toward killing her instead of capturing her.

Given what Anna had done, Kamijou didn’t want to just let her go free either.

But that did not mean he was willing to let her die.

Would that ending really satisfy St. Germain, Helcalia, and Melzabeth?

“For now, we need to focus our attention on the Bridge Builders Cabal,” said Anna. “To do that, I would like to move from here in District 12 to District 15 where my magic database is hidden.”

“District 12 is on the easternmost end of the city and District 15 is to the west. We can’t pass through District 23 since it’s full of airfields and thus off limits. The shortest route would be to travel through Districts 6, 5, and 7.”

“But this is all in the same city, right? We aren’t talking about inland Australia where you have to travel dozens of kilometers of near-desert to find the next house. The trip shouldn’t take even an hour in the vehicle.”

Aradia had a point, but a convoy of tanks passed by just then, throwing an unhealthy-looking cloud of asphalt dust into the air. Funnily enough, the Predator Octopus had a sideview mirrors, turn signals, brake lights, and a license plate. Which meant they had to obey the traffic laws while on the public roads. If they floored it and drove at top speed, the unusual behavior would quickly rouse suspicion.

Furthermore…

“The city isn’t as stupid as you are, so they will have set up checkpoints. Still, we should be safer in this billion-yen tin can than if we were walking outside where everyone could see who we are. It just means traveling very, very slowly,” explained Anna, slurping up her pack of jelly drink. Adding in some toxic laughter seemed to be second nature to her at this point. “Like I said before, the vehicle itself weights 20 tons. While that is better than a tank which could mean 40 or even 70 tons, I wouldn’t want to cross an old, rundown bridge in it and it’s too large to sneak through narrow back alleys. With any smaller or older roads, one of us will need to get out and make sure the MCV can get through before we make our move, so keep that in mind. That might sound simple enough to you, but large trucks usually need to submit a route in advance to make sure they don’t damage the pavement.”

“Then what is even the point of hiding in this cramped tin can that costs more than 8 times as much as an Italian sportscar?” asked Aradia. “Emerging to check the way ahead sounds risky to me.”

“I’m saying even that is better than being constantly exposed in this surveillance society chock full of everything from security cameras to drones and even satellites, foolish witch.”

Kamijou sensed an argument brewing, so he quickly intervened.

“A-anyway, you two! We’re all in this together, so arguing inside this cramped vehicle would only-”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………I do despise people who interrupt me without even attempting to grasp the situation first,” said Anna.

“Eh? Huh?”

“Shut up! Whose side are you on? Eat bugs!”

“Mgahhhhhh!!?”

In a complete surprise attack, Aradia shoved a generous handful of insect snacks into his mouth. His spine straightened with a start. This was likely the dried caterpillars, not the type with 6 legs. …But the worst part was how the salt and caramel transformed them into a nice sweet and salty snack. They reminded him a lot of a certain super popular caramel-flavor round snack, so he found them unexpectedly good. His brain was confused about what exactly he was even eating here, so he honestly found it hard to comment on.

“I-I’m not even sure how to categorize this as a memory. …But anyway, if we’re going to do something, shouldn’t we do it right away? I don’t know how these things are done, so could you tell us, Anna?”

“Bow to me before asking anything of me, fool. But you are right. We can start by circumventing the checkpoint they are running up there. That should make for a decent tutorial. You need to take measurements to see if the road can withstand 20 tons. Do that using this handheld ultrasonic sonar kit by-”

After he heard that much, Anna Sprengel’s voice grew unnaturally distorted.

Gravity vanished.

“?”

Without any warning, Kamijou Touma collapsed.

===Part 3===

Kamijou couldn’t see anything.

He also felt off balance, like he was floating in warm water.

He heard voices from somewhere.

“When…think about it…isn’t surprising.”

“I told…letting him rest…our top priority.”

Where was he?

That thought led Kamijou to realize what had happened. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He was in the same place as before. That is, inside the Predator Octopus.

He could hear voices.

Two voices speaking to each other.

“Most likely…Old Mary’s resurrection…but it isn’t perfect.”

“That spell rewinds…to the exact…of death, doesn’t it?”

“And it doesn’t…the lost blood. He probably…due to anemia. Oh, no. And…from the extreme exhaustion and tension…played a role too.”

“Then the best…give him something nutritious to eat. That way…create his own blood.”

(Aradia? Anna?)

Two names floated to the surface of Kamijou’s mind and he slowly opened his eyes.

Only then did he realize his eyes had been closed.

“That aside, was there any need to return your body to that size?”

“I want to see how it’s doing whenever I have the chance. Besides, this is my proper form – I just can’t maintain it for very long.”

Their voices were growing clearer, but probably because he was recovering, not because anything about the voices had changed.

And.

For some reason, he was sharing this enclosed space with two naked women.

Both of whom were using wet towels to wipe down their bodies.

[[Image:GT_Index_v08_BW1.jpeg|thumb]]

They were probably using that thing.

That is, the Academy City quick-drying body soap that was like a combination of soap and hand disinfectant. First you rubbed it on your body, then you waited while it brought your body’s filth to the surface, and finally you wiped it off, leaving your body squeaky clean. But when you saw someone covered in the dried red cream and wiping it away with a towel, it felt a lot like coming across a naked person washing off their flashy body paint.

He wasn’t confident either of them actually wore underwear and their ordinary outfits showed off a lot of skin, but it was still something else entirely to see them fully nude. And when they were squishing their skin down with the towels, the visual information taught him exactly what the word “supple” meant. He was certain he would never ever forget that word on a vocabulary test.

He also understood it was an emergency and having him lie on the cold floor had been the only option.

But the low angle view that gave him was no laughing matter.

Also, Kamijou Touma very much wanted to say that they should not use him passing out as a “convenient” opportunity to engage in some girl-only activities! Really, wasn’t this their just deserts for doing that!?

He wanted to say those things, but his mouth was petrified.

But not because he was admiring how big and busty Anna Sprengel was now. Certainly not.

“I am more than ready for an easy life. All I want is a powerful king who can keep me in line.”

He had no idea why the bewitching woman version of Anna Sprengel was saying this all of a sudden.

In what she called her “proper form”, she grinned down at him.

“But I have no use for a horny king, fool.”

She stepped on the bastard’s face.

===Part 4===

Evening had begun.

They had left District 12 and arrived in the adjacent District 23.

Thanks to the martial law, the ordinary roads were blockaded and the district was being used as a cargo and air force base. So if any ordinary people were to climb the fence, they would be shot without even a warning, but these three didn’t care at all.

Aleister, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

They walked along the fence, passing right in front of the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers guarding the perimeter of the district. No human and no mechanical cameras or sensors could detect the intruders.

“What are we doing here?” Kihara Noukan sounded deeply exasperated. “I get the feeling you are involving me in your magic nonsense without bothering to explain any of it.”

The general public was aware of magic’s existence thanks to R&C Occultics, but that website had already been shut down. The city’s Anti-Skill didn’t know enough about magic to use it without the assistance of the site or the app.

''Except…

“Hee hee. This is ❌ anything difficult. 🪄 has always been hidden from the 🌍 at large.”

That was all the glasses woman had to say on the matter.

At her level of expertise, ordinary anti-recognition spells and people clearing fields could reach this level.

She had developed each of the fundamentals far enough to assassinate a superpower’s president with it.

And they were just as effective against ''mere'' expert magicians.

“That isn’t enough for me to relax,” said the blonde woman in a beige habit – or rather, Aleister who was borrowing her body. “Because this means someone else could do it too. Like the Transcendents and Anna Sprengel. We can’t get the upper hand unless we can outdo someone on their level.”

“Yes, yes.”

Kingsford only smiled gently in response to his low, unsteady voice.

A lot like a mother viewing her disobedient teenage son.

There was a decent crowd on the other side of the fence, but they didn’t appear to mean any real harm. A group of Anti-Skill with a tough-looking Doberman were clearly annoyed by the obsessive young men trying to volunteer. Anti-Skill were all teachers, so joining without a teaching license was apparently out of the question.

These young men saw it more like a survival game or like online play in an FPS, so they just wanted to hold real guns and ride a real tank. One of the Anti-Skill officers grabbed a device supported by a metal stand and redirected its aim toward the young men, who scowled and looked a lot less enthusiastic all of a sudden.

Aleister glanced that way.

“Is that low-frequency demoralization audio?”

Anti-Skill was playing an irritating sound too quiet to consciously hear so those young men would decide to leave. The city made it all sound so nice on TV and online, but this was the truth of the matter across the entire city. An invisible labyrinth had been constructed. Not that Aleister was one to talk as the person who had built the city in the first place.

At any rate.

Aleister’s group had no use for an airplane. They were here for the Science Tower. The rest of the district was airfield after airfield, making it very flat, so that 400m tower with an observation deck was highly conspicuous. In addition to broadcast purposes, it was currently being used for 49 different high altitude experiments, including laser lightning induction which could hit a desired location with a lightning bolt and research into what affect the large structure had on the human mind.

The observation deck at 350m also contained a restaurant and a hotel.

After they checked in under a false name at the automated front desk, Anna Kingsford took a look around the hotel rooms that were designed to look like the interior of an airplane.

“My, my. So many vacancies. And during the break.”

“People are restricted from leaving home,” softly replied Aleister. “And the observation deck isn’t in much demand after the New Year’s sunrise anyway.”

“Hee hee.”

Kingsford whispered while walking over to their room’s window.

It was the perfect place for ''a pursuer to hide out in.

“Now, then. Where have those lost 🐇 gone ⬇️ there?♪ A wide-area scan should 👁️ them soon enough.”

“You certainly lost track of them quick given how confident you sounded heading out,” said the exasperated golden retriever.

“I will admit that Secret Chief was something of a surprise. And that wasn’t an issue of 💪. I just didn’t expect her to use him for direct ⚔️. How sloppy. A lot like grabbing a thick 📗 full of knowledge and throwing it at my head.”

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Anna Sprengel wouldn’t think that same method would work again either. If it would, she would have used her trump card as soon as they turned her into a human film canister. That she had held back so long was a sign of her fear.

But she had used up her trump card now, which worked out in their favor.

Kingsford knew how to control herself. She wouldn’t let her own anxiety and hatred get the better of her here.

“Now, you need to decide on a 🔮 target. Are we after Anna Sprengel? Or Mut Thebes?”

Anna Kingsford remained flexible.

“''Or Kamijou Touma''?”

A dull thud echoed out.

In a very un-magician-like move, Aleister had slammed his fist against a nearby wall.

He had seen what Anna Sprengel was like during the battle against Great Demon Coronzon back in the UK.

Yes, Aiwass had been taken from him and he had died.

Anna had escaped even after being turned into a human film canister with no arms, legs, or torso. That meant the only option left was to kill her.

So.

That human’s answer carried resentment itself in his voice.

“Give us the location of the one we must defeat.”

“Then that is what I will do☆”

===Part 5===


“Why is Anna being so nice all of a sudden? Wh-why would that wicked woman hand me a blanket? Wait, hold on. She hasn’t fallen in love with me, has-”

“Do I need to bite your dick off, fool?”

Kamijou shrank down a size smaller. No, two sizes at least.

Her personality and appearance were just too different!! She had been in adult woman mode not long ago, but she apparently couldn’t stay in that form for long. So that line had come from what looked like a mini-size girl. The way she tilted her head and asked it in an innocently gentle way only made it more terrifying.

Anna put on a thoroughly exasperated look and handed him a jelly drink that apparently contained a lot of iron.

“I can’t have you making a habit of collapsing when we are trying to stay off the grid. Haven’t you heard that cavities and appendicitis are deadly for fugitives? You seem to be short on blood, so drink this and command your body’s factory to start producing more.”

“Let me guess, Aradia. You’re only giving me that fruit-flavored nutrient block because you tried one and realized you don’t like it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

At any rate.

He had gotten quite an eyeful earlier and the vehicle was filled with the heat and sweet scent of girls, so he felt unnecessarily nervous. He was beginning to think living together in this armored vehicle (or whatever it was called) wasn’t going to work. He now had two big sisters(?) with only a single living space between them all! He might have a cat, a nun, and a god living in his no-pets-allowed boys dorm, but even there he made sure to sleep in a separate room!

The witch goddess stared at him

“Are you still hung up on that, you pervert?”

“You don’t know how to handle adolescents, do you, banana woman? Your sulking insult caused it all to rush back into my mind. The image is in there this very instant, in fact.”

Aradia blushed a bit and wordlessly kicked his chair.

Why didn’t she understand that being attacked by an older woman like that made his heart pound in something like the suspension bridge effect!?

“Then do you want to sit in the driver’s seat, fool?”

Kamijou was doing his best to focus entirely on his jelly drink when little Anna gave him a thoroughly scornful look.

“The vehicle can be operated from any one of the console monitors, so there’s no real need for a vehicle commander or a gunner anymore. But there is still a diver’s seat in case there are technical issues with the electronics. It’s located right up in the front instead of below the gun.”

“You can’t make me drive! I don’t even know how to drive a car or a moped!”

“I just got through saying my console monitor can handle that. A fool like you only needs to sit in the seat. Being all alone in that cramped space probably won’t be fun, but you could move in there whenever you need to take a break in your own private world.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“(Of course, the Predator Octopus’s driver’s seat isn’t really necessary, so I bet it was redesigned to stop projectiles from reaching the rest of the vehicle. A separate space at the front of the vehicle would be perfect to sacrifice so it can stop any Munroe effect blasts or metal jets. Hee hee.)”

“You need to give all the detailed warnings so I can hear them, Anna-san! You can’t just whisper them real fast at the end like a consumer credit ad!!”

Meanwhile, it could be easy to forget in the sweet girls’ room that the military vehicle had become, but they had work to do.

“Okay.”

Kamijou Touma opened the overhead hatch and climbed out of the Predator Octopus. It was already dark out. Sunset came early in the winter, but his fight with Alice had been in the morning. He must have been passed out for quite a while.

He could see his breaths.

He felt refreshed like he had just washed his face.

The January 3 night air carried the biting chill of midwinter.

He was surrounded by true darkness. The fact that the city was under martial law was much more obvious at night. He could hardly believe the city had been lit up with Christmas and New Year’s decorations so recently.

The spiky-haired boy finally climbed down to the ground.

“A 20ton mobile combat vehicle can only travel on certain roads.”

So someone had to walk out ahead and check on the road to ensure they weren’t going to break through an aged overpass or something. And they of course also had to avoid the checkpoints set up around the city.

There weren’t any checkpoints here – because Anna had found a poorly guarded spot – but he got the impression there were more cleaning robots, security robots, and fixed surveillance cameras than normal. While inside the vehicle, he had spotted several of them staring their way from where they had been attached to makeshift metal poles. Those were meant to track down Kamijou’s group, so he had to be careful.

“Now, then.”

The tool Anna had given him looked like a 50cm stick.

He had expected a disturbing superweapon when she called it an ultrasonic sonar kit, but it was more like the glowing red staffs used for guiding traffic but with a small monitor attached near the bottom. The entire side apparently functioned as a scanner, so he was supposed to pass it close over the road surface.

(Hm. Do I really have to stoop over the entire time I use this? It would be so much easier if it had a long handle like a mop.)

“I don’t have to scan every centimeter. We only need to know the general condition of the pavement, so I only need to get a few samples for every square meter, right?”

Kamijou muttered his instructions to himself while teasing the switch with his thumb.

Like an AED, it was best to simply follow the machine’s instructions.

He noticed the cold shutters lowered at a shop selling strange, toxic-looking donuts. The posted notice suggested it was closed for good, not just for today. Even when a trend looked like it would last forever, you never knew when it was going to end.

(Still…)

He saw some faint light in the distance.

The martial law had its advantages.

Most every business had closed up and lowered its metal shutters, so the light at the checkpoints was hard to miss. That considerably reduced the risk of running into one on accident. Even at this distance, he could make out the military vehicles blocking the street and a bunch of outdoor lights like you would find at a construction site.

(What are they doing? They aren’t just stopping that truck passing through – they’re opening up each and every one of the packages its delivering.)

The driver stood outside the truck, scratching his chin uncertainly.

So much for privacy. If they were checking through any vehicle at that level, then one of Anti-Skill’s own 8-wheel mobile combat vehicles would be at risk too. Staying away from the checkpoints looked like the best plan.

The checkpoints were located at large intersections, tunnels, or other areas where multiple routes converged.

But there were bright spots at other points as well. It scared him that he couldn’t determine the pattern.

“What’s this, fool? Too stupid to figure it out on your own?”

Little Anna poked her head out from the hatch, holding some smart glasses that looked a lot like sports sunglasses. It apparently gave her control without being in the commander’s seat. Using her gaze and voice had to feel a lot different from using her fingers on the large monitor and it probably didn’t give as much control, but she had said something about it being a lot like remotely operating a ground-based drone.

She gave her usual toxic laughter, but she also gave him the answer.

“I will only explain this once. That light is likely a carwash or a taxi maintenance shop.”

“?”

“Or it could be a shipping company or rental car lot. Fool, they are using a preexisting industrial garage to maintain their tanks and armored vehicles.”

Academy City’s Anti-Skill probably weren’t bad people, but letting them find Anna now would only complicate matters. He was afraid they would shoot without even trying to talk it out and things would get even worse if Mut Thebes or Aleister’s group showed up to join the fray.

Those schoolteachers could find themselves in the middle of a deadly battle between magic users so powerful their presence had been kept a secret even on the magic side.

Kamijou took a look through a pair of binoculars he had found in the vehicle.

(Tch. I know the Sisters were helping bolster security during the holiday, but I don’t see any around here. Nothing but grownups. I should probably assume they won’t listen if I try to explain the situation.)

The Sisters’ absence bothered him.

Even though he knew intellectually that he simply felt so trapped that he was searching for special meaning in every little thing.

Were the Sisters alright? And what about Index, Mikoto, and the others?

How many Transcendents had been at that consulate? The confusion caused by the martial law hadn’t redirected the pursuers toward anyone else he knew, had it? Because those people probably would come running to save him. Even if he couldn’t get their help, he wanted to know they were safe.

(I know Anna said using my phone would be dangerous, but still.)

“You haven’t turned on that amateur phone of yours, have you? Don’t you dare post anything on social media. Even carelessly marking a message as read would be a mistake.”

Kamijou looked away from the binoculars.

He looked down at the asphalt below his feet, but…

“Fool, don’t even think about leaving a message with chalk or stones. That might be better than using a phone or computer, but any code you can come up with on the spot will be cracked in seconds by an Academy City supercomputer. And I don’t just mean textual or numerical codes that can are easily represented as 1s and 0s. Even messages left in fuzzy graffiti or color patterns can be cracked using image linkage algorithms that find common factors between them.”

“Kh.”

“Were you unaware this city’s scientists seriously analyzed the crop circles left in crop fields and announced at an academic conference that they found no trace of actual language and concluded they were merely pranks? What a dreary way to view the world,” lamented Anna. “Your friends will of course be monitored. And they could be taken hostage if you give any sign they could be used to lure you out. So if you want to protect them, cut off all forms of contact. To the point that this city’s giant computers can’t find a single thing. That is what it means to take this seriously.”

“Okay, okay.”

Anna seemed legitimately exasperated with him, so Kamijou raised his hands in defeat.

Anything that his friends would instantly recognize probably would be discovered in seconds by their pursuers.

That meant their only option was to find their own way ahead while avoiding those lights – the checkpoints set up by Anti-Skill.

“But can we really find a way around the checkpoints? That 20ton thing can’t fit in the narrow alleys and Anti-Skill is set up at all the major intersections, so we’re bound to run into them no matter what wider road we choose.”

“Try using your brain for once, fool. It will rot in your skull otherwise.” Anna shrugged. “Not every route is found on the map. And if we find those hidden routes, we can pass right under Academy City’s collective nose. Especially when those Anti-Skill people are using their computers to share information and monitor their surroundings.”

“Routes not found on the map? What, are we going to dig our own tunnel like bank robbers?”

“Nothing that involved, but surprisingly close to the mark for a fool. It’s scary how wild guesses are correct on occasion.”

“?”

He had meant that as a joke, so her response took him by surprise.

Apparently Anna hadn’t given him a trick question with no real answer.

“Hint 1: these routes are invisible when viewed from the ground. Hint 2: map apps provide detailed information on public roads, but are much less thorough when it comes to private property. Hint 3: they are more common in densely populated areas with limited land. After so many generous hints, I seriously hope you have figured it out by now.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just give me the answer?”

“Not happening, fool. Those so-called intellectuals of the Golden cabal all let their brains rot in the same way. If they hadn’t all been conceited enough to think they were the world’s greatest magicians, the Battle of Blythe Road never would have happened. Either side could have withdrawn and kept things peaceful.”

With that, Anna Sprengel ducked back into the hatch.

Then the turret turned to the side.

“?”

===Part 6===

Night had fallen.

The wind had a biting chill outdoors on January 3.

This was a District 12 storage unit lined with large containers.

“Mhh.”

The Bologna Succubus raised her arms overhead and stretched like she had just woken up. The flapping sound came from the large bat wings she spread wide to either side of her slim silhouette.

She no longer needed the bandages or IV stand.

The District 12 consulate had only been Alice’s plaything. The other Transcendents had no reason to stay there now that she was no more than an empty shell. In fact, staying there would have meant an unnecessary confrontation with Academy City.

But more than that, ''slaughtering innocent people went against the Bologna Succubus’s principles.

After stretching to one side and then the other, the demon whispered into the emptiness.

“What, admitting defeat already?”

“Seeking out the enemy is not my forte,” said a voice from nowhere. “Just give me a list of where I need to go and who I need to kill.”

“Aye, aye. Your demon sister is on it.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I am Mut Thebes. I provide punishment.”

“''And why would that bother me?''”

The Bologna Succubus looked puzzled as she pulled out a vial and poured a cloudy white liquid onto the ground. She crouched down, extended a finger, and drew out a sinister magic circle with it.

She was surrounded by deserted, desolate, and completely artificial scenery.

The only light came from the bright moon overhead.

This was her home ground as a demon.

Several presences ''stirred'' in the darkness. Bologna Succubus laughed among it all.

“I have no reason to fight Kamijou Touma. The same goes for Aradia. But Anna Sprengel is a different matter. Given what she has done, I don’t see any way to call her falsely accused. She does not meet my conditions for salvation.”

“Your reasons don’t matter as long as you take our side. I wasn’t aware succubi could use divination, though.”

“Don’t be silly. Prophesies that lead to the subject’s ruin no matter what they do are standard practice for demons.”

“What kind of divination do you use?”

“Tah dah! I use a mixture of unspeakable male and female bodily fluids.”

“…”

Silence followed.

A certain type of succubus would seduce a man and then use the acquired substance to assault a woman. Which meant they would have a technique for searching out a target who met the appropriate conditions.

The Bologna Succubus chuckled and flapped her wings.

“But not so fast! Did you know a man can ward off a succubus attack by placing a spoonful of milk in a saucer by his pillow because the succubus will mistake it for the fluid she’s after? So I can use this spell artificially by mixing my saliva with some milk.”

“I see.”

“What’s this? You sound relieved. Eh heh heh. What two fluids did you think I was using, Little Miss Chaste?”

“Are you trying to anger me?”

Meanwhile, the Bologna Succubus was completing her spell.

As time passed, sinister live sacrifice ceremonies usually began substituting other materials like dolls or grains. Look into the ancients roots of modern festivals and you will generally see it growing more harmless over time. Sex magic was complicated and took a lot of effort to perform, so it too had grown more simplified and harmless over time.

You could think of magic as a scam used to cheat your way into activating a legitimate contract or transaction. Anyone who stuck to the original rules and failed to develop their own methods of economizing would wind up deep in debt. And a demon was supposed to be the one making the deals, so it would be embarrassing indeed if she was weighed down with debt.

“Now, then.”

Of course, their target group included Witch Goddess Aradia and their actual target was ''the'' Anna Sprengel. Your average divination would easily be shut down. But it was impossible to fully eliminate the reading detected when shutting it down.

That technique would only work once.

But if that once was enough, it was the perfect trump card for tracking them down.

With a sizzling sound, the cloudy white liquid forming the perimeter of the magic circle turned brown.

“They are 2.5km SSW. Oh, and that’s from my position.”

“They detected your search, didn’t they? Then I need to be quick about it.”

===Part 7===

Something had changed.

Someone now floated in the night sky over District 12.

The skinny girl showed off most of her brown skin and wore her wavy blonde hair long.

She was Transcendent Mut Thebes.

Aradia was on top of the gun and she shouted down at Kamijou on the road.

“Get in! Hurry!!”

“Eek!?”

The 8 thick tires began to turn before Kamijou had even climbed onto the Predator Octopus’s gun by grabbing Aradia’s hand while she practically leaned out of the hatch.

And Anna Sprengel shouted an old-fashioned phrase from inside the cutting-edge mobile combat vehicle.

“''The Apostle Peter forbids Simon Magus’s demonic flight''!!”

Mut Thebes lost her balance and plummeted.

But she did not bat an eye.

She landed on her feet a short distance away and metal tubes burst from her brown shoulders. They were arranged a lot like a bouquet of flowers. Kamijou didn’t know much about weapons, but he had seen these before. They were the barrels to the guns he had seen on all the tank and mobile combat vehicle driving around the city during the day.

Except these were all colored pure white.

“Oops.”

Mut Thebes staggered from the weight of the weapons she had produced.

“I forgot this.”

With that emotionless and weirdly carefree comment, a ladder truck’s stabilizing legs emerged from her thighs. They pressed firmly against the ground to forcibly keep her balance.

There was no escape. She was faster.

She spread the gun barrels like an ominous bird’s wings and then flapped those wings to aim each gun toward Kamijou’s group.

“Fire,” she whispered.

''Boom, boom, kaboooooom!!!

A concrete building wall was blown away and the road’s asphalt was torn from the ground over a distance of several meters.

120mm shells were scattered like a massive shotgun blast.

The muzzle flashes alone produced an explosive blast that fanned out.

The Predator Octopus’s eight tires shrieked. The front four were turned right and the rear four turned left, so the mobile combat vehicle spun like a turntable to escape. Aradia only had her upper body sticking out of the hatch, but Kamijou was still fully out on the roof. Even a fragment of a shell would kill him instantly and he would be thrown from the speeding Predator Octopus if he wasn’t careful.

Mut Thebes tilted her head.

“These can’t hit from this distance? Are the biggest guns alone not enough? Why must Academy City make everything so complicated?”

She had fired several pure white 120mm tank guns at once.

A hit from any of them would obliterate a three-story building, but she was operating it like a smartphone she had picked up ''to try out and see how it works''.

What happened to the division between science and magic? Where was the treaty?

Necessarius’s Stiyl Magnus would probably have a fit if he saw this.

Meanwhile, Kamijou wasn’t exactly calm himself. The armored vehicle provided something of a shield for him, but he didn’t trust that too much. A shoulder-fired rocket could blow a hole in that armor, so a direct hit here would blow all three of them up along with the entire vehicle.

Mut Thebes threw away the white gun barrels like a toy she had grown tired of and held her hand to the side. A car was parked on the curb below the streetlight there. Kamijou heard a dull sound right before large white wheels and thick suspension emerged from her hips.

They contacted the ground.

Kamijou heard the scream of rubber and his eyes bugged out as he clung to the roof of the gun.

She was pursuing them on the high-speed roadway.

“What the hell!? Did she absorb that!?”

“Mut Thebes specializes in punishment.”

Aradia, also from the Bridge Builders Cabal, clenched her teeth.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Kamijou’s spiky head and held him to her chest to make sure he didn’t fall off.

“''Which means she has a way to supply an appropriate method of punishment for each target.'' This is not good. Academy City gives her access to so much bizarre technology.”

“More importantly, fool, this is causing quite a scene. The Academy City guards twiddling their thumbs at the checkpoint are headed this way! And if this lasts long, Kingsford will be here too!!”

As soon as little Anna shouted up from inside the vehicle, the siren began sounding across the city once more.

That meant Academy City had noticed them.

This just kept getting worse.

Anna Sprengel had given them a warning while she operated the touchscreen that gave her control over everything from the driving to the gun control, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned about the next-generation weapons.

The rhythmic noise circling in the sky above was an HsAFH-11 Six Wings attack helicopter. That cold weapon was unmanned.

Mut Thebes did not even glance up at it.

With a dull sound, a honeycomb of white missile launch pods emerged from her back. That weaponry was supposed to belong to her pursuer. Before the Six Wings could target its moving target, several missiles blew up the unmanned attack helicopter. This time, she knew what she was doing.

This was very bad.

Academy City technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world. Military weaponry was no exception. The more attention this battle gathered, the more advanced the weaponry that would be brought in and the more toys Mut Thebes would have at her disposal!

But Aradia and Anna were focused on something else entirely.

The witch goddess looked down toward her navel and shouted into the vehicle below.

“Did you notice that?”

“More or less, yes.”

Kamijou had no idea what that short exchange was referring to.

Aradia adjusted her grip on Kamijou when he nearly slipped from her arms.

“There, there. That helicopter was way up there in the sky, but she absorbed its weapon just as easily as she did that car. That means distance isn’t the condition for her absorption.”

“Wait.”

“She uses the same thing I do,” said Aradia stiffly, still holding Kamijou tight. “''She can make use of anything if her shadow touches its shadow.''”

“…”

Come to think of it.

Back at the consulate, H. T. Trismegistus’s surprise attack had hit Aradia because their abilities both came from the number 3. Good, Old Mary with her resurrection and Bologna Succubus with her ability to use sexuality as an attack could both be seen as directly using “life”.

Did all the Transcendents overlap like this? They seemed completely different at first, but was that hiding some hidden logic?

If so, what did that make Alice Anotherbible who the rest of the Transcendents so feared?

“That’s why she didn’t need to fly up and approach the airborne helicopter to absorb it. She only had to combine her shadow with the shadow it cast on the ground. Anna!!”

The rear four tires slid roughly along the pavement as they made a sharp turn at an intersection and Anna Sprengel even fired the 120mm gun in the middle of the unsteady curve.

The boom made Kamijou duck down and his eardrums briefly forgot what their job was.

Instead of directly hitting anything, Anna had detonated the tank shell in midair air to hit everything with the shockwave. In other words, it was an air burst. All of the nearby streetlights were torn from the pavement.

That should have prevented Mut Thebes from using her shadow which she needed for her spell. But…

“Ah!?” shouted Kamijou.

He heard something like a bursting firework.

Mut Thebes raised her right hand overhead and launched a bright light into the sky. The flare floated gently down thanks to the small parachute attached.

“Why would she use magnesium instead of a flashlight or a handheld fluorescent light? Does she need a certain level of illumination? If it’s based on natural sunlight, it might require tens of thousands of luxes.”

Anna carefully analyzed the situation, but Kamijou was not so calm.

The blinding light was more like welding light than a firework, so deep shadows stretched long across the ground all around it.

As soon as the brown girl’s shadow contacted the shadow of a giant object abandoned on a construction site, Mut Thebe’s right arm seemed to explode. A white club disproportionately large for her body emerged. Anna sent the 8 wheels weaving across the road to try and escape, but then Kamijou saw it.

That was not in fact a meters-long blunt weapon.

It was a reel containing wire thicker than a thumb. It was big enough to function as a table if set down on its side, so it had only looked like a giant club when it emerged from her thin arm.

The vehicle was moving at more than 100km/h now. If she whipped them with that wire, it could easily take out the thick military tires. If it so much as grazed a human, it would tear off a limb.

Mut Thebes herself staggered because the enormous wire reel threw off her balance.

But she still swung it horizontally.

“Oh, no!! Anna, you need to turn there! Hurry!!” shouted Aradia while very nearly biting Kamijou’s shoulder as she held him.

The thick tires screeched against the pavement. Kamijou had to hold on with all his might to avoid falling off. The Predator Octopus had not turned onto another road. It had turned toward a giant church. Unusual for District 12, it was a standalone building instead of part of a skyscraper.

But instead of plowing onto the church’s grounds, the eight wheels took them down below ground.

The church was ''painted to look'' old, but a concrete slope led to a parking garage directly below it. Was that just Academy City’s style?

Orange sparks scattered everywhere outside.

That pure white shadow was joined by the roar of death slicing through the air. The thumb-thick metal wire crashed into the entranceway, tearing away a concrete wall.

Mut Thebes must have decided the table-sized wire reel would keep her from entering the narrow entranceway because she cut it loose. She walked nimbly down the slope on her own two feet.

But it was a single straight path in there.

Miss Sprengel only had to make the command on the touchscreen.

Her small finger tapped the console at the commander’s seat.

“And done.”

A 120mm blast roared out.

It struck Mut Thebes square in the gut.

The Transcendent doubled over as she was launched back up the slope like a human rocket.

“Hee hee. Now is the time to compliment me to death, fool!!”

Of course, one hit wasn’t enough to relax. Kamijou could still sense the tingling tension of imminent death at the back of his head. The tires tore at the ground as the mobile combat vehicle raced through the parking garage. Anna kept the gun aimed backwards for defense while breaking down the metal shutter on the slope back up to another road on the other side of the building.

“Wait! Is this what you meant by hidden routes we can use to avoid the checkpoints!?”

“Good job. It is always worth thinking for yourself and reaching the answer on your own, fool. We can pass through the large parking garages to reach another street. That lets us sneak right past the barricades Anti-Skill set up while staring at their map apps which only show them the public roads.”

“Great, wonderful. By the way, if Aradia hadn’t yanked me into the hatch just before you crashed into that shutter, the mangled wreckage would have taken my head off!!”

===Part 8===

''I am so sorry,'' thought Mut Thebes.

She lay face up on the ground, painfully aware she had squashed a sidewalk flower bed below her rear. That was meaningless destruction. The flowers were not her target and would not boost her strength. They weren’t even in the way of her job. A punisher was meant to minimize destruction and only use it to keep the peace.

She heard a heavy metallic clang.

A lot like someone had dropped a wok onto the pavement.

(But it’s a good thing I chose the composite armor at the last second. Reactive armor sounds cool, but an armor piercing round would have passed right through it.)

The blonde-haired, brown-skinned Transcendent looked up at the moon in thought.

Punishment had to be administered fairly. Exceptions would not be tolerated. The human world could only function properly when good deeds were rewarded and bad deeds punished. That created a society where the people living their best lives would find happiness. Following the rules required patience. And people deserved to be rewarded for the patience they demonstrated.

Mut was an Egyptian goddess, but she did not grant people happiness in the afterlife. She had visited the giant city of Thebes millennia ago, where she fought enemy countries in the real world and physically protected her people.

That made it all the more painful that this target had escaped her here.

She only had herself to blame.

(The Shrink Drink…is safe. Of course, after ''shrinking it'' in its binder, it is smaller than a matchbook, so I can hide it just about anywhere.)

She heard what sounded like a metal belt moving.

She also realized the deep siren was still playing in the night sky.

That meant Academy City hadn’t given up the fight.

A deep voice shouted from a loudspeaker.

“You there!! The entire city is currently under martial law. If you are a resident, pull out your student ID or some other reliable form of identification! If you are a guest, get your travel certificate out where we can see it! We do not want any unfortunate misunderstandings here, so do not do anything that could be misconstrued. We have been given authority to fire!!”

Mut Thebes ignored him and stood up.

Bright headlights surrounded her from a distance. The beams were reminiscent of eyes because of the asphalt dust hanging in the air like fog thanks to the treads.

She didn’t know if they were technically classified as tanks, antiair tanks, armored troop transports, or mobile combat vehicles. A voice came from one of them, but with Academy City technology, she couldn’t even be sure there was anyone onboard. They did have an unusual number of antennae on the roofs.

But the many lights sources cast long shadows all around her.

She appreciated their cooperation.

“Society and its rules are not to blame for my inability to complete my job.” Transcendent Mut Thebes remained expressionless. “My own lack of strength is to blame.”

“Um?”

“''So I will absorb as many shadows as necessary to create a free and fair society.''”

Mut was an Egyptian goddess of protection and war whose symbol was the vulture devouring unclean dead flesh.

===Between the Lines 2===

Board Chairman Accelerator’s eyes and ears remained active while he remained inside the most strictly guarded cell in District 10’s prison. He could not manage Academy City otherwise.

Population density and the flow of people, things, and money.

A list of online trends, especially dangerous rumors.

The state of the deployed troops.

Organizing and prioritizing witness accounts of their target and of the dangerous element known as Transcendents.

Etc., etc.

However, he did not use the Underline nanodevices distributed to every corner of the city by previous Board Chairman Aleister. He had already frozen the usage key for that largescale peeping tom tool.

Then again, what he was using may have been even more unfair: a scientific angel and a magical demon.

They could fly freely throughout the city, so the #1 used them as his eyes and ears.

Accelerator sat on a bed far too luxurious for a prison cell and viewed the large LCD screen embedded in the wall while he thought quietly.

He scanned through all information available to him, but it wasn’t enough.

He didn’t even have a solid definition of the Transcendents who were at the base of it all.

At any time of day or night, he could pick up the receiver on the wall and a nervously sweating guard would bring him a veal fillet, but he was too preoccupied to even take a sip of water at the moment.

(Did I declare martial law too soon? No, the city was already swept up in that ridiculously named Kotatsu Syndrome thanks to those Transcendents. If I can’t predict what the people will do, it’s safest to keep them at home. Some external factor has been injected into the ordinary people’s decision making process, so I can’t even be sure ''they would stop after seeing a red light.'')

''And while he had declared martial law, he hadn’t expected everyone to accept it so readily.

''He had been prepared for some harsh pushback, so it was frankly creeping him out that everyone just went along with it.

“Tch.”

This focus on defense was a large departure from Accelerator’s normal way of thinking. But the fate of the city had been left in his hands, so he had a responsibility to keep the city peaceful and safe. Gone were the days when he could focus on his pride and aesthetics and ''pull off a win'' by making a reckless attack all on his own.

Or maybe he hadn’t accomplished anything back then. Maybe he had only convinced himself he had.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 continued her report while she flew through the night sky.

“As far as I can see, there’s a clash between tank-size guns in District 12. It’s throwing the checkpoint layout into chaos. They still haven’t reported in to the central datalink, but I’m trying to identity the vehicles that fired. Also…wait. Y-you’re kidding, right?”

“?”

Was it Mut Thebes?

Or was it Kamijou Touma, Aradia, and Anna Sprengel?

(What does that bastard think he’s doing working with a world-class wicked woman?)

Accelerator expected one of them had made some kind of move, but the answer was beyond anything he had imagined.

“Someone’s entering the city by crossing the eastern wall. Th-they’re Transcendents! And a lot of them! Wait, am I seeing this righ- ksssssshhhhhhh!!!”

''The tides were turning.

Even though she was artificial, Qliphah Puzzle 545 was still a demon. Her demonic powers allowed her to single-handedly trap the UK in the passion and confusion of war. Anyone who took her down that easily had to be quite powerful.

Plus, cutting him off from the artificial demon was like taking out one of his eyes and ears.

But panicking wouldn’t change that.

He had to stand firm and assume this wasn’t over yet.

“Kazakiri.”

“U-um, uh?”

“The demon can take care of herself. If you’re okay, then report. Don’t you dare disappear before you do. If you want to rescue Qliphah Puzzle 545, you can do so ''after'' reporting.”

“Okay!!” the angel replied with excess enthusiasm.

She was obsessed with doing the right thing.

She was delighted by that option even though it didn’t benefit her in the slightest and wasn’t worth the effort.

If that was the combined will of Academy City’s espers, then apparently the entire city was too nice for its own good.

Accelerator scowled and held a hand to his ear.

“Give a rough estimate if you have to, but how many Transcendents crossed the wall?”

“I-I’m sorry, but, um, I’m not really sure what a Transcendent is.”

“Just tell me how fucking many got into the city!”

“I can’t say for sure, but I saw maybe ''20 or 30'' from here.”

Did that mean the Bridge Builders Cabal was taking this seriously?

It sounded like the Transcendents already in Academy City had been the minority.

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