Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 5===

9 AM.

The morning rush hour for students had passed, but Item didn’t care. The convenience store clerk was staring at them while trying repeatedly to get the register to actually read the barcode, but a single glare from Mugino preempted any possible questions. Such a convenient and pleasant world this was.

Once outside, they ate their breakfasts.

“What the hell? This salmon rice ball packaging won’t open no matter how much I tug!”

“Mugino, read the instructions. You’re supposed to start by pulling on the thin tape running vertically down it.”

“And that’s what I’m- oh, dammit. Now the seaweed’s all messed up!!”

Differences between inside and outside of Academy City could be found here as well.

Technology wasn’t perfected right away. It had to be used by a great many people so they could discover the problems needing solving. Stolen technology was one exception, but in that case they would lack the experience to deal with any problems they did come across.

“Let’s review the rules, guidelines, and regulations.”

Unable to let grilled salmon go to waste, Mugino broke down the rice ball to extract it from the plastic it had half fused with and ate it. Her annoyance was written plain on her face.

“We won’t have any support from the higher ups this time. So whether we kill or destroy, it won’t get covered up and will be treated as a crime. If the outside police catch us, a dark side assassin will sneak their way to our holding cell. Always weigh your options. Rule #1 is to avoid any violence that isn’t worth the risk.”

Kinuhata tilted her head while neatly removing the packaging from a chestnut okowa rice ball that appeared to be a new product.

“What do we do if Frenda-san super makes a desperate counterattack with her bombs?”

“We sniff out the signs. Then I burn the entire place down with Meltdowner before she can do it.”

They were to keep the damage to a minimum.

But no one had said anything about reducing it to zero. If things would only get more complicated, then they would erase it all with violence that was “worth the risk”.

So…

“For Frenda, that will be the final line. We’ll consider taking her alive if she doesn’t use any bombs, but if she uses even a single bomb here in the outside world, our priorities change.”

“Hey, if I have the chance, I say I just blast her and get it over with.”

“(With you, Mugino, it’s super impossible to tell if you’re serious or not.)”

On the dark side, you generally just killed everyone because anything else would be a nuisance, so they were already being fairly lenient here.

Of course, none of them knew how this would turn out.

“Mugino. We’re about to be gathering information, so should you really have eaten that rice ball?”

“We’re only going to end up ordering some overly sweet latte, right?”

They ended up going for the autumn-exclusive Mont Blanc latte.

Item weren’t the police or Anti-Skill, so they didn’t gather information by directly questioning people. For them, it was all about listening.

At a cheap chain cafe.

“Don’t they grow all the same stuff year-round? In plastic greenhouses and whatever.”

“It’s super worse than that. This is made from a chestnut-flavored powder. Unlike those rice balls that actually had stuff in them, you can’t prove that whatever’s in a liquid is real.”

The cafe menu changed out of human preference. Even if August had ended and September had arrived, a summer day was still a summer day. The status of the harvest wasn’t going to change so suddenly.

Takitsubo used a small fork to poke at a Western-style ohagi that came with the set.

“Mugino, adzuki beans are an autumn crop too, aren’t they?”

“Don’t mix a sweet drink with a sweet snack. You’ll just numb your tongue to the sweetness.”

After identifying a cafe frequented by the part-timers handing out fliers on the roadside that morning, Item occupied a table and started listening to the conversations going on around them. Information from around the city gathered here. They frequently strolled slowly up and down the narrow aisle, pretending to be grabbing a wet towel or a straw. And on the way…

“That little beret…”

“Super what was up with that blonde girl?”

They couldn’t afford to waste any time, so they used their own whispered hints to steer the conversations. By stimulating the other people’s memories, it wasn’t that hard to guide other people to a topic.

They were of course interested in any sightings these part-timers had made while on the job.

They didn’t even have to wait half an hour.



A blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl had been out in the morning rush hour but hadn’t gone to a school.



She was foreign, but she spoke fluent Japanese. And she hadn’t seemed like a tourist.



She had found an elementary schooler’s commuter ticket, worried over an old woman’s lost item, and grappled with a large poodle…



Mugino sighed in exasperation after returning to their table.

“What is that idiot doing when her life is on the line?”

“It sounds just like Frenda,” said the track suit girl, as expressionless as ever.

Kinuhata tilted her head.

“She doesn’t sound too worried. Could she super actually be innocent?”

“What about that was legal evidence? Don’t let impressions lead you astray, Kinuhata. We can’t deny the possibility she’s doing it on purpose to confuse us.”

Kinuhata looked over and found Takitsubo was her usual expressionless self. Usual. She normally seemed so unfocused, but her eyes hadn’t wavered before or after learning this.

Apparently the only one empathizing with Frenda was Kinuhata Saiai.

(Is this the super bad habit of a movie lover?)

It wasn’t clear if Frenda was guilty or not.

But whether she was serious about it or trying to find a way to deceive her pursuers, it wasn’t hard to predict what she would do next.

Mugino thought a moment.

“Prove her innocence. …That means she’ll stay put. For now, we shouldn’t have to worry about her hopping on a plane and escaping overseas. Takitsubo.”

“Nh.”

The track suit girl pointed with one hand.

She was their tracking expert.

Now, how far could they corner Frenda?

“Since we haven’t narrowed things down much, we should start from somewhere that gives us a panoramic view of the entire city. So let’s climb up high.”