Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

Sakibasu Yuri, whose black twintails had curled ends, felt a tremor down her spine.

She placed her hands on her cheeks and shut her eyes.

“(It’s ten o’clock. Ten o’clock at night… Kwahh!! The curfew. The curfew. I’m completely breaking the curfew. Ohh, I can’t believe I’m walking around the city at this hour!! Should I really be doing this? No, of course not. And I’m not alone! I’m out at night with a friend! Ahh, mother, I’m sorry! What will become of me now!?)”

“Sakibasu-san?”

The violin girl gasped and came back to her senses.

Misaka Mikoto, the girl who had called out to her, was holding her phone sideways and snapping photos of the large electric motorcycle from a variety of angles. But this was not about getting content for social media.

“Uiharu-san, is there anything else you need?”

“GK> Okay, you have the license plate, the lights, the electric motor, the battery, the tires, the frame, the seat, and the model numbers for them all. That should be enough for now.”

Car accident investigations tended to come down to running searches. You gathered as much miniscule information as you could from the road (e.g. tire tracks, flecks of paint, and shards of a broken light) and then checked to see what shops sold those and which companies manufactured them. You wanted to figure out who had a car containing all of Parts A, B, C, and D. Then you checked to see which of those people could have been at the scene of the accident or crime. By narrowing down the suspects like that, you would eventually have just the one person remaining.

“Of course, you can’t find the culprit that way if it was a stolen car.”

“GK> The location and method of the theft can act as an indirect hint, so it can’t hurt to gather this information. The more data I have to analyze, the better.”

“If only we could have directly searched for their esper power.”

“GK> Telekinesis is as common a power as fire and electricity based ones. There are differences in level of strength and control, but we would have a hard time searching the Bank with the information we have. Plus, there are occasionally people who hold back during the System Scan so their power is reported as weaker than it actually is. It would help if we had some other way of narrowing it down. And we need as many ways of doing that we can get.”

Sakibasu Yuri tilted her head at that.

And she hesitantly spoke up.

“Um, these are only photos. If the motorcycle is that big a hint, why not bring it back to a Judgment station?”

“That would be difficult.” Mikoto smiled bitterly. “Anti-Skill and Judgment have different jurisdictions and authority levels. Like in all things, an adult organization like Anti-Skill generally has more authority. Someone must have heard the gunshots and the motorcycle crash, so we’re going to hear some sirens approaching before long. If we removed such obvious evidence from the scene before they had time for an official investigation, who knows what they would accuse us of. Not to mention that we can’t tell them we’re here to sneak into the insurance company. Just having them ask why we’re here wouldn’t end well.”

“Ugh…”

The black twintails girl shrank down a bit. She rubbed her black kneesocked legs together as a sign of unease.

It was possible what had happened afterschool was just an act to take control of the situation, but Sakibasu must not have gotten over that oppressive view of the adults.

“Kuroko, did you get into the insurance company’s server?”

“True T-Tails> I got the files out the way Uiharu told me, but I imagine they’re at least encrypted. The rest is up to that geek’s skill.”

They apparently did not have access to everything right away. But at least this was better than finding out it was a quantum signal and they had destroyed the files by trying to mess with them.

And…

“Then I guess we can’t bring this back either. Ugh, and just when I thought I could show off my power…”

Sakibasu Yuri was referring to the scrap of black leather held between her index and middle fingers. It was from the remnants of the riding suits Mikoto had blown away.

But Mikoto’s eyes widened when she saw it.

“Sakibasu-san… You touched that with your bare hands?”

“?”

“Um, let’s see…what do we do now? We have to worry about fingerprints, skin flakes, the oils in sweat, and…what else???”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Wiping it off with a handkerchief and setting it down was not enough.

That would not fool a forensic investigation and it would count as altering evidence even if it did. Leaving it here would only further confuse matters.

Which meant…

“We can’t just make it go away, so I guess we’ll have to leave it with Judgment for the time being. Uiharu-san, did you hear that?”

“GK> You want me to fight the grownups? Bring it on. …But can I order some energy drinks and caffeine gum to keep my energy level up? Using a 24-hour drone delivery service, of course.”

“If you are going to buy those, I recommend skipping the convenience store and using a discount store that sells imported goods with who-knows-what language on the packaging. The foreign version of the same product is often a lot stronger.”

They heard a needlessly loud siren approaching.

Staying here would be a bad idea.

“Did you see that message, Kuroko? Once you have what we need, escape the building. Sakibasu-san and I are getting out of here, so we can meet up later.”

“True T-Tails> Why do I feel like more and more of the cute twintails underclassman pie is being taken from me? But anyway, understood.”

Mikoto slipped her phone into her pocket and had Sakibasu store the leather evidence in a clear bag.

“B-but how are we supposed to escape? Anti-Skill specializes in arresting criminals, don’t they!?”

“We aren’t criminals, so don’t worry about it too much. By the way, Sakibasu-san, are you afraid of heights?”

“What? No, not really.”

“What about fast vehicles?”

“I have a 1-year pass to the District 6 amusement park. I make sure to check out all the new roller coasters.”

“Then you’ll be fine.”

With that casual response, Mikoto swept Sakibasu’s legs out from under her and supported her by her back and the back of her knees.

This position was commonly known as “princess carrying” someone.

“Hwah?”

“Excuse me a moment. We’re going to be airborne, so hold onto your violin case.”

“Hwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

Sakibasu’s mind went blank, but that only made this easier.

Misaka Mikoto magnetically clung to a skyscraper’s wall, jumped over the arriving vehicle with flashing lights on top, and continued jumping from building to building.