Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

Once Kubota arrived, it would be time to dispose of this human body.

But if Kinuhata refused, it would damage the trust she had only just built and would make her an enemy of the entire illegal casino.

With a combination of a high-voltage shock and bullets, there was a risk of her getting zapped after her nitrogen barrier was penetrated.

Kinuhata was from the dark side, so she wasn’t about to hesitate when it came to killing.

''The problem here was the needless killing of an ordinary person for self-defense.

That was a different kind of killing and a burden she wasn’t willing to bear.

A large silver box took up half the small room Kawazakana had called a cell. They may have torn down one of the walls, pushed the box in, and rebuilt the wall. The box had a large door reminiscent of a bank vault, but it was effectively a giant microwave oven. It was an electric furnace, an appliance capable of efficiently incinerating a human, leaving only a pile of ash behind.

The scary part was this wasn’t an excessive piece of equipment by dark side standards.

(These days, not even banks are too afraid of robbers to keep all their cash in on place. But the customers here don’t want to give their real names, which means no e-money or credit cards. They must do all their dealings in paper money. If you super think about it, it’s obvious they would be on edge about anyone scoping the place out.)

Kinuhata scooted over to the wall and used her bunny butt to crush a 2mm security camera embedded in the wall.

“Ugh, really!?”

Her shout made the Judgment girl jump.

Kinuhata didn’t know what that girl was imagining would happen to her, but she crouched down and removed the handkerchief gag.

“Super what did you do to get caught!?”

“Urb, ugh? Wh-who are you? You aren’t one of the casino’s soldiers?”

Kinuhata saw no need to answer that.

But the middle school girl – who was a bit bigger than Kinuhata – still sounded relieved.

“I-I’m Yamagami Erina. I’m with Judgment, so…oh, that’s right. I didn’t bring my armband.”

“…”

“I’ve heard that voice before,” said Mugino in Kinuhata’s ear. “Was that Judgment girl at the Colosseum?”

“I didn’t know this was a casino. We were investigating tax evasion through unreported income and we received word of a large safe being transported to the defunct bowling alley, so my job was to see what was going on inside. Um, the idea was for some adult Anti-Skill officers to support me.”

(Super what were you having this girl do, Anti-Skill!? Aren’t you supposed to be the good guys!? Let me guess: you sent her in without telling her how risky it was!? This isn’t a summer research project!)

“Do you super have any information?”

“?”

“About the two big bosses in charge of the people who run this illegal casino!”

“Blegh.”

It happened out of the blue.

Still bound, Yamagami Erina doubled over on the floor and vomited.

Or so Kinuhata thought.

Yamagami jerked her chin toward a flash drive the size of a stick of gum contained in several layers of clear plastic wrap.

“I was after the big safe with their illicit money inside, so I don’t have any details on the people.” The smelly Judgment girl weakly shook her head. “But I did extract all the data on the big computer in their office. I didn’t have time to see what was in there, so I can’t tell you what kind of information you’ll find.”

“Their office?”

Kinuhata thought she had been shown around everything but the casino floor where the visitors gambled, but she didn’t recall an office.

Had Consultant Kawazakana omitted that from the tour because it contained secrets he wanted to keep from a new hire?

Kinuhata accepted the flash drive (very carefully since it was covered in stomach acid), wiped it off with a handkerchief lying nearby, and hid it in her flat chest.

(Now I owe her one. She gave us data I didn’t even know existed, so super no one can complain if I help her!!)

“The bowling alley’s main entrance was boarded up. The visitors super use the back entrance and there were guards there. Do you know of another exit?”

“B-below the floor. I was told to escape through there if I ran into trouble, so I remember it clearly.”

The way Yamagami’s face lit up suggested she hadn’t realized the “good guys” had deceived her.

But if she did know of an exit, that was better than nothing.

If the hostage escaped from the cell, Kinuhata would be the primary suspect, but she needed to stay in the dangerous casino to gather more intel. Honey Queen’s Ainame Caroline and Tachiuo Mary had easily defeated Mugino, so sitting around and waiting for them to attack would be a very bad idea.

Kinuhata wanted enough intel for Item to make an attack of their own. No matter what it took.

After ensuring Yamagami wouldn’t start yelling and running away in a panic, Kinuhata used Offense Armor to forcibly tear apart the zip ties binding the girl. Then she heard a voice on her earphone.

“In the end, you’re dealing with an electric furnace, huh?”

“Got any super magic tricks I can use to get out of this one?”

Frenda was the one to go to for advice here.

She was primarily a bomb specialist, but she also knew a lot about machines for designing timers and traps.

“Roughly speaking, you can think of an electric furnace like a humongous microwave oven. In the end, if you dump a person in one designed to incinerate lab animals, the flesh, bones, and hair will all be burned away. Only some soft white ash will remain.”

“I’m super not interested in you bragging about the specs! I think he said it reaches 3500 degrees. I can’t just throw a normal person in there!”

“Which is why you need to think it through. We’ll send more noise through the casino’s cameras and disguise it as a power surge, so in the end, you need to rush to the kitchen. There’s a trashcan for kitchen waste there, right? Gather up all the animal meat and bones in there. You need 55kg worth.”

That was enough for Kinuhata to figure out the basic plan.

Pink Bunny Kinuhata left the foolish Judgment girl in the cell while she peeked outside to make sure the coast was clear, stepped out into the hallway, and made her way to the industrial kitchen.

“Will it super trick them if we just burn pork and beef instead?”

“The idea is to dispose of a dead body so no evidence remains, so no matter how much they suspect something isn’t right, they’ll have no way of proving ''what it was originally''. All they’ll have is the pile of ash.”

“You don’t super think the presumption of innocence holds in the criminal underworld, do you?”

“Then let’s leave them with one piece of solid evidence.”

“?”

“In the end, there are two parts of the human body that are especially difficult to fully incinerate. The bone marrow contained in the femur, since that’s the body’s thickest bone, and the solid back teeth. In the body disposal business, it’s not uncommon for people to get arrested after one of those sticks around and allows the authorities to get the victim’s DNA.”

How could they use that to their advantage here?

“''I super get it.''”

There were always people in the large industrial kitchen, but Kinuhata stayed hidden by ducking through the labyrinthine pathways created by the gas stoves, countertops, and giant refrigerators. The sounds of cooking and frying were loud enough that no one would sense her presence while she hid behind cover.

“You had better not be thinking those chefs look nicer than the guards and the Murder Team.”

“I’m super not, Mugino.”

“Good. Everyone working in an illegal casino is a criminal. No matter how harmless and powerless they look, they still live in the same world as us.”

Still crouching, Kinuhata spotted something up on a countertop.

A cardboard box of alcoholism drugs sat next to some ingredients. That drug was made from calcium cyanamide and it greatly reduced one’s alcohol resistance so anyone would be easily intoxicated by a single drink. With that, anyone would be chemically knocked out in just 15 minutes. The drug was intended to make you dislike alcohol enough to fix your daily habits, but what was it doing here in an illegal casino full of young men and women?

A giant metal trashcan sat in a corner.

It might as well have been a one meter storage container.

Carrying 55kg of meat was no easy task, but Kinuhata was fortunate enough to have Offense Armor. She carried a stuffed trash bag in her hands instead of using a cart and she also borrowed a big pair of pliers from a tool box sitting on a steel rack in the hallway.

Once back in the cell, she immediately explained what had to be done.

Giving Yamagami time to think about it would only make this harder.

“I’ll be super taking one of your back teeth.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll be super roasting these cow bones and leftovers with microwaves to incinerate 55kg of kitchen waste, but that isn’t enough to fool Kawazakana and the others. But that changes if there’s a tooth ''as proof of what was fried''. The only DNA left behind will be human, so they’ll conclude the entire pile of ash came from a human. It’s not like I’m taking your brain or heart. I mean, you’ve got 32 teeth and you only need to give up one to save your life. If you think about it, that’s a super good deal.”

When Kinuhata showed off the thick pliers, the Judgment girl backed away, face tensing.

To be fair, only a small minority of the true masochists across the globe would want a cute bunny girl to use that big tool to destroy their mouth without even the bare minimum of sterilization or anesthetic.

So…

“Hn!”

“Bwagh!? Agh, hweh?”

Instead of sticking it in her mouth, Kinuhata slapped the girl’s cheek with the giant pliers. As long as the tooth came out, she didn’t particularly care how it happened. And that metal tool was heavier than a hammer. If you know how it was done, you could easily knock back teeth out of the gums with that. But using her power would cause ''too much'' damage, so it was tricky to get just right.

“Here, cover your mouth with this handkerchief. This is all for super nothing if you drip blood through the hallway. If you get out safely, go see a dentist…no, a cosmetic surgeon would probably be better in this case. I did essentially perform surgery without any anesthetic.”

“Uhh…”

Yamagami was weeping now.

Even if back teeth were hard to see from the outside, this damage was permanent. Kinuhata felt it was fair for the girl to resent her, but something wasn’t right. The Judgment girl grabbed her wrist and wouldn’t let go.

Was she too scared to go alone and wanted Kinuhata to escape with her?

Kinuhata scratched her head with her other hand.

“Get off of me!! I gave you a chance, but it’s super up to you to make it count. Will you run away now, or do I have to throw you into the furnace after all? That’s plan B, FYI. If you let this opportunity pass you by, the only thing I can do for you is to super break your neck first so you won’t suffer!”

“Eek, eeeeek!!”

The panicked girl threw open the metal door and ran down the hallway.

If she was that desperate to live, she would probably escape the bowling alley using the exit she had mentioned before.

“She was an investigator. You look different from normal in that fantasy costume, but she still saw your face up close. In the end, letting her escape was nothing but a risk.”

“Super shut up.”

Things were already in motion.

Kinuhata could not leave the illegal casino yet. If she was going to keep Kawazakana from getting suspicious, she had to complete this electric furnace magic show and ''create'' a single ‘legal human corpse’.

“They’ll be instantly suspicious if you mess with the default time or output settings, so don’t touch those. In the end, you want to create a big pile out of the cow bones and leftover food and then bury the target deep inside the center. Unlike in movies, the back teeth do have a tendency to stick around regardless, but that will ensure it does.”

“?”

“Kinuhata, what happens when you don’t microwave a big serving of yakisoba long enough? The middle stays cold, right? The best way to ensure the tooth survives is to shield it from the microwaves.”

“It would look unnatural if I don’t consider its location. Her head super wouldn’t be here if she was actually lying in there.”

“Remember, the human body is filled with moisture and cavities, so there’s a lot of bursting and moving around when its heated by microwaves. Have you ever had a supermarket side dish package pop its lid off while you heated it? You sometime see EM weapons in action movies, but they never depict that part right.”

“Why do people always feel the need to bash movies when they want to sound smart? I super hate how they make movies into their punching bag!”

“Whatever you say. In the end, do you know how to use the furnace? The parts can be pretty big with an industrial one, so don’t hurt yourself getting your skin caught in the door latch or a lever.”

“I’ll be fine. I can super defend my entire body with Offense Armor.”

With that, she extremely roughly got the device running.

The sound of evaporating water erupted behind the thick metal door. It had to be the placebo effect, but she felt like the room temperature had gotten a lot hotter. Actually, with all the power it was consuming, maybe it really was giving off heat on the outside too.

“Good, good.”

“In the end, Academy City esper powers are cheating with this kind of heavy lifting!”

Only unidentifiable white ash and a partially-burned back tooth would remain.

There was only one logical conclusion to reach with that combination: this was a human corpse with the victim’s DNA remaining.

Kawazakana rushed in.

“Whoa!? I noticed the power supply was unstable, but what the hell are you doing!?”

“Eh? Eh? Didn’t you super tell me to dispose of the body?”

“I only meant you were supposed to help Manager Kubota-kun with it. Oh, god…”

The new bunny girl had made a mistake, but Kawazakana was too nervous to enter the small room. Perhaps he only ever gave the order to kill and wasn’t used to getting his own hands dirty.

Kinuhata only cutely tilted her head.

All she had to do now was wait. The surviving human genetic information would lead the man to the wrong conclusion about the identity of the white ash.

“Um, I’ve never done this before, so I’m super not sure I did it right.”

(He won’t be super suspicious about me leaving some DNA behind in the tooth since it’s my first time, right?)

“I get it, I get it! Just come here. Get out of that room!!”

Once he gave her permission, Kinuhata left the cell.

Kawazakana didn’t seem to question the absence of the Judgment girl.

“That was a reckless thing to do. What if you did something wrong and electrocuted yourself? This isn’t a job to do in that revealing bunny suit… Oh, Kubota-kun. Did you bring your team with you?”

“…”

With more people around, her actions would be observed from more angles. She had to be even more careful now.

She took a deep breath to refocus her mind.

She looked to Kubota’s team and then recalled something she had been told before.



''“Despite what spy movies may have led you to believe, the trick to an infiltration job isn’t earning everyone’s trust. For one, that’s simply not possible. If you’re going to infiltrate enemy territory, don’t try to make friends with the enemy – try to make it so they have no choice but to shake your hand even if they hate your guts.”



''“If you want to get close to the enemy fast, create some trouble you can work with your target to solve. In the end, nothing brings two people together faster than a shared success.”



''“If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t give a yes or no answer. Instead, smile and change the subject. Always stay in control of the conversation. If you wait for their reaction, they’ll wear you down with the conversation.”



Before Pink Bunny Kinuhata Saiai had entered the illegal casino, Frenda had super condescendingly explained that to her like a mother listing off her small child’s chores.

And something else occurred to her.

She had received support over her earphone, but that didn’t mean the other three were all together.

This casino hired guards, a Murder Team, and bunny girls.

Kinuhata saw blonde hair and blue eyes.

''A white bunny girl with a very familiar face'' smiled over at her from right next to Kubota and then whispered in Kinuhata’s earphone that didn’t use EM signals.

“And in the end, if someone on the other side is secretly your ally, a careless statement won’t be enough to blow your cover☆”