Free A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 8 by Kazuma Kamachi Page A

suppose I can sort of relate to her feeling she needs to struggle desperately against that.”
    At the mention of that one name from the girl’s mouth, Shirai’s abdominal muscles clenched.
    Mikoto Misaka.
    Why does she keep bringing her up?
she thought. She had no way of knowing. She couldn’t digest even a small piece of this situation. The girl turned a much stronger glare on her then. It was enough of an issue that such a dangerous person had so much as mentioned her anyway.
    “Heh-heh. My, my! Seems you’ve been left out of the loop. By the looks of it, you don’t even know anything about the experiment. But you’ve caught a glimpse of fragments of it. For example…yes, do you remember a couple weeks ago when there was that terrible explosion at the train switchyard? It held up every train in the city for a while. Huge mess. I recall being quite impressed by the skill with which you all got the train schedules back to normal in under a
week
.”
    The girl spoke pleasantly; Shirai couldn’t answer. There was a sizzling impatience in her head, but she still didn’t understand what this girl was saying.
    “Still don’t get it? I’ve said so much already. August twenty-first. Anything particularly odd happen around you that day?”
    The girl could ask, but it was just a vague date. Shirai couldn’t clearly picture it. Besides, the 21st of last month hadn’t been a special day or anything.
What has she been saying…? Was I foolish to think I could even have a conversation with her?
Dubious though she was, the girl’s words did seem to have some kind of regularity to them.
    “I see. You made it so far that I would have gladly been your friend, you know,” she said.
    Shirai didn’t have the strength to answer. Her lips were dry and slightly torn, the taste of blood dripping into her mouth.
    She did understand two things, though.
    First, that she needed to stop this girl right here and right now.
    Second, that she couldn’t allow the contents of the luggage to be given to anyone.
    With one hand, she removed the scant few darts she had left on the belt on her thigh up her skirt. There were only two. She grasped them so tightly she almost crushed them, and then, as if to inspire herself, looked up to the sky and uttered a meaningless cry.
    The girl never got up from her luggage. Legs still elegantly folded in front of her, toying with all the clinking darts in her hand, she flipped the switch on her military-grade flashlight—which could have also been used like a police baton—and spun it around, tracing a ring of light in the air. Then she looked down at the weakling groveling and struggling and writhing at her feet with tenderhearted ridicule.
    There was a moment of silence.
    The sound of a car engine ran by from outside the alley’s exit, on the main road.
    Both girls took that as their cue to act.
    Not even a second was needed to decide the outcome.
    Tons of metal needles flew through the air, scattering clear, fresh maiden blood. There was a scream.
    With a wet
thump
of filthy clothes falling, Kuroko Shirai dropped to the ground.
    The wind blew. There was no follow-up attack. The other girl left the alley, leaving the Judgment officer there.
    She trotted along with light steps as though pleased, not bothering to use Move Point.
    With the luggage.
    B-Big…Sister…
    In her frustration, she gritted her teeth and apologized in her mind. She couldn’t possibly muster the strength to say it out loud.
    She’d known what she had to do—her goals.
    And yet the inexperienced Kuroko Shirai couldn’t accomplish a single one.

INTERLUDE TWO
    In the hospital, there was a bathroom with a bath in it used for in-patients.
    In her green jersey, the gym teacher Aiho Yomikawa rested her back against the door to the bathroom. She was stylish and pretty enough that wearing a jersey seemed almost sacrilegious. Her breasts jutting out of the front even surrounded the simple jersey with a tremendous appeal. The fact that