Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

Mugino finally felt like things were getting back on track.

After leaving the unnecessarily large RV, she stretched her arms upwards.

“Ahh, feels good to do some real work.”

“My phone’s frozen up trying to read this… Damn. In the end, I connected the storage to my new device, which doesn’t have the usual settings file to speed up data reading. It doesn’t help that these images are huge. And with more than a million in all, it’ll probably take some time before I can open the folder and actually take a look at them. Probably about an hour, I’d say.”

“You should’ve borrowed whatever computer she usually uses, Frenda.”

Frenda was frowning at her phone with a card-sized storage device connected via cable and Takitsubo expressionlessly peered at the small screen from the side. Heading back to get the computer would be a pain at this point. And if that young woman had any sense at all, she would have already gotten as far away from there as possible. Once they could view the data, they would have all the data they wanted on the Sadistic Dolls, so all they needed to do was wait an hour.

Those girls ordinarily wore makeup and color contacts to avoid the mechanical facial recognition in the city’s security cameras and such, but this storage would have photos of them without all that. Once Item had those images, they could track them down.

Frenda sighed.

“In the end, do you think the voice on the phone is intentionally letting us do this? Maybe she wanted us to get impatient and act without permission so we’d do the job for free.”

“The suspicions can wait until after we have solid evidence. Make our move too soon against someone on her level and our names are going straight on an elimination list.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. In the end, she’s probably just too stupid to realize we’d do this.”

So what were they supposed to do for the next hour?

Takitsubo Rikou made a suggestion with emotionless eyes.

“I’m hungry. Isn’t it time we got something to eat?”

There were no objections.

They had collected their laundry at the laundromat, taken a shower at the spa at 10 AM, and then left for this job...so now that they were done, it was indeed about time for lunch.

“I want something cold to eat.”

“You say that, Takitsubo, but you already had somen yesterday.”

“That’s why I want something other than noodles that’s cold.”

“That’s going to make it a lot harder.”

District 21 was all about the great outdoors, so the shops at the foot of the mountain mostly just sold raw meat and solid fuel for cookouts. The only restaurants were a lot like the ones you would find in a rundown rural area, so Item chose to leave the district and go elsewhere.

“Summer is super ending, but it’s still super hot when the sun is high in the sky.”

“There’s an underground path over there, Kinuhata. Let’s use it.”

The four girls descended a long stairway to find chilled air.

The semi-cylindrical tunnel was covered by thick, clear plastic and glowed a bluish-white. The area outside was filled with artificial seawater, so giant mantas and whale sharks swam leisurely by over the girls’ heads.

“This is pretty fancy for a simple underground path. If they were going to go to all this super trouble, they should charge you for using it.”

“In the end, it’s part of a joint class, just like the wall art and sculptures you see around here. Part of the class is to get the students used to having their work seen by a lot of people.”

“?”

“District 21 borders District 9, which is all about arts and crafts☆”

The Item girls chatted like that as they walked through the tunnel aquarium.

Eventually, Mugino began complaining over her phone’s group call app.

Was she speaking with her class rep Shiratori Okibi?

“We have a lot more school events to look forward to once September starts. The most interesting would be the Daihaseisai athletic festival since it involves all the schools in the city. I’m going to be blunt: will you be participating or not?”

“Why do you care? It’s none of your business.”

“You must be joking! We still don’t know if one of only seven Level 5s in the city will be participating! Logically speaking, that will directly affect our placing, so you need to make up your mind sooner rather than later. Of course, I would appreciate it very much if you did participate.”

“You already know I maintain the bare minimum of school attendance needed to avoid being held back. I’ve got it all planned out and I’m not taking one step beyond what’s on that plan.”

With that, Mugino grumpily ended the call.

Kinuhata gave her a puzzled look.

“If school is that much of a pain, why not super cut all ties with it?”

“This is ''Academy'' City. I don’t want to stand out that much.”

Mugino’s obvious irritation suggested this was a significant source of stress for her.

Track suit girl Takitsubo smiled a little.

“If that girl can irritate Mugino this much without anyone dying, they must be pretty good friends.”

“Huh?”

“In the end, I could say the same about you, Takitsubo,” muttered Frenda while stealthily removing herself from the line of fire.

Speaking of Frenda, she had a parasol open even though they were indoors.

“Hm, hm♪”

“Frenda-san, super what is that?”

“A personal handheld mist shower☆ Everyone’s talking about them and anyone who’s anyone has one. With one of these, you don’t need to fight for the limited shady parts of the sidewalk. It has a 500mL tank kept cold with a chemical coolant and it keeps plenty of mist drifting down from inside the parasol.”

In other words, it was her usual love of the latest gadgets.

Summer was ending, so what was the point of buying up cooling products now? This was definitely going to end up gathering dust in the closet. And was “everyone talking about them” because the manufacturer was increasing their advertisement to make sure they didn’t have a huge stock left over by the time fall arrived?

The girl who failed to realize she had been duped bent backwards and laughed loud.

“Hwa ha ha! Jealous, ladies!? But if you insist, I would be willing to share this wonderful parasol with you! In the end, happiness should be shared!”

“No thanks, Frenda-san. You’re all damp and it’s super flattened your hair. Not to mention how your skin is showing through your clothes in places.”

After riding a long escalator up and joking about whether they could see each other’s underwear, they arrived directly on the ground floor of a building instead of outside.

Something passed by right in front of Mugino.

That something was a girl wearing a nearly transparent racing swimsuit with a bit of armor added in places. The outfit was apparently what one wore when piloting a giant robot and she was just walking around like it was normal. The additional parts that looked like long gloves and thigh highs apparently made this the “reverse bunny form”. She had a laser gun as long as she was tall resting on her shoulder. It was the classic trope of the cute girl with a brutal weapon.

Of course, this was cosplay and the giant laser gun was made of polyurethane.

Mugino wasn’t used to this sort of thing, so she looked puzzled by this pilot girl that could also fight outside of the cockpit who was max rarity yet was also madly in love with the (male) protagonist.

“Huh? I think we wandered into an anime.”

The large 1st floor lobby also contained a magical girl handing out aluminum-looking helium balloons shaped like stars and hearts and a special stage where extraterrestrial monster costumes were sumo wrestling.

“This is the General Tower for Next-Generation Information and Arts. Although most people call it Moe Bells. In the end, it’s a landmark for art-focused District 9.” Frenda pulled out her phone. “The entire 49-story building is packed full of anime and video game stuff, so you can think of it as ''a vertical Akihabara''. There are shops, movie theaters, event halls, production companies for different media, and even voice acting agencies. There are more than 500 shops open to the public here☆”

Her phone looked hard to operate with the storage device connected by cable, but she appeared to be calling up a fixed point camera on a video site. The small screen displayed a pair of huge towers. Projection mapping on their large walls was used to display humanoid battle robots and giant kaiju at 1:1 scale.

“In the end, the neighboring building is Hot-Blooded Bells. If you prefer to be moved to tears by battles full of punching, killing, kicking, and rescuing, then I recommend going there.”

If Moe Bells wasn’t about battles, then what was with the cosplay girls carrying enormous weapons?

But there was more than just anime and video game merch. There were also sections with smaller junk shops full of complicated-looking computer parts. If you wanted to enjoy games with the best graphics possible, you had to be particular about your video card and processor. And once you started building your own computer, you needed a lot of specialized parts. The line between professional and amateur had blurred a lot of late.

“Frenda-san, are you super into this kind of thing?”

“My sister loves Sunday morning tokusatsu.” Frenda pointed out that the cosplay shop employee was dressed as Magical Powered Kanamin and that the employee out gathering customers for another shop was wearing a Gekota costume. “What about you, Kinuhata? If you want to check out Japanese anime movies, there’s no better place than Moe Bells’s movie theaters. For the short films that artisan directors make while ignoring all the common theater standards, you need a big screen that takes gaming monitor tech to the next level if you want to see all the details in the colors.”

“Huh, so for a super recent example, do they show Momentary Blues?”

“In the end, that’s become a famous benchmark for bringing an entire theater to tears.”

The film buff began jotting down some notes, but the others ignored this.

In this Moe Bells place, miniskirt maids and cosplay magical girls appeared to be a common sight.

Mugino had a fundamental question.

“So do they have any restaurants here?”

“They’ve got everything from maid cafes to dancer cafes and even a Meiji/Taisho cafe☆”

“But is the food any good?”

Mugino’s eyes were pure ice.

Frenda shrugged.

“In the end, I’ve been here a few times because my sister begged me to take her to the hero show. Don’t underestimate Big Sis Frenda’s knowledge of the kid’s menus around here. The maid cafes are hit-and-miss, but you can get food better than at a family restaurant at the good ones.”

“Super how do you know which ones are the good ones?”

“Not from the fliers the smiling maids are handing out or from how cute the decorations are. In the end, maid cafes have obsessive fans, meaning you can’t trust the star rating on restaurant rating apps.” Frenda raised her index finger. “So you need to look at the kitchen ducts. Especially the seams and gap in the cleaning cover. In the end, the cafes that do their own cooking instead of relying on pre-made dishes they can microwave or boil will be covered in oil stains in the back☆”

Since she was the expert, they let Frenda choose where they would eat.

“If the best ones are only better than a family restaurant, is there super any reason to care that much?”

“Kinuhata, don’t these places boost their apparent value by making it feel like part of an event? Like the expensive ramen at a seaside restaurant or movie theater popcorn.”

“Super do not badmouth movies, Takitsubo-san. It’s wrong.”

Apparently the film buff was an advocate for the facilities related to movies and not just the movies themselves.

While Kinuhata and Takitsubo discussed that, Frenda checked out the many available restaurants and then pointed at one of them. Whether or not her nose for this was accurate, she appeared to have some basis for her decision.

A maid dressed in deep blue stood out in front of the cafe. Real maids apparently wore long skirts.

She greeted them with a smile.

“Welcome back☆ Four girls, is it? Let me show you to a tab-”

[[Image:Item3 BW2.jpeg|thumb]]

The maid trailed off, her smile frozen on her face.

Mugino looked puzzled, but then she picked up on something too.

“Y-”

It took a full three seconds, but the Level 5’s thoughts finally started back up.

“You…?”

A quiet beep came from Frenda’s phone.

The card-sized storage device was still connected by a cable, its contents being analyzed. It contained the client list Item had stolen from the bond builder. Automatic creation for a settings file to speed up data reading was complete, so a few photos of faces appeared on the small screen. These were the true faces without the stage makeup and color contacts.

One of them was identical to the maid standing in front of them.

Guitarist Meg, with her natural brown hair, spoke with her face drawn tight.

“What the hell are you doing here, my dumb-as-shit ladies?”