Liquid-Proof Railgun

It was not just Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki who were linked. The thoughts of whoever the A.A.A.’s core was linked to were mixed in as well. Although those were only fragmentary indicators that could not be converted into clear language.

But the words seemed to begin outnumbering the noise as she got closer.

She still could not see the whole picture.

But she could tell that this mystery person was strongly focused on that boy’s name.

And that was enough.

“We’re up against the Windowless Building which supposedly not even a nuke can destroy. What if my Railgun can’t break through the wall!?”

“Well, I have heard some silly rumors that it didn’t budge even after the #1 used the rotation of the earth to attack it. However…”

The other girl whispered in her mind.

She maintained the nuance of a mischievous and heated sigh.

“We don’t have to hold back for the #1’s sake. Let’s work together and make an unprecedented record☆”

Shokuhou Misaki’s power controlled people’s minds, but she technically did so by controlling the miniature bits of liquid in the body.

And since adjusting the salinity could provide conductivity to that liquid, it could also be influenced by electromagnetic powers such as the Lorentz force.

On top of that, the real bottleneck with the destructive force of Mikoto’s Railgun was the air resistance. If she simply launched a coin 50 meters, the frictional heat would entirely vaporize it, but that conversion of speed into heat of course caused a loss of kinetic energy.

So.

What if?

What if that Railgun was fired when that friction could be reduced or neutralized?

The Liquid Proof Railgun.

With the limits on distance and speed removed, it produced endlessly frightening destructive power.

She no longer used the frictional heat as the brakes. She reversed that way of thinking. The slight coating of liquid on the coin’s surface took away its heat and cooled it. And when that liquid explosively expanded as steam, it gave the coin even more speed. Instead of simply being carried by its initial speed, it accelerated more and more as it flew. The tiny shell gained limitless speed as it produced a thin, spear-like contrail and was absorbed by the impressive wall of the Windowless Building.

This was not possible with just any water manipulating power.

The fine control used to manipulate the liquid in the brain to control the information there was needed to place a special lattice pattern on the surface of the coin. This required precision far greater than the ablation that protected a space shuttle from the atmosphere’s heat by melting in just the right way despite being nothing more than a plastic lattice.

The scenery grew distorted.

The impregnable Windowless Building was mercilessly torn into as if the coin were breaking through the wall of space itself.

She did not understand all the details.

But she could myopically make some guesses about the problem right in front of her eyes.

So that girl shouted the words that rose up from deep in her heart.

“There are lives that were saved just because you were here. There are people who were given courage just because you ran forward. So don’t hesitate!! I assure you that the path you walked was the right one and that it created a great many possibilities. If something about you is rejected as wrong, then I’ll open it all up and explain this to you!! So, so, so!! No matter what anyone says and no matter what logic they use against you! Stay true to your own paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaath!!!!!!”
- To Aru Majutsu no Index Volume 17 Chapter 3 Part 16