A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 19 Page 9

  “…Hmm. But are they really that, like, short-tempered?”

  “Why are you so calm about this?! Do you understand our situation?! How fast do you think a military helicopter can fly?!”

  “Hmm? Well, it’s, like, an HsAFH-11, so about three thousand kilometers per hour max, right?”

  “Mach 2.5?! How is it still classified as a helicopter?!”

  “Relax, they can’t use the rocket engines while the wings are deployed. The wind pressure could, like, damage the joints. Right now, it can only go three, maybe four hundred kilometers per hour.”

  “Considering we’re in a car, I don’t think the difference matters!!”

  As they argued, the Hexawing aligned its movements with the car’s, and in relation to them, it practically seemed like it had stopped dead. Hamazura didn’t know the specifics, but it appeared as though it had finished locking onto them.

  “Now what?! If it hits us with a missile or something, it’ll take us out in one shot!!”

  “We’ll have to pray it uses short-range antitank missiles,” said Kinuhata with a ridiculous notion, while leaning down and squirming around as she tied some kind of rope to herself.

  “That would definitely take us out in one shot!!”

  “No, no,” said Kinuhata, sitting back up. “The short-range anti-armor missiles used by the Hexawings totally seem to be SRM21s. So they must be using, like, infrared sensors to lock onto us.”

  “And?! Who cares if it’s ultra-shortwave radar or infrared or ultraviolet?! Now that it’s after us, we can’t get away!! Do you have any idea how fast those missiles will fly at us?!”

  “Oh, calm yourself. Have a smoke or something, dude.”

  Hamazura hacked and coughed. “A road flare?! You can’t light one of those in the vehicle!!”

  “I can’t? But I can totally use it like this, see?” said Kinuhata, sticking out a tongue. She opened the passenger seat window and hurled the flare outside.

  A second later, a relatively short-looking missile blasted out of one of the Hexawing’s armlike wings.

  Hamazura thought his heart would stop for a moment. But as it turned out, the missile didn’t hit the car and send it flying away in roiling flames.

  The reason: the road flare.

  By tossing out a dummy heat source, they’d gotten the short-range missile to veer off course.

  “Hawt,” noted Kinuhata casually.

  The threat, though, wasn’t gone yet.

  Ka-bam!! The missile, diverted toward the smoking flare thrown above the road, exploded. They’d avoided a direct hit, but the intense blastwave was coming straight for the car. Its window glass shattered, and the car’s body shook around unnaturally. As the car threatened to spin out, Hamazura desperately fought to keep it under control, lest the wheel be taken from him.

  On top of that, as the Hexawing fanned away its own flames with its gusting rotors, it continued to pursue Hamazura’s car.

  He could floor it, since there were few cars around, but a casual commuter vehicle would never be able to use its speed to shake an attack chopper.

  “Now what? You probably only had one of those things, and if that thing’s predictive function learns our response and switches weapons to a machine gun, flares aren’t going to work as defense anymore.”

  “Hamazura, just hush and take a left at the next fork.”

  “Huh? What did you say? The wind is blowing too loud for me to—”

  “Hhnnnn!!”

  Without saying any more, Kinuhata suddenly shoved the hand brake lever up from the passenger seat.

  Ga-clunk!! The car rapidly decelerated and began to slide sideways in a drift.

  The abrupt diagonal movement caused the car to charge straight into the left-hand side of the road.

  “Uwwwoaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

  Panicking, he put the hand brake back and moved the wheel. If he was careless enough to step on the brakes, the car was sure to spin out. Instead, he purposely used only slick steering ability and didn’t decelerate, bringing the car’s motion back on its original vector.

  “What’s the big idea?!”

  “You, like, want to survive this, right, bro? After this, go straight on this big road. It’s super-big, three lanes on each side, but keep the car from swerving as much as possible and keep going straight.”

  “Did I get myself into a terrible mess without realizing it?”

  “That’s par for the course, isn’t it? Anyway, just go totally straight.”

  “Are you sure about this? I know it might not work, but shouldn’t I try to weave to throw off their aim…?”

  Hamazura drove the car as Kinuhata directed, even while grumbling to himself. He looked around, foot depressing the accelerator. This area had a lot of high-rise buildings, meaning the Hexawing would also naturally go straight if it was following the car. If the helicopter moved around without care, it’d probably crash into a building wall.

  Plus, there was the occasional signboard sticking out from a building, and other paths crisscrossing above the elevated highway, meaning the Hexawing lowered its altitude as it chased the car. Within moments, it had sunk to a point just over the ground, about the same height as the car or a little higher.

  “Hey, Kinuhata, are we—? Pfft?!”

  When Hamazura glanced at the passenger seat, he sputtered in spite of himself.

  Saiai Kinuhata was leaning out of the passenger-seat window—well, no, she was doing far more than that. Almost her entire body, save for her legs, was outside the window. With her slender feet parked on the seat to keep her stable, she was pointing the gun in her hand behind the car.

  But the car, moving forward, was obviously creating a massive stream of wind.

  “Wow! Ow-wow!! Ow-wow-wow, those dainty bits!! Kinuhata, that’s way beyond a panty flash but panties what are you panties going to panties?!”

  Kinuhata fired a bullet through the car into the driver’s side door, then said, “…Keep your eyes on the road and, just like, focus, please.”

  “Yes ma’am!! But panties!!”

  Ignoring the weirdly excited boy, Kinuhata took aim at a point behind the car again. Almost as if in tandem, the Hexawing’s machine gun barrel moved with it.

  “Kinuhata, that won’t work!! Maybe if you had a high-caliber cannon, but some 9mm gun can’t bust through a military copter’s armor, can it?!”

  “…I’m using self-destroying bullet tips, duh. They’re made of clay-like paper material, so if I shoot it indoors, it totes won’t hurt any allies. They’re designed to break up super-easy.”

  “Then it should be even worse against armor!!”

  “Who said I was trying to penetrate the armor?” sighed Kinuhata.

  “I’m trying to shoot out the air intake for its engine, obvs.”

  Bang-bang! Bam-bam!! Gunshots repeatedly rang out. They converged on what looked like a hole right underneath the helicopter’s rotor.

  Like cars, helicopters obtained energy from reactions between fuel and oxygen, so when building one, the designers had to include a hole to suck in the air. If an impurity became lodged inside, it would stop the engine—and probably bring the helicopter down.

  In general, though, the air intake would have several countermeasures in place to prevent issues like that from happening. Normally, it would block the entry of dust from the downward air the rotors created and had a fine net that stopped impurities from getting inside. Something nine millimeters in size probably wouldn’t get sucked in.

  However.

  This point came with an important footnote.

  Saiai Kinuhata’s bullet tips were designed to break apart. They were created from a papier-mâché-like material. To prevent ricochets in cramped areas, they broke into pieces the moment they impacted with the target.

  Yes.

  Into pieces—pieces like the ones you get from breaking dry papier-mâché.

  The bullet-tip fragments, now mere particles finer than sand, rushed mercilessl
y between the metal grating’s tiny holes that protected the air intake. And with the impurities now inside the engine, they immediately caught fire and made the engine break down. This led to the entire Hexawing’s available lift decreasing dramatically.

  With a boom, smoke rose from the helicopter’s engine.

  The Hexawing’s nose veered ever so slightly from the road’s direction—and not a moment later, its side began scraping against the asphalt.

  The machine was loaded with a large amount of aviation fuel for the rotors, special combustion agents for the rocket engines, and explosives like missiles and gunpowder. The explosion was fantastic.

  “Freaking sweet—I did it!!”

  Kinuhata wriggled back into the passenger seat like a snake, but Hamazura didn’t have time to watch.

  A massive shock wave, the likes of which were incomparably larger than what the short-range missile caused earlier, was heading for the car. In the blink of an eye, Hamazura lost control of the steering wheel, and this time, the car actually did start to spin out.

  “Shit! Kinuhata, use Nitrogen Armor!! If it can block sniper-rifle rounds, you should manage!!”

  “Wait, what about—?”

  Kinuhata tried to yell at him in opposition, but there was no time to listen.

  The car, completely out of control, slammed hard into the elevated highway’s side wall.

  “Guh…”

  After losing consciousness for a moment, Hamazura sat up slowly. He’d been launched outside the vehicle, but he’d avoided injury by hitting a synthetic fiber balloon filled with a lot of water. They were lined up on the sides of the road to soften impacts during accidents.

  Where’s Kinuhata … ?

  He glanced around, looked at the busted sedan, but he couldn’t find any sign of her. He didn’t know how long he’d been out for, but she’d probably woken up before him. Maybe she couldn’t find him and went off to do her own thing.

  Could this day get any worse?

  He sat up and checked his limbs. None seemed to be broken.

  From what he could tell from a nearby sign, they’d gotten into District 3 while fleeing from the helicopter by car.

  Should he search for Kinuhata and keep helping her or meet up with Takitsubo first? He began considering his next move, but soon it would be in vain.

  Because his cell phone went off.

  The number was suspiciously listed as private, but Hamazura felt a chill at someone contacting him with this timing. On a hunch, he picked up.

  “Oh, hello there. If I said Heart Measure, would you remember my face, at least?”

  “…How do you know my number…?”

  “You want me to explain everything? No, that would be a pain, sorry. More importantly, I have a question. Is Saiai Kinuhata with you? I tried to call her, but she won’t pick up.”

  “…” Shiage Hamazura looked at the shot-down Hexawing. “I thought so. You guys were behind that, hmm?”

  “?” Rather than words, he heard a strange intake of breath. It sounded like the caller was surprised at something. “I’m not sure what you mean, but whatever the case, tell her to get in touch with me. She should know that we left her alone since she said she’d do it herself, but now the Spark Signal terrorists have taken over a private salon facility in District 3. Could you get her to give up and leave it to us?”

  “A private salon…in District 3…?” groaned Shiage Hamazura.

  That…

  Wasn’t that the place where Rikou Takitsubo was waiting after just having gotten out of the hospital?

  8

  Shiage Hamazura was running through District 3 that night.

  While praying, over and over, that it had to be a lie.

  But the situation was severe.

  All around the high-rise Takitsubo waited within were Anti-Skill officers. He couldn’t get inside. The yellow tape marking the scene was a warning signal that beat at Hamazura’s heart.

  Bang!! A dry crack echoed.

  When he heard it from the upper floors of the high-rise, sounding like a gunshot…Shiage Hamazura took a deep breath and made up his mind.

  The terrorists were occupying the building that held the rentable salons, which meant Takitsubo probably couldn’t get out, either.

  Which meant there was only one thing to do.

  “Shit…”

  Hamazura, who didn’t much want to get involved in this kind of incident, swore, angry from the bottom of his heart.

  Eventually, he said the same word, over and over, shouting it.

  “Shit! Shit!! Shit!!!!!! Why, why, of all the buildings you could have chosen! Why’d you have to pick this exact one?!”

  After shouting himself hoarse, Hamazura turned his back to the private salon building once. He looked around, then spotted an unnatural cleaning van. He drew up to it without hesitation, then pulled the passenger door open and climbed inside.

  The driver was the surprised one.

  “Uwaaaah?! Wh-who are you? A carjacker?!”

  “Let’s cut to the chase. You’re a peon for some shady side business, just like me, yeah?” asked Hamazura in a low voice, keeping his hand in his pants pocket. As the uniformed cleaning worker’s face drew back, he continued. “Doing some early preparations to help out the big boss, understand? …Take out any spare guns you have. Or I could just kill you and take them.”

  Thinking about it calmly, someone who already had a weapon wouldn’t demand one. But the cleaner hadn’t realized that. He reached into his cheap bag and took out a small handgun and several magazines, then gave them to Hamazura.

  “Wh-which department are you with anyway? If you wanted a weapon, you should go through the proper routes—”

  The man was off the mark, but Hamazura averted his face slightly.

  What was he doing?

  He was nothing but a Level Zero. He couldn’t mow down all the enemies in his path with a crazy special power like Saiai Kinuhata could. He was a weakling. He could easily die in fights with other delinquents if he messed up.

  “Not with any of them. I’m retired,” he said after a short moment’s thought.

  But there were things he knew specifically because he was weak. This world wasn’t kind. Even the leader of a delinquent gang like Ritoku Komaba had died easily. He didn’t want to think about it, but the same probably applied to Rikou Takitsubo as well. That was why Hamazura took up a weapon. It didn’t matter whether he was a Level Zero or not.

  “…But a friend of mine is captive in that building. I have to go, don’t I?”

  After saying his piece, Hamazura got out of the cleaning van’s passenger seat. He’d obtained a weapon, but he couldn’t charge into the private salon like this. No matter what his angle was, the Anti-Skill officers on the perimeter would grab him.

  … No blind spots in any direction, he thought. Anti-Skill isn’t stupid enough to leave any obvious routes the criminals could escape by. Which also means there’s no way for me to get past them, either.

  He looked up into the starry sky.

  … If I can’t go by ground, I’ll have to go by air.

  Yes.

  Even though Shiage Hamazura had just been attacked by a helicopter moments ago.

  After a look around, he went not to the private salon, but to the high-rise hotel right next to it. Using the elevator, he moved to its roof, and as he predicted, there was a heliport. It was probably waiting for someone who wanted to enjoy the nightscape. A small helicopter was parked there as well, round like an egg.

  He went straight for it and opened the door.

  Thrusting his gun at the female pilot doing instrument checks, he said, “Sorry, but you’re taking off now. Three streets over, to the private salon.”

  The pilot, gun aimed at her head, was silent for a few seconds.

  Eventually, without removing her headset, she said, “Unfortunately, I used to be part of the department overseeing air defense for Academy City.”

  When Hamazura frowned
at her quiet words, he noticed it.

  At some point, the female pilot was holding a box cutter in her hand.

  “Did you think a pilot wouldn’t be skilled at using weapons? If we’re shot down over enemy territory, we have to take independent action. We train far more rigorously than the army grunts who always have ample access to firearms and move together in large groups.”

  … Wait a minute. When did she grab that thing?

  If he remembered right, when he got into the cockpit, the woman had been using all her svelte fingers on both hands to check her instruments. Without him noticing, she’d grabbed a hidden blade. He understood that, but he couldn’t get anything close to a concrete image of her doing it.

  If he didn’t focus, it would turn out badly.

  Despite the gun in his hand, it was his turn to feel a chill down his spine.

  But then it happened.

  His cell phone, in his pocket, suddenly rang. He scowled. At a time like this? In contrast, the female pilot remained seated. She gave a thin smile and provoked him. “Shouldn’t you answer? You can still use your phone before liftoff.”

  “…”

  Without moving his head, he used his hand not holding the gun and reached slowly for his pocket. Carefully, taking almost thirty whole seconds. The scariest moment would be the one where he glanced at the phone screen…but as soon as he saw the name there, it was like he’d been struck by lightning. He hit the call button and put it to his ear.

  “…Hama…zura…”

  “Takitsubo, are you safe?! Where are you?!”

  “…The meeting…place. The private salon…”

  The fond voice almost let him feel relieved, but his doubts quickly stole away the warmth. Why did her voice sound so raspy?

  “I heard what happened. Terrorists busted into the private salon. Are you all right? You didn’t get hit by any stray bullets or anything, did you?!”

  “I’m…okay…”

  Just as she said the word okay, there was a bang over the phone, interrupting her. Then he heard what sounded like hasty pattering footsteps.

  “Takitsubo!!”

  “I’m really…okay…I’m hiding right now. I don’t think…they noticed me yet.”