Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 1===

It was 10 PM.

Tokiwadai Middle School had a strict curfew, so this girl should not have been out in the city this late.

“Hokaze, Kobayashi. Wait for me here as promised, okay?☆”

Shokuhou Misaki was Queen of the school’s largest clique.

However, she was not out on the cold, dark streets.

“My, my. If it isn’t, Shokuhou-sama. If you had let me know you wished to do business with us, I would have sent someone to you.”

A slender man in a suit that looked stuck in the past greeted her with a bright smile.

They were inside a shop filled with gentle indirect lighting and soft music. The space was smaller than a convenience store, but it was filled with items valuable enough to buy up dozens of convenience stores, land included.

Glass cases lined the walls and waist-height tables and counters formed more showcases in the center.

This was a pawnshop.

But instead of providing desperate people with money to live off of in exchange for their household belongings, it was more like a pachinko prize exchange where mistresses and hostesses could sell the rings and fur coats they were given or a corporate president’s secretary could get cash for the car keys and golf sets their boss had given them under mysterious circumstances.

“Here☆”

With a soft sound, Shokuhou Misaki placed a small leather bag on the glass counter. The girls in her clique who knew her well (and sort of worshiped her) would have known this was not her usual bag. Bags like this were supposedly designed with style in mind rather than functionality, but anyone who actually used them instead of keeping them around for decoration would know immediately that this bag’s style was not all that great. It was only given the illusion of style by the world-famous brand name attached to it.

Of course, Shokuhou was not here to sell or to buy.

The white-gloved man did not even need to pull out the loupe he used for his job.

“Very good, Shokuhou-sama. You have presented your key, so please follow me to the back room.”

“…”

“Your followers are welcome as well. You are a regular client, so anyone you vouch for is free to accompany you.”

Shokuhou Misaki possessed one of the “keys” which allowed a limited few to use special services and enter restricted areas in Academy City. She already knew about this pawnshop’s back room. It connected to the back room of the beauty salon next door and it provided a truly exclusive selection that no one could ever gain access to by spending money at the front counter.

However.

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Just as the man in a suit turned around, Shokuhou casually reached into the leather bag.

He may have noticed in the reflections off all the glass cases, but before he could turn back around, she aimed a TV remote toward his back and toyed with the button.

She was Academy City’s #5 Level 5.

Metal Out was the strongest of the purely psychological powers.

“Shoku…hou-sama…?”

“Well, I do frequent this shop, so I will give you some leeway ability before I mess with your head☆ But I will make sure you tell me everything even if you refuse to obey. So wouldn’t it be nicer for you if you just came clean on your own?”

There was no smile in the Queen’s eyes and her voice was icy.

In fact, there was a dreadfully bewitching look to her eyes that could only be found in the extraordinarily beautiful.

“Have we made some sort of mistake? I believe we have helped you acquire several different keys.”

“That’s the thing.”

Her voice was flat.

No, her emotion had passed the upper limits that ordinary people could detect, similar to how ultrasonic waves surpassed the audible range of the human ear.

“That privileged class is a service allowing people to enjoy a pleasant ‘high’, isn’t it? Special privileges are best when you do not actually use them. Then it is the ultimate game of make believe. But if people actually open that lid and discover how toxic it all is on the inside, don’t you think you will lose all that trust ability you have built up? To be blunt, I am sick of it. Riding around the city on a motorcycle and firing a shotgun? All I want to do is lug this bag around and enjoy life at the top, so I certainly do not want people seeing me as part of some silly gang of criminals.”

“We…”

The slender man did not turn around.

And that may not have been due to the TV remote or her Level 5 powers.

How could he possibly gather the courage to directly face the look in the Queen’s eyes?

“We work day in and day out to bring our clients to a higher level. That bag would have gone to someone else, but we held onto it especially for you!! I cannot sit here and have you criticizing us for that. You were Cinderella asking for a dress! So…so how can you treat us like a wicked witch!?”

“Sakibasu Yuri.”

With those piercing words, her voice grew even deeper.

Something different from killer intent erupted from her.

That had to be something only the Queen of Tokiwadai could produce. After all, she did not view things on a level of kill or be killed. She was familiar with plenty of fates worse than death.

She had the strongest psychological power.

Just a bit more strength entered the finger on the TV remote’s button.

The time for mercy had ended.

“You dare speak to me that way after directly targeting one of my girls?”