Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter7 (section)

===Part 6===

For a while afterwards, a scorched smell lingered in the 5th floor air.

And not just because of the fire that had finally been put out using a foaming chemical fire extinguisher.

Shokuhou brushed back her honey-blonde hair and pouted her lips.

“The iron sand sword would’ve been cooler.”

“You can only say that because you wouldn’t have been the one dirtying your hands.”

The silver-haired twins, Acid and Counselor, were collapsed on the floor along with the ringlet curls girl who had been taken hostage. It had been an emergency, but Mikoto had zapped the hostage while Acid held her. She was not going to escape that unharmed.

“Kuroko, are you okay?”

“You put me through a lot of trouble, you know that!?”

Mikoto and Shokuhou lifted up the unconscious girls.

But…

“(Onee-sama is so close!!)”

“(I-I feel like I am being corrupted by some kind of wicked passion…)”

The ringlet curls girl felt it would be awkward to announce she had come to and Shirai Kuroko was simply enjoying the situation as they cracked their eyes open and made eye contact with each other.

Meanwhile, Shokuhou Misaki sighed.

That Machiavellian girl had made the ringlet curls girl her right-hand girl. Even if the attack had come from their own side, she may still have been quite worried.

“Hey, Shokuhou. Is your girl okay?”

“…Huh!?”

But the Machiavellianism was still there.

She must have decided showing weakness was never a good idea because the Queen of Tokiwadai brushed back her long blonde hair when she noticed Mikoto’s eyes on her.

“Of course she is. I chose Hokaze as my right-hand girl. You really think something as minor as this would take her out of the fight?”

“…”

“Heh hehn. My Hokaze is incredible. She would run right into a sea of flames if I was in trouble, she acts as my clique’s representative to keep the heat off of me, and she stays by my side even when I’m not in trouble☆ I could never find anyone to replace her. Not that I could say any of this to her.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

(Wow, there is no way Hokaze-san can open her eyes now. I mean, she’s starting to tremble and blush, so she’s obviously already awake.)

“Wait! Does that mean Kuroko is too!?”

“Gwagh!! D-don’t ruin my fun!”

Shirai Kuroko cried out in a way very unlike a middle school girl.

But she seemed happy even as she was thrown to the floor.

They bound and gagged Acid and Counselor before stuffing them in random lockers. How to fully restrain such versatile espers was a tricky question, but Acid, the source of the physical phenomena, created oxygen with her own breathing. Unlike hydrogen, oxygen was not explosive and her own skin was vulnerable to the powerful oxyacid. They decided trapping her in a narrow space where the walls reached her skin would be surprisingly effective.

“Now, then.”

Things had calmed down, but they could not relax yet.

Acid and Counselor were only the guard dogs. Their real target was still here. They were after the server room on the 20th floor. If Sakibasu Yuri’s mother, Ryouu, managed to infect the Zero-Day Link computer with her virus, everything they had accomplished would be for naught.

The ringlet curls girl hesitantly stretched her arms up to see how her body was doing.

“Nhh, I’m all charged up.”

“So do the people without selfish desires get more in the end?” wondered Shirai. “But I already decided I would live true to my feelings.”

They wanted to be part of a famous bloodline that left its name in history.

So they would destroy the entire world to make people see their blood as special. Noblesse oblige. If they readily provided more funding than the nobles in a time of need, the masses would accept them. They wanted to become a legend similar to Santa Claus or the Kasa Jizo. It was all for that.

“Okay, how about we get going? It’s time for the final hunt.”

“The 20th…floor.”

“Yeah, that’s a pain, so it would be faster to launch myself up there with magnetism.”

“M-Misaka-san? I only have my legs to carry me and no matter how inhumanly beautiful they might be, lactic acid still builds up in them. Are you even listening!?”

“Glad I’m not you.”

“Oh, no. She isn’t even considering how I’ll get up there, is she!? Heh. Eh heh heh. Now, I have an idea. How about you lend me that underclassman of yours? I can climb those stairs with ease with some help from a power as convenient as teleportation!!”

“Shokuhou, Shokuhou.”

“?”

“Hokaze-san is standing right behind you after recovering so calmly. Infidelity really is a bad idea, isn’t it? I mean, who would try to seduce some other girl when the one is lying there right next to you? Anyway, you can go to hell.”

Mikoto ignored the screams of “Hgh, wait, no, it’s not like that, Hokazeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!?”

After reaching the 19th floor where the president’s office was, they cut across there to reach the stairs leading directly to the 20th floor. Fortunately, there were no tripwires or other traps. Did Sakibasu Ryouu not have that kind of technical skill, or had she feared tripping one of her own traps in the dark?

“It’s cold in here!”

“My, my. Look at this child. You need to be able to resist the cold if you want to keep up with middle school fashion.”

“Says the person clinging to Hokaze-san for warmth.”

When they opened the large door, they were greeted by a refrigerator-like chill.

The darkness inside was of a different sort from before.

This was a blatantly “artificial” darkness, like in a planetarium or movie theater. There must not have been any windows. It felt like a vast graveyard made of plastic. A space larger than Tokiwadai’s lecture halls was lined with boxy computers the size of refrigerators and they all had green and yellow pilot lights blinking irregularly.

The center must have doubled as a maintenance access corridor.

The rows of gravestones were pushed to the left and right, leaving a long straight path in the center. That was the large server room’s main street. The letters and numbers labeling sections of the room like an old apartment complex’s building numbers were arranged to be viewed from that central line.

“My.”

And in the center of that path, someone exhaled a white breath.

“This must mean…yes, Acid and Counselor were defeated. They may have been Academy City espers, but I suppose they were only children.”

The woman wore a gorgeous party dress made from a glossy black silk. She looked a lot like someone the girls knew. Her long black hair was curled only at her ears and her white skin made her age impossible to judge. The bodylines pushing out her dress from within, the sex appeal coming from her nape, and the shine of the colored nails at the end of her slender fingers were all very different from the girls of Tokiwadai Middle School. None of this was an internal light. It was all applied externally.

It was possible this woman was more “artificial” than the solemn, planetarium-like darkness in here.

“You’re the one too immature to understand what ‘children’ do.”

Mikoto focused on the object in Sakibasu Ryouu’s hand.

It was a silver-shining duralumin case with a longer and narrower shape than usual.

“What does the difference in income matter? It doesn’t change a thing if the child surpasses her parents! Sakibasu-san said she just wanted your praise. She held her head and sobbed while saying that was all she had wanted!! Yet you-…!!”

“Money is not everything. There are some things money cannot buy.”

The woman spoke in a singsong voice.

Yet it contained something far too thick to easily swallow.

It carried a pressure that made you forget all about the artificial chill of the server room.

“If you can say that, it is proof that you already ''have it''. I protected that tiny house, cooked pancakes, and kept tabs on all the sales to stick to our budget…but what good are those motherly acts in the face of all that money!? Those words only shine when they come from the winners! If the failures speak them from poverty, they only sound like sour grapes!! You can only accept throwing out money when you already ''have it'' and are so flush with cash you can throw it in the ditch for all you care. Only then can you say there’s more to life than that! You haven’t felt this pain or experienced this suffering. You can set fire to a stack of cash and throw it into the wind without batting an eye, so you can never understand. You ''true rich girls'' don’t know how it feels!!”

After that rant, the black party dress woman smiled a little.

She exhaled a white breath and shook her head.

She let her body sway unsteadily to refocus her mind.

“But the thing is, having money really is meaningless.”

“You…”

“Give the poor money and they will still be poor. They will only be mocked as swine with their pearls. In the end, it is predetermined who can reach a higher level. It comes in many forms: bloodline, family, history, and tradition. The people with those privileges are not even aware of it. Meanwhile, the flightless birds are doomed to be devoured by the insects on the ground. They will not die immediately, but it will gradually spread through them like pus.”

She snapped open some clasps.

She opened the oddly long and narrow duralumin case.

“I do not resent my daughter.”

Yes. According to Riot, aka Hanakawa Hinadori, Sakibasu Ryouu’s target in the initial attack had not been Sakibasu for losing the violin contest. She had ordered the shotgun fired on Mikoto’s group for winning.

“However.”

But.

On top of that.

“I am not so old and infirm that I will accept charity from the very daughter I birthed.”

She tossed the opened duralumin case to the side. In the planetarium-like darkness, Mikoto glared at the black silk party dress woman who now held the case’s contents.

(A violin?)

“Kuroko or Hokaze-san would be too powerful. Shokuhou!! Let’s attack simultaneously!!”

“I can handle this all on my own.”

Academy City’s #5 spun the TV remote in her hand and aimed it while pressing the button with her thumb.

Mental Out was the strongest psychological power.

This woman could not avoid it like Acid and Counselor could. She was no more than an adult, so she would have her mind controlled and forced to simply stand there.

''Or.

''So they thought.

“Did you do something?”

“!? She can still move!!”

Shokuhou Misaki was so confident in her own powers that her eyes widened past the limit.

But freezing up was a bad idea.

“Argh, I’m supposed to be working for Onee-sama!!”

“Queen!!”

Shirai and the ringlet curls girl moved forward to protect defenseless Shokuhou.

Meanwhile, the clock was still ticking.

Sakibasu Ryouu held the violin's chinrest between her shoulder and chin and placed the bow across it with her other hand. And she directed the neck toward the girls almost like she was taking aim with a rifle.

A note followed.

''Gyaweeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!

Mikoto visualized it like a sharp knife slicing through the artificial chill and flying toward the center of her chest.

She had launched a lightning spear at the same time, but it veered off course partway through.

“Gah!?”

Mikoto took a blow to the heart and was thrown backwards.

“What!? That was Onee-sama’s…Academy City’s #3’s lightning spear!”

Everyone could tell this was not at all normal.

For one thing, how could she wield a violin like a deadly weapon!?

(It’s the scab. While Sakibasu-san stroked it, has this woman developed a sound that intentionally rips away that psychological scab!?)

“This chilly air really is not good for the instrument, so I will end this quickly.”

This was not just an unpleasant sound like nails on the chalkboard.

Sakibasu Ryouu’s sound came with a physical blow.

Mikoto knew a single violin could not actually produce a shockwave like a fighter jet, but she still found it hard to breath. Frankly, she was amazed she was not bleeding from the corners of her eyes.

“Stativarius Tam Lin.”

The bow stopped moving for just a moment.

The beautiful mother in a black party dress sighed a white breath and spoke while rubbing her cheek against the demonic violin.

“All art carries creation and destruction as two sides of the same coin. The Stativari are famous for the creative side of their music, so it only stands to reason they would carry just as much power when used for destruction instead.”

“So it’s a next-generation weapon!?”

“Do not overwrite this with that silly word. This is quite the opposite of that. Esper powers have only existed for a few decades. A new academic field like that cannot hope to surpass the historical weight carried by this instrument.”

“Onee-sama!! Our top priority is Zero-Day Link. You can stop her by destroying all the servers in-…”

''Gyaweeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!

With a forceful tug of the bow, another “invisible blade” flew out. There was nothing in the air, yet Shirai Kuroko saw blades stabbing into her arms, legs, chest, and forehead. She had actual weight, yet those imagined visuals sent her spinning backwards through the air.

Sakibasu Ryouu spoke while elegantly holding the violin in the center of the darkness.

Her white breath carried a sweet heat as she took aim at Shokuhou Misaki who was ill suited for direct combat.

“Take this!!”

“It is no use.”

The Queen’s right-hand girl gave a shout and charged forward. Her power allowed her to consciously control even her cutaneous respiration, so she may have been able to block out her sense of hearing. But…

“That is not how this works.”

The crashing noise that followed came from the ringlet curls girl rolling along the floor.

The black party dress woman smiled thinly while using the sharp toe of her high heels to push aside the girl lying at her feet and holding her gut.

“Do be careful. You do not want to see what happens if your skin sticks to the cold floor.”

“…Ghh…”

“The Stativari provide their users with the ‘weight’ they lack. Talent? Genetic traits? If this is about effort, well, it was not easy acquiring this. I am not about to be defeated by some cheap esper powers development program.”

(It isn’t just the sound. Is it shaking all the bones in our bodies!?)

Even if all four of them worked separately to destroy the computers lined up like gravestones, would Sakibasu Ryouu allow it? As large as this room was, it was still a single enclosed space. There was a lot about how her attack worked they still did not understand, but if it could be sent out in all directions from her, it was possible the destructive effect could reach them even while behind the refrigerator-like objects.

“Now, let us bring this to an end.”

“Kh.”

“Crawl helplessly on the floor and give up. As rich girls who ''have it'', you may have been able to trample on the world’s logic this far into your lives. You may have been given a predetermined path of success that sidestepped all pain. But this is what happens to children who turn on the adults.”

It was coming.

She placed the bow on the strings and slowly gathered strength.

The frightening tone of death and destruction would accurately attack Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki!!

''Yaweeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!

It was distorted

Mikoto imagined a nonexistent sword flying straight toward the center of her chest.

However, there was another.

A violin note was played from a new source and it passed by Mikoto’s group to collide with the auditory attack launched by Sakibasu Ryouu’s Stativarius Tam Lin. That was what had distorted it so badly. The image seen in Mikoto’s mind’s eye scattered like a small tornado of directionless noise.

She felt no pain.

She felt no impact.

She could only think of one possibility. What could possibly compete with a Stativarius’s sound without relying on tricks? And what performer had the skill to match that world-famous instrument?

That person casually tossed something onto the floor. That plastic box smaller than a pencil case was a mobile router. It must have been modified in some way because Mikoto’s group’s phones all beeped despite being in the heavily shielded server room.

“GK> I have a connection! My homemade device worked!!”

“Sa10> That must mean she arrived!!”

This was a level that not even Misaka Mikoto’s tricks and Shirai Kuroko’s intense practice could match.

They had managed to succeed in Tokiwadai’s elective exam, but no one had been able to reproduce that performance that stroked the scab with enough pressure to be just short of causing pain.

There had been no guarantee she would come.

They could not have blamed her if she had not. No matter how many crimes Sakibasu Ryouu had committed and even if she had repeatedly made dangerous actions that put her daughter’s life at risk, she was still this girl’s mother. She was an irreplaceable family member. Who could have complained if the girl had overturned the world’s logic and insisted she would save her mother or if she could bear it no longer and fled? Mikoto thought that complexity was what it meant to be human.

But.

Even so.

She had come to this dangerous place. Revealing her family member’s crimes might cast a dark shadow on her own life as well. Even if this was the right thing to do as far as the rules were concerned, it might leave her family bonds in tatters. She knew that – she had to know that – but she had still risked her life to rush here and do something that would not benefit her in any way.

“I had no idea a Stativarius could be used like that, mother.”

She wore her long black hair in twintails with just the ends curled.

And that short girl shared the same facial features as the black party dress woman holding the demonic violin.

In other words…

“But that means my Stativarius Ainsel can be used in the same way!!”

Both violins released abnormal sounds that were launched like crossbow bolts. The Ainsel accurately shot down Tam Lin’s auditory spear, like a Gatling gun protecting a warship from a missile.

“Sa10> Uiharu, can’t you use your computer skills to shut off the server room’s power!?”

“GK> If it was that easy, it wouldn’t be a very good center of security! But at the very least, it does not appear to be behaving oddly. The virus still has not been applied along with a patch or firmware update!”

In the end, taking control of the room through combat was the only option.

But this was no time to be celebrating Sakibasu Yuri’s arrival.

What was this?

After sensing a look from Shirai Kuroko, who had already defeated that world-famous instrument, Sakibasu Yuri responded while holding her violin at the ready.

“Do not worry. I will not be swallowed up by the weight of history again. But I will use everything available to me if it gives me the power I need to face the world’s injustices!!”

While holding their violins like mirror images, they softly removed the bow from the strings.

The mother glared at and whispered to her daughter.

“You appear in the nick of time, you have made these allies, and you have that Stativarius. You really do ''have it'', Yuri. As long as you are acting entirely out of benevolence, ''everything here'' will take your side.”

“Sakibasu-san, why are you here?”

“I don’t have a good reason.”

Sakibasu Yuri answered Mikoto’s question with a white sigh and by moving her black-kneesocked legs to stand alongside the other girls with her Stativarius Ainsel at the ready.

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki.

With a Level 5 on either side, she was no longer afraid. She already stood there as her own person.

The Stativarius Ainsel was only a tool.

She was in control and the world-famous instrument obeyed.

“She is family! She is my mother!! So I must be the one to stop her. My poor mother, your greatest misfortune was not taking this wicked path. It was gathering so much power, surrounding yourself with so many people, and executing such a largescale plan yet not having anyone with the guts to stop you!!”

“…Yuri.”

“So I will stop you. I will not politely support you or watch from a distance, looking for a chance to benefit!! Mother, I will not let you be alone. If you fear your crimes and the punishment that is sure to follow, then we can carry the blame together as a family!! I do not need money, fame, social status, or even Tokiwadai!! I do not care if I am family to a criminal. Why should I be ashamed to take your hand and name myself your daughter!?”

This may have been the birth of a new legend.

What did Oda matter? Why should anyone care about Tokugawa?

A great family and bloodline might find its beginnings in a vow to feel no shame, stand strong, and never give in when it came to protecting those who shared your blood, no matter how many stones were thrown and how strong the winds of adversity blew.

That girl was already flying the flag of Sakibasu. If it would allow her to fight the wicked temptation dragging her mother into the depths of the earth, she would engage Einstein in a battle of wits or challenge Benkei to a fistfight. That was how she had completed herself.

She would not allow her mother to be alone.

Shirai and the ringlet curls girl got up once more.

Rather than a violin, the sound of clenched teeth reached them from a short distance away.

It came from the beautiful mother.

“The fact that you can so easily throw it away is the very proof that you ''have it''!! You will never understand my pain!!!!!”

“You never needed to experience that pain. All people have blood and history simply by being people. You need to realize that no one must look up at anyone else if we all shine equally bright! Mother, your complex is no more than an illusion of your own making!!”

“How can you say that when you were the one that ruined my life by forcing that massive fortune onto me?”

“What I made at the age of 5 was a child’s toy drawn on construction paper. It was you adults who gathered up the designs, released them to the world at large, and attached an obvious price tag to them, mother! I did not make that fortune all on my own! That success was something ''we'' earned together!! You could have found pride in that!!”

A loud boom followed.

Both Stativari had released full-power destructive notes.

Ainsel and Tam Lin.

The two world-famous instruments created by the same person may have been evenly matched.

Except there was a difference.

“Wha-…?”

“Sakibasu will not lose. She might be your child, but she is also a member of my clique.”

Shokuhou Misaki managed to get that out even as her visible breaths took an irregular pattern.

The girl supported by the Queen faced her mother again.

“I understand. I too was drawn to a tool like that. You might think you can do anything with Stativarius Tam Lin and you might think the quality of your tool is all that matters.”

She did not hesitate.

She did not step back.

Sakibasu Yuri moved her black kneesocked legs to step out in front of the Railgun and Mental Out who were known as Ace and Queen of Tokiwadai. A white breath escaped the corner of her mouth as she stood on the front line.

She stood there to protect everyone else.

And that did not just mean the girls in Tokiwadai uniforms. She would save everyone, including her mother!

“But there were people who said they enjoyed my performance. They said the Stativarius was a curse and that relying on it would only rob me of my own possibilities! I have my own skill with the violin that I developed through practice. I am hesitant to use that for destruction, but I am willing to do so if it will open your eyes. And if we are both using violins of equal quality, then it is the other factors that will decide this! Now, mother, it is time to stop hiding behind that Stativarius like a small child. It is time to reveal ''who you really are''!!”

“Kh.”

“I promise I will not laugh, so it does not matter how embarrassing, unsightly, pathetic, ugly, painful, pitiful, and agonizing it is! Open up and show me what is in your heart!!”

An especially loud boom followed.

This time, the mass of noise was not distorted.

In a direct collision, the equal strikes might have canceled each other out.

But that was not what happened.

“Wha-!?”

The powers were different.

This was not just Sakibasu Yuri’s skill as a performer.

But it was something she had obtained by being herself.

“GK> I’m glad that conversation took so long.”

“Sa10> Formations are a bit like a group dance, right? You can leave the specifics to Big Sis Saten here!!”

“Kuroko, Shokuhou!! We have our instructions on our phones, so let’s do this!!”

Mikoto and the others removed the foil sheets used to protect the cables from frost in the intense cold and they spread them out while enduring the numbing of their hands.

“Make sure this unathletic girl over here does it right!!”

“Aren’t we supposed to be working together here!?”

This idea had come from Shirai Kuroko’s victory over the Stativarius Ainsel.

Mikoto and Shokuhou took up positions close to Sakibasu Yuri’s sides. Shirai and the ringlet curls girl used the excellent mobility provided by their powers to move a bit further out on either side. They formed a hemisphere around the violin girl, as if they were forming a parabolic antenna.

The mother with a Stativarius widened her eyes.

“Reflection boards!?”

“It is time, mother. Time to taste the defeat we have prepared for you as a group!! Then you can escape your isolation! As someone who was once manipulated by a Stativarius in the same way, I know how effective this is!!”

The quality of an instrument could not be determined with just the instrument itself.

The performer and the many people who prepared the stage were also necessary.

The two sounds collided head-on, but Tam Lin’s was torn through and the remaining one rushed toward the beautiful mother like a gust of wind.

“Kah…”

Sakibasu Ryouu arched her back as it pierced her.

Her mouth hung open, but no white breath left it.

She moved her body forward to avoid collapsing backwards, but then she lost her balance. She overcorrected and fell to her knees. Leaning forward to face the floor may have been the final stubborn act of a parent in front of her daughter.

“I…”

That lady had decorated herself with a black silk party dress and lost sight of her actual age by altering her hair and skin. But just before she collapsed face-first to the floor, her lips moved. She may have already lost consciousness, but she definitely spoke these words.

“I only wanted to be…someone who could protect you.”

Sakibasu Ryouu finally collapsed and stopped moving altogether.

For a while, the twintailed girl could not move either. She kept the bow hovering above the strings and bit her lovely lip to bear with something.

That woman must have been exposed to a great many pressures, both internal and external.

Unlike a middle school child like Yuri, she must have had plenty of negative feelings about unintentionally receiving so much money as an adult. So she had tried to change things. All so her daughter would not suffer through the same things when she grew up.

She had fought.

She had fought and fought and fought.

And at some point, she had strayed and lost her way.

How could she bring her family peace if it had to be bought with people’s lives? At some point, she had lost sight of that. Even though her initial motives had been entirely admirable.

“Sakibasu-san…”

“She would make pancakes a lot,” said the girl while looking down at her mother. “She seemed to know she was not a very good cook, so that must have been the one thing she knew how to make. Because just like store-bought curry roux, you only have to stir eggs and milk into the pre-mixed powder and pour it into the frying pan. …But I still haven’t found something I would rather eat.”

“…”

“Not even the finest Japanese cook or the chef of a 5-star Western restaurant could cook something better than that. There was no one above her holding her back. We were already the best we could possibly be. That flavor was all I wanted.”

She wiped away the clear drops in her eyes before they could freeze.

Sakibasu Yuri’s white breaths carried her voice.

“Let’s end this. Zero-Day Link is still running, isn’t it? I do not know what mother was trying to infect it with, but if we search her clothing and take her smartphone and whatever other storage devices we find, this will all be over.”

“Yes…”

“Sa10> But where should you search?”

“GK> There are models smaller than a pill out there. Shirai-san, use your phone to scan her entire body. It might be woven into her clothing like a theft-prevention tag.”

This incident was never going to have a completely happy ending.

Sakibasu Yuri had cleared her name in the attack on the family restaurant, but they had instead revealed it to be her mother’s crime. That meant she would be criticized regardless. In the end, all of Mikoto’s efforts had failed to achieve her original goal. She had failed to protect Sakibasu Yuri.

But that girl had still said they would end this.

Did Mikoto have any reason not to honor that wish?

Shokuhou Misaki brushed back her long blonde hair.

“Sakibasu.”

“Yes?”

“No matter what happens, you belong to me. My clique will never discriminate against someone who had the courage to see through what was right. You will always have a place here. Never forget that.”

“Yes. Thank you very much, Queen.”

The black-twintailed girl smiled and bowed.

Now they could end this entire incident.

Sakibasu Yuri crouched down and placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. The woman lay face down on the ice-cold floor, but her skin had not stuck to it. Her daughter rolled her onto her back.

“Excuse me.”

After setting up her phone according to Uiharu’s instructions, Shirai moved it along the surface of the black party dress with a troubled look. Finally, she gestured at a certain point with her slender chin. She was instructing Sakibasu.

“…”

The mother’s black party dress did not seem to have any pockets. After some hesitation and worrying, the daughter reached her fingers into her mother’s cleavage.

And just then.

Something popped.

It sounded a bit like static electricity.

It may have been a miniscule thing compared to the barrage of noise from before, but she was stopped by some strange and unexplainable phenomenon.

“Wha-?”

“Wait, Sakibasu-san, stand back!! ''There’s still something here''!?”

Just as Mikoto shouted a shocked warning, something like an explosion occurred.

Their white breaths caught in their throats. The defenseless girls were struck and thrown away from collapsed Sakibasu Ryouu. Misaka Mikoto was fairly accustomed to getting into fights, but even she had the wind knocked out of her. This was too much to simply ignore the damage.

Shirai and the ringlet curls girl’s eyes widened.

“An esper power!?”

“It can’t be. She might live in Academy City, but she’s an adult!”

But.

Nevertheless.

(What…? What in the world happened!?)

This was not right. The beautiful mother’s arms and legs were moving. She was clearly unconscious, yet she was moving with the awkwardness of a marionette. This unexplained phenomenon all expanded from a single point. It was like a small open seam tearing wide open.

The white breaths escaping from the corners of her mouth seemed like a mystical energy or phosphorescence.

The eerie image added a frightening edge to her beauty.

“Come to think of it, there is one question we never answered.”

Shokuhou Misaki clenched her teeth while holding out her TV remote.

No, she was pressing the button with her thumb.

Yet the woman did not stop. She stood up within her black silk party dress. The movements were all weirdly limp, like she was nothing but human skin stuffed full of mud.

“''Why didn’t my Mental Out work on her''? She isn’t a four-legged beast or an unmanned weapon. An ordinary human should not escape my control like that!!”

“Then is there something else getting in the way?”

Mikoto looked confused, but then she realized what it had to be.

The situation was utterly insane, but there was something Sakibasu Ryouu seemed to keep in her grasp at all times.

Yes.

“The Stativarius Tam Lin?”

The woman held up the violin and softly placed the bow across the strings.

Assuming that deadly mass of sound was coming again, Sakibasu Yuri readied her Ainsel, but then the world seemed to change around them. Something entirely unexpected happened.

“Hee hee.”

The vibration of the strings unmistakably ''spoke''.

“Ee hee hee!! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Ahh, ahh, ahh, this is so much fun! Quite the tear-jerker there, you two!! I only intended to consume her tears and suffering, but it looks like today is my lucky day!! Now I get to enjoy the mother and daughter both!!!!!”

It was a voice.

There was no other interpretation.

“The…violin!?”

“GK> Wha-!?”

“Sa10> Wait, that’s the violin? But the voice recognition is giving us actual text! What is going on over there!?”

Mikoto was there and not even she could answer that one.

The vibration of the strings was chatting with them instead of making music?

“Oh, don’t act so surprised. Sakibasu Yuri, you chose the Ainsel yourself, if I recall. ''The Stativari are so strongly desired because they give people whatever they lack.'' I’m here because I was needed! I’m doing this because I was asked to!! Do you get the picture now!?”

“Her personality has changed?” asked Shokuhou with astonishment in her white breath.

To reiterate, Sakibasu Ryouu had made a mistake at some point and lost her way. She had become someone who could harm others without feeling any pangs of guilt. But when had that happened? What had changed her from a mother who cooked pancakes to delight her young daughter even though she could not cook?

Had the cause really come from within?

What if some external factor had corrupted her?

“Was it the feel of the violin, its music, the varnish on the surface, or its weight?” asked Mikoto. 
“Whatever the case, did acquiring that external attachment create another mind within her!?”

“The Stativari were created more than 300 years ago,” pointed out Shokuhou. “That’s more than 100 years before the era of Freud and Jung! Neuroscience and psychology were little different from the occult back then, so there is no way they could have designed such a precise psychological input device.”

“Then what is that!?”

“I don’t know. ''But whatever it is, it’s been lurking in the underside of the world for at least 300 years''!!”

They heard a dull sound.

It came from…was that a shadow extending from the beautiful mother’s feet? Giant black arms dropped down to her left and right. A giant upper body appeared as if covering her entire back. Was it a weapon, or was it trying to embrace the defenseless dress woman from behind?

“What in the world?”

“We can…explain all of this…with Academy City textbooks…can’t we?”

Shirai and the ringlet curls girl stared in disbelief.

The phenomenon was finally taking a turn toward the supernatural.

Sakibasu Ryouu had used several powerful espers as her arms and legs or as her eyes and ears, but wasn’t that because she was not an esper herself?

''Something'' spoke with the crude voice produced by the vibrating strings of the demonic violin she held.

“Looks like she lost pretty easily, but ''I did give her what she lacks. Just in a way you all aren’t aware of.'' So how’s it gonna be, ma’am!? Are you gonna give up here? I thought you wanted a noble bloodline and family no matter what it took!”

“You mustn’t, mother.”

Sakibasu Yuri did not understand the exact situation or logic behind it, but she grasped the gist of it.

That thing was bad news. It easily entered people’s hearts, manipulated them as it saw fit, and corrupted them.

It was that sort of being.

Since they specialized in projectiles, Mikoto and Shirai started shifting their footing, but each time, the black party dress lady’s body swayed. She moved as if to protect the violin from their line of fire. They could not find an opening to attack like this.

“Don’t listen to it! Let’s end this already!! No, that isn’t right. It’s already over. All of it!! You don’t need to dig it all back up!!”

“''Your adorable little daughter is watching.''”

She had managed to muster some small amount of courage.

She had gathered the determination to protect her family.

But the malicious words of a third party transformed both those things into the trigger for the exact opposite result.

“Your sense of justice was just as pure before you fell into the mud. Sad, ain’t it? Once you fall, all those lovely things are so easily defiled. You saw how ugly adults can be when they swarmed to all that cash you found yourself with, didn’t you? The light in your eyes has dulled and will never shine again. But do as you wish. You can run away if you’d like. Of course, then you’ll just have to watch as your adorable little daughter ends up viewing the world through eyes as dark and dull as your own.”

“Mother!!”

“Pathetic, ain’t it!? You know that’s what lies in store for her, but you’re powerless to stop it!! It must be agonizing! You can see the gears of the world all set up to dump your only child into tragedy, but you can’t stop them from turning!! …Do you want to see your adorable little daughter devoured? Do you want to see the hyenas swarm around her naïve justice and tear her to pieces? If not, then call out to me and leave your body in my control!! You might be pathetic, foolish, and powerless, but that honest heart of yours is your true weapon!! I will supply everything you lack. You just have to make the wish. I am Stativarius Tam Lin and I exist to fulfill everything you lack!!”

Some slight strength entered Sakibasu Ryouu’s limp body.

“Tch!!”

Shokuhou Misaki held out her TV remote, but pressing the button still had no result. A different logic was mixed into the human mind there.

Meanwhile, the mother held the violin and bow of her own free will once more.

But that was not the human power to defeat temptation.

Quite the opposite.

She was taking the hopelessly easy way out. She was handing her body over to the “demon”. This was the final motion needed to give her assent and authorization. The mother signed her name as her daughter watched.

She signed the impure contract.

Because no matter how corrupted she became, she could not allow her daughter to take the same path.

And she spoke.

Sakibasu Ryouu said one last thing along with a white breath.

''I’m sorry, Yuri.

''I was such a terrible mother who couldn’t do anything right.

An even more powerful shockwave exploded out and filled the large server room. The industrial computers lined up like gravestones no longer mattered. They were all knocked over and smashed, sending violent electricity scattering everywhere. The room’s cooling equipment must have been damaged too because something like white dry ice smoke erupted from the ceiling with a hissing sound.

The metal foil they had used as reflection boards to increase the power of the violin were torn. They were useless now.

It was utter chaos.

The mother had been willing to throw herself into the fires of hell to fulfill the Zero-Day Link plan for her daughter’s sake, but whatever she had become did not bat an eye at destroying all that now. She wielded her violin and the four intensely vibrating strings produced a deafening roar of laughter.

“Ha ha!! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!”

Some invisible rails had clearly been changed.

A dull zapping sound burst out.

Mikoto could restrain herself no longer, so she had launched a lightning spear, but it veered off course partway through and exploded.

One note from the violin had been enough to rule over this entire space.

“Contract received! Contract received!! You have my praise for exposing your pathetic side, accepting your foolishness, contemplating your powerlessness, and yet clinging to your honesty!! So don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll supply everything you lack. You want a noble family, a respected bloodline, and a name no one will ever forget, do you!? Then I’ll create all of that for you! By any means necessary!!”

Was there any meaning in it?

Or was it just a physiological reaction?

A single clear drop fell from the eye of the mother’s limp empty shell. She could not wipe it away, so it froze there on her cheek.

How painful must it have been for that mother to shed a tear of weakness in front of her child?

That selfish violation made the black-twintailed girl clench her teeth.

It was true that her mother had not known what to do with the sudden influx of money that had destroyed their previously gentle lifestyle, came in contact with a strange violin, had her heart disturbed, and ultimately harmed a great many people. If she had not been stopped, she would have spread chaos around the world. No matter how she had reached that point, she would have to pay for it.

However.

Did she really have to pay this much? Did she have to have the mask stripped away against her will, have her dignity shattered, and have her heart trampled on? Was anything permitted as long as the victim had committed some kind of crime? When the person making the punishment was the one who had convinced her to commit the crime in the first place!?

“Who are you?” asked Sakibasu Yuri with a tremor in her voice. No, her voice was a bullet of sound on par with the Ainsel. “Who in the world are you!!!???”

“I am Stativarius Tam Lin, the device that provides its master what they lack by the fastest means possible. Zero-Day Link? Noble bloodlines? Noblesse oblige? Whoever pays the most to the common folk gets to be the new nobles? ''To be honest, I don’t understand any of that crap''! It’s all so slow-going and who knows if it would even work. No matter how much she tries to dress it up, she’s just some kind housewife who could use a lot more ambition. Of course, that’s probably why she got surrounded and devoured the instant she had some money. She’s never gonna accomplish anything herself, so I’ll give her what she wants in a much more surefire way.”

The ringlet curls girl was ever vigilant and tried to sneak into a blind spot while Tam Lin was talking, but she was blocked by a complete coincidence. A thick burst of electricity exploded at her feet. That was not Mikoto’s power. It was the high-voltage current leaking out of the servers destroyed by Tam Lin. This was very different from the 100 volts of a home power socket.

The black party dress lady was not immune to the electricity either. Those glowing electric serpents were crawling unpredictably around. If one happened to touch her ankle, her flesh and blood would explode and she would die.

However.

There was no fear or tension in that voice. In fact, it seemed to be enjoying this.

“Now, then. How to make her die?”

“Wha-?”

Even Mikoto tensed her shoulders when she heard that.

This was taking an unexpected turn.

“Why are you so surprised? History and tradition are the result of a great many deaths. Family names are the things written on graves. So there’s a real simple way for this mother to lay the foundation for her daughter. Sakibasu Ryouu only has to die to grant her own wish. And in as dramatic, moving, beneficial, and unforgettable a way as possible.”

“But…but no one was talking about that!” She wanted to be happy. Her methods were wrong, but she only relied on you so they could all smile together as a family!!”

“It’s no use, Misaka-san. This thing does not seem to have any real interest in the person it has borrowed. Whatever it is, my Mental Out does not work on it. ''I doubt it even has a human mind.''”

“Call me whatever you like, but you humans have a bad habit of assuming being like you is a good thing. It’s like putting clothes on a cat and feeding it miso soup. Miso soup full of chopped green onions.”

Tam Lin seemed to be saying it was not human.

If a program was monitoring human activities, would it make that same assessment?

“The way people die has meaning. Maybe you would have an easier time understanding if I used this country’s origins as an example. Oda Nobunaga is only famous because of his shocking death as Honnouji burned around him. Can you list the names and causes of death of the Tokugawa leaders who lived through times of peace!? It’s all about death. Death is the quickest way to give weight to your blood and family. Ha ha ah ha ha!! And I’ve gotta make the best use of this life I’ve been entrusted with, don’t I!?”

Sakibasu Yuri heard that conclusion.

But there was more to the world than malice.

“I’ll help you, Sakibasu-san.”

“Didn’t I tell you? You belong to me. I don’t have to explain why I’m doing this, do I?”

Misaka Mikoto and Shokuhou Misaki stood in the way to challenge this foe.

But they were not the only ones.

“This black twintails girl is nothing but trouble. But I’m used to it by now, so let’s get this over with.”

“Queen, grant me permission. I know I offered this power to you, but she is part of your clique. May I use my full power just this once?”

“GK> Tell me whatever you need. I’ll investigate anything!”

“Sa10> Me too!!”

Shirai Kuroko and Hokaze Junko had joined the others again.

And Sakibasu Yuri quietly held up her violin.

“You are not a terrible mother.”

When the words spilled from her lips, she used them as a starting point to express her thoughts.

No matter how much the chemical coolant leaking from the broken cooling equipment froze the server room, it could never extinguish the heat filling her heart.

“You did hurt a lot of people and cause even more trouble, but it all started with nothing more than a desire to protect your family. I refuse to believe that is a bad thing.”

She did not hesitate.

She did not look away.

“I never wanted the money.”

The mother had agonized over her desire for the strength to say that.

So the daughter would do it.

“Our bloodline and family status never really mattered.”

Sakibasu Ryouu had separated her and her daughter’s accomplishments in her mind, but that had not been necessary. They could have shared it all as part of the same family.

She had even done so herself.

When she had drawn a crayon picture of her mother, her aunt had praised her for it. She had written a school essay about her father’s job. She had bragged to her friends about how incredible her family was and that her parents could do anything.

That should have been enough.

There was nothing wrong or shameful with having pride in your family.

So.

Sakibasu Yuri did not hesitate to wield another Stativarius capable of becoming just as much of a monster and shouted like she was picking a fight with the entire world.

“She wanted to protect her family!! It should have been enough to stay in that small house full of memories, smiling together and making pancakes!! And mother must have felt the same before a demon like you latched onto her and took advantage of the fears all that money gave her. …''Distorting people’s wishes is not the same thing as granting them,'' Tam Lin. Whatever wicked temptation you bring, it can never truly fulfill or satisfy anyone! Everything you give them is a product of misguided compromise and resignation that actually cuts off the path to truly granting their wish. Everything you hold so dear is no more than that. It isn’t even worth a fistful of dirt!!”

''Gween!!

A high-pitched noise rang between Sakibasu Yuri’s eyes.

No, perhaps only she could hear it.

Were her blood vessels or nerves going haywire?

It was a disconcerting feeling like all her body’s skin had grown taut. In fact, something may really have been tearing like a run in a pair of stockings. She could feel a spreading heat within the chilly server room.

But the surface wounds and bleeding were not what mattered.

This was a call.

She held a world-famous violin in her hands. That Stativarius was worth well over 100 million yen. Her mother’s soul had been taken away when she was overwhelmed by that brand name and its fame, but that would not happen to Yuri who was supported by so many people and understood the power of her own performance.

She could face it properly.

An instrument was a tool.

It was the person who was in control.

As long as she made no mistake there, she could change the Stativarius’s curse into a blessing.

“I will be taking my family member back. No matter what.”

Ainsel.

That name referred to a fairy with the same name as yourself.

With a white breath, the girl answered the call.

She called out to the partner in the unlocked violin case who she had literally shared her bed and table with.

She would not be defeated by that world-famous instrument.

Because she was an equal and independent being.

“So lend me your power!! Stativarius Ainsel!!!!!!”

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