Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 3===

Hamazura Shiage had returned to the apartment building he normally stayed at.

It barely felt like home because he felt so out of place there. He shared it with his girlfriend Takitsubo Rikou, Level 4 Kinuhata Saiai, and Level 5 Mugino Shizuri, so they had ended up in a fairly fancy apartment. The new Item had gathered there. He could never have paid that rent himself. In fact, 80-90% of it was paid by the girls with money they had gotten from who knows where.

In other words…

(Anti-Skill will see this as just another loathsome hideout bought with dirty money.)

He entered through the main entrance’s auto-locking door and walked to the elevator hall like usual, but he stopped just before hitting the elevator button. After some thought, he used the emergency stairs instead. The floor he wanted was a long way up. He would normally take the elevator unless he had a very solid reason to think that was a bad idea, but he chose the stairs this time.

He suppressed his impatient heart as he climbed the stairs one at a time. It felt more like mountain climbing than sprinting. He did not want his legs to be too worn out to move by the time he reached the top.

Why?

Because he had no idea what he might find there.

“…”

He arrived at the floor he wanted.

He slowly took a breath and pulled the gold coin from his pocket to check. The previously dull outer edge had regained its shine all the way around. The Coin of Nicholas was fully charged. That also meant an hour had passed since he used it. This would help him tell the passage of time with his phone off.

A lot could happen in an hour.

He walked down the long hallway to reach his apartment’s door. He started to grab the knob but thought better of it. He instead picked up a vase sitting on a table in the public space and poured out its water.

As soon as the metal door grew wet, bluish-white sparks scattered.

Then the door flew open from within.

A muscular man dressed all in black and equipped with a helmet and steel toe boots burst out. He must have realized his surprise attack had failed.

Even Hamazura found it strange how little he hesitated. He slammed the vase down on the Anti-Skill officer’s head and ''while the man let his guard down due to his helmet'' aimed the handgun from close range.

The man must have assumed a vase was this best an amateur delinquent boy could manage, but then Hamazura repeatedly pulled the trigger while aiming at the center of his chest. With a deafening noise, the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officer was blown backwards. He must have gone limp because his bizarrely-shaped submachinegun fell to the floor.

“Takitsubo!!”

Even after all that, the masked Anti-Skill officer only fell on his ass and coughed. Not that Hamazura wanted to have killed him. He kicked the man’s helmeted jaw from the side and then left the entranceway to reach the rest of the apartment.

This was his territory – a sort of sanctuary.

There was no more assumption of safety here now that he had seen a fully-equipped Anti-Skill officer inside.

The shoe box in the entranceway, the cabinets in the living room, the square trapdoor in the floor leading to who knows what, and everything else had all been opened. How could they call themselves the heroes? They were acting like burglars. He checked each room with the gun still at the ready, but he did not find anyone else inside.

Not even any of the girls who should have been here.

“Dammit!!” he spat while stomping his feet in frustration.

Demanding himself to calm down only made it worse.

(Anti-Skill works as a group, so I doubt that bastard would have come here alone. He must have been the last one left behind to check over things after the attack. They ransacked the place because they wanted information. That means they don’t know where their targets are.)

He looked around the disastrous state of the room. He tried to find any information he could. He and his roommates had established a way to leave messages in case of emergencies. Those techniques were part of the reason the stench of the darkness continued to cling to them, but he still checked above the bathroom ceiling and behind the sink’s mirror.

He found a few folded up notes.

“I’ll get some help from a makeup specialist. The plastic surgery route super scares me. -Kinuhata.”

“I’m getting out of here. Try to follow me and you’re dead meat. -Mugino.”

Nothing got those two down.

He was confident they were fine. The problem was the name he had not seen.

His girlfriend’s name.

(Mugino and Kinuhata weren’t here when Anti-Skill arrived. Whether they would have won in the end or not, the walls and ceiling would not be intact if they had fought here. That’s just how it is with a Level 4 and a Level 5. So nothing has happened yet. Anti-Skill broke into our apartment and found nothing, so they started opening all the drawers and gathering what data they could to make up for the delay. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Nothing’s happened ye-)

That was when he heard some static. He looked over to see the Anti-Skill officer lying unconscious in the entranceway. The static had come from the radio attached to his shoulder.

“We’re pushing the schedule up. Hatsuoka, forget that apartment. End your search early and rejoin the main unit. Meltdowner and Offense Armor are big names, but that means they’ll have stricter information management. I doubt you’ll find any data on their hideouts or escape methods just lying around.”

Hamazura breathed a sigh of relief. Big names like the new Item really were on another level. They would not be captured so easily. This told him Mugino and Kinuhata were okay.

Anti-Skill must not have imagined one of their targets was listening in because the voice on the radio continued.

“So we should consider this a success for arresting even one of the residents listed on Outrank: AIM Stalker Takitsubo Rikou. Let’s take her back to the station and get what information we can out of her. Head on back, Hatsuoka.”

“Dammit.”

His vision grew dark. He had not been shot or zapped, but he felt like he would pass out from no more than words.

“Goddammit!!!!!!”

But it was no use. He still had to face the reality before him.

If Takitsubo Rikou really had been captured by Anti-Skill, he had to find some way of rescuing her. After everything they had done in broad daylight, he hated to think what they would do in the privacy of their station. He had a feeling they would have a record number of “accidents” and “suicides” while questioning suspects tonight.

Especially because Anti-Skill did not seem aware how frightening they were. Almost like a small child that did not know how easy a captured bug was to squish. He was not going to let them look at a bloodied Takitsubo and wonder how that had happened.

(But what can I do?)

He looked down at the unconscious Anti-Skill officer.

Takitsubo was apparently in their truck, but he could not just run out and try to chase them down. Nor could he save his girlfriend by attacking a station filled with hundreds of fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers. Could he steal this guy’s equipment and pretend to be an officer himself? No, that would never work. They were bound to use facial recognition, a fingerprint scan, or some other biometric system when entering and exiting the station.

He checked through the officer’s belongings.

(A 9mm submachinegun, a .45-caliber handgun…why don’t they use the same caliber for both? Anyway, a bulletproof jacket, a radio, a drone…is this tablet to control the drone? And lastly, a first aid kit.)

He had no time. He had repeatedly fired a handgun without a suppressor during the fight in the entranceway and the other residents would have heard the gunshots. It would also rouse suspicions when this Hatsuoka man failed to return, so it was only a matter of time before more Anti-Skill came running.

Hamazura’s focus fell on the man’s notepad.

But it did not actually function as a notepad like the ones in old police dramas. It was a symbolic thing that proved one’s identity as law enforcement.

(We’re in south District 7, so they’ll take us to that station.)

This was not his first run in with the law. He had been thrown in holding cells plenty of times after stealing a car or getting into a street fight during his Skill Out days.

And if he knew the location, there was something he could do.

He pulled out the tablet, removed Hatsuoka’s glove, and pressed the man’s thumb against the fingerprint reader.

He did not have the skill to pull this off.

So he had to make up for the difference by putting his own life at risk.