Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

Something exploded, sounding a lot like a giant firework going off.

Then the building shook vertically, sending an icy chill into her gut.

The bus terminal lost all power, but it wasn’t as dark as a movie theater. Similar to a parking garage, it wasn’t fully enclosed, but more than that, the lights directing people to the emergency exits immediately switched on.

The indoor speakers that had been playing light jazz now played an emergency announcement.

But this didn’t sound like a prerecorded synthesized voice.

“Hello, hello, hello☆ This is not a test. In the end, that was a real anti-tank rocket, so I’d evacuate pretty quick if I were you. We’ll try our best not to hit any of you, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t do your best to leave. I repeat, this is not a test.”

At first, the customers stared blankly in the dark.

But the mood changed once another explosion erupted quite close by.

The many customers scattered and fled in every direction.

It was like the glass waiting areas were hornet’s nests someone had poked with a stick.

The panic soon spread to the customers inside the building.

“Now, the rest of this message is for the piece of shit hiding in your midst!! We have the building surrounded by UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers. In the end, we have them programmed to detect your face and gait in the crowd no matter how well you try to hide them. That rectangular cage is our Colosseum ring. Everyone else can get out, but not you!! Take one step outside and you’ll be blown to pieces for breaking the rules!!!”

“…”

Those cursed words probably meant nothing at all to the ordinary people. The terms like “UAV bombers” and “remote grenade launchers” entered their ears, but their brains failed to convert the sounds into anything meaningful. If they had understood the situation, they would have been too afraid to leave.

The only one who understood was the true villain who was all too familiar with unreasonable death, so she was coated with sweat.

(Are they crazy? Launch a large UAV bomber in Academy City, and the airport radar will pick it up. Not to mention these explosions! Do they want to get killed by the unmanned Six Wings that will inevitably be called in!?)

No.

They probably didn’t care about that. It wouldn’t harm them if their unmanned weapons were shot down and the Six Wings attack helicopter might target Ibotanokikouji as well.

Panic clutched her heart, but her rational side insisted that, even if she were identified within the crowd, launching an explosive to kill her there would result in an indiscriminate slaughter. If they were really prepared to do that, they wouldn’t have bothered with a warning and simply blown up the entire building with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers or 300kg air-to-surface missiles.

However. While that did check out logically, could she really, truly predict what a dark side team would do while burning with rage? Would she really be safe heading outside with only that reasoning to go on?

It functioned much like landmines. The possibility of the threat was enough to restrict her actions.

(In that case, it would be better to escape in some way that prevents them from identifying me. That means hiding in a large roofed vehicle. Like in the large luggage space below a bus!!)

Ibotanokikouji’s eyes widened when she saw a uniformed driver rushing out of his large bus.

She left the glass box with her heavy suitcase.

“W-wait. You have the long-distance bus right here. We’re only 400m away from the North Gate. If you leave now…!!”

“You want me to leave with all this going on? They’ll be canceling all the trips anyway!!”

A bus would be perfect for escaping, but could it really avoid all the fleeing customers spread out over the area? The driver joined them. Ibotanokikouji considered using her power to control him, but it wasn’t suited for giving detailed instructions like the operation of machinery.

(If anyone is stupid enough to get in the bus’s way, you should just run them over.)

But only the dark side could carry out a plan like that without hesitation.

She looked to the bus, abandoned and driverless.

(I don’t gain anything by fighting here, but I can escape the city if I get this bus moving. C-could I drive it myself?)

She flinched back from a loud boom of destruction.

This one wasn’t a rocket. Nor did it sound like a collision between buses.

The slightly muffled sound reminded her of compressed gas, or maybe a powerful blow made with nitrogen.

Something was rolling in the shadowy distance. It appeared to be another late-night bus. An impact to its side had bent it and positioned it to block the spiraling slope leading down.

It weighed too much to ram out of the way, so now no one could get any of the large buses out.

“Tch!!”

She made sure to ''split the smoke and dust with her power so she could still see.

Given this, should she have given up on leaving the city and mixed in with the crowd? Even if she couldn’t escape the UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers, she could have tried going a step further and taking a hostage. They couldn’t aim at her alone with explosives!

But all the potential hostages were gone. Ibotanokikouji Kaede was alone in the bus terminal.

“It’s no use,” said a strange voice.

It was soft, but it still pierced sharply into her chest.

Someone passed by the broken bus and stood directly in front of Ibotanokikouji.

The girl wore a pink track jacket and shorts.

“We aren’t holding anything back. I have already used my Body Crystal and recorded your AIM Diffusion Field. It doesn’t matter what you do now. I can track you even if you escape into outer space or the deep sea.”

As an outsider, Ibotanokikouji couldn’t know if that voice from the darkness was telling the truth.

But there had to be something to it.

That wasn’t any ordinary gaze directed her way. She couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling like someone had their finger jabbed right between her eyes. It told her she couldn’t fool this observer no matter what.

“You cannot escape. Not as long as I live. So if you want to escape, you need to kill me and cut off my supernatural pursuit. Do you understand the rules now?”
Ibotanokikouji had figured that much out on her own.

She kicked away the suitcase and tossed aside the sports bag she carried over her shoulder. Even the mask was in the way now. She didn’t want anything obstructing her breathing even slightly, so she removed the cloth and let it fall to her feet.

That tracking power did sound like a problem, but at the same time, each esper could only have one power. That meant this girl could not shoot fire or electricity from her hand or otherwise fight directly.

A powerless location-tracking esper should have been hiding in the bushes holding a sniper rifle, but here she was standing in front of Ibotanokikouji. How stupid could she be? If she was going to set things up this perfectly, there was no good reason for Ibotanokikouji to not just kill her here.

But Ibotanokikouji did not step forward.

In fact, she stepped back.

A dreadful beam of light swept through the air from the side. The bus terminal was structured a lot like a parking garage and this blew away a few of the thick concrete columns supporting the ceiling. If she hadn’t noticed and moved toward the tracker girl, the first blast would have vaporized her upper body.

Yes, this was a battle between the two Items.

So of course this girl was here.

“Level 5. Mugino…Shizuri!?”

“What’s wrong, self-proclaimed #6!? Surely this isn’t enough to strip you of that title!?”

Mugino licked her lips as she approached.

The 80 billion yen in the suitcase no longer mattered.

She was much more interested in taking her time to shred that girl’s reputation.

So her first priority was…

“Kinuhata!!”

“Super on it. We’ve trapped her here, so I’ll super take Takitsubo-san and disappear.”

Kinuhata stuck to her initial role as Takitsubo’s shield by pulling on Takitsubo’s hand and gently guiding her into the darkness.

That was the right decision.

Ibotanokikouji’s win condition was not defeating Mugino – it was killing Takitsubo to stop being tracked. Fail to take those priorities into account, and Mugino’s side would lose another member.

They weren’t going to let that happen again.

Their target didn’t even bother suppressing her tongue click at this point.

“Tch!! Outta the way!”

“You’d better kill me quick, fancy girl. Otherwise Takitsubo will get away.”

Mugino slid to the side to position herself in between.

They walked in parallel for a bit.

The roles of hunter and hunted had been flipped by this one strategy. Mugino grinned and basked in a wolfish joy over stealing the advantages of being on the run.

The Tokiwadai girl could no longer escape.

Even if she intended to escape the city, she had to stop here and fight.

“You and your cheap tricks!”

“We’re not as bad as you. You decide who the good guys are in any given situation based on what benefits you the most.”

Sadism took a type of talent. Violence was just violence. To derive sweet pleasure from it required a different outlook. In a world full of targets, what you focused on differed from situation to situation. Like a cup of water in the desert or a single breath of air when buried alive. A sadist had a talent for determining what exactly that was for someone and destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.

Mugino had reached that point.

She sneered while embracing her own body and expanding a sweet barrier thickly around herself.

“So how should we handle this fight to the death. If we’re going to do it, I might as well hear your preference.”

“Oh? Have you forgotten I still get a say here? Don’t just decide what we’re about to do.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? The two team leaders are about to engage in single combat. Talking with the enemy to try and understand them would just be a bore.”

“Talking? Yes.” Ibotanokikouji laughed too. “That would be silly.”

Mugino Shizuri and Ibotanokikouji Kaede both launched something from their palm.

They didn’t bother waiting to confirm the rules. Both of them had lost at least one of their teammates. Talking couldn’t change the amount of spilled blood.