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

===Part 7===

Shirai Kuroko was constantly wondering if they really had to take this so far.

“Sigh.”

(Onee-sama.)

She was inside the South District 7 General Anti-Skill Station. The floor used for data management was built just like a corporate office. There were no impressively large monitors or white boards covered in photos with arrows drawn between them.

The twintails girl was covering her face with her hands and taking deep breaths, so the combover and glasses Anti-Skill man seemed hesitant to speak to her.

“U-um, are you okay?”

“Did you report your return to the station?”

“Eh? If I did that, they wouldn’t let me work overtime.”

His workaholic side was showing again, but that meant he intended to continue working.

Maybe he thought his mind could not take it if he did not continue with his usual routine.

“What is this dark side nonsense?” muttered Shirai like it was some kind of curse.

She felt a weight in her gut and that man offered her a paper cup of cheap coffee of all things. It was a harsh black coffee with no benefit other than waking you up.

“We’re slapping that label on people without even knowing if it really means anything and then forcibly closing our cases on them using enough violence that people keep ending up dead. Almost makes it look like law enforcement are the real criminals.”

“The dark side does exist.”

Shirai looked up at that. The combover and glasses Anti-Skill man spoke earnestly while pulling his octopus and rice bento and salted chicken skewers from the plastic bag.

That did not go with hot coffee at all and he had not even bought a salad to go with it.

“Judgment only mediates conflicts between students in your schools, but Anti-Skill deals with a lot of cases outside the schools. That gives us a chance to see inside the labs and research institutes, so we have seen the vague outlines of the undefinable thing we call the dark side.”

“…”

She silently accepted the paper cup while he took a sip of his own.

“I do agree that our definition of the dark side is vague. It does not refer to a specific company or industry. The division between beneficial and harmful may not even be accurate.” The skinny man’s words had an odd weight to them. “Academy City’s darkness contains all forms of illegal work, from professional assassins to researchers deviating from their approved field of work. I think the ‘dark side’ name is accurate. It is like the shadows that inevitably appear when you shine light on a city full of skyscrapers. People might be led there to an extent, but I think that world is something that develops naturally.”

“Have you seen it for yourself?” asked the twintails middle school girl.

He did not provide a yes or no answer, but she still persistently asked more.

“What do you think of this abnormal situation we find ourselves in?”

He remained silent for a while.

He took three sips of his coffee before finally responding.

“I…approve of it. There have been several unexpected accidents on the way, it’s true, but Operation Handcuffs has still brought the outlines of the elusive dark side into clearer focus. I think this is our one and only chance to protect the city’s children.”

He finally made his real point.

“But we still aren’t doing enough. This farce is not enough to defeat the dark side.”

Just then, the entire floor was wrapped in darkness. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling and even the computers on the desks all went dark. A second later, Shirai realized the backup power and emergency exit signs had not come on.

It was currently just past 5 in the evening. A blackout now would not normally mean complete darkness, but this was the same as a department store or electronics store. The windows were all covered by thick sheets, so a power outage would mean complete darkness at any time of day, just like a movie theater or planetarium.

(An attack!? Who would be crazy enough!?)

Shirai immediately pulled out her phone and used its small light to see.

“Break the windows!! We can see if we let in the outside lights!!”

“This was not to blind us,” said the man.

His phone’s light shined up on his face and then he turned the screen toward her to show her the “no signal” indicator in the corner.

“The surface-level communication network is out!?”

“Now no one can hear us scream. Unless we manage to escape this building alive.” The Anti-Skill officer had the look of someone recalling a failure from his distant past. “We were prioritizing the violent harmfuls and leaving the beneficials be since they are a necessary part of society, no matter how much we dislike them. But I doubt any of us will see it that way for much longer. Not once we see the true face of the darkness.”

Rakuoka Houfu said one last thing like he was making a prophecy.

“''They'' have arrived.”