Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2 (section)

===Part 12===

The city was full of life that Tanabata night.

Colorful light decorated the night sky as fireworks were launched from somewhere.

The meteor shower would apparently be visible soon.

But Item returned straight to their hideout without speaking a word.

Their group of five was incomplete.

They knew that, but there was nothing they could do right away.

“Mugino…”

Takitsubo started to say something, but she stopped.

There was no need to say it out loud.

Mugino had decided it would be safest to give that girl a role so she could escape first with Takitsubo. This was the result. Did everything always have to backfire in the dark side?

The weakest link would always be targeted and bitten off first.

And no matter what their intentions, their wounds and exhaustion were just as real. If they had stayed in the library, they would have been captured too. They had also lost sight of their initial objective, so Mugino and the other three had been forced to return home.

A symbol of a certain girl’s presence could be found in the Fifteen Bells apartment. The bamboo that Frenda had forcibly stuck inside a moth orchid pot had a certain tanzaku blowing in the air conditioning.

''I want to be a part of Item! A useful part!!

''Please let me find some way to make myself worthwhile to them as thanks for taking me in.

:::''-Hanano Choubi

There was nothing else.

Only silence.

Even the violent Level 5 simply stared at the tanzaku for a while, not speaking a word.

Kinuhata and Frenda didn’t dare speak to the silent tyrant. They sensed a much greater rejection in this than in an enraged outburst.

“Mugino.”

But the track suit girl did quietly call out to her.

And with real force behind her voice.

Takitsubo had been with Mugino the longest, so she had to understand that girl’s violence better than anyone. But that was exactly why only she could safely pass between the countless landmines laid out there.

This was something that Mugino would never, ever say.

But it would reward the foolishly honest and kind newcomer who had arrived to bolster the team’s numbers and had faithfully protected Takitsubo from this dark world.

“This isn’t over yet. We can still rescue Hanano from that fake Item.”

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