Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

It was late at night, but it was still hot as hell.

The sun was not even out, but they were going to collapse from dehydration if they did not get inside somewhere.

On the other hand, the late-night food at a family restaurant was a little bit outside of a middle schooler’s price range. Ordering ordinary food would mean a bill of more than 1000 yen. At times like this, it was safer to visit a burger place that forever fought the good fight with burgers, fries, and coffee, each for less than 100 yen. The trick was to order individual items instead of going for the meals which looked like a good value but actually cost a fair amount.

The paper sheet on the plastic tray doubled as an advertisement: “Please consider making a donation to the L.S.S. Animal Protection Fund. Weekly donation plans start at just 200 yen – the price of a single ice cream!!” That did not do much to catch the interest of a middle schooler.

“Come to think of it,” said Kumokawa, who had only ordered a coffee and a chocolate pie. “''I hear they’re ending their 24-hour service soon.''”

“You’re kidding.”

The midriff-baring high school girl really was a grownup for coming to a fast food restaurant during such a hot night yet not ordering a soda. Kamijou had of course prioritized cost-performance by ordering a medium-size fries and the world’s most famous soda. Visiting a burger place and not ordering a burger was a fairly heart-pounding experience.

“If the burger places are shutting their doors, then the world must be ending. That seems less likely than the power being cut off to my dorm.”

He had not immediately returned to said dorm because he wanted to check on the bare minimum of things about that back alley incident.

Had it been a random attack, or was there more going on there?

He at least had to know that much.

He had put himself in danger to rescue a girl he had never met. It would all feel like a waste if she was kidnapped by those delinquents five seconds after they parted ways. It was a selfish reason, but he honestly did not want his own efforts to have been for nothing.

That was his own reasoning, so it had been a surprise when the fluffy-haired middle school girl named Mitsuari Ayu had gone along with it. If he had grabbed her skinny wrist and forced her to come with him, he would be doing exactly what those delinquents had been, so if she had refused to go with him, he could only have let her go.

When he climbed the narrow stairs to the no-smoking section on the second floor with his tray in both hands, a tremor ran down his spine. He had been careless. The air conditioning was stronger than he had thought.

“Munch, munch.”

The girl seated at the table was chowing down on the flimsy burger she held in both hands, so she must have had a ravenous appetite. Eating it that fast destroyed the usual cost-performance advantage of this place, but that may not have mattered to her. The part-timer at the counter had been flabbergasted upon seeing the limitless black card she had pulled from her brand-name bag.

“I thought that bag looked cheap for Tokiwadai, but I didn’t expect it to act as a cooler.” The mystery high school girl named Kumokawa Seria sounded somewhat exasperated. “And since it has a charging unit, is it actually refrigerated? Do you keep frozen treats and cold drinks in there? As hot as this night is, that kind of luxury wouldn’t even occur to most people.”

“Eh? That looks cheap???”

“Heh heh. Take your time and educate yourself, boy. You need to be careful when buying gifts.”

The girl had also pulled her normal phone and card from that ultra-luxurious brand-name cooler bag, so it may have had a chilled zone and a room temperature zone separated by insulation. He had heard that lithium ion batteries had trouble in the cold.

“Nhh!!”

The cheap sauce based on mustard and mayonnaise must have been too powerful a flavor for her because Mitsuari Ayu kicked her feet below the table while smiling happily. She did not seem at all aware that she was the topic of conversation.

That troublesome girl seemed ignorant of some basic rules such as holding the burger by the wrapper to keep your fingers clean. She made up for that by frequently licking off her slender fingers.

This did not look like someone enjoying an old favorite.

That smile was more like someone enjoying the unfamiliar tropical flavor of a banh mi or loco moco. Cooking some commercial curry with a bit of coconut milk mixed in might be enough to delight her.

The busty upperclassman high school girl (now there’s a powerful series of words!!) sat next to Kamijou and crossed her arms in a way that lifted her boobs from below.

“Oh, so she’s that type.”

“She’s what type?”

Kamijou looked puzzled and Kumokawa took a drink from her paper cup of hot coffee without adding any sugar or milk. Mature older girls apparently did not make a slurping sound.

“Boy, this is just how some girls are. This is probably going to take some work, but do not snap and cause a scene.”

“?”

He still did not get it, so maybe you needed to be a girl to figure this one out. Still, it looked like Mitsuari was willing to speak with them while she worked at the burger with a smile, so he focused on asking her what he wanted to know.

He did not want any more trouble.

He wanted to confirm that nothing else was going to happen, feel relieved, and head home so he could collapse into bed.

The mystery super high school girl was always the one initiating conversation, but he did not know where to start when speaking to a middle school girl. Speaking with his classmates made him nervous enough, but this was some rich girl from another school altogether.

There was no way he could come off as suave here.

He decided to make an attempt as if sending out sonar signals and reading the response.

“U-um, who were those people?”

“Munch, munch.”

“Did you run into them by random chance? I certainly hope they haven’t been stalking you for a while or something.”

“Wowwwww. Th-this is soda looks even more amazing than the rumors said. So this is that mix of powerful carbonation, artificial colors, and mystery sweetener.”

“And that uniform is for some fancy girl’s school, right? Don’t they have strict curfews? What were you doing out so late?”

“I will now partake in my first ever soda!! Gulp, gulp, gulp, nbh!? Uh, uhhhh, burp!? H-how indecent of me.”

She was not listening and had no intention of answering him.

And had that lovely girl just succumbed to the inner pressure of the carbonation and let a belch escape her mouth?

Pure Boy Kamijou Touma trembled as his hopes and dreams took a powerful blow from a sledgehammer, so Kumokawa placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. The soft hand of an older girl acted like glue filling in the cracks in his hopes and dreams.

The busty black-haired high school girl whispered in his ear with her long legs crossed below the table.

“She never intended to speak with you. She only wanted to get a meal out of you and leave. Her type only ever has fancy French cuisine and tea to eat and drink, so junk food like a burger must have sounded like a very attractive offer.”

“Huh!?”

Now was not the time to be soothed by the high school girl’s hand on his shoulder and breath in his ear.

He nearly shot to his feet, but she held him firmly in place.

“Like I said, don’t get mad. Eating what she can and then leaving is a standard strategy for a girl who has no actual interest in you. It looks like putting yourself in danger to save her wasn’t enough for her to open her heart to you. I can see how someone like her might anger those low-IQ thugs.”

“Y-you mean?”

He did not want the answer.

He had a very bad feeling about this, like he had taken the bag containing his New Year’s money – which should be his biggest source of income in the year – and only feeling the hardness of perhaps a 500-yen coin instead of a soft paper bill.

The black-haired forehead girl looked utterly exasperated.

Perhaps to deal with her own stress, she bit a small piece off the end of her chocolate pie to get some sugar in her.

“Munch. I imagine something similar happened before you came running. You saw that ugly car outside the alley, didn’t you? Her pure upbringing probably left her curious about the world of junk cars, so she asked those thugs all sorts of questions that sounded an awful lot like compliments. Right up until ''she had had enough''. They probably thought they could offer her a drive and take her home with them, but then she smiled and said goodbye. Then they snapped.”

Kamijou wanted to hold his head in his hands.

Then what was the point of all that pain filling his body? It was more than half Mitsuari Ayu’s fault, wasn’t it!? …Of course it was still about 30% the fault of those idiots who could not handle a bit of teasing.

“Um, they did not provide chopsticks or a fork, so am I supposed to eat these nuggets with my fingers just like the burger and fries? Is everything here finger food? How fun.”

Meanwhile, fluffy-haired Mitsuari Ayu could not stop smiling.

She probably was not even hungry, but she still showed no interest at all in their conversation.

“Munch, munch. Hm, these are chicken fried in oil, yet they are nothing like karaage. The flavor changes a lot with ketchup and mustard. A-are they only meant as separate flavors? Would I be breaking the rules to attempt a forbidden mixture of the two?”

“Hey, wait! Not the mini salad! Don’t eat that with your fingers!!”

“Hm? Why not?”

That question was not even worth answering, so he just strongly reiterated that she was not to do it. The girl in a prestigious school’s uniform wrinkled her refined brow in response. It looked like she disliked having an odd-man-out to the finger food category. If left to her own devices, she may have tried eating the corn potage and ice cream cup with her hands as well.

“If you ''insist'', I suppose I can do things your way today. I hope you are thankful how accommodating I am being here.”

While complaining (in an incredibly condescending way), Mitsuari reached into her bag and pulled out a multitool bearing a Swiss maker’s logo. The blade was made of practical gold made stronger by mixing in some titanium. That was probably the world’s most expensive tool that could be called a fork or a can opener. It might be more expensive than the big-screen HD TV or concept model PC displayed at the front of an electronics store.

The grip shined with a glossy pink resembling painted nails and the blade was gold, so it was clearly custom-made but still not at all in line with Kamijou’s tastes. If someone handed him shoes in that coloration, he might suspect it was some kind of punishment game.

The fluffy-haired girl mixed up the packaged salad with that super-fancy fork (that looked a little too small for practical use).

“I always hesitated to come here since I did not know how to order at the counter, but now I have no reason to hesitate. I can do it on my own next time. I will be leaving once I finish this.”

“You ate and drank all that and the only time you responded to anything I said was asking why you couldn’t eat the salad with your fingers? Are all middle school girls this impossible to deal with!?”

“Don’t act above it all, boy. You are a middle schooler too.”

“This is about the difference between the boys and the girls! I can’t even hold a freaking conversation!!”

“She ''is'' being difficult, I’ll give you that. She also seems interested in the grittier side of the world, so maybe it would be a good life lesson for her if we wrapped packing tape around her and left her overnight in a bathroom around here. Like a park bathroom.”

The large-chested upperclassman was in a wild mood.

Her odd excitement may have been due to the coffee’s caffeine.

The darker side of a high school girl was peeking out instead of staying hidden in the restroom or break room. The unexpected attack left Kamijou trembling.

But anyway.

If this had all been caused by Mitsuari Ayu leaving herself more defenseless than an armpit in a sleeveless China dress, then the situation was actually extremely simple. If she was not being targeted by some grand conspiracy, then he did not need to do anything more for her.

“Senpai.”

“Yes?”

“What school is she from? I know that uniform is from some famous place.”

“Tokiwadai Middle School – one of the prestigious powers development schools in the School Garden on the southern end of District 7. The students there are all monsters since you have to be at least Level 3 to attend.”

“Where are its dorms?”

“They have one inside and one outside of the School Garden. But we’re talking about someone sheltered enough to go with a strange boy who promised her nothing more than a burger that costs less than 100 yen, so I seriously doubt she lives outside that no-boys-allowed zone.”

“Then this is all over once we get her back to that…School Garden place?”

Mitsuari finally looked up from the food she was eating.

That girl wearing the uniform of…Tokiwadai was it? made a clear statement.

“That would be a problem.”

“Oh, shut up. It’s time someone got after you for sneaking out at night to have fun. I don’t want to babysit you, you know? But who knows how much trouble you can get yourself into before reaching your dorm if we just let you go here.”

The fluffy-haired girl sighed softly and pulled something from her short skirt’s pocket.

She placed a phone on the table, but it had been given a more powerful camera with an attachment. It seemed to use a wider angle lens than was standard.

“Mental Stinger.” She gently whispered the name of a strange power. “Tokiwadai students must have at least a Level 3 power. Yes, at least. Did you really think some catcallers on the street could get the better of me?”

Kumokawa sighed.

“Oh, not Mental ''Out''? What a disappointment.”

“Kiiii!!”

Powers or not, that multitool knife in her hand looked dangerous enough.

“I was afraid that power might have been mass-produced, but I guess that isn’t possible.”

“Stop, Senpai. I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but don’t provoke the girl holding a knife!! Just think how sad the Swiss craftsman would be if something happened!!”

He did not know what she could do or how much she could do with it, but the name was enough to guess it was some kind of psychological power. This would have actually been easier if she could shoot fire from her hand or buff her muscles.

But Kamijou was curious about something else as well.

“I don’t get what’s going on, but why did you pull out your phone while bragging about your power?”

“H-hmph. That isn’t obvious? I control my powers by aiming the camera lens at whoever I want to targ-”

He did not even wait for her finish her explanation.

He instantly snatched up the phone sitting in front of him. When Mitsuari leaned out over the table in a panicked attempt to take it back, Kumokawa grabbed her skinny wrist and lightly twisted it.

“Wha-, ah!?”

She struggled in vain.

In Kamijou’s opinion, being well-versed in the art of self-defense pushed an older girl another step up on the attractiveness scale.

It made them even more untouchable or out of reach.

He made sure that Mitsuari’s ultra-convenient refrigerated bag of cold ice cream and drinks and her very Swiss multitool were not knocked from the table in the struggle.

The night-shift part-timer must have been accustomed to trouble because they showed no sign of panicking. They pretended not to notice while continuing their lazy job of mopping the floor (which a robot could probably handle just as easily). Kamijou really wished he could live his life like that.

“N-no fair! You can’t just steal people’s possess- ow, ow, ow, ow!!”

“There are two kinds of people who come out and explain how their power works: liars trying to sow confusion, and complete dumbasses. Now, which one is more likely from a sheltered young girl?”

“Kiiii!! H-how dare you call me a, uh, dumbbutt for simply answering the question I was asked!!”

“This is quite something for how condescending you were being earlier.”

“You’re being more condescending than I ever was!!”

Mitsuari belatedly started protesting while the pressure on her upper body squished the flat chest of her sleeveless sweater against the table, but Kamijou and Kumokawa could only sigh in exasperation.

She was red in the face, had tears in her eyes, and sounded out of breath.

When her defenses were this poor, it almost felt like some sort of sex appeal.

Although saying so would be nothing but an insult to her.

Kamijou looked shocked after perpetrating something as scummy as stealing a girl’s phone.

“Wow, she’s defenseless.”

“Which is why those morons got the wrong idea. She didn’t even try to keep her short and fluttering skirt under control when climbing the stairs earlier. The way she shakes that little butt around makes her something like a walking powder keg.”

Kamijou updated his opinion of her to “the kind to fall into a pit of fear while riding a packed train”.

The fluffy middle school girl must have still been in her rebellious phase because she kicked her legs to no avail while forcibly held down on the table. The view from the front suggested that short skirt was doing very little to hide the butt sticking up on the other side. And if this were the back alley, there would be no one around to put a stop to it. There were no refs in real fights and there were no ropes surrounding the ring like in professional wrestling. Once you were caught, it was over. Pins and joint locks were a hundred times scarier than flashy but simple punches and kicks. In a one-on-one clash, their head-on blow might break your nose or knock out a front tooth, but it was said you had a better chance of winning if you left yourself unguarded in order to pin them down.

Judo, sumo, Muay Thai, wrestling, and aikido.

Setting aside debates over which would be the most frightening to run across on a dark street, they were all plenty dangerous. When a documentary described a country’s military hand-to-hand technique, it was usually based on a martial art with a focus on grabs and throws as opposed to punches and kicks. And in the countries or regions without a good local example, judo was often imported from the Far East.

As long as the joint was pinned at the optimal angle, there was no real need to use much force.

“Kicking your legs isn’t going to accomplish anything,” scoffed Kumokawa Seria. “Except make your underwear ride up, I guess. You don’t want that happening when you don’t have a hand free to fix it, do you?”

“Uhh…”

The middle school girl’s struggling finally stopped.

But since her hips were wiggling while she pursed her lips and blushed, things may indeed have been uncomfortable inside her skirt. It was the same phenomenon seen in girl’s swimsuits during pool class.

Kamijou Touma casually waved the phone in the face of the pinned and tearful fluffy girl.

“I’ll be escorting you home.”