Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item3 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===

The place was large for a cold storage warehouse. It was the size of a stadium.

“Get back!!”

They didn’t have time to slowly pick the lock. Mugino blew away the staff entrance door with Meltdowner.

As soon as the four of them rushed inside, several explosions erupted outside. Each shell produced burning flames for 100m in all directions and the outdoor space was engulfed by several of these at once.

The chill seemed to cling to their skin.

It wasn’t August in here. They could see their breath. They had avoided the downpour of thermobaric shells, but they didn’t get the liberating feeling that comes with outsmarting an enemy.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo held her body, shivered expressionlessly, and looked to the wall. The digital display there said -40. That meant it was 40 degrees below freezing. Mugino shouted, her breath coming out in white puffs.

“Frenda! What about our phones!?”

“Mine’s working fine. In the end, they are Academy City products☆”

Circuit boards and batteries could fail in extreme environments, but that apparently wasn’t an issue.

Still, they had stumbled into a world where a towel would freeze instantly if you wet it with water and swung it around. Without appropriate cold weather gear, there was only so long humans could operate in here.

Frenda stared intently at a metal wall panel that had half-fused with white frost.

“Damn, it’s cold. Argh, isn’t there a map posted somewhere? Liquid nitrogen support coolant tanks, emergency generators, ceiling crane… In the end, is that all the equipment in here!?”

Trying to hole up inside this giant cold storage warehouse would only put Item at a disadvantage. The thick insulated walls might be able to protect them from the walls of fire caused by the thermobaric shells, but they biologically couldn’t ignore the extreme temperature of -40 degrees.

Eyeballing it, the ceiling appeared to be five or six floors up. But the containers and boxes were stacked up like pyramids, so Item still felt cramped down on the floor. They may have gotten a different impression if they were looking down from the catwalks quite high up on the walls, though.

Just like in a gym, a lot of metal beams were set up near the ceiling, but there were also some special rails laid out there. Were those for the ceiling crane that could move containers heavier than a ton in and out of the warehouse?

“What if we blasted a hole in the wall? Letting the outside air in might help with this cold.”

It was fortunate the warehouse’s design had been based on a capsule-shaped indoor soccer stadium. That meant the enormous ceiling was supported by countless metal beams distributing the weight. With a domed stadium that used the power of the air to remain intact, a large hole would have caused it to collapse.

However…

“When we don’t where the enemy will attack from? We managed to hide in a fairly large and complex building, so we don’t want to give away our position with all that loud destruction.”

Battle Freak Mugino applied the brakes.

Which showed just how formidable an enemy she was expecting.

Kinuhata covered herself with a nitrogen barrier, perhaps hoping it would have an insulating effect.

“So super what is this place?”

It was much too big to be a simple cold storage warehouse.

It was the size of an indoor soccer stadium, after all.

Not to mention that an ugly warehouse felt out of place in clean District 1.

“It’s probably Reserve Meal,” spat Mugino.

Frenda sighed and explained.

“That’s Academy City’s largest disaster-response food vault. But only the Board and a limited number of VIPs get to use it. The general public isn’t even told it exists.”

The place was like Academy City in miniature.

The elites would monopolize all this food and refuse to part with any of it, but as soon as it was close to expiring, they would donate it to the Child Errors so they could look benevolent. It really just demonstrated that they were hoarding more food than they could eat themselves, but they took the act of shoving it onto others and wrapped it up with the pretty image of heartfelt charity. And the recipients’ thanks for the food really was heartfelt.

As a rule, a villain like Mugino did not trust philanthropy that asked for nothing in return.

People did things either because it benefited them in some way or because it let them feel superior to the others around them. Her dark side nose, which tended to view all things in an uncharitable light, told her that much.

Just rationally view the structure here.

No matter how much they tried to pretty it up with their words, the food supply route visualized the difference between the upper class and the lower class.

(Not that I’m one to talk when I’m the prodigal daughter of the Mugino Family, a grain production company that feeds 1.4 billion people.)

Or maybe that was why it irritated her so much.

Meanwhile…

“In the end, this isn’t over. The execution squad is made up of Judgment elites, right? That means they fight with their powers, not those toys. The enemy is coming and soon. They’ll be breaking through a door or using that big hole we made, so be as read as possible by then!”

Blue in the face, Frenda dumped something out from her thin poncho: explosives and detonators of all sizes.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“There’s no point in thinking too hard. If you attach them to the door and press the big button, then they’re all ready to be detonated! But do it in the reverse order and they’ll blow up in your hands, so be careful. I’ll cover the hole with IR and milli-wave!!” Frenda rudely stuck a hand into her short skirt. “Also, you take this, Takitsubo! That’s better than me holding onto it, so be ready just in case.”

“Kay.”

Takitsubo expressionlessly reached out a hand and caught the small automatic handgun soaring through the air toward her. It was unclear how well she could fight on her own, but this would be better than nothing. And that kind of destructive power in the hands of a targeting-support power like AIM Stalker could scare the enemy with the possibility it presented if nothing else.

The warehouse was the size of an indoor soccer stadium. They didn’t have time for Frenda to set up the explosives herself. Mugino, Takitsubo, and Kinuhata carried as many explosives as they could and ran to different parts of the facility.

They set them up on the large main entrance meant to allow forklifts, loaders, and other equipment to pass through, on the side entrance meant for people, and…

“The walls are thick, but since the place is like a giant freezer, there must be a super huge fan leading outside. There should also be an outside door on the second or third floor for firefighters to get in. That’s how it worked with the lab I was in. Someone super take care of those!”

“Okay, Kinuhata. I can get those,” Kinuhata replied using the group call feature on their phones.

Mugino was blocking up all the main entrances on the first floor. Kinuhata was attaching explosives to the center of the doors on the same level. Kinuhata couldn’t see where Takitsubo and Frenda had gone.

Without warning, a rectangle was cut out of the wall right next to Kinuhata.

As if the thick insulated wall that had endured the thermobaric shells had been silently melted through.

Since the enemy wasn’t using the doors, all of the explosive traps were rendered meaningless.

A girl in a white military uniform, her long flaxen hair worn in a fried shrimp, stepped inside.

“Hello, you reckless Number 000 targets☆ The Special Exception Cleanup Team has arrived.”

Mugino didn’t bother listening.

She immediately raised her palm and fired a Meltdowner beam. The beam was sharply deflected to the side right in front of the white uniform girl and then dispersed into particles.

“!?”

“Super keep back, Mugino! We still don’t know what kind of power the enemy has!!”

Mugino and Kinuhata backed up toward the main floor of the warehouse where containers and boxes were stacked like pyramids. They couldn’t force the enemy back, so more and more white uniform girls got in.

“Nice to meet you. I am Inoue Fox.”

The fried shrimp uniform girl gave a mock bow in the presence of Mugino Shizuri of all people.

[[File:Item3 BW5.jpeg|thumb]]

Even though she had to know how dangerous it was to take her eyes off of Mugino and unbalance her center of gravity.

Were these four, who wielded justice mostly for fun, really ranked higher than the detective who bet her life on her actions?

“And these are Satou Lycaon, Yamada Coyote, and Tanaka Jackal. I am sure we will never meet again after tonight, but all the same.”

“So you’re the execution squad, huh? You seem to understand why so many people on the dark side like to use fake names.”

“Ha ha. Please refer to us as Judgment Branch 000 or the Special Exception Cleanup Team. We are the odd jobs team that works to preserve the definition of justice☆”

She must not have cared if that information got out.

What ''did'' she care about?

Inoue Fox grinned.

“That look on your face says you wish it hadn’t been Judgment who died, thus sparing you this mess.” She lowered her voice and spat out the next words. “But that’s where you’re wrong. Judgment or not, everyone has their own lives. You can’t choose to kill them for your own selfish purposes and then complain when the result is inconvenient for you.”

“Oh, and are you justice people spared that problem because when you do it it’s an authorized execution?”

“Not at all.”

The white uniform girl was not fazed by Mugino’s glare.

Justice would not falter in the face of evil.

“No matter the reason or circumstances, killing someone will earn resentment. I am merely asking you to understand that basic rule. You have become an enemy of justice and face this punishment because you chose to wield violence without considering the consequences first.”

“…”

“We, on the other hand, know what we are doing. It will be inconvenient for us and a great many people will resent us, but this is necessary to protect Judgment from violent criminals, so we will carry out our deadly duty with full awareness of what it will mean. We work within a fundamentally different system than you villains whose standards change depending on how much you are being paid. We can remain on the side of justice because we limit ourselves to more restricted methods.”

They ''dedicated themselves'' to justice.

If anyone couldn’t do the same, they looked down on them, labeled them villains, and attacked them fiercely.

Inoue Fox sneered as Mugino assessed her.

“Well, it all began as an old Judgment tradition. We just transformed it more to our liking. I do apologize if you stumbled into this unaware of what it meant, but you must prepare yourselves now. Because justice demands it.”

Takitsubo must have whispered into her phone while she watched from a higher floor.

“I’ve never heard of this.”

“It is already underway below the surface. Word of it will reach someone eventually. In pieces and as baseless rumors that distort the truth almost beyond recognition,” a busty brown-skinned girl with silver ringlets said with a grin.

Was she basking in the superiority of knowing more than someone else?

Mugino responded with a snort of laughter.

“Your Number 000 exists because your law enforcement groups are done if the criminals don’t respect your strength. So to avoid future victims, you take a zero tolerance policy when it comes to one of your own being killed, is that it?”

“What of it?”

“That’s identical to how gangs retaliate. When you get down to it, Judgment is just another form of organized violence. The only difference is you have official recognition and have the right to steal people’s tax money to fund yourselves.”

Inoue Fox had been so unflappable, but this caused a slight twitch around her eyes.

For the first time.

“What, was that an unforgivable insult for you justice people?” Mugino snorted in laughter. “C’mon, now. You use your weapons and powers to scare the city’s people into obeying your rules. It’s exactly the same. The mafia that started in Sicily don’t call themselves evil either. They say they represent justice and provide a more perfect order than the flawed legal system does. Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like someone we know?”

“…”

“Ha ha!! What, had you seriously not noticed, ''you villain''?”

A deadly attack approached with no advance warning.

Light surged out, Mugino took a step back, and the pile of containers next to her was sliced through at the bottom, causing the rest to come tumbling down.

But Mugino reacted with a brutal smile.

“You idiot! You’ve already shown your hand! I thought maybe our cutting power had some more complex conditions – hwa ha ha! – but it’s just a regular old light sword!?”

“We’re super done provoking them into reducing their effectiveness. Everyone, to your positions!!”

They had no choice but to start the battle now.

Item had been completely on the run, so they considered themselves lucky enough to make this a direct clash with no tricks.

But that only made it 50-50.

They still had a chance of dying. A big one, even.

The detective had given them this chance at survival.

Mugino would prove that her Class Rep had been a superior form of justice. No matter what.

(I want something unexpected. This is still part of their plan, so I want something so unexpected their plan falls apart!!)