Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2 (section)

===Part 6===

“Beep, beep, beep,” rang a mechanical alarm.

Kitty Frenda wore baggy costume pajamas as she reached a slender arm out from bed, couldn’t reach, and had to forcibly extend her back to finally grab her phone from the bedside table.

“Ugh,” groaned another girl in the same bed as her. That was Hanano Choubi in a yoga-style tank top and hot pants. Item was short on beds with two new members added without warning.

“I feel like taking a nap was a mistake. Ah, my head feels so heavy…”

“It’s 3 PM. We don’t need to get moving quite yet, but in the end, we need to get ready soon or Mugino will chuck us outside before we have a chance to wake up.”

Frenda said that, but she wasn’t getting out of bed yet either. Maybe they had more time than she let on, or maybe she had done this enough times she was confident she could get dressed and ready quickly enough.

Frenda smiled a little while lying on her side.

“Oh, right. I forgot to congratulate you for your performance earlier today, Hanano.”

“Thanks.”

“To be honest, I thought we were in trouble for a bit there. What was that cruel VIP bodyguard called again? Kouzaku? Regardless, when Mugino didn’t even bother defending herself while attacking that girl head on, I bet she was thinking our newbies would die if she didn’t end the fight quick. Oh, but don’t tell Mugino I said so. She’d probably tear you in two to pretend that wasn’t why she did it. In the end, she had to throw out the option of a slower fight for you. And that would have been bad for Item as a whole. We would’ve had to look after you the entire time.”

Frenda gave a mischievous smile and slowly narrowed her eyes.

“But instead, you proved your usefulness in direct combat and in indirect infiltration. Without your help, we couldn’t have gotten that data from the insurance company. I doubt Mugino would have given up, but she would’ve relied on brute force to get the job done.”

“Ha…ah ha ha…”

Hanano could only laugh weakly at that. Did blasting a hole in the center of the skyscraper not count as relying on brute force?

Frenda winked while still lying in bed.

“So we owe you one. Is there anything you want us to do for you? Or anything you want from us?”

“U-um, there is actually…”

Hanano scooted toward Frenda and whispered in her ear.

Frenda looked confused.

“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

“Hmm. Think of it as a last resort I can use. I am in the dark side now. And I thought you would be the best person to ask.”

“If that’s what you want.”

The blonde girl didn’t take much convincing.

Then three knocks came at the door. And the bedroom door opened before they could respond.

“Excuse me. Is Hanano-san in here?”

“Huh? Kinuhata-san? What do you want- gasp!? C-could it be!? Has this one success won me two friends at once!?”

“Super what are you talking about?” Kinuhata Saiai gave an exasperated sigh with a hand on her hip. “I heard this team has a tradition of the second-newest member super subjecting the newest member to a dress-up hell.”

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”



And so Hanano was dragged against her will to the brand-name shopping mall on the lower floors.

Kinuhata understood they didn’t have any money to work with, so she stuck to browsing and using the dressing rooms.

“Isn’t this just underwear!? I’m not an expert on Japanese clothing, but isn’t this that thing you wear when meditating under a waterfall or going to a hot spring!? Do I have to try this on here!? No, wait, it’s falling off, there’s nothing covering me, I’ll die!! Like any blushing teenage maiden would!!”

“Don’t worry. It’s just a super mini yukata for Tanabata. Super just get changed already. Super quickly.”

Meanwhile Kinuhata and Hanano’s phones both received a message.

It was a group message from Mugino, saying it was time for Item to get to work.

“We’re super going to District 7?”

“She says that’s where our target’s dorm is.”

They joined Mugino, Takitsubo, and Frenda who had taken the elevator down to the ground floor. They traveled by train.

It was 5PM and everything was colored orange by the setting sun. There were a lot of people, partially because it was rush hour, but there were also a lot more people ignoring curfew to stay out for Tanabata.

“Takitsubo-san, super what are you eating?”

“Bamboo leaf ice cream.”

“That is a very bright green,” said Mugino. “Sounds like a dessert for pandas.”

“Mugino, stop stealing licks. And the rest of you stop copying her.”

The five members of Item walked through the evening city.

They had arrived in District 7, but they didn’t know their destination yet.

They had located their target, though.

“Okay, let’s tail that contestant so she’ll lead us right to the Colosseum’s secret location.”

They had investigated the insurance company headquarters to determine the identity of a still-living contestant. With that information, they only had to tail that contestant the old-fashioned way. The contestant would of course have to arrive at the Colosseum at the appropriate time.

Item was currently in front of District 7’s train station, which was filled with a mixture of students and workers.

They could locate the enemy base starting from here.

“These are contestants for a deadly underground fight club, so I was expecting some kind of super muscular macho. But that’s just a super normal girl with her braid swaying side to side as she walks.”

“You’re the same way Kinuhata,” said Takitsubo. “You don’t look like a brawler.”

Their target was about 15m away.

It was the evening rush hour, but those dark side girls knew how to take advantage of the crowds.

The five of them chatted while following their target at a leisurely pace.

“A-are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Hanano. “What if they strike back in a way we never would have expected. I-I mean, anything goes on the dark side, right? And there are stories of people seeing ''a giant dragon'' at night recently.”

“Ah ha ha. In the end, nothing like that’s going to happen.”

“A-and should we really be following her so closely? I feel like she would see us if she happened to look back.”

“It doesn’t matter if she does see us. Why would she peg us as ‘suspicious’ in this crowd? In the end, sending out a UAV or something would be a lot more conspicuous. The traditional methods are more convenient for tailing people. …Mugino?”

No response.

A convenience store had a simple table set up outside to sell bentos to the people here for the Tanabata event. Food that had been sitting outside in this heat seemed questionable, though.

And Mugino Shizuri was entranced by something there.

Her shoulders were even trembling.

“W-wait, that generous serving of salmon only has 400 Calories!? You have to be kidding me! This is a revolution!! I knew rice was the way to goooooooo!!”

“Mugino…”

“400 Calories for a meal doesn’t seem all that unusual to me. Super how much do you usually eat?”

The best part of a bento was the ability to walk around while eating it. Just like using your phone while walking, it wasn’t recommended you do so, but the Item girls weren’t known for their manners.

“Here. In the end, I’ll take our photo.”

“(Wait, why are you taking selfies while we tail someone, Frenda-san?)”

“''Because'' we’re tailing someone. It would look weird for a group of four or five girls to not do anything with their phones.”

The braid girl entered a narrow alley, turned a corner with a traffic mirror, entered a small building, and emerged through a different exit. She was checking to make sure she wasn’t followed, but it wasn’t hard to trick her when they knew that was coming. Especially when you had a team that could split apart or regroup as needed.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo noticed something and tapped on Mugino’s shoulder to get her attention.

The track suit girl was looking at some graffiti on a building wall.

“I saw that same anchor and chain graffiti spraypainted on another wall earlier. I think it’s meant to guide people to the Colosseum while camouflaged within all the other paint and stickers.”

Once they knew the trick, the rest was easy.

Item kept their distance and continued pursuit while a blimp flew by overhead. The screen on the side provided information on a fireworks show. That had to be one hell of a nuisance for the people hoping to actually see the stars on Tanabata.

“Did the braid girl go in here?”

“Wow, it’s a parasol market. Are they super popping up around here now?” groaned Kinuhata.

True to the name, the entirety of the small park situated between two buildings was filled with an orderly arrangement of beach parasols, plastic tarps, beach chairs, sports coolers, and more. Was all of that the kind of equipment used to create a break area at a construction site? Each parasol seemed to signify a spot, but there were some areas with a few parasols linked together.

However, this was not a construction site. A peek under the parasols showed documents, heated tobacco products, and other things lined up below. Were some of the products laid out on a bodyboard to prevent the heat of the ground from damaging them? The shops weren’t just run by adults. Several of them were run by students in aprons.

Every single spot here was a shop.

There were shops for used books, electronics, and video games. The ones selling alcohol or running a pawnshop did not have any kind of license. The law meant nothing here. All of the products for sale were of dubious origin. This was an underground flea market where everyone was ready to pack up shop and scram the instant any trouble showed itself. It was a modern Kowloon Walled City that could appear anywhere like a mirage and sold just about anything.

There was a bar with dozens of varieties of vacuum-packed space food to go with the drinks and a sweets shop selling candies so old it was a mystery how you would go about finding them in the modern day, so the place had an unusual number of smiles for something dark side related.

Kinuhata looked at some cubes of meat sizzling on a hotplate that had toothpicks sticking into them like the samples at the supermarket.

“Huh? Super how do they have pricey wagyu steak here?”

“Check the price tag. That’s imitation meat made from soy and lard, Kinuhata.”

That would have been plenty cheap and delicious as long as it was made clear what it was to begin with. That sort of product only had such a bad reputation because people tried to hide that it wasn’t real meat.

They were also selling takoyaki with no octopus and a tuna bowl made with a mystery deep sea fish, but the people swaying unsteadily with a beer mug in hand at this hour probably weren’t too concerned about the flavor.

This wasn’t a beach, so how did they have those beach parasols in place? It turned out they had used a special tool to open thumb-sized holes in the ground. Lots of them. Maybe it was to set up a grid for the shops, or maybe whoever had done it was showing off what they could do.

Hanano nervously checked one of the shops.

“Wow…the dark side really is incredible to have a dungeon like this. Eh? But this used book shop…I don’t believe it! Is that Umisuna Seiru’s makeup guide? Ha ha. But that was banned from all the stores – physical and digital – after she was arrested!”

“Hanano.”

The newcomer was extremely satisfied after paying in cash for a full-color book that looked like a pocket-sized illustrated encyclopedia, so Takitsubo had to grab her hand and hurry her along. Otherwise, the girl was liable to start searching through all of the new cosmetics that weren’t supposed to go on sale until the fall.

Mugino scoffed at the entire scene around them.

“This is only the very surface level of the dark side. Home to all sorts of thugs.”

For the braid girl, this had to be a way of ensuring she wasn’t being followed. If Anti-Skill or Judgment took a step inside this market, everyone here would notice immediately even if they were in plainclothes and the market would scatter.

But that trick didn’t work when she was being tailed by other dark side members.

It looked like the braid girl was heading straight to her destination after passing through the parasol street. It was July 7, so the city was as much of a heat island as ever. Maybe she wanted to avoid staying outside where the heat shimmered up from the asphalt, but she clearly wasn’t focused enough. She was more focused on the shaved ice with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream she had bought at a food truck than she was on any surrounding threats.

Mugino commented while watching the girl through the reflection in the clear plastic cover of the drink vending machine she was facing.

“She fixed her hair and clothes before heading in there. She must want to look her best for whoever’s inside. I’m betting that’s the Colosseum.”

“I super didn’t expect this. Isn’t that a library?”

A circular building was located next to a mansion-like building, so it may have been a complex containing a few different academic facilities.

“Ugh, we ended up walking around in circles for nearly an hour.”

“Odd. Doesn’t that leave them less than two hours for the setup and pre-battle inspections?”

“No one knows where the Colosseum is, right? In the end, this is a sketchy underground fight club that wants to make sure they can escape if the authorities show up. If it took them half a day to get everything set up like at a legal sports tournament, they would’ve been found out ages ago.”

Also, the braid girl hadn’t looked like the kind of person who would appear in an underground fight club. Without any advance information, most anyone would assume she was just a bookworm.

“In the end, it’s a lot like the temptation of a fire alarm. Don’t you just want to shatter that silence just once?”

“Is the #6 super napping through all this?”

Now they had the location, but they couldn’t just follow the girl inside the main entrance. The door she had used had a “closed” sign on it.

Mugino narrowed her eyes.

That quiet library was in fact a deadly arena. It was like a physical representation of Academy City’s shittiness.

“We can’t go in through the front and I’m sure they have the rear entrance guarded. H-how are we supposed to get in?”

“If we need an entrance, my Meltdowner can give us one in any wall we want.”

“Someone come up with a good idea before this sadistic demon lord gets tired of thinking and fires one of her beeeeeeeams!!” screamed the chihuahua girl like a boiling tea kettle.

Team battles were all about making up for your teammates’ faults, so nimble Kinuhata climbed the library wall and kicked down the extendible emergency ladder kept up by the window. Then the Item girls climbed the ladder one after another and entered the library through a second floor window. Getting in was easy as long as they didn’t use a door.

Kinuhata took a look around.

“There’s a lot of dust super piled up in the corners.”

“What are you, a mother-in-law?”

“In the end, they can’t let the drum-shaped cleaning robots work in sensitive areas that store old books. They don’t want the sprayed detergent getting on anything.”

Was that why the place had been chosen as a secret arena? The limited number of cameras probably helped too. Although they were probably just threatening the library director or whoever else ran the place.

And the track suit girl noticed something else.

“Mugino.”

The air was abuzz with energy.

It didn’t suit the classic mansion interior at all.

A library might have people organizing the books and performing other work afterhours, but there were still too many people here. It felt more like being in the attic of a club.

Something was happening below.

Mugino and Frenda had too much firepower and could easily harm their own teammates if they got in the way, so they took the front and back positions to protect the group on their way into the long second floor corridor. The corridor overlooked the hall below.

An explosion of noise pushed up from there.

Cheering voices and booming music swirled up at them.

The audience had to be at least in the hundreds. Item felt silly for spending so much time tailing and infiltrating.

“Hey, hey! Sorry for interrupting you all during dinnertime! This modern Colosseum adds an exciting splash of red to your boring lives and you wouldn’t believe how much money is about to be changing hands here! We’re still taking online bets, so make sure you get in on that action! Nothing makes a match more exciting than having money riding on who lives and who diiiiiiiiiiies!!!!”

Some kind of plate was spinning.

The Colosseum was a form of entertainment, so music must have been crucial. But who was that busty gasmask girl skillfully operating the equipment at the DJ turntable?

“Frenda, explain,” said Mugino, sick of it all already.

“In the end, it’s normally something you watch online, but they do have an online drawing for a live viewing. Only the biggest whales spend enough to get put in for that drawing, though.”

Frenda didn’t seem particularly interested. She didn’t sound at all envious.

She had said she watched the Colosseum while eating dinner. She liked to watch it online ''while'' doing something else, so she may not have wanted to dedicate the many hours needed for the pregame and the actual match itself.

“But there’s so many. How were they all guided here?”

“I doubt they all super wandered around for an hour. That would be super conspicuous and having a line form at the library entrance would defeat the purpose. Maybe they were all loaded into the back of a truck and then super guided in from an underground parking lot?”

Of course, if they had a foolproof transportation method, the braid girl wouldn’t have had to walk around so much in the summer heat. If their truck was caught by an Anti-Skill inspection during some pre-summer-break crimefighting campaign, that was that. They had needed another method to bring in the (likely doomed to die) contestants since they mattered more than the audience.

All the desks had been removed from the reading space on the floor below and a chain link fence standing more than 3m tall had been placed around it. It wasn’t clear where they had gotten their hands on it, but those were temporary barricades set up on the streets to stop rioters. The 10m-diameter space within had to be the ring.

There were also colorful stage lights and speakers larger than sofas. They had brought in club equipment. The audience’s excitement was infectious, so the shouts and cheers spread like wildfire. And the match hadn’t even started yet.

Filming equipment was visible further out than the shouting crowd. Surprisingly, they were all enormous models that could be moved around on wheels, just like you would see in a TV studio. With the latest high definition specs, each one had to cost around 20 million yen. And there were tons of them here. That was all necessary for the online service, but it showed just how flush with cash the managers were.

In addition to that, over 100 small lenses were pasted all around the interior of the barricade. Those were likely for the VR composite stream. The quality of the equipment was pro-soccer level. With something that specialized, you needed more than just money. It took industry connections.

Mugino looked down from the railing in disgust.

“Is the Colosseum always like this?”

“Today is actually relatively subdued. They usually have these huge killer fireworks. Are they skipping that because of all the paper books? Or because the building isn’t properly soundproofed? In the end, look at that, Mugino. That’s one of the caged surprises! There’s a 3m white tiger in there to be thrown in there with the espers as a surprise contestant☆”

“Eeeek!” screamed Hanano, curling up in a corner of the 2nd floor. She didn’t have to fight the tiger herself, so Mugino thought the girl had too active an imagination.

Less imaginative Kinuhata and Takitsubo were more carefree.

“Huh, this super does look like a gory tournament where people die every round.”

“I feel sorry for the poor animals they make fight. I hope everyone running this place is struck down for their cruelty.”

Of course, Item’s job was not to fight in the Colosseum as contestants.

They had to slaughter the Colosseum management and take their blood-stained fortune. That would mean 15 billion, if not more.

Mugino grinned.

“Now, then. Where do these classy shitheads stash their money?”