Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter8 (section)

===Part 7===

This was a world very different from the one in which those middle school girls lived.

However, it was not a fantasy world of swords and sorcery.

It was a messy izakaya.

The interior decoration was all meant to be somewhat reminiscent of a street stall: curtains used as dividers, bare lightbulbs, and even works of art modeled after grills and small generators.

A dorm manager in a suit and glasses looked to a table in the back and waved when she spotted a familiar face.

That dorm manager had very little romantic experience and was never sure how to act around the opposite sex, but that was not the case with this man.

If anything, he was more like an apprentice or a younger brother.

He was not a target of those other things, so she could relax more.

“Hi, Maeda. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since our Anti-Skill competency test, right? I never expected you to contact me.”

“The way you two failed to complete the test because you kicked all of the instructors’ asses without breaking a sweat is still famous, you know? Yomikawa managed to get a passing score by bowing and apologizing, but you were so disappointed by them you just gave up on joining Anti-Skill.”

“I am a specialized defender, even if no one believes me for some reason. It is not in my nature to run all over the city like a takeout delivery boy with a bicycle and smartphone. I can’t get invested in my work that way. This is lesson I learned through experience, but I don’t feel like protecting a place if I do not eat and sleep there.”

“About that.”

While he waited for her to arrive, Maeda must have been worrying about how he would broach the topic, so he sounded relieved she had brought it up herself.

He asked a question of the dorm manager who grimaced at the appetizer she was served without asking (some mystery dish of chopped cabbage and an unidentifiable salty sauce) but still ordered a shochu sour.

“How are things at your dorm?”

“Ugh, this really is just cabbage… We are talking about a girl’s dorm of ''the'' Tokiwadai Middle School. Do you really think I am going to tell anything to an outsider—and a man at that—like you?”

“I’m glad to see you still have your pride.”

Maeda sighed.

You only had to look at the flat screen TV in a corner of the izakaya or the 1seg app on the smartphones of the couple enjoying some kind of discussion at another table. Turn on any TV and you would find nothing but discussion of how that incident had ended. The internet was bound to be even worse. Sakibasu Ryouu, the community called Blue Blood she had created, and their misuses of Zero Day Link. It was certainly a big deal, but discussion of it was fast wearing out its welcome. For one thing, the press still had not figured out how exactly the incident was resolved, so they were focusing on the “keys” and Blue Blood’s misdeeds to hide their own failure there.

It was shocking and provocative.

So the press left the truth in the dust as they pursued that instead.

Maeda glanced over at the screen and took a drink of his cold sake before opening his mouth.

He needed to be drunk for this.

“Sakibasu Yuri was innocent. She even helped solve the case. A lot of the details about that are still unknown, but she was the one who arrived at an Anti-Skill station with her unconscious mother, Ryouu.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Isn’t this just too much? Why does she have to put up with this just because she’s a blood relative? What century do people think this is? Besides, punishment is a job for the justice system, so you don’t get to hand it out based on a personal grudges or emotions. That’s been banned since the time of the ancient Romans, for crying out loud! Judgment and punishment must be managed by those with the proper qualifications. And with extreme caution even then.”

Officially, in public, and on the surface, everyone said the same thing. Everyone knew you were not supposed to do that. But how did it really work? They might go online and spread personal information and half-truths along with a photo, they might figure out where the person lived and throw rocks at or spray paint their house, and they might follow them around town recording them on their phone.

Anti-Skill work had a way of disillusioning one about so many aspects of the world, but it was that kind of “misguided justice” that depressed him the most. Victims and assailants would have their own feelings and circumstances, but not so with that kind of person.

They did it for fun, to cheer themselves up, for the praise, to stand out, because they were driven by some kind of complex, or even just because they were bored.

…He felt a duty to risk his life to protect people because of all the good people out there, so when he saw the malice inside those very people and realized his own actions could easily give them an excuse to act on that malice, he started feeling stupid for risking his life for anything at all.

But the bespectacled dorm manager smiled and helped herself to one of the grilled chicken skewers Maeda had ordered before she arrived.

“Do you really think anyone would be stupid enough to throw a rock at the window of the dorm I manage? You know perfectly well what will happen if they do… Oh, so this is a chicken place. I was wondering why you were drinking something cold. This isn’t bad.”

“I see… Yeah, if you spray painted the entrance of that place, you probably would end up having to pay a small fortune in damages.”

“Tokiwadai is well-equipped with buses. And unlike a certain Railgun or Teleporter I could mention, Sakibasu is very well-behaved. If she does not make any odd detours and uses the buses to travel between the dorm and school, there will be no unwanted physical contact with anyone at all.”

Physically, yes.

But modern society’s problems were not restricted to that.

The dorm manager audibly gulped down her shochu sour that was given its sour flavor with shikuwasha juice.

“I can’t say anything about the internet. To be honest, that is outside my control. But the right to be forgotten has received a lot of discussion lately and her school rather than her dorm will request the deletion of any truly ‘dangerous information’. And those requests will have the kind of backing that can, in all seriousness, ''reduce a massive IT company’s stock to worthless scraps if they refuse''. Have you forgotten? The girls of our school have more money than they know what to do with. To the point that brats of only 12 or 13 can buy a Stativarius with a price tag of over a hundred million. More than that, Tokiwadai is a prestigious esper development school... and exclusive schools like that tend to be merciless when it comes to issues related to their own profit and privilege. Any information still out there is likely misinformation that has been deemed harmless. Simply put, do not worry about it. Those bored commenters will move on to something else soon enough.”

“Then what about inside Tokiwadai?” cut in Maeda.

This must have been bothering him all this time. He must not have had the best manners because he stabbed the end of his chopsticks into his fried chicken.

“Like you said, we’re talking about a prestigious school and they’ll want to protect their image. You act like the power of their money will work to protect Sakibasu, but is that really how it will play out? Couldn’t they instead use their money against her in order to protect themselves?”

“…”

“C’mon, don’t fall silent on me. One of the good people out there—and a minor girl at that—saved us all and protected this city even though it meant fighting her own mother. She even saved my life and I doubt I was the only one. So I’m not sitting by and letting her get expelled over this! I’m not as hasty as Inoue, but who knows what’ll happen if I grow any more disillusioned in my job with Anti-Skill!!”

“Let us discuss the teachers first.”

The bespectacled dorm manager sounded a little exasperated.

He was the scary gym teacher, so nothing he did would lead to the students liking him. He had gotten the short end of the stick like that, yet he still had to ask this question? The dorm manager was not really one to speak since she too was feared by the students, but she knew Maeda must have been doing his best to fulfill his duties as a teacher.

“Prestigious or not, it is a private school. Given all the high-level equipment needed for the esper development program, it cannot survive on nothing but the subsidies from Academy City as a whole. If students do not continue to enroll year after year, it will go out of business. That means keeping a student with a controversial past is nothing but a risk. There have indeed been some opinions given on this matter. Some teachers are wondering why Sakibasu Yuri has not already been expelled.”

“…”

“Don’t give me that look. It is all nonsense with no actual authority behind it. For one thing, it was the mother and not the child who committed the crimes. But it is not just children who get upset when their opinion is ignored. So once that silly minority learned that their idea of ‘justice’ could not control the faculty room, they said this was a problem for the school as a whole and should be put to a vote. They wanted to go through the student council, announce the issue to the entire Tokiwadai student body, and propose a solution to the issue. Then everyone would vote on whether to expel Sakibasu Yuri or let her stay.”

“That’s practically the stereotype of vigilante justice!! She must feel like she’s sitting on a bed of thorns with that being discussed! Teenage children value their pride more than money, so a fall like this could even lead to suicide! Innocent or guilty, the suspicions alone have to be tearing her heart to pieces. How can grown adults do something so irresponsible!?”

“Settle down, officer. Like I said, those bored people will move on to something else soon enough. And it isn’t like I am talking about her homeroom teacher here.”

The dorm manager waved a hand dismissively.

Why was he so clueless?

Just as Maeda had joined Anti-Skill, she did her best to fulfill her duties as a dorm manager. Sakibasu Yuri lived in her dorm, so she was one of the children she had to protect. No matter what kind of person their parents or guardians were, she would not compromise when it came to the children placed in her care. Would she really be sitting here so calmly if she knew one of those children had been placed in such a cruel situation?

“Had you not heard that Sakibasu Yuri is part of the clique created by Shokuhou Misaki?”

“?”

“That is Tokiwadai’s ''largest clique''… Issues of good or evil are meaningless against the power of numbers if you try to hold a vote against a group like that. The result of such a vote could not be more obvious, so Sakibasu Yuri will not be expelled no matter what. That silly faction of teachers had to give up on their idea, wrap it in thick chains, add a padlock, and throw the key into the sea.”