Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2 (section)

===Part 4===

“Gyahhhh!?”

Hanano Choubi forgot all about acting and screamed for real. Not that anyone would have found it unusual given the circumstances.

A sharp tremor shook the giant building vertically, the tempered glass shattered, all the fire alarms went off, and a recorded female voice urged everyone to evacuate.

The blast hadn’t hit this floor, but her life was still at risk. The building was made of tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, but it might as well have been a shaky suspension bridge. Mugino could have brought the entire skyscraper down with ease if she wanted to.

“What!? What did you just do!?”

“You said the locks would release in an emergency, right? So I figured it would be faster to make our own. Don’t worry. I had Frenda monitoring the electromagnetism produced by human bodies, so I only took out a big conference room no one was using. One less budget item for them to worry about, really.”

(This building isn’t part of the dark side. Cause a scene like this and the Dark Side’s Bane will notice. Once that #6 is after us, we’ll vanish ''without a trace'' in some back alley or another!!)

The diligent small animal of a girl slumped her shoulders when she belatedly realized she had become the kind of person who put her guard up when she saw a hero.

Meanwhile, Mugino Shizuri’s voice couldn’t have been more carefree.

Which probably meant she was the kind of person who could slaughter people while perfectly relaxed.

“Get a move on, Hanano. Or is the door still not open? How many more times do I have to blast that building? Should I target a load-bearing column next? Or maybe the base isolators? Give the word and they’re gone☆”

“No need, no need! The door’s open! That worked fine, so thank you for the very useful support!!”

(That kaiju girl!!)

Hanano shouted tearfully and opened the unlocked fence door. She pulled the miniature computer from her pocket, connected a cable to it, and connected the other end to one of the server machines. The computer would do the rest.

It made quiet sounds like scratching fingernails.

The bar on the screen gradually filled up from left to right. Alphanumeric text – likely filenames – flashed by, but there was no point in trying to read them.

A wired connection was best when dealing with so much data. Copying the files was nerve-racking enough without knowing the wireless connection could break at any moment.

“Yikes, yikes, hurry up, yikes… W-will this really tell us who received the insurance payouts when the Colosseum participants died?”

“It will, but they might have used a fake name or fake ID. Or maybe they used a throwaway go-between like the one who withdraws the money in a bank transfer scam. Anything that would leave a trail will have been faked.”

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? Is this all a waste of time?”

“This is well worth our time,” Mugino Shizuri readily assured her.

Hanano tilted her head (in old man mode), but…

“The big bosses at the top will be well-protected, but not so with the participants who end up as corpses anyway. But we’re not interested in the corpses or the criminals. ''We’re looking for the people with a high-value policy and are still alive.'' We should probably narrow it down to teenage students, a policy of at least a hundred million, and an expedited contract less than a month old. Once we have their identity, we can do this the old-fashioned way: tail them and let them lead us right to the Colosseum.”

The bar on the screen filled up and the number below reached 100%.

Hanano Choubi yanked out the cable, stuck the miniature computer in her pocket, and returned to the elevator.

“Oh, no! The elevator’s stopped because of the disaster!”

“Ah ha ha. Then it’s time for 28 stories’ worth of stairs. Should make for some good exercise.”

(Really and truly curse that terrain-obliterating god of destruction!!)

But she had no other option here, so she gave up, opened the metal door, stuck her head out into the emergency stairs, and heard hurried footsteps climbing from below. This was an above-the-board company, so were those security officer batons she heard thunking at their hips? If they realized who she was and ganged up on her, she felt certain they would beat her to death.

“Check each floor to ensure no one was left behind. Make sure every last employee, guest, and contracted janitor is safe! Teams A and B, follow me and inspect the stairs!! …Hm? Hey! Is someone up th-”

“''Wahh!!''”

While shouting, she flipped the luxury suit inside out like a stage magician’s handkerchief, wiped both hands on her face makeup to rearrange it, and transformed herself into a muscular young man on the security team. In mere seconds.

She could only prepare one emergency costume change, so the standard option was either a security guard or a firefighter depending on where she was infiltrating.

“Reporting for duty!”

“R-right. I don’t recognize you. Which team are you on? Anyway, you came from up above, right? Continue on down and join another team. Any other team! Right now, we need every single person assisting the evacuation!!”

“Roger that!!”

Muscular and handsome Hanano Choubi shouted something that seemed right and then ran down the stairs.

A predetermined plan ''alone'' was not enough to fool people. Going with the flow and adlibbing could be surprisingly useful. Of course, you would run into trouble if you relied entirely on adlibbing.

And no living thing would run around quite as actively as a cornered chicken.

“Ugh, those 28 floors are going to have me sweating… That’s like descending a small mountain. Let’s hope my makeup doesn’t come off.”

“Hanano, we’re still monitoring you via the cameras after your face change, so don’t worry. And if you want a shortcut down, keep your eye on the wall to your right.”

She didn’t even have time to look that way.

The concrete wall broke through from the outside and a slender hand appeared. Kinuhata Saiai had quickly and powerfully climbed 28 floors up the building’s wall and now she grabbed Security Guard Hanano Choubi by the collar.

“Wait, but, hey, what are you doing!?”

“It was super you who told us not to abandon you if things went wrong.”

Then the two of them dove down from that high floor.

“Gyehhhhhhhhh!?”

“Don’t worry. My Offense Armor will act as a cushion, so we won’t die when we super hit the ground.”