Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4

Opening

The city was fully surrounded by a wall.

Not even those on the dark side knew what actually happened to anyone who crossed that wall without permission.

Prologue: An Ordinary Other World as Far as the Eye Can See

“Ugh…”

Her head felt heavy.

Even after groaning and waking, the fluffy blonde-haired girl named Frenda Seivelun didn’t stand up for a while. She was drowsy. She wanted to go back to sleep. After a while, she finally realized something was off about this powerful drowsiness that threatened to pull her back below the surface of consciousness.

She couldn’t remember when she had gone to sleep yesterday.

And this drowsiness definitely wasn’t natural.

But Frenda wasn’t in the habit of using the commercial sleeping pills available at drug stores. They were certainly effective, but too effective, she would say. It took too long to get back into your best condition the next time you woke, so when weighting the pros against the cons, the cons won out.

Then how could she explain her current situation?

Why was she experiencing this unnatural and overly gentle drowsiness that reminded her of a drug?

“…”

She leaned back in the seat staring blankly into space while…wait, seat? Only then did Frenda realize she was sitting on a bench. A cheap plastic bench on a train station platform.

It was September – the start of autumn.

A lot of people were gathered in the morning station. A rapid train slid up alongside the platform and released a crowd of office workers before a crowd of students boarded to take their place. Seated on the bench instead of getting in line, Frenda felt left behind by the flow of time.

A train station?

Where was she?

The overhead speaker played an announcement in a male voice.

“Shinjuku Station. We have arrived at Shinjuku Station. The Meio Line rapid train to Tokyo Station will depart shortly. If you are still on the platform, please wait for the next train.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Huh?”

The train’s doors closed from both sides and it set off. The station didn’t have any kind of platform screen doors and the people walking by were holding bizarre cell phones that could only display around 10 colors and couldn’t fold in half. Some people were even hurrying along while folding up paper newspapers and magazines.

“Huh??”

The station’s announcement board contained a notice to watch out for one-ring fraud calls. And to watch out for malicious premium numbers that leave you with an exorbitant bill. It was like another world. For Frenda, it felt like being surrounded by ancient technology she would ordinarily only see in a history book.

“Huh???”

What was this?

She didn’t recognize this place.

…Shinjuku???

Frenda Seivelun recalled a certain rule.

An inviolable rule.

But not a rule of Shinjuku. No, this rule belonged to a giant city located near Shinjuku.

To keep confidential data from leaking, no one was allowed to cross Academy City’s wall and leave without permission.

Worse, how would one of the scumbags from the dark side be treated given all the deeper secrets they knew?

“Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”

She didn’t know how it had happened.

But Frenda Seivelun was definitely outside of Academy City.

And since she hadn’t done it, a third party must have done it to her.

A game had begun.

She couldn’t imagine why, but now she would be seen as a runaway and thus an enemy to be hunted down by the entire dark side.

And she knew which dark side team was sent to clean up this kind of problem. In a way, she knew that better than anyone.

Because…

(I-in the end, does this mean that Item…that Mugino and the others will be coming to kill me!?)

Chapter 1: Tokyo Bomber Girl Crisis

Part 1

Three girls were gathered in an Academy City District 7 movie theater.

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, and Kinuhata Saiai.

Three of Item’s four members were receiving their next job from the big faceless screen.

“Frenda’s left the city?” bitterly asked the #4.,

Why would she do that?

But their higher up didn’t seem to be considering that question. Which made sense when anyone on the dark side would be working sketchy jobs and treating the lives of friends and foes as disposable.

The question wasn’t why she had fled.

In this industry, the question was why she hadn’t fled sooner.

The Voice on the Phone spoke with audio only.

“There will be a reward, but keep in mind that this job is an order, not a request. We have train station surveillance camera footage and multiple witness reports. It isn’t known how she made it across the wall, but since she had been seen in Shinjuku, Frenda is a definite traitor. I’m playing the power games to hold back the others in this business, but that won’t last long. If you don’t make good use of that limited time and settle this yourselves, every member of Item could be seen as traitors. It’s always like that with them. Time is your ticket to survival. Think of it as an RTS game. So if you sit idly by and don’t do anything, you will all be marked for execution. Count on it.”

“Heh, you’re being nice today.”

“Is this the time for laughter? How many 1-second tickets do you think you wasted with that?”

The big screen didn’t tease Mugino for her comment.

She must have seen something even more troubling from her higher position.

That hinted at how pressing the situation was.

“Mugino.”

“I know.”

(Did Frenda run, or did someone set it up to look that way? Whoever’s behind it, I bet I know why they did it. They couldn’t take on Item directly, so they’re using the rules to bring us down from a distance.)

“Frenda is a Level 0,” continued the Voice on the Phone, “but Academy City’s higher ups are afraid the city’s cutting-edge esper development tech will leak or that she’ll give away the dark side’s many dark secrets. They will do whatever it takes to prevent that.”

“Hm? Do they super have a surefire method of finding and stopping Frenda-san?”

“Fremea Seivelun.”

Mugino raised an eyebrow.

The Voice on the Phone continued regardless.

“If capturing Frenda takes too long, they will use her innocent 7-year-old sister as bait to lure out the runaway target. It’s always like that with them.”

The air strained with tension. There was an actual sound. Could a movie theater that put such care into its audio system really creak due to temperature and humidity?

Mugino Shizuri had been taught to follow certain rules from a very young age, so she did not appreciate this turn of events.

A low growling voice came from that girl who could crack the air with only a glare.

“That’s the kind of joke that reduces you to a common thug.”

“Which is why I said I’m playing the power games to hold that off as long as possible. It’s always like this with you. I am using up quite a few of my intangible tickets of influence. By the booklet! If you waste all your time and fail to show results, I’ll have wasted it all for nothing.”

Track suit girl Takitsubo tilted her head.

“Why are you doing this for Frenda?”

“Don’t make me laugh. I don’t give a shit about that dangerous bomber girl. …But her sister is just an innocent person outside the dark side, right? Even I’d rather not think about a 1st grade girl being captured and screaming as they play the acid eye drops game with her. Gives me chills. So I’m telling you to settle this before that happens. I’m betting on the people I know can get the job done. Do you have any intention of living up to my expectations?”

“Yeah, sure. But do you know what it means to toss Item outside the city walls? I don’t want to hear any complaints later on. Especially since my #4 powers aren’t the easiest thing to control.”

“You’re free to do whatever you want to prevent an information leak. But unlike when you’re in Academy City, no one can cover for you technologically or politically. That means nothing’s getting covered up. You should really consider not killing anyone other than your target. If you are caught by the outside police, dark side assassins will be paying your cell a visit before the mass media can catch wind of it and put it on the news.”

“Assassins, huh?”

“Those three sisters aren’t as adaptable as Item and really are only able to kill, so I’d prefer not to rely on them here. Anyway, do you get the rules, guidelines, and regulations? Then have fun executing your teammate☆”

Part 2

“C’mon, kid. Crying isn’t going to help you find your missing commuter ticket. Oh, and what’s this? Why, it’s a commuter ticket someone dropped in the ditch☆”

“Old lady, you forgot your cane after leaning it against the railing back there, didn’t you? In the end, you need to keep better track of it.”

“Whoa, what!? No dog can escape m- yikes, now it’s running this way. Are you kidding? In the end, is that one of those poodles that’s anything but small!?”

The girl who ended up half knocked to the ground by a serious hound and licked all over by the poorly-trained boy was Frenda Seivelun.

Of course.

Academy City’s elites were closing in on her all the while. She knew that much. In the worst case, it could be Item led by #4 Mugino Shizuri who was after her. It was best to assume that every minute and second counted.

But…

“Well, in the end, it wouldn’t bring anyone a happy future if I just let that innocent poodle go charging into that group of little kids in their school backpacks.”

Still down on the ground, Frenda commented to herself after handing the leash back to the elderly man who was repeatedly bowing in thanks.

…Frenda knew all too well (thanks to the excellent nose for such things she had developed on the dark side) that she couldn’t be wasting her time on this, but the people in Shinjuku, Tokyo, had hopelessly poor defenses. Frenda knew far too well (thanks to the excellent…well, you get the point) that leaving even small pieces of trouble unresolved could lead you into much bigger trouble, so she honestly couldn’t sit idly by.

She patted her hands along her thin poncho.

(Hm, all my bombs and fuses are gone… In the end, I feel naked without them.)

“Okay.”

Frenda moved behind cover, reached inside her clothing, and pulled something from a fairly unspeakable place.

She still had her phone at least.

In the right conditions, she could control a bomb or drone with that. And dark side standard practices meant she didn’t have to worry about anyone tracking her position using it. That changed if she transmitted anything from it, of course. She reached between the phone and its cover to pull out a few (paper!) 10 thousand yen bills.

That was all the funds she had to work with.

“In the end, what a pain. The famous wicked socialite is reduced to this? I’ll have to work fast.”

Her shoulders drooped as she returned to the main area.

Men and women in suits were staring at her.

Now, if it was widely known that a bomb expert had escaped from Academy City, they would be panicking right about now. So that wasn’t what this was about.

(I see. Frenda-chan must just be too dazzling for them to behold. In the end, the age distribution of the population is different outside Academy City. Especially on weekdays. It might still be morning, but a super cute teenage girl shouldn’t be wandering around in casual clothing at this time.)

Each exit from the massive Shinjuku Station led to a very different part of the city. Wanting to avoid an obvious entertainment district where there would be more police patrols, Frenda left through the south entrance, but that led toward the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and a district full of fancy office buildings. For the health-conscious government workers who walked to work instead of taking the subway, a (self-proclaimed) cute blonde girl doing volunteer work in casual clothing instead of going to school may have been an unusual sight.

Things really were different on the outside.

The only reason she wasn’t being questioned and taken into protective custody was her blonde hair and blue eyes marking her as a foreigner. They probably couldn’t decide if she was an ordinary tourist or an unusual sort of runaway girl.

(Then maybe I should have pretended to not speak Japanese. No, wait. In the end, that would only make me stand out more.)

It was hard to fake speaking in broken language while making it sound natural. If it looked too much like she really could understand Japanese, people would think she was making fun of them, but if they thought she couldn’t understand them at all, it would put them on guard.

Frenda sighed and moved over to the edge of the sidewalk. She leaned back against a convenience store’s glass wall to rest. Which places sold canned mackerel on the outside? She noticed the security camera distribution was poor, so she could get this close to a store without any of them capturing her face. There also weren’t any mobile security robots and no constant satellite surveillance.

Frenda glanced at the security company’s logo sticker on the glass wall.

(Based on this, I’m betting the security camera data is divided up between security company and no one has a combined database of it all. Leave it to Criminal City Shinjuku to have huge electronic blind spots too.)

Technology inside Academy City was said to be 20-30 years ahead of the outside world, but Frenda was so used to Academy City that this felt like traveling into the past.

The sign on a nearby building mentioned an internet cafe, but Frenda shook her head.

Should she contact Mugino and the others and explain her predicament?

They would definitely trace the call and snipe her with a long-range Meltdowner blast. How long they had worked together meant nothing here. Mugino and the others were professionals. If their dark side job was to hunt her down, they wouldn’t hold back on the violence. Whether or not they would kill her had already been determined when they chose to accept the job or not. Frenda knew better than to hope they would have a change of heart after arriving on the scene.

“…”

That was after her.

Frenda felt a tingling in the back of her head and all her pores opened to expel a cold sweat.

She shouldn’t have imagined it so concretely.

She took a deep breath to calm her rattled nerves.

Panicking would only limit her options, but she needed time if she was going to face the situation and regain her cool. Only by expanding her options like that could she survive.

She raised her head.

She saw the city’s horizon. But it was located quite high up.

Far above the skyscrapers, a giant wall drew out a horizontal line. That was the border with Academy City.

“Now, then.”

Needless to say, Frenda had not escaped by foot.

Some unseen villain had drugged her and taken her outside the city.

That much she knew for sure.

But something bothered her about that.

(Why didn’t they just kill me then?)

If she had been unconscious and defenseless for hours, they could have killed her at any time. Yet they hadn’t.

That would mean keeping her alive benefited them more than killing her.

Or it would cause more damage.

It meant they saw some meaning in creating this situation where she was on the run while the rest of Item hunted her.

(Are they trying to tear apart Item without facing us directly, or is the trouble we cause only supposed to draw attention away from something else they’re doing?)

“…”

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, and Kinuhata Saiai.

Those three had to be hot on her trail. No matter where she ran, they would catch her in the end. Before that happened, she had to find and capture the villain who had thrown her outside of Academy City to frame her and then present that villain to Mugino and the others when they showed up to kill her.

Her own survival?

Revenge against the true culprit?

The blonde girl’s motives were nothing so trite.

Do not forget that she was more than just a dark side bomber.

She glanced up at a skyscraper wall to check a retro digital clock resembling a giant calculator.

(So today is September 10.)

Frenda Seivelun silently gathered her resolve so that no one around would notice.

Yes, she had a reason to return to Academy City alive no matter what.

Specifically, she had to be back by the morning of September 18.

Because…

“That’s when all the city’s schools gather for the Daihaseisai athletic festival. My sister is in the 1st grade, so this is her first one. In the end, no self-respecting big sister could miss an event like that!”

Part 3

Mugino, Takitsubo, and Kinuhata of Item crossed the wall and set foot in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

There was ordinarily a lengthy process involving tons of paperwork and a tracking nanodevice injection, but they had skipped past all that. That showed just how pressing the situation was. More than that, it did no one any favors to leave official records of dark side activities.

“Takitsubo-san, I thought your AIM Stalker could search someone out super no matter where in the world they were.”

“I don’t record the AIM Diffusion Fields of my teammates,” expressionlessly replied Takitsubo.

It was admirable she was still following that rule after it prevented them from learning Hanano Choubi’s true identity. Then again, the laws and regulations usually required to protect people’s lives and property didn’t function on the dark side, so maybe the secret to survival was to mind your own business. Giving into paranoia made a villain fragile.

In that sense…

“If Frenda did run away on her own, it’s odd that she left her sister behind… I would have expected her to flee Academy City with her family in tow, even if that meant grabbing the girl’s arm and dragging her.”

Mugino was cautious about these things.

So while this was a threat to Item as a whole, she wasn’t too worried yet.

“That’s if super Frenda-san is her usual self. But you can never predict what people will do when they feel trapped.”

“We just have to predict what choices she would make the same whether she’s guilty or innocent. Then we can get ahead of her and catch her.”

Takitsubo was sharp and to the point, despite her unfocused eyes.

This wasn’t even about her power. She was the best in the field of searching.

On the dark side, these tracking skills were even more important than simple violence.

You had to sniff out any oddities, accurately follow their tracks, and locate your target no matter where in the wide world they were.

A military hound like that could directly influence people’s lives and futures.

“What will Frenda do next, whether it’s real or just a trick meant to confuse us?”

Takitsubo Rikou was her usual self.

She spoke like an oracle.

“Prove her innocence, maybe?”

Part 4

Sobasaka Michio worked as a detective for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Investigation Division 1.

The only reason he was the first to receive the initial notice to arrive at the head office in Kasumigaseki was because he had spent all night working.

“Wake up, newbie. They say a bomber’s escaped Academy City. The most populous area outside the East Gate is Shinjuku!”

“That ain’t good. But if we’re really talking about a bomber, isn’t that more a job for Public Security than for Division 1?”

When the new kid tried to continue his argument about jurisdiction, Sobasaka slapped him on the top of the head.

“Which section of Public Security? The ‘let’s stop currying teacher’s favor and seriously try to make some inroads on Academy City’ section? That city exists right smack in the middle of Tokyo, but they use their extraterritoriality to keep the police out no matter what happens in their walls. I say we end that absurdity here and now. Word is there are children dying inside those walls, but we can’t even get any accurate numbers. How is that right!? If we capture this bomber and throw the book at them, I just know we’ll find a ton of additional crimes. And if we play our cards right, we could even get a chance to demand an investigation of Academy City as a whole!”

Was Academy City trying to reduce their own responsibility by providing the bare minimum of information before anyone outside began pestering them? But as time passed, even that would be suppressed and erased by different people’s interests and rights.

The data alone felt too flimsy.

It would probably just disappear at some point. Sobasaka grabbed the computer mouse and the office laser printer began spitting out pieces of copy paper.

“Who knows when they’ll be by to confiscate this, so memorize it all while you have the chance, newbie!!”

“Ehh? Don’t drag me into this. Now, let’s take a look…”

Name: Classified

Photo: Classified

Age: Classified

Address: Classified

School: Classified

■■■■■,■■■■■■■■■■■t■■.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■■■i■■■,■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■.

■■■■■,■■■■■■,■■■■■.■■t■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

■■■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■■■■s■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

“…”

The police detective froze while viewing the stack of papers.

You call this sharing information, Academy City? Nearly all of it was blotted out!!

His new subordinate asked a hesitant question.

“Wh-what do we do about this?”

“~ ~ ~! We still search out the bomber! This isn’t Academy City! It’s our city!!”

Part 5

9 AM.

The morning rush hour for students had passed, but Item didn’t care. The convenience store clerk was staring at them while trying repeatedly to get the register to actually read the barcode, but a single glare from Mugino preempted any possible questions. Such a convenient and pleasant world this was.

Once outside, they ate their breakfasts.

“What the hell? This salmon rice ball packaging won’t open no matter how much I tug!”

“Mugino, read the instructions. You’re supposed to start by pulling on the thin tape running vertically down it.”

“And that’s what I’m- oh, dammit. Now the seaweed’s all messed up!!”

Differences between inside and outside of Academy City could be found here as well.

Technology wasn’t perfected right away. It had to be used by a great many people so they could discover the problems needing solving. Stolen technology was one exception, but in that case they would lack the experience to deal with any problems they did come across.

“Let’s review the rules, guidelines, and regulations.”

Unable to let grilled salmon go to waste, Mugino broke down the rice ball to extract it from the plastic it had half fused with and ate it. Her annoyance was written plain on her face.

“We won’t have any support from the higher ups this time. So whether we kill or destroy, it won’t get covered up and will be treated as a crime. If the outside police catch us, a dark side assassin will sneak their way to our holding cell. Always weigh your options. Rule #1 is to avoid any violence that isn’t worth the risk.”

Kinuhata tilted her head while neatly removing the packaging from a chestnut okowa rice ball that appeared to be a new product.

“What do we do if Frenda-san super makes a desperate counterattack with her bombs?”

“We sniff out the signs. Then I burn the entire place down with Meltdowner before she can do it.”

They were to keep the damage to a minimum.

But no one had said anything about reducing it to zero. If things would only get more complicated, then they would erase it all with violence that was “worth the risk”.

So…

“For Frenda, that will be the final line. We’ll consider taking her alive if she doesn’t use any bombs, but if she uses even a single bomb here in the outside world, our priorities change.”

“Hey, if I have the chance, I say I just blast her and get it over with.”

“(With you, Mugino, it’s super impossible to tell if you’re serious or not.)”

On the dark side, you generally just killed everyone because anything else would be a nuisance, so they were already being fairly lenient here.

Of course, none of them knew how this would turn out.

“Mugino. We’re about to be gathering information, so should you really have eaten that rice ball?”

“We’re only going to end up ordering some overly sweet latte, right?”

They ended up going for the autumn-exclusive Mont Blanc latte.

Item weren’t the police or Anti-Skill, so they didn’t gather information by directly questioning people. For them, it was all about listening.

At a cheap chain cafe.

“Don’t they grow all the same stuff year-round? In plastic greenhouses and whatever.”

“It’s super worse than that. This is made from a chestnut-flavored powder. Unlike those rice balls that actually had stuff in them, you can’t prove that whatever’s in a liquid is real.”

The cafe menu changed out of human preference. Even if August had ended and September had arrived, a summer day was still a summer day. The status of the harvest wasn’t going to change so suddenly.

Takitsubo used a small fork to poke at a Western-style ohagi that came with the set.

“Mugino, adzuki beans are an autumn crop too, aren’t they?”

“Don’t mix a sweet drink with a sweet snack. You’ll just numb your tongue to the sweetness.”

After identifying a cafe frequented by the part-timers handing out fliers on the roadside that morning, Item occupied a table and started listening to the conversations going on around them. Information from around the city gathered here. They frequently strolled slowly up and down the narrow aisle, pretending to be grabbing a wet towel or a straw. And on the way…

“That little beret…”

“Super what was up with that blonde girl?”

They couldn’t afford to waste any time, so they used their own whispered hints to steer the conversations. By stimulating the other people’s memories, it wasn’t that hard to guide other people to a topic.

They were of course interested in any sightings these part-timers had made while on the job.

They didn’t even have to wait half an hour.

A blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl had been out in the morning rush hour but hadn’t gone to a school.

She was foreign, but she spoke fluent Japanese. And she hadn’t seemed like a tourist.

She had found an elementary schooler’s commuter ticket, worried over an old woman’s lost item, and grappled with a large poodle…

Mugino sighed in exasperation after returning to their table.

“What is that idiot doing when her life is on the line?”

“It sounds just like Frenda,” said the track suit girl, as expressionless as ever.

Kinuhata tilted her head.

“She doesn’t sound too worried. Could she super actually be innocent?”

“What about that was legal evidence? Don’t let impressions lead you astray, Kinuhata. We can’t deny the possibility she’s doing it on purpose to confuse us.”

Kinuhata looked over and found Takitsubo was her usual expressionless self. Usual. She normally seemed so unfocused, but her eyes hadn’t wavered before or after learning this.

Apparently the only one empathizing with Frenda was Kinuhata Saiai.

(Is this the super bad habit of a movie lover?)

It wasn’t clear if Frenda was guilty or not.

But whether she was serious about it or trying to find a way to deceive her pursuers, it wasn’t hard to predict what she would do next.

Mugino thought a moment.

“Prove her innocence. …That means she’ll stay put. For now, we shouldn’t have to worry about her hopping on a plane and escaping overseas. Takitsubo.”

“Nh.”

The track suit girl pointed with one hand.

She was their tracking expert.

Now, how far could they corner Frenda?

“Since we haven’t narrowed things down much, we should start from somewhere that gives us a panoramic view of the entire city. So let’s climb up high.”

Part 6

Of course, Frenda Seivelun made full use of her “weapons”.

At 10 in the morning, a shopping center packed full of hardware, gardening, and other specialty stores was already open.

That place was like heaven to a professional bomber.

“Sigh, it’s just so easy to buy these dangerous ingredients at ordinary stores. I do love the complete lack of defenses that comes from crime not having evolved much out here.”

The blonde girl left a store with large bags in each hand.

Frenda Seivelun was a professional bomber, but that also meant she was well-versed in the use of all chemicals with explosive reactions.

Mimicking the forensic investigation techniques of Academy City’s Anti-Skill was no challenge at all.

“Now, then.”

Frenda had awoken on a station platform bench, but she doubted someone had carried an unconscious girl through the rush hour crowd and left the super dazzling blonde girl there. People would have noticed.

Which meant…

(It must’ve been before the first train, but after the last patrol by a station attendant. Who would have free access to carry in a large piece of luggage before the station opens?)

“A delivery or cargo worker, maybe? Like a truck driver?”

Then had Frenda been lying there for hours on the dark station platform bench before she awoke on her own? In the middle of all the riders and station attendants at one of Japan’s most crowded stations? Tokyo really was coldhearted.

“Ugh. In the end, I hope I didn’t catch a cold.”

That was a particular worry when she was on the run and couldn’t risk visiting a doctor.

A delivery worker was especially suspect because they would also be legally allowed inside and outside of Academy City. Transporting everything by air increased costs considerably and Academy City didn’t border the sea, so using trucks was much more profitable.

This must have been a truck driver who did work at both Academy City and Shinjuku Station.

There couldn’t be too many like that.

It was a risk, but after completing her preparations, Frenda returned to the massive Shinjuku Station. But instead of going inside, she made a circuit of the perimeter.

Shinjuku Station had some harsh height differences. It had been built partway up a slope, so the ground level exits could be as much as three floors apart.

On the lower side, near a spiraling slope, Frenda found the row of metal shutters that signified the cargo unloading entrance.

“Here we go.”

Since she had been left at the station platform before the first train, it must have happened around 4 in the morning. She doubted the truck that had taken her from Academy City was still at the station.

But traces would remain.

“In the end, should I start with tire tracks and exhaust gas?”

While speaking to herself, Frenda quickly mixed multiple chemicals using the tablespoon, teaspoon, other measuring cups she had bought at a discount store. She wasn’t melting or burning anything, so mixing a reagent like this didn’t require a special mask or goggles.

After pouring the liquid into an empty spray bottle, she began spritzing it onto the asphalt.

“Bingo☆”

Pairs of thick tire tracks, presumably from trucks, appeared in bluish-white. Tire treads were a type of technology. The truck driver must have replaced his worn-out tires in Academy City because just one track had a noticeably high-tech pattern.

(The target probably refuels in Academy City, so I was planning to follow the traces of the exhaust gas that sticks to the asphalt. But in the end, reality did me a favor here.)

That would be her sign for now.

Of course, if she kept spritzing along those tracks, she would run out of reagent quick. Not to mention that she would gather attention walking down the center of the road staring intently at the ground. So she would instead connect point to point. All she wanted to do was pursue the escaped truck, so she only needed to check with a quick spritzing at the intersections. She was only guessing based on the spacing between the tires, but such a large truck would have to stick to the major roads.

Frenda obeyed the lights and used the crosswalks while aiming the spray bottle at the ground without crouching or stopping. The range of the spray bottle? Earth has this little thing called gravity, so as long as she sprayed the mist, it would fall toward the ground on its own. Then, once she had reached the other side of the street, she would look back to check the result.

And.

When it was all going so well.

Frenda felt an unpleasant chill along her spine.

She was suddenly hesitant to take another step.

Zvwahh!!!

A fearsome beam flew straight in, melting and scorching the sturdy asphalt.

It hit right in front of Frenda.

That was Academy City’s #4 Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner.

Even a modest estimate told Frenda the light source was more than 3000m away.

The blast had been fired diagonally down from above.

Mugino was either on top of a skyscraper or she had chartered a helicopter.

“!!?”

For a moment, Frenda herself wasn’t sure how she had managed to dodge that.

(In the end, was there a brief unnatural shadow on the big sign on that distant building’s roof? From someone standing in front of it? I must be a genius to notice that!!)

Psyching yourself up like that could provide a surprising amount of strength during an emergency.

When used properly, it could keep you from freezing up and being killed.

Frenda acted as her own cheerleader as she sent her gaze darting through her more immediate surroundings, but she saw no sign of Kinuhata making a secondary attack from close quarters.

Was this only a sniper attack?

That suggested this wasn’t a planned attack and they had just so happened to spot Frenda. Unexpected opportunities were like ad libbing on stage – it was a battle against mistakes.

However, Meltdowner did not require operating a bolt handle or loading the next round. If Frenda continued standing out in the open, she would waste this miracle she had been granted. If she didn’t respond right away, the next attack would be coming in less than two seconds.

(The closest light is red. In the end, none of the cars are moving!!)

More bright flashes burst out, but these did not come from Mugino.

Frenda had triggered some magnesium flashes as a distraction.

(Even if you don’t have any professional stun grenades, you can find magnesium all over the place. Like in the signs attached to power poles. In the end, they use magnesium to increase the strength of the wires made of a zinc or aluminum alloy.)

Even so, a beam of electrons tore into the asphalt less than 5m from Frenda. She didn’t have time to hesitate. She practically leaped into the space between two buildings.

“But I can’t just ignore the tire tracks. Hiding isn’t enough. In the end, I need to occasionally poke my head out to spray the reagent on the road.”

Fortunately, she had already revealed a few points of the trail.

She extrapolated from those and made her way to the next point. She wanted to to finish following this trail as quickly as possible.

Part 7

“Mugino.”

“Just one more!”

“The usual rules don’t apply here. Your powerful light beams are a trump card, but they’re conspicuous. Even 10 seconds is too long. If you haven’t killed your target in that time, you need to quickly withdraw.”

“You’re not on her side, are you?”

“Also, Frenda hasn’t killed anyone yet. I feel like she hasn’t crossed that line .”

“You ‘feel’ that way, do you!?”

“Mugino, you were actually trying to kill her just now, weren’t you?”

“…You doubt me?”

“That means Frenda must have sensed the killer intent of a professional. It wasn’t just wishful thinking like when a delinquent threatens to kill someone. A professional will kill calmly as part of their job. If Frenda keeps going like this, she will be killed. She knows that, but she still isn’t fighting back.”

“…”

“She’s an explosives expert, remember? She may have had her equipment taken from her, but knowing her she could build a handmade non-guided rocket with just the parts available in the city. So if she wanted to, she could fight back. If she was serious about that and didn’t care about collateral damage, a 3000m difference wouldn’t matter. She would be able to bring down this entire building.”

“Taken from her? Sounds to me like you’re basing this on some fantasy about her being taken from the city against her will and having her stuff stolen in the process. Oh, damn. You aren’t actually taking the target’s side, are you!? It did look like Frenda stiffened just before I shot. Did you intentionally have me stand in a noticeable spot?”

“Okay, okay. That’s super enough of that! If you throw a tantrum, the Voice on the Phone will be upset. And we can’t use the usual cover up infrastructure this time. Look, people are gathering around the spots you hit, so more of that sloppy aim is out of the question. We need to super get out of here.”

“Did you just call my aim sloppy, you scrawny little newbie?”

“Oh? Tough talk for a sniper who screwed up her initial shot. Were your senses dulled by those super juicy-looking thighs?”

“Mugino, patience. They’ll be mad at you if you kill anyone other than the target out here, right?”

“God, I’m cut off at every turn! What do you mean I can’t even kill my own teammates!?”

Part 8

It looked like she had survived.

Frenda breathed a soft sigh.

(In the end, I hope she isn’t just waiting to kill me at her leisure.)

When she really was being hunted, the lines between optimism, being reasonable, and overthinking could become blurred. It was common in the dark side to find yourself unable to trust your own thoughts.

Despite the popular image, Shinjuku wasn’t just Kabukicho from one side to the other. When leaving the train station from the southern entrance, there was a surprising amount of green (which was of course an artificially maintained park). Frenda saw a few large corporate office buildings and hotels, passed by the distinctive Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, and kept walking a while longer. She came to a stop after the building heights had decreased a fair amount.

She had arrived at a certain building.

Several taxis were gathered around a filthy set meal restaurant. That wasn’t all grease stains, was it? There were a few large trucks in addition to the taxis. Frenda thought of Shinjuku as a collection of tall buildings, so this one-story restaurant looked out of place. Was this the result of a strong but misguided obsession? The menu out front had chilled Chinese noodles crossed out with two thick lines in marker and “ramen” scrawled in its place. Maybe that was due to the changing of the seasons.

The entire place was filthy. Even though it was a restaurant. The general vibe would make ordinary people think twice before entering.

The restaurant must not have cared how many stars it had on the food review sites.

It was like a tropical fish in an enclosed tank…no, that analogy was too clean. It was like a turtle that had lived for decades in a mossy, seldom-cleaned tank.

“Wow, this is the kind of mystery restaurant you’d find in an urban legend. …In the end, are these set meal places even any good?”

Frenda had doubted her quarry would immediately get on the highway to escape far away.

Even though there wasn’t any word on the news or internet yet, information on the “escaped bomber” must have been shared with Investigation Division 1 and Public Security. In a heavily redacted report, of course.

The driver would be relaxing at a restaurant near the scene because they were waiting for the police checkpoint to be removed.

Of course, Frenda wasn’t going to wait until the heat died down. She had been set up and was being pursued, but that crisis could come in handy at times.

According to the tracks revealed by her reagent…

(This is the truck that abducted me. There’s a family photo at the driver’s seat and the footprints lead into the restaurant. But, in the end, the driver will return here on his own.)

Just to be safe, Frenda used some dust made by shaving down aluminum foil to check around the door and she found fingerprints. Old and new ones. That meant they weren’t a last-minute trick.

“That confirms it. Now to set something up.”

Frenda reached into her thin poncho and pulled out a spray bottle other than the reagent one. This one had a thick mark drawn around the neck of the bottle in red marker.

The sliding door to the filthy restaurant opened.

A middle-aged man who looked a lot like a truck driver emerged, approached the large truck, and pressed the button on his keys to unlock the door.

Just then, Frenda silently approached from behind cover.

The driver caught sight of her in the large side-view mirror and quickly spun around, but she had planned on that.

“Okay. In the end, have a spritz of mint, chili peppers, and vinegar☆”

“Gwahhhhhh!?”

Taking the super irritating cocktail to the eyes brought the man down onto his rear.

Frenda’s area of expertise was all chemicals with explosive reactions. She had never said bombs were her only weapon.

If she blew him to bits, he couldn’t exactly answer her questions, now could he?

(Toys like this are more useful when paired with a booby trap bomb than when used on their own. In the end, just when they’ve carefully removed the screws and taken off the cover of the explosive device, all sorts of nasty powders prepared inside will float silently out and blind the bomb squad’s delicate eyes☆)

“Oh, hey. In the end, rubbing your eyes will only make your eyelids swell more. You’re only going to make this worse for yourself, so I recommend not resisting and heading on around to the back.”

“Ow, wh-what the hell did you do to me? I-I can’t see!?”

“I’d like to ask you that.”

With an exasperated sigh, Frenda grabbed the driver by the scruff of the neck and dragged him behind the large truck. His larger size made that fairly difficult.

(I can do all this and no one makes a fuss. I’m not going to ask for drum-shaped security robots, but in the end a world without drive recorders and drones is so easy it’s scary.)

Once in one of the city’s blind spots, it was time to get to work.

It was interrogation time, where she would get information out of him like turning on a faucet.

“In the end, do you have any clue why someone from Academy City would be doing this to you?”

“Uh.”

The driver’s shoulders jumped.

That would be a yes.

“A professional truck driver can drive right through Academy City’s gates. But you had no reason to do what you did. …Who hired you? Were they paying you with money? Tell me everything you know.”

“I-I couldn’t possibly tell you.”

“I gave you a taste of the tear spray I had marked as ‘safe’. The undiluted version is 20x stronger, so a spray from that will permanently blind you. In the end, are you still going to resist?”

“Wait, wait! Not my eyes! I’m a driver!”

People’s mental defenses were weak against types of pain other than simple punching and kicking.

It worked even better if you if you let their imagination do most of the work.

Frenda knew he couldn’t see her, but she still worked hard to keep her expression neutral.

Because this was how she really felt about this:

(Damn, I hate this. In the end, it’s just not my style to torture a weakened amateur.)

But at times, it was unavoidable.

Mugino had fired Meltdowner at her just recently. Item really had been released from Academy City and was hot on her trail.

It was unclear how close those destructive and deadly girls were to reaching Frenda.

But the clock was ticking all the same.

If Mugino fired another…sniper shot? Artillery blast? Whatever you wanted to call it, it might just hit the driver by mistake.

She had to play the monster.

Yes, a monster like the Japanese oni that that had scared her 7-year-old sister so badly she had trouble sleeping earlier this year. And so the big sister had to stay up with her using the voice chat on a F2P game. Based on what her sister had said, that strange monster could be defeated by roasted soybeans and fish heads. That part was a little worrying, but a true oni probably did some really nasty things.

“In the end, histamines are great for swollen eyelids. They’re the substance that causes the pain and itchiness during an allergic reaction, but you can easily extract them from rotten garbage. There should be plenty of raw materials back behind the restaurant. By getting them inside your body, I can boost the swelling as much as I want, so do you really want to experience this pain but several times more powerful? How about we start at 100x the spiciness?”

“I-I don’t need money.”

“Then did they threaten you? Using a photo taken after you fell for a honey trap, maybe?”

“I would never betray my family!!”

Then how do you explain your current circumstances, criminal?

The driver yelled at exasperated Frenda.

He sounded a little desperate.

“I needed time. Time! Being a truck driver only gets you money. We end up dedicating the majority of our time to the job. At least more than half the year. So we have money in our bank accounts, but we can’t take our families on a vacation or even on a trip to the local park! If you live like that long enough, it messes with your head!!”

But he couldn’t quit.

He knew all too well that his life would be empty if his job was taken from him.

“…We made a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“If I completed this job, they will negotiate with the company. No one listens to us drivers, but those experts know how to ‘talk’ both above and below board.”

Something interrupted him.

The round object was about the size of a basketball.

On closer inspection, Frenda realized the sides of the large ball slid back to act as wheels.

The sphere supported itself with the two wheels and its bottom and it turned by working the wheels in opposite directions.

But it also did something the wheels couldn’t explain.

With nothing else around, the orb suddenly hopped 3m straight up.

It was Frenda’s knowledge as a professional bomber that told her immediately what this meant.

“Shit, get under the truck!!”

“?”

The hopping orb burst from within, scattering 800 sharp fishing hooks with maximum efficiency.

The blast swept across everything around it.

Part 9

The explosion was obvious even from a distance.

A dust cloud.

Screams and shouting.

In fact, the asphalt ground shook a little.

“Earthquake alert. A shindo one quake was just detected in Shinjuku, Tokyo.”

An unmanned seismograph must have been triggered in error because an out-of-place alert scrolled along the top of an outdoor screen playing advertisements.

Mugino Shizuri grimaced and clicked her tongue.

“That idiot…”

“She’s crossed the line,” said the track suit girl.

Takitsubo was relatively protective of Frenda, but this announcement said she was switching to the other side.

Part 10

A bomb professional knew how to do more than set up bombs.

When the situation called for it, they could also disarm bombs or identify a safe zone to escape the blast.

“Kh…”

(In the end, that was a remote-controlled hopping bomb that uses springs to launch itself up.)

Frenda groaned below the large truck.

She heard something falling all across the ground. Those barbed fish hooks had been used to make the blast more deadly. So many of them had been scattered in all 360 degrees with more force than a handgun, but lucky for Frenda, they had been pouring down from above. That meant a solid roof was enough to stay safe.

The blonde girl tugged on something with her right hand.

It felt too light.

The driver was much larger than her. She had tried to drag him under the truck with her, but the bomb had detonated first. Thanks to that, his bottom half had still been sticking out from below the truck. That part of him had been annihilated by the blast. The result reminded her of a swarm of piranhas. After dozens of fishing hooks had pierced and torn through his body at speeds greater than a bullet, his flesh and even his bones were just gone.

There was no further attack.

(Was that meant to silence him, not kill me? In the end, they have some nerve punishing that amateur as a traitor after they got him involved to avoid dirtying their own hands.)

At least he had died instantly.

Frenda reached down and shut his gaping eyes before crawling out from under the truck.

The world outside was in awful shape.

The metal taxis had been flipped over and destroyed and the shock had triggered their car alarms, which continued to blare meaninglessly. Several roadside trees had been felled. The restaurant was a decent distance away, but its sliding door had still been destroyed. No one was exiting the restaurant despite all the noise, probably because they had no way of knowing if another blast was coming.

Still, the police would be here soon.

Frenda couldn’t stay here for long, but seeing the blast site stimulated her mind.

“I see.”

In both hacking and bomb-making, the initial crime someone came up with was then copied, modified, and combined with other techniques. No matter how complex the explosive device, the wicked invention would spread throughout the world in no time.

As someone who followed that path, Frenda could glean some information from the small fragments left behind after the explosion.

(So they used a cheap music player with a clock and numerical password and used sparks for the ignition. In the end, cutting a colorful cord wouldn’t be enough. Defusing that would have required programming knowledge too.)

The explosive device was probably a copy of someone else’s. There was no need to ask whose. It looked far too familiar. The unseen villain wanted to frame Frenda, so basing this on one of her past bombings was the best option.

There was a decent technological gap between Academy City and the outside world, but the villain would have had an example to work with. Frenda’s equipment had been taken from her before she woke up on the Shinjuku Station platform, after all.

“In the end, a remote-controlled hopping bomb is a very Academy City sort of toy… I doubt they have those in the outside world yet.”

Conversely, the explosive was just pathetic. It was cheap garbage made from chemical fertilizer. Inside Academy City, there were plenty of explosives that were easier to make, more powerful, and could slip past nitrogen compound sensors. This was definitely something acquired in the outside world.

But this was no laughing matter.

(They would be able to buy as many fancy explosives as they want. But instead they made their own out of everyday substances, which is like leaving a calling card of identifying traces.)

This was a compound made from a commercial chemical fertilizer, not a pure element. No matter how carefully it was processed, the mixing and extraction processes would introduce some impurities. The distribution of those impurities would contain small idiosyncrasies. Ordinarily this would provide dangerous clues to a forensic team, such as where the ingredients used had been purchased, but they had instead left behind their own unseen calling card.

Instead of hiding their crime, they were showing it off to use fear as a weapon. Instead of securing their safety by fleeing the police and judiciary, they would use despair to prevent a proper investigation from being carried out. There was an organization out there that had turned fear and violence into a product.

Be careful, they said.

If you mistake this for an ordinary bombing and continue investigating, even a police officer will end up sleeping with the fishes.

“…”

A compound made from chemical fertilizer.

Frenda Seivelun knew of a group that preferred that method.

She only had secondhand information from the internet since she rarely left Academy City, but the anonymous poster had gone silent afterwards, so the information was probably good. The idiot who carelessly let that one slip likely went through a lot and ultimately had to take on a whole new identity. In fact, the odds were good they had been forced to flee the small island nation of Japan for their own safety.

The enemy was an outside organization.

It was a sophisticated Western-style machine of violence.

“In the end, this was the Mugino Family.”

Between the Lines 1

Their headquarters were in Yokohama.

Alongside Kobe, Yokosuka, and Hakodate, that city had acted as a crucial point of contact during the Bunmei Kaika.

Criminal organizations are ordinarily(?) created as a reaction after social stability is shaken. For example, if the national economy crashes, loan sharks will become widespread. And if food supplies become unstable, black markets will grow more active. In that sense, this too was a major enough event to wind up in the history books.

In other words, the Bunmei Kaika.

The end of isolationism in Japan.

The process wasn’t all bright and cheerful. Westernization alone was praised and Japanese traditions were sold off for a pittance. While Western culture was welcomed on the technological front, it was also a time of confusion when people mentally armed themselves with the ideas of traditional Japanese masculinity and femininity. And so an organization inevitably arose to accept the people’s frustrations and complaints.

For this reason, the Mugino Family isn’t a purely criminal organization.

They simply used the Bunmei Kaika as an opportunity to greedily absorb every last part of Western culture. And it just so happened that included a system of violence that crossed the sea to reach Japan.

So they do not place a sign out front. No matter how much power they accumulate, they keep themselves hidden below the surface. The Mugino Family is a grain production corporation that controls the stomachs of 1.4 billion people worldwide, but their name will not be found on any list of corporate executives.

Loath to fight anyone directly, they prefer to camouflage themselves among the people.

They are a corporation.

Violence is just one of their many negotiation tools and they make an appearance in many other territories and classes. Do not forget that, no matter what anyone says about them, the Mugino Family protects the livelihoods and smiles of 1.4 billion people.

The Mugino Family does not go out of their way to break the law. It is more accurate to say they do not even consider the law. If the law falls within the bounds of their inviolable rules, they will obey it. But if it conflicts with those rules, they will break it without a second thought. That is why the Mugino Family is willing to kill, but also sends vast quantities of food overseas to feed starving children.

Thus, if you focus only on the violent parts, you will fail to grasp the full picture of the Mugino Family.

Two terms must not be forgotten when discussing that large scale system of violence: the Bloodline and the Management.

The Bloodline were those who directly inherited the Mugino name. They generally played no part in the criminal activity.

Loan sharks, the sex industry, gambling, threats, violence, kidnappings, and killing.

These activities were handled by the Management…that is, the butlers and maids who were not blood relatives.

The influence of a particular member of the Bloodline within the Mugino Family was determined by how many of the powerful and profitable Management they had in their service. This superseded the usual family hierarchy that placed the eldest daughter or son at the top.

It was a lot like a game of shogi. They all gathered together and tried to take the game pieces from each other. And in rare cases, a foolish Bloodline member would get so fixated on that game they allowed themselves to be killed in their sleep.

The Bloodline who directly carried the Mugino blood in their veins numbered only a few dozen.

The Management’s numbers were estimated to be in the hundreds or even thousands.

Including those overseas, their total number of soldiers easily surpassed 100 thousand.

So the seemingly simple concept of the Mugino Family in fact contained countless plans and interests, and even different moral viewpoints, so they could not be seen as a monolith. The Bloodline members who had the legitimate right to inherit the family were always struggling over the trump cards that were the Management and that often manifested itself as physical violence.

The Mugino Family was suspect, but it wasn’t clear if the attack on Frenda was the will of the entire family or if some individual member of the Bloodline or Management had gone rogue or even betrayed the family.

“In the end, the Mugino Family has bared its fangs against me.”

She had to investigate this.

Obtaining an accurate view of your enemy was the most basic step for anyone who fought on the dark side.

“But who in the family is actually calling the shots here?”

Chapter 2: Southward

Part 1

During the morning, an elderly man in a fancy Italian suit entered a florist in Yokohama Station.

“Hello, hello, miss. I was hoping to make a bouquet from a few seasonal flowers, but I unfortunately don’t know much about these things. Could you tell me what’s in season and give me some recommendations?”

“Umm. It’s fall now, so that would be the golden lace, the gentian, the balsam, and…the chrysanthemum maybe?”

“A white chrysanthemum! Excellent. And what was that in the language of flowers again? Eternal love? A final parting? Well, it doesn’t matter. Now, could you pick out a few different flowers and make a bouquet for me? And, y’know, arrange the colors so it looks nice and pretty.”

Since the young woman in an apron couldn’t recommend the more expensive and famous flowers off the top of her head suggested she was a part-timer and not a permanent employee. She built the bouquet in the laborious way of someone without much practice, but the old man watched her with a smile. More than a man watching his daughter, he looked like a man watching his granddaughter.

“It’s ready.”

“Thank you. Yes, now this is a bouquet that cheers you up at the mere sight of it. I’m glad I chose this shop.”

He paid her a generous tip and said goodbye.

After leaving the florist, two butlers in tuxedos joined him at his sides.

Their destination wasn’t far.

They left the large train station. While bringing the bouquet up to his face to enjoy the scent of the flowers, more people joined him. The number of butlers and maids in black only continued to grow. Before long, the group had reached the double digits.

They arrived at a perfectly ordinary looking multi-tenant building.

However, the first floor was not occupied by a convenience store or a cafe. It was covered by thick metal shutters. All the slots on the building directory next to the glass door were empty. The entire building was a hunk of concrete that gave off a slight sense of rejection that would make the average person think twice before opening the door and stepping in.

One of the butlers opened the glass door and the elderly man stepped in with the bouquet resting on his shoulder.

All the effort taken to make the exterior look inconspicuous was ruined by their presence.

They entered the first floor on the other side of the metal shutter.

The elderly man used a twist of his wrist to twirl the bouquet around from his shoulder.

“Any word on the stolen land deed?”

“We have found it.”

“Account books showing debt, scandalous photos, copied licenses – I don’t care what. Just retrieve anything and everything that could be used to threaten us.”

“The process is already underway.”

“That just leaves the cleanup.”

The place reeked of dirt.

A large panel had been removed from the floor, exposing the foundation of the base isolation system and the dark soil. And something was planted in orderly lines like heads of cabbage.

Except these were heads of humans.

They were still alive. Arranged 4 x 5, there were 20 in all. Each was a large man with the dangerous kind of look that would get most anyone to steer clear if they ran into them on the streets at night. They were buried alive and upright.

“You would be the alumni of a certain university’s unofficial loan shark club, correct? After all the trouble you caused, I was shocked to find it was only a hobby for you.”

He didn’t let them yell in anger.

Now was not the time to make them scream.

Those young men who had howled that life was good were now all sweating bullets and trembling. They didn’t dare speak a word even as rats and earwigs nibbled at their cheeks and earlobes.

“They were all from a country locked in civil war.”

The elderly man holding the bouquet sounded exasperated as he looked down at them from the edge.

“That old man discovered some people who had never done a single thing wrong in their lives but just so happened to belong to an ethnic minority their country decided were all political criminals and had to be purged. They were fortunate enough to escape to Japan, but then their visas expired. Sheltering them in his small workshop was nothing but a risk – it could even have gotten him arrested along with them. But if these people were deported back to their home country, a stamp on their paperwork would mark them for death. He felt sorry for them, so he took them in and hired them. …And then you came along and threatened him and threatened him and threatened him, taking everything he had, and even played at being land sharks to steal away the factory along with the land it sat on. Do I have that right?”

All of the buried men could imagine how this would end.

They probably wouldn’t do anything. They would only close up the panel and leave.

…The men could cry and shout, but in three or four days, they would either have shriveled away unknown to the world, or the mice and bugs would have eaten through all the soft bits to empty out their skulls while they still lived.

And finally…

Against his better judgment, one of the victims broke.

“Wh-what, you think you’re a good person just because you saved some weak old man? Playing at being a hero d-doesn’t change the fact that you’re as much a criminal as we are!!”

“I don’t recall ever referring to myself that way. We are certainly not on the side of good. And we don’t help the weak and suffering for nothing in return.”

“Oh,” said a butler.

Because the bouquet man had snatched a metal box about the side of a tissue box from a bodyguard.

When he rotated it like a butterfly knife, the metal box transformed into a T-shaped submachine gun.

“All I’m trying to do is save the people who do the things I can’t. As penance for being less of a man than them.”

Bang, ba-bang!!

After a few dry gunshots, the rat-and-earwig-chewed men’s heads all popped in bursts of red.

The young butler by the old man’s side held a hand to his forehead.

But not because he was horrified by the death occurring before his eyes.

“Master!! You should leave this dirty work to us. The Bloodline knew nothing because we made sure of it for their protection!!”

“Sorry, sorry. And you can call me ‘mastermind’ or ‘ringleader’. That’s more fitting for a villain.”

After casually apologizing, the Italian suit man handed the submachine gun back to the butler.

“Hm, a Russian special ops weapon? That’s too fancy, don’t you think? Gangsters like us should be slinging around Chicago Typewriters.”

“In this day and age, no one would even refer to that heavy, bulky antique as a submachine gun.”

The elderly man glanced over at the bouquet.

Then he dropped his gaze to the garden of shattered and burst red.

“I bought it to leave at their grave, but it’s honestly wasted on them.”

“You are most correct. We can use it to decorate one of the mansion’s vases.”

The elderly man departed the multi-tenant building with the butlers and maids seeing him off.

Once they had cleaned everything up, no trace would remain.

“The factory owner said he would do anything, right?”

“Yes. He cried and begged to one of the butlers like me, saying he would do anything for his family, his employees, and those youths.”

“Then tell him he isn’t allowed to live anything but a happy life from now on. Listen, that’s a man who single-handedly surpassed me, head of the Mugino Family. He needs to be proud of his decision. I won’t let him live a miserable life or die a miserable death.”

“I will make sure of it.”

“Finding youths from a country trapped in civil war and sheltering them before anyone else can, huh? I couldn’t have lost more thoroughly. Ah hah hah! To think there was a glorious fool out there who could act before I could.”

They were the Mugino Family.

Theirs was not an organization that would let a mere 10 or 20 corpses bother them.

Part 2

There had been an explosion in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

That upped the priority level for the police.

A bomber had escaped from Academy City. The bomber was no longer a “maybe”. They were a real threat. Politics and economics were no longer enough for the police to just sit by and watch because of Academy City’s extraterritoriality.

Sobasaka Michio was raring to go.

He was a police officer.

This was the perfect chance to actually investigate Academy City who claimed to extraterritoriality despite being located right inside Tokyo. If this bomber could be used as a reason to demand an investigation, he might just be able to expose the many suspicions whispered about that city. If he let this opportunity pass him by, he would never get a better one. Plus, he couldn’t let this bomber get away with harming his city.

(So I finally have the foothold I need to go after Academy City.)

He didn’t like that this chance had fallen in his lap instead of being something he had accomplished on his own, but he wasn’t about to let it go because of that.

As a child, Sobasaka Michio had been friends with a boy.

Everyone had called that boy Hiyamugi.

His family name had been one of the most common in the country, but he had always been hanging out with Sobasaka. They had been close friends.

When they had moved from elementary school to middle school, Hiyamugi had gone to Academy City.

He had smiled and said he would grow up to be an esper police officer.

And that the two of them could solve all the hardest cases together.

“…”

He had gone to Academy City and never returned.

Sobasaka didn’t even know if he was alive or dead, but he did know Hiyamugi hadn’t safely “graduated”. He had heard rumors that Hiyamugi had been a clinical trial subject in some kind of strange research experiment, but rumors were only rumors. He hadn’t found any shred of the truth.

Only Sobasaka remained.

Only he had grown up, become a police detective, and been left all alone in the world they had dreamed of.

(I’m not letting them wriggle out of it. And it isn’t just Hiyamugi. I’m going to dig up all of Academy City’s darkest secrets and expose them to the world.)

But the voice coming from his phone was heartless.

He had succumbed to a bad habit of Japanese adults. He immediately wished he hadn’t answered the call.

“Come back immediately, Sobasaka.”

“Why, Chief!? I’m gathering witness reports of a blonde girl who sounds like who we’re looking for. Admittedly, her hat, poncho, and blonde hair stand out so much I’m having trouble getting a likeness drawn, but still! She was apparently going around asking people which train would take her to Yokohama. If she doesn’t know the city, she probably used either the subway or the slow train, so it’s not too late to give pursuit!!”

“And where is that train headed?”

Sobasaka’s voice caught in his throat.

It couldn’t be…

“It crossed the prefectural border and entered Kanagawa. That means it falls under a different department’s jurisdiction. We protect Tokyo, so this is no longer our job.”

“You can’t be serious… That just means we have to request support from their prefectural police.”

“We’re talking about a bomber. This will be a major incident if it gets designated a wide-area case and a joint investigation HQ is established. You can’t act on your own.”

Time froze.

The police were supposed to fight to protect the law, yet he was being hindered by the law.

His new partner watched on nervously as Sobasaka yelled with all his might.

Part 3

“Yum, yum☆”

Frenda Seivelun pulled a Chinese steamed bun from the bag she held in front of her chest and chowed down. With a big smile. The super sweet autumn product was apparently a sweet potato steamed bun.

She was in Yokohama, Kanagawa. Specifically, in its Chinatown.

The Mugino Family was definitely involved in this incident, but Frenda wasn’t about to take on an international organization of more than 100 thousand.

Who was calling the shots and how?

She needed concrete facts, not a general idea of a colossal organization. She needed to know who in that black box had attacked her. Once she knew that, this would be a battle against an individual. She didn’t need to battle hundreds of thousands of people.

(If the Mugino Family operates based on profits and losses, they should quickly withdraw after learning that taking me on will only hurt them. And whoever in the Bloodline or Management is behind this, once the losses grow, they’ll be isolated!)

Frenda’s objective was to locate the villain, but now that was about more than just proving her innocence.

She wasn’t going to say that truck driver had been a wholly good person. But as his victim, Frenda was the only one who could grant him forgiveness. The villain had stolen that right from her by killing him. Without even asking first.

Frenda recalled the family photo by the driver’s seat.

Killing an ordinary person came with a price. Whoever this villain was, she was going to make sure they paid up.

She wasn’t going to let this end with some nonsense about the case being in a big, troublesome black box that prevented her from finding out who in the Mugino Family had carried out that attack.

She would identify the individual.

“…”

That’s why she had come to Yokohama.

The Mugino Family mansion was located in this city’s prime real estate

(Now, if I’m really going to take on the Mugino Family, I guess I’ll need a base. In the end, the police and the underground organizations do the same thing. To prevent runaways, they’ll have a network keeping an eye on the hotels and internet cafes, so I’ll need a place their searches won’t pick up on.)

“I guess it’ll have to be a sketchy room someone’s renting out without following any of the legal requirements. Or I could take it a step further.”

From the roadside stalls to the fancy bars and restaurants, the quality and size of establishments varied. A cheap Chinese restaurant not much better than the set meal restaurant must have had its TV on with the volume cranked up because even outside Frenda could hear the famous sunglass-wearing host showering the guest with all sorts of questions.

It was that time already.

At midday, when the sun was directly overhead, a bored thug had decided to skip work and instead give an unhoused man a light beating, so Frenda consumed her second limited-edition autumn product (a potato and butter steamed bun) with a smile while she kicked the thug in the shin hard enough to break the thick bone. Everyone on the dark side placed the line between professional and amateur at a different place, but Frenda saw anyone who intentionally broke the law as being on her side of the line. Really, he should thank her for not breaking his knee.

(First, I keep him from moving very fast by breaking his support leg which he can’t guard with his hands. In the end, this is all stuff Mugino taught me. …And now all of that is going to be directed at me. That’s a scary thought.)

The thug screamed and began crawling away, but Frenda didn’t bother even watching him go.

The unhoused man looked up at her from where he sat on the side of the street.

“Y-you saved me. But will you be alright? You may have gotten yourself into trouble on my behalf.”

“In the end, you can tell I’m not just some volunteer, right?”

“Yeah, I can. Still, you saved me. Thank you. But you’re a weird girl. I’m sure you have your reasons, but not many young girls would want to spend the night in a cardboard box on the roadside.”

Part 4

Unlike the police, there was nothing to stop villains. So Item used some bits and pieces of witness information to make their way to Yokohama.

Classical music drifted gently around them.

And this was a live performance, not a recording.

The city of Yokohama had many different faces: the harbor, the Chinatown, the small electronics district full of computer shops, and more.

Mugino, Takitsubo, and Kinuhata were holding a strategy meeting on the top floor of a luxury hotel on the waterfront. That top floor was a five-star French restaurant with reservations booked out two years in advance. Their power inside Academy City didn’t apply out here, but that didn’t matter to them.

This time, they were using a different sort of power.

Mugino didn’t like how conspicuous the fancy restaurant was, but…

“This always happens when I let Mujinayama arrange things… A harbor warehouse or the back of a small general store is good enough for a villain’s hideout if you ask me.”

“Super unlike normal, we can’t kill anyone out here. Well, anyone other than Frenda-san, since she’s our target.”

“And?”

“I think that Mujinayama-san person was being considerate. This way we super won’t get into any trouble with any fellow guests at a cheap hotel where the rooms are only separated by plywood.”

“Mh,” groaned Mugino, falling silent.

Of course, the old butler wasn’t worried about the possibility of Mugino getting hurt. He was worried about her carelessly murdering the reckless fool.

The rich tended to get around in a chauffeured car instead of using the train and would eat in fancy restaurants with dress codes instead of cheap restaurants. This was so they could avoid any trouble with who they considered “undesirables”, such as false molestation claims from the kind of woman they wouldn’t have touched if someone paid them or drunks who they really wished would hurry up and find a police holding cell where they could get something to eat. …Although Mugino personally thought of the truly deviant perverts as being part of the upper classes.

When Kinuhata saw the plate placed in front of her, she recoiled and frowned as she viewed the food from multiple angles. It was three-dimensional. The plate was covered by something more delicate than a coral reef.

“Super how are you supposed to eat this?”

“What, have you never eaten a sandwich before?”

Mugino grabbed hers in a hand and began eating like it was normal.

The crunching sounds suggested the delicate thing was made of fried pasta. All the dishes made with plenty of seafood and autumn truffles had to be weeping.

“The Earl of Sandwich was British, so super what is this doing at a French restaurant? It’s so confusing.”

“Kinuhata, they have pasta and curry rice in France, you know? That isn’t want matters. It just has to taste good.”

It was midday.

Several checkpoints had been set up in Shinjuku, Tokyo, due to the runaway and the bombing, but everything was peaceful once they crossed the prefectural border. However, that wouldn’t last if the police established a joint investigation headquarters.

They didn’t have much time.

What would Frenda Seivelun do next?

Takitsubo, who was still wearing her track suit in the fancy French restaurant, got the discussion started.

“I’m curious why Frenda came to Yokohama.”

“If she wanted to flee the country, Narita or Haneda would be too obvious and she’d get caught right away. So maybe she chose Yokohama so she could board a cargo ship and take a leisurely sea voyage.”

“If she is doing that, then she’ll have to rely on them.”

Takitsubo poked at the sandwich on her plate and licked a lobster-like orange sauce off her finger before clarifying who she meant.

“The Mugino Family.”

“…”

Mugino Shizuri fell silent again.

It was their power that let Item use this five-star restaurant on the top floor of a luxury hotel without a reservation. If Mugino hadn’t used the sommelier to relay a message preventing it, the chef would likely have come to greet them with his tall hat in his hands. They didn’t need that while discussing an illegal job.

Kinuhata hesitantly picked up her sandwich with both hands and spoke up.

“The Mugino Family, huh? They’re a system of violence in the outside world, right? And are they super really your family, Mugino?”

“Well, I will probably end up inheriting the whole damn thing eventually. Even if some of the Bloodline will be upset that grandfather skipped my parent’s generation and chose me.”

“That’s how strong a connection Mugino has to the Family,” said expressionless Takitsubo. “I doubt Frenda would flee to Yokohama when she knows Item is after her. Even if she built up funds and made her preparations in secret, Mugino would know about it all. Even if she is planning to escape by sea, there are plenty of other port towns.”

And if that wasn’t what she planned, Yokohama was a very inconvenient city for escaping from Mugino Shizuri. It was like Frenda had gone out of her way to stick her head into the center of her pursuer’s information network.

In fact…

“This talk of the Mugino Family seems super important to me. It’s like she can’t be friends with them, but she still has business with them. And if that’s the case, this smells really bad to me.”

“…”

Part 5

it was another sunny day in Academy City.

Although the direct sunlight was a little too hot for autumn.

There were rumors the weather conditions were artificially altered around major events, but the truth was unclear.

At a District 13 elementary school, the usual schedule had been changed and everyone was out in the schoolyard. The boys and girls were all wearing their short-sleeve gym clothes. Fremea really wished she could wear shorts like the boys, but for some reason the girls here wore athletic bloomers.

This was all because it was September.

The Daihaseisai was coming up. Simply put, it was a massive athletic festival involving all of Academy City’s schools.

This was the time of year for the fast runners to reign supreme.

For first graders, it was such a major event it felt like a war.

“We’ve gotta win 1st place! C’mon, Azumi, show some spirit in today’s practice! In the first place, we need to beat all the other schools and stand on the winner’s podium!”

“Fremea-chan, i-isn’t our school being split up for the Daihaseisai? Like different classes will be on different colored teams?”

Her friend, a glasses girl, tilted her head, but the fired-up 7-year-old in athletic bloomers wasn’t listening.

“If it’s a competition, I won’t hold back even if we are from the same school! You’re my rival too, Azumi!!”

“Ehh? I don’t want to compete against you.”

A female teacher formed a megaphone from her hands and yelled over.

“Okay, everyone, we’ll start today by learning the basics of the penguin flap-flap dance!”

“?”

“It can be hard to follow alone while watching the video, but once you learn the footwork, you won’t trip! So we can save the arm movements for later. Okay, everyone, I’m going to play the example video, so focus on the screen!”

“In the first place, how do they decide who wins this?”

“Everyone gets 1st place.”

Part 6

Frenda Seivelun was led to an enormous park.

According to the unhoused man…

“My home is here and the bathroom and sinks are over there. Also, make sure to have two exits in mind at all times just in case. If anything happens, I’ll try to let you escape first, but I can’t guarantee that’ll work.”

“In the end, that’ll be fine.”

She found a brand new home. So this was a Japanese cardboard box house. Unlike a child’s game, it had a lot of small tricks used to ensure there were no gaps.

“Will you want to use this?”

“In the end, what is it?”

“I feel bad this is all I have, but I just thought a young kid like you wouldn’t be able to relax without access to information.”

He held out a palm-sized device with wired earphones. It looked like a music player…but was apparently a handheld radio. It couldn’t record and it apparently could only get AM broadcasts. In Academy City, not even the old men who loved horse racing used these. It had probably been sold at a deep discount at an electronics store, but it still couldn’t have been easy for an unhoused man to get.

She honestly appreciated it.

…Especially when she was being pursued by the police, Academy City, and the Mugino Family.

“Lend me one ear.”

Inside the cardboard box house, the man shared the wired earphones with her and she listened to the staticky radio broadcast. And as she pressed the button to change the frequency…

“It’s finally time! The next three hours will be hosted by a celebrity couple who’ve been together for 8 years now.”

“We have new information on the explosion in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The police have announced that it may have been an attack rather than an accident.”

“If you call within half an hour of this broadcast, we’ll give you an even better price!”

One of the stations had some interesting information (not the sales program selling a down bedding set), but the man was listening as well. Frenda feigned disinterest and continued tuning and finally settled on a music program.

The man looked a little surprised.

“I would have thought you preferred Western music.”

“Isn’t that a little broad of a category to count as a single genre?”

Couldn’t he at least narrow it down to a single country?

They listened to some music by the male idol Hitotsui Hajime for a while, but then someone called the man over. Apparently a friend.

Frenda heard a heavy noise like a concrete block being dragged. Was that a small shichirin grill they had set up on the tile ground? That said, they didn’t seem to be using the fancy bincho-tan charcoal. They apparently used burnable trash for fuel.

Frenda spoke to the second man. While wondering if she would ever be forced to give a name for herself.

“In the end, is that fish?”

“This season, everyone thinks about the salmon and tuna, but that means you can get the smaller fish really cheap. Expiration dates are the bane of a fish seller’s existence.”

“Ugh. Once you start naming fish, the craving for mackerel really sets in…”

“?”

That said, she doubted they had dug raw fish out of the garbage. It would go bad too quick on a summer day like this. These men had no money or insurance, so they actually paid close attention to their health. So had they gone out of their way to buy some to commemorate the beginning of Frenda’s unhoused life? Even though every bit of loose change they had would mean so much more than for the average worker?

“I heard you saved Taku-san’s ass. If you weren’t a kid, I’d’ve brought drinks.”

“In the end, I’m going to end up indebted to you like this.”

“Of course! Taku-san isn’t about to stay indebted to some kid. You’re supposed to let the adults look responsible, okay?”

Frenda smiled and chose to accept their kindness.

She appreciated it. Even if it did make them more conspicuous.

Part 7

It wasn’t yet dawn.

“Nhh…”

Frenda sat cross-legged, raised her arms, and stretched her back inside a makeshift tent made from cardboard boxes. Even as she stretched, her hands didn’t reach the ceiling. The cardboard arrangement provided a fair amount of space. That unhoused man was apparently really thankful for what she had done.

Frenda Seivelun was acting as a member of the dark side. She needed to be able to adjust her sleep time and be at her best condition at an hour too early for most people to be awake.

She slipped out of the cardboard box house.

The park had a variety of facilities alongside it, including plenty of unmanned services like drink and bread vending machines, lockers, and a laundry. How was that kind of business handled on public land?

She felt sweaty after sleeping.

“In the end, there’s no one here.”

Frenda peered inside the entrance and found the outside world’s laundromats really did only have a bunch of washing machines lined up. Maybe they thought there wasn’t anything there to steal because the place didn’t even have the bare minimum of security cameras on the ceiling.

It was just past 3AM, so no one else was there.

“Okay.”

Fortunately, she still had some of her emergency cash. Laundry? That was a matter of life-or-death for a girl! (Really.) Frenda stripped off her only change of clothes and tossed each article into the washer. She didn’t even need her underwear right now. After she pressed the button to get the washer spinning, she frowned. She had chosen the more expensive express mode, but the timer said it would be 60 minutes until the washer was done.

(That’s not good… In the end, I won’t even have any underwear until this is done.)

The way she stood naked below the bright fluorescent light and stared blankly at her underwear spinning round and round may have had something to do with only just having woke up.

After a bit, she had a great idea.

She was already naked and there was no sense in wasting time, so she could take a bath while she waited.

During the day, the unhoused men had told her how to make 40-degree bathwater. After heating water up to 100 degrees in a pot using a portable stove, she poured that into a metal bucket and added cold water according to the ratio they had told her. The outside world’s lack of required fire alarms was a wonderful thing.

(Yeah, that’s it… In the end, I need a bath to really wake me up.)

She used a wet towel to wash her body, starting with her right upper arm. She left her underarms and neck for last.

For her head, she had to use up a whole bucket’s worth – 10 liters – of water. She used a single-use shampoo bottle meant for camping. You could get anything at a discount store.

(In the end, doesn’t the average bathtub take 200-300 liters to fill? I’m conserving a ton of water this way.)

And as her mind started to spin up, her capacity for shame slowly recovered.

…

Wait.

What do you mean I have to spend 60 minutes naked?

The girl’s face silently flushed deep red.

“Huh? Wait. In the end, huh???”

Even if I am still drowsy, why did I choose to act like I’m still in one of the luxury apartments we use for hideouts? I’m outside!! And I’m a young girl with perfect skin. Am I attempting an entirely pointless test of courage where I strip naked and get on an empty elevator late at night where I won’t have anywhere to run!?

(Faster, faster, faster, finish faster. In the end, fasterrrr!!)

Each minute and second seemed to drag on.

Finally, the spinning washing machine made a different sound. Now it sounded like a giant hair dryer? It must have entered its drying mode.

Was she going to make it?

No, her sharp survival instincts developed on the dark side were setting off warning signals.

It was faint, but she could hear footsteps.

And the gap between the sounds was wide, suggesting these were the long strides on an adult man.

(Wait, wait, wait, wait!?)

She heard a shrill beep.

The washing and drying were finally complete.

Frenda scrambled to get the washer open and pull out her clothes.

Her bra slipped from her hand and fell to the floor, but she ignored that for now.

As long as she got her miniskirt dress on, she could get through this. That was a simple action she did every single day of her life.

“Ugh!? M-my head and arms…why do they keep catching!?”

Was that because her maiden skin was still damp?

And the more she panicked, the less she was capable of getting her arms through the sleeves. Her head was caught inside the dress. Which of the three holes was she meant to put her hands through? The panic was really setting in now! How could she have gotten lost in her favorite miniskirt dress? She felt like a kitten with its head caught in a tissue box!

And the unhoused man who she had (calculatingly) rescued yesterday poked his head in the entrance.

Looking puzzled.

“Oh, what are you doing up this early?”

“Eek!? Ah ha ha☆ In the end, it’s nothing. Whew, barely made it…”

“?”

At the very, very last second, she draped just the thin poncho over herself, grabbed the other clothing in her hands and held it in front of herself to cover everything. Still blushing bright (and looking something like a teru teru bouzu or like her sister when changing into her school swimsuit), Frenda tried to laugh it off. Even if she had given up on putting on her miniskirt dress which kept catching on her wet skin and even if her striped panties were caught around her right ankle.

Part 8

The waterfront.

At 4:30 in the morning, the sea had a blade-like chill to it. Maybe because it was a mixture of the deadly night sea and the summer sea that made people change into swimsuits.

When really attacking someone under the cover of darkness, you would avoid the middle of the night.

It was best to attack at a time linked to biological functions, like dawn when people’s sleepiness was at its maximum or around mealtime.

Frenda could not walk straight to her destination.

There were surveillance cameras everywhere long before reaching that destination. For some reason, the home security cameras were pointed at the road, not at their front door or garage door. Since those weren’t public security cameras, that was classified as setting up a hidden camera. Frenda slipped past more and more of the defense network that was layered like the rings on a stump.

When it came to pure technology, Frenda’s life in Academy City gave her the upper hand.

After easily clearing that obstacle, she climbed to an emergency stairs landing attached to a nearby multi-tenant building wall.

She observed the building she was interested in from the safety of a blind spot in the cameras.

The Mugino Family.

That was their mansion. Of course, it was technically owned by a shell company.

“Nhh…”

Frenda placed her hands on the metal pole vertically connecting levels of the emergency stairs.

She tangled her legs around it and squeezed with the back of her knees to spin around it. The mansion showed no sign of noticing her upside-down pole dancing, confirming this really was a blind spot.

“Oops.”

Holding her hat in place with a hand, she continued observing while upside down.

That prime coastal real estate had to cost more per square centimeter than platinum, but the front yard contained inside a tall fence looked large enough for an official soccer match. The mansion actually looked odd to a foreigner like Frenda. As a product of the Meiji and Taisho eras, its design was a mixture of Japanese and Western. It didn’t even obey the standard of symmetry and it was split into several buildings which were linked by walkways, creating something like a giant maze.

But that aside, there was something wrong with someone’s house being bigger than a school.

It was three floors tall…or four, or maybe even more? The heights of the different rooms must have differed because she had trouble working out the number of floors by counting the windows.

(Ugh, isn’t the waterfront full of reclaimed land? In the end, keeping a mansion this old would mean constantly refusing to cooperate with national-level urban development projects.)

And that may even go beyond the one country. Why had that house alone been spared the bombings during the war? That showed tremendous power, but it was even scarier that no one ever talked about it.

Yokohama had been as involved in opening up the country as Hakodate and Kobe. A Western mansion brimming with foreignness wasn’t all that out of place here, but it still felt wrong for the big boss of an illegal criminal organization to be living out in the open here. They could brazenly break the law without getting arrested. They didn’t run or hide. Because they didn’t need to. It really emphasized their power as a criminal organization.

The patrolling guards in black were well trained.

It was 4:30 in the morning.

Nothing would have happened yesterday or the day before that, yet they didn’t even yawn during this early hour.

(If I charged in through the front gate, I’d end up riddled with bullets. And climbing over isn’t a great idea either. But with the entrance that strictly guarded, the people who go in and out will have invented a secret back entrance to bypass the annoying process.)

“There it is. They’re hiding it with a green shrubbery, but there’s a square hole open in the thick wall.”

But why would the mansion’s troops want to leave and return on their own like that? Was there a supermarket or discount store nearby?

It looked like Frenda wouldn’t have to traverse the smelly sewers to get in.

And now it was time to act.

Flipping upright from her upside-down pole dancing, she set her feet on the emergency stairs landing and silently but swiftly descended to the ground.

She followed a route that avoided the surveillance cameras to approach the Mugino Family’s tall wall, parted the green shrubbery, and slipped through the square hole.

It didn’t matter how many guards they had posted when she could use a blind spot like this.

She was finally inside.

And she sensed a gaze.

Like a sharp pressure.

This was still the large front yard. Frenda hadn’t even set foot inside the maze-like mansion.

This person hadn’t been here when she investigated just a bit ago.

Had a guard just so happened to walk by, or had they predicted where Frenda would be spy on them from and hidden in a blind spot?

“In the end, did you lure me in?”

“This trap would only work on a pro. You can pat yourself on the back for that, Frenda Seivelun.”

Frenda found herself facing a maid in a long skirt.

But that long skirt had a large slit on either side. And it looked unnaturally heavy. The maid reached inside one slit and pulled out a wine bottle full of gasoline, detergent, etc. And the empty bottle used for this was from one of the finest French wines.

“Does that mean, um, in the end…”

“If I am being honest, I do not think pole dancing in a miniskirt is the best idea. Let’s just say you showed your stripes with that one.”

She had seen it all.

And being told that directly and with such seriousness was really awkward.

The maid began to move. She used the kind of old match that could be struck on the sole of a boot to light the English-language newspaper shoved into the mouth of the Molotov cocktail.

Was her weapon so powerful she couldn’t actually fight inside the mansion?

Frenda glared back at the busty maid who looked to be about the age of a high school upperclassman and smiled a little.

“I see the Mugino Family has Western tastes in all things. Is a Molotov cocktail maid their idea of hot?”

A Molotov cocktail was fire plus a flammable substance.

And this maid had been waiting here after predicting what Frenda would do.

Frenda noticed an electronic device that didn’t fit the classic maid look.

“In the end, is that a music player?”

“The Chinese ones are nice. They’re cheap and you can easily buy them in bulk. I’m not interested in sound quality or ease of use. The best part is how easy they are to dismantle and repurpose.”

It sounded like this was an explosives expert on the Mugino Family payroll.

That meant she was the one who had used the pressures of that truck driver’s personal life to lure him onto the path of evil and then killed him with a remote-controlled hopping bomb once he became an inconvenience.

The air electrified.

Frenda Seivelun spat out a growling voice.

“You piece of shit. In the end, the title of bomber is too good for you.”

“Writhe in pain and carbonize, villain. This sticky flame cannot be put out by a fire extinguisher.”

This left Frenda with only one option.

The fire on the English-language newspaper vanished.

“Wha-!?”

The maid’s expression changed.

There were several methods of making Molotov cocktails, but those that used fire for ignition were not a threat when thrown if that fire had gone out.

And every part of the world had long had methods of extinguishing candles from a distance. It was a standard illusionist’s trick and a classic way for bogus religions to fake miracles.

Frenda had to make the most of her opponent’s brief stiffening in shock.

And so she had already begun a sharp run.

Forward.

Toward the maid.

“Was it an issue of moisture or humidity? Or did I cut off the oxygen supply with a colorless gas? In the end, did you really think I was going to reveal the trick to you, you spoiled thing? Bomb experts are also experts at securing a safe location and time to act on the battlefield!!”

“Kh.”

“You looked into my identity before laying this trap for me, right? Ha ha. Are you just stupid? In the end, challenging me in my own field is suicide!”

Frenda’s shout was immediately followed by an explosion.

But Frenda hadn’t done this.

It was something else.

Had that expert bomber been caught unawares in her own field?

Her eyes widened in surprise as she just barely managed to jump outside the lethal range.

To be fair, she couldn’t be blamed for not expecting this.

This wasn’t a hidden bomb, a grenade, a shoulder-fired rocket, or any other toy used by guerrillas and criminal organizations. It had sliced through the dark sky, slipped through the valley between skyscrapers, and flown accurately toward her.

In other words…

“A cruise missile? In the end, did they attack me from the ocean!?”

Part 9

She felt the tremor while taking a hot shower.

Mugino Shizuri left the bathroom which was so large it was actually kind of annoying to use and wrapped herself in a white bed sheet without drying her hair. Then she moved in front of the window made by covering an entire wall with thick glass.

“They’re making a scene again…”

She muttered irritably to herself while looking down from the suite of a luxury hotel with connections to an illicit organization and viewed the commotion in the world below.

That wasn’t Frenda.

…The blonde girl hadn’t seen the launch point and imagined it was an old-style submarine, but that wasn’t accurate. That was an ALCM. In other words, it had been released by a 50m strategic bomber and launched toward a point on the ground. With deadly precision.

It had a range of 2500km. More than flying across Chiba to arrive from the Pacific Ocean, this tactical weapon could hit its target when launched from Hokkaido or Okinawa.

Only the Mugino Family could pull off that kind of absurdity.

Takitsubo silently approached from behind Mugino and tilted her head while drying her hair with a hairdryer.

“That wasn’t Frenda, right? Can the Mugino Family really get away with that?”

“They’re threatening every last one of the major communications and security companies, so there won’t be digital records from security cameras or anything else. Even if a million people saw it, it’ll be written off as ‘the vague accounts of panicked witnesses’. A good lawyer can use the term ‘mass hysteria’ to discredit it all. Without any material evidence like video footage, it’s easy to weasel out of these things. Just get rid of all the security camera footage that could make decent evidence and all that’s left are grainy phone videos that could easily have been faked.”

But the Mugino Family’s reaction here did bother Mugino.

They could get away with this in Yokohama. But only so many times. How many trump cards built up over many long years had they used up here?

A reaction of this level made it look like they knew in advance just how much of a threat Frenda Seivelun was.

(Is this just a case of Frenda attacking them, or has the Mugino Family done something bad enough to warrant this kind of overreaction?)

“So does this mean Frenda really did come to Yokohama for the Mugino Family?” asked Takitsubo.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Part 10

“Volcano to Typhoon. Don’t worry about aiming too carefully – just keep on bombing. As long as you cut off her escape, I can finish her off with a Molotov cocktail!”

“Damn!!”

Frenda bristled when she heard the Molotov cocktail maid speaking to someone somewhere.

That cruise missile wouldn’t be the last.

If you had an effective means of attack, you could just keep on repeating it. As big as the grounds were, they were still shooting missiles into their own territory, so their aim had to be accurate.

A second and more were coming.

But the aerodynamic tactical weapons did not blast Frenda to pieces.

“But in the end, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Are you sure you have time left to chat?”

“Oh, I’m sure. Because you’re the one about to be blown up by a Mugino brand missile.”

“?”

“You wouldn’t be firing on a map coordinate when your target is a person who can move around. That means the terminal guidance must use something else to track me, but it can’t be a laser or GPS. Is it the Molotov cocktail? An unhealthy gasoline-based cocktail wouldn’t produce a smoke quite so black.”

“You’ve already figured it out?”

“Naphthalene. Marking a bombing target with a smoke bomb is as standard as it gets, but I bet you got a little creative and didn’t just use the color. Is it tracking traces of a chemical compound? In other words, using taste or smell? But are you sure that’s a good idea? In the end, naphthalene isn’t just used to make black smoke. It’s a common chemical compound used to make insecticides and plastics.”

“Tch!!”

“I’m from Academy City’s dark side. You really think I’m going to be fooled by a magic trick based on scientific knowledge!? Hwa ha ha. I can control the direction of the wind. You might think you’re secretly producing an invisible chemical compound, but in the end, you’re the one coated in it, you fool!!”

Something exploded.

As if lightning had struck nearby.

A large tree in the front yard split down the middle and burst into flames as each half fell in opposite directions.

It hadn’t directly hit Frenda or the Molotov cocktail maid, but this still proved that the program-guided missile had missed its target.

It could hit either of them next time.

Frenda took action before the maid could recover from her fear of that.

Of course, surviving a few rounds of this wasn’t enough to relax.

More cruise missiles would be coming. If she didn’t escape to safety, she would be slaughtered.

Which meant…

(In the end, that’s enough of getting right up in that dangerous maid’s face to punish her! I need to get inside the mansion ASAP!! They won’t want to blow up their own house!!)

“Ooh, what have we here?☆”

Frenda voiced her joy as she grabbed a 9mm handgun. In the chaos of the exploding cruise missiles, one of the Mugino Family’s guards must have dropped it.

She heard the rumbling of an engine.

(That’s a fancy V12, but the engine is roaring at having to carry around the thick and heavy bulletproof plating. No ordinary car sounds like that. In the end, this is that villain’s car I heard about in Chinatown during the day!!)

Maybe it was the psychological idea of the cocktail party effect where people only picked up on the voices they were interested in, but a dark side villain knew how to hear discussions of many different things while walking through peaceful crowds.

Some people were hired with a “quantity over quality” mindset to provide the numbers needed for a job, legal or not.

In other words, the mercenaries who would also hand out fliers or work as movers.

“!”

Frenda aimed the handgun toward the open front gate instead of toward the Mugino Family mansion.

She began firing at the black bulletproof car that belonged to another criminal organization and just so happened to be driving nearby.

No matter who pulled the trigger, this was a Mugino Family gun.

The wicked blonde girl grinned before tossing the gun aside.

“Wah hah hah. Enjoy your gang war☆”

“Oh, damn, get back here!!”

The Molotov cocktail maid paled and frantically shouted at Frenda, but she ducked down when gunfire erupted from a different direction. The shot bulletproof car was returning fire. And at full-auto right off the bat.

A firefight had broken out.

So that wasn’t just an Academy City thing. Damn the Mugino Family.

(Wow. Are they going to claim that’s just a small T-shaped submachine gun? Stock, dot sight, long barrel, and fore grip. With all those modifications, it’s barely any different from an assault rifle. They’ve even modified the mechanism so it can fire 5.56mm rifle rounds.)

Frenda had heard tricks like that were used to skirt the law in the original gun culture of America. Why you would bother in Japan where owning even a single bullet was forbidden, she had no idea.

The rival organization was using their bulletproof car as a shield while firing what looked like an Italian submachine gun. The manufacturer was famous for their handguns, but not many people knew they also made submachine guns.

Frenda used the breakdown of the usual guard system to move from the spacious front yard to the front entrance of the maze-like mansion.

A gunshot burst behind her.

“Kh.”

Running scared, Frenda checked behind her.

While a gun was a projectile weapon, a young butler had rushed out from the front gate and jumped over the barricade to reach the enemy group. He was part of the Management. With even more gunfire, the silhouettes of the enemy group were torn apart.

With that 360-degree barrage, a stray bullet could fly Frenda’s way at any time.

(In the end, what was that? Did he have two shotguns connected by a chain like a nunchaku!? Th-that’s crazy, but scary!! And he took them all out himself!)

An engine roared.

Was that a lance-wielding knight? No.

Another butler rode an enormous motorcycle while wielding an American prototype 12.7mm heavy machinegun that suppressed 60% more recoil than the antiques used nearly a century ago. He was operating the large motorcycle with just the one arm, so he may have swapped the engine out for an automatic.

The caliber was .50.

And this was machinegun .50 caliber, not handgun .50 caliber. The amount of powder was completely different, so firing that thing from the surface would be enough to take down the average attack helicopter.

“Took you long enough, partner! Hah hah! Now, let’s see who can get more kills, Bakyaku!!”

“Ougigumo. Killing is not a game.”

The storm of close-range shotgun fire was joined by 12.7mm hunks of lead capable of tearing through police armored trucks. At this point, the black bulletproof car provided no protection.

One problem with criminal organizations was their lack of any kind of equipment standards like the police or military would have. So it wasn’t unusual to see these suicidal mutations in how they used guns or bombs.

(Apparently the people who survive on the front lines end up developing in weird directions outside of Academy City too, dammit. I really hope I can avoid taking any of them on directly.)

The enemy’s bullets were bad enough on their own, but friendly fire only made it worse. So while the guard system had broken down, Frenda rushed through the wide-open front door to the mansion.

(That won’t last long since they have cruise missiles. In the end, that rival organization will be defeated. I need to finish my ‘research trip’ before that happens.)

“Oops.”

This wasn’t over just because Frenda was inside the building. She heard footsteps.

She ducked behind a suit of Western armor on display in the hall.

She held her breath.

A young butler and maid passed by without noticing her, rushing outside.

“Dammit, Hanagai. She just had to fire those ALCMs. We were saving those. She had better have gotten the Bloodline’s permission.”

“Keeping them around just wastes money on maintenance, so isn’t it best to shoot them when we have the chance?”

(So the Family isn’t a monolith. Does that mean there’s a group that wants to frame me and a group that isn’t interested in me? In the end, I’d hate to take out people who aren’t with the villain and only make more of them hate me.)

Also, apparently that maid outside was named Hanagai. Frenda found Japanese names hard to figure out since they weren’t taken from past kings or saints, but that was probably a family name. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to remember that.

The mansion was split into multiple buildings with walkways connecting them. The place wasn’t even symmetric, so she wouldn’t be surprised to find unnatural stairways and passageways inside. Now, where would the villain hidden among the Mugino Family Bloodline be hiding their secrets?

They wouldn’t want to keep them too far away, but they wouldn’t want to be seen with them either.

They wouldn’t just be worried about outside thieves. They would want to keep the rest of the Family from knowing either.

“Hm.”

(A heavy vault, maybe?)

Frenda chose to rely on her dark side nose here.

A complex and heavy vault wouldn’t be built on the upper floors. Needless to say, it would weigh more than a large truck and break through the floor. That suggested a basement, but they wouldn’t be able to break through the supports and foundation of that giant mansion to dig into the ground wherever they wanted. The entire mansion would collapse if they did.

The location of the electric, gas, and water lines was an issue and all the strange additions had shifted the building’s center of gravity a fair bit.

Given the conditions at play, there were only so many places a giant vault could be located.

Where would she need to place the bombs to bring the structure down? Frenda only had to consider the opposite of that. An expert bomber’s nose could quickly work out the usable locations.

She moved aside a bookcase in a 1st floor study and descended the stairs hidden behind it.

“Found it.”

She discovered a thick door like at a bank vault, but she easily opened it by slowly operating a special drill to open a hole and dissolving the 12 tungsten rods inside using an acid. Buying the industrial version would be pricey, but you could bring the price way down by modifying discount store products. By combining the large motor taken from a juicer with a dial regulator, you could manage a lot just by controlling the rotation rate. Then you only had to modify the head that would be pressed against the steel. The acid? That was an ingredient for a common explosive. Any expert bomber could make it out of everyday household items.

Frenda found a space larger than a school classroom.

Art, gold bars, jewels, weapons, and more. But Frenda wasn’t interested in any of that.

She wanted documents.

Some further locked cabinets were lined up on one side of the vault. She knew the Mugino Family Bloodline had a few dozen members. Was this a locker for each of them?

The locks were like toys compared to the one on the vault door, but Frenda noticed something else.

Her bomber’s nose twitched.

“Acid? In the end, will they dissolve the documents inside if you force the lock?”

With a sigh, Frenda pulled out a cheap screwdriver.

This would be a pain, but she could neutralize it by dismantling it like she was disarming a bomb. The acid was stored in a single tank and distributed to each safe through skinny pipes, so she only had to remove the tank.

“Hm, hm, hmm☆”

She couldn’t tell which cabinet was the one she wanted, so she used leverage to break open each locked door in turn and pulled out the documents inside.

A land deed, a list of names for something, photos of what looked like two people having a secret meeting, a flash drive… She found plenty of sketchy stuff, but she wasn’t interested in any of it.

“Is this it?”

Frenda Seivelun.

She found a document with her own name on it.

(This isn’t a standard format… And in the end, this doesn’t look like a plain report. The text uses some emotional manipulation tricks.)

There were techniques for that.

What might look at first like a colorful bar graph would use warm reds or yellows to color whichever bar they wanted to look larger or a weak point the writer wanted to avoid questions on would be written in a single long paragraph in small text. Neither of those was an actual lie, so they could claim any who mistook its meaning had only themselves to blame.

They would deceive not just their enemies but, if necessary, their allies too. They would feel no shame over it, even under circumstances so serious they would influence their subordinates’ and allies’ lives or futures.

The unseen villain’s personality was visible on the page.

(In the end, this looks like a draft of a project plan meant to make their many accomplices think this is a winnable fight. It’s a good thing this is the version containing the raw data before it was embellished.)

If we stand idly by, we will lose our chance.

We must actively change the Family’s line of succession ourselves.

Mugino Shizuri’s Item provides a few different options, but we will be using Level 0 Frenda Seivelun.

I have no intention of dealing with one of those strange Academy City esper powers. In that sense, the bomber girl will be the easiest to predict.

The Mugino Family is active in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and Yokohama, Kanagawa.

We must not kill that Academy City bomber. It is crucial that she acts of her own volition and disturbs our business.

That way we can hold the position of “victim”.

That will help us force Mugino Shizuri to take responsibility and drop her down the line or succession.

As a Level 0, the bomber will be easy to deal with. If we do lose control of her, we can ignore the casualties and use overwhelming numbers to kill her.

That warning at the end of the document made Frenda smile bitterly.

True enough.

But they weren’t aware of just how hard it was for a Level 0 to survive on the dark side where no one played fair and strange esper powers abounded. Nor were they aware of just how much creativity Frenda had displayed to accomplish that.

She wasn’t going to complain about them underestimating her.

That was far better than if they had an accurate grasp of the threat.

(But this is suicide. In the end, what is the Mugino Family hoping to accomplish by picking a fight with Academy City? Oh, here’s another document.)

The Mugino Family always weighs the pros and the cons.

In a conflict over succession, obvious accomplishments and contributions will be necessary.

We will reach for Academy City.

An all-out war between the Mugino Family and Academy City would be a crisis for us, but Academy City is still a business. Specifically, a business involving children and their parents.

The children may be safe within the city’s walls, but the parents scattered across the country are a different matter.

We can threaten ordinary people into acting as disposable pawns who will attack those parents while we remain perfectly safe ourselves. As their fear and dissatisfaction grows, the parents will cut their ties to Academy City. And then the city’s education business will collapse.

Or we can merely threaten to do this.

If we can successfully threaten Academy City, we can gain access to all sorts of cutting-edge technology related to esper development. This would in turn bring endless glory to the Mugino Family.

A bloodless victory would be ideal, but we will make demonstrations if we must.

We already have a list of “customers” who have repeatedly fallen for false billing and bank transfer scams. By cutting them off from reliable information and pushing them to the brink, we will be able to remotely control them.

We only need to select one of these disposable assassins.

I leave this task with Hanagai.

The item has already been delivered.

By using a motorcycle courier or something to deliver the imitation bomb to the disposable pawn, we can set up Frenda Seivelun as the culprit and eliminate Shizuri through joint responsibility.

“…”

That wasn’t good.

Frenda’s dark side intuition was ringing the alarm bell.

Having all the information to yourself did not always put you in a superior position.

“Attacking Academy City and dropping Mugino down the line of succession? It’s true you could accomplish both by framing super-cute Frenda-chan, but in the end, does this mean the Mugino Family has a traitor who doesn’t like the current state of their succession race?”

This was an extremely high-risk, high-return plan for the villain.

Knowing about this was reason enough to be killed.

(But I might be able to convince Mugino using this. And breaking free of having Item after me is enough for now!)

She would of course take the original documents with her, but that didn’t feel like enough. Just to be safe, she snapped photos of each page with her phone.

With that simple work complete, Frenda stuffed the documents in her pocket and dashed from the underground vault to the front hall.

“My, my.”

She heard a voice. The graceful voice of a mature adult woman. By the time Frenda realized the danger, she had already emerged and didn’t have time to react. There was no turning back.

“If you had only continue scampering about in the streets and let the police catch you, Academy City would have sent out an assassin to silence you for us. I never imagined you would rush right into the Mugino Family mansion on your own.”

(You don’t sound too concerned about it!! In the end, did they manage to outmaneuver me!?)

She was an attractive woman. Frenda couldn’t say how many anti-aging techniques she was using, but she had the appearance of a woman aged 30 or a little younger. But her perfect beauty seemed thoroughly artificial. This violent queen had her long chestnut hair rolled and wore a storybook dress. Her slender hand toyed with a long, skinny kiseru.

“In the end, I can see the family resemblance. I’d still be surprised to find you’re Mugino’s mom, though.”

“That would be my younger sister. Really, if Eika had only kept her daughter under control, none of this would have happened.”

So this woman and Mugino Shizuri were aunt and niece?

The Mugino Family.

The term “family” there meant something entirely different from the standard nuclear family in Japan. With a criminal organization bound by blood, Frenda couldn’t even begin to speculate on how convoluted their family tree was.

Then an old man in a tuxedo moved forward to cover the lady.

“Sakuya-sama, please stay behind me.”

Mugino Sakuya.

That was the name on the cabinet containing the documents.

Then there was this old butler wearing an old-fashioned tuxedo and monocle.

“Mujinayama. Since Academy City seems incapable of cleaning up their mess, we must play the card of violence ourselves. You can handle the rest.”

“I am a sniper. Close quarters combat is outside my field of expertise.”

“…”

A cold sweat soaked the blonde girl’s back.

Frenda was a bomber, but she could manage other forms of combat.

But that was how she could tell that Mujinayama was bad news. Just standing here in front of him was enough to know she had to avoid fighting him head on.

“Thus, I am not confident I can kill you without inflicting pain and fear upon you. So please forgive me if you do suffer.”

(There’s no way I’m fighting this guy! Is there any other way out!?)

A thick beam flew in.

The wall was destroyed from the outside. Not by breaking or crumbling, but by melting.

Academy City’s #4, Meltdowner.

Flanked by a girl on either side, the girl carrying Mugino Family blood in her veins stepped out onto the front line.

“What do you think you’re doing, old hag?”

That one question changed the mood.

All attention was now on her.

This girl was the reason why Mugino Sakuya had so cautiously built up her plan in the shadows.

And everything in her behavior pointed to her, Mugino Shizuri, being the true heir, no matter how many other members of the Bloodline there were.

Mugino glanced over at the tuxedo and monocle man standing next to Sakuya.

“Mujinayama…”

“I have my reasons. I need not justify siding with Sakuya-sama at this time.”

That was all.

Even her fellow Item members of Takitsubo and Kinuhata may not have caught how much emotion was shared in that short exchange.

To say nothing of the filthy traitor among them.

Mugino Shizuri stared at the violent queen who held the long, skinny kiseru.

And she spoke.

“My grandfather seems lively enough to keep going for another hundred years. Starting a succession war now will just wear you down. And it’s your troops who will die, not you.”

“Oh? Are you sure about that? You never do know what surprises life has in store.”

“In other words, you already know the answer. You know exactly when that old man will unnaturally kick the bucket..”

A thin smile was Sakuya’s only response.

She shrugged off the outrageous accusation.

This was a coup by Mugino Sakuya. It was a civil war in which she made a calculated threat on the current head’s life, disgraced the heir who would follow him, and placed herself at the top of that violent organization of more than 100 thousand.

Of course, this was not enough to prove her murderous intentions.

Frenda knew the gist of the plan, but she hadn’t found any documents planning the family head’s death. In a world where deception was the norm, definitive proof was a must, but she didn’t have any.

And because Sakuya knew all the answers herself, she was willing to turn over the cards that couldn’t pin her down.

“Now, the question is: what am I doing? You can’t prove anything. Even if you go to the head, he won’t listen if all you have is suspicion. But this is a very inconvenient truth for you. So, Shizuri. You have no way of fighting back. What do you plan to do now that you know the truth but are short on evidence?”

“…”

“Clean up this mess, Mujinayama. They are companions of Frenda Seivelun who disturbed Mugino Family business in Tokyo and Kanagawa. That makes them enemies of the Family.”

Chapter 3: A Very Foreign Criminal Organization

Part 1

Mugino Sakuya was clearly up to something.

Mugino Shizuri and Butler Mujinayama were glaring quietly at each other.

However, Frenda Seivelun needed to be keenly aware of the fact that the enemy of your enemy was not necessarily your friend.

Item was a professional criminal team.

Meaning…

(In the end, Item was ordered to execute me, so there’s no guarantee at all they’ll give up on that job just because they feel like it!!)

Sakuya’s betrayal of the Mugino Family and the order given by Academy City were two separate matters.

In fact, one exchanged look with Mugino Shizuri was enough to eliminate any hopeful thoughts Frenda might have had.

Clear up the misunderstanding and regroup with Item?

Presenting Mugino with the conspiracy documents from the vault was no guarantee she wouldn’t just blast Frenda with Meltdowner.

Discussing things with Item would require safely setting things up in advance.

“Kh.”

The stage was nowhere near set for that, so there was no point in hesitating.

There was only one option here.

She couldn’t wait.

While Mugino Shizuri and Butler Mujinayama were clashing at close range, Frenda made a beeline for the exit.

A beam of light flew in.

She couldn’t tell if that had been aimed at Mujinayama in his tuxedo and monocle, or if it had been intentionally aimed at her.

“Eek!!”

Once outside the mansion, she was back in the spacious yard. It was large enough for an official game of soccer, so thoughtlessly cutting across it could easily get her shot to pieces without any cover to hide behind.

Frenda stuck to the building’s wall and circled around back where she found a parking lot.

That meant there had to be a rear gate.

The otherwise full parking lot had one spot left open.

Someone had left here in a car.

“…”

Frenda of course had no time. She scanned through the luxury cars filling the parking lot, chose one without bulletproof glass, and smashed the door window with her elbow. She wasn’t interested in driving it. She snatched the small radio inside and scanned through the frequencies.

Within an organization that disliked making phone calls and sending emails that went through central exchanges and servers, there were those who preferred toys like this. They would of course use high-level encryption, but that was no defense against one of their own radios.

“Ksh. Ksh! New orders from Sakuya-sama. Crossword needs to get out of here! Top priority!! This is all for nothing if we lose our negotiator!!”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to take care of things here. I’ll head to the forest safe house!”

(Hm.)

Frenda didn’t have time to sit and think.

She tackled open a side entrance next to the big gate leading out of the rear parking lot and scrambled on out.

She heard gunfire.

Had the firefight between the Mugino Family and the other criminal organization spread back here?

Frenda worked her body without even giving herself a chance to catch her breath.

She kept on moving.

She clenched her teeth and just kept running.

Gasping for breath, she clung to a nearby power pole and slid down to sit on the pavement. She chose to view her unpleasant sweat and heavy breathing as signs that she was still alive.

She took a deep breath.

“Phew.”

She had escaped by the skin of her teeth.

Somehow she had gotten out of the Mugino Family mansion, but she couldn’t stop here.

“Damn!! …In the end, Mugino Sakuya was right. Knowing the truth isn’t enough to improve my situation.”

She forced her weary body to get back up.

She had a new goal now.

She wasn’t interested in being a hero, but she still had to stop the Sakuya faction from killing the parents.

Frenda thought of her 7-year-old sister back in Academy City.

And that girl’s ordinary friends.

(It’s not my style, but in the end, I want to avoid some shitty future where something happens to Azumi-chan’s family and that 7-year-old ends up on the path of revenge.)

A kid like that shouldn’t be part of the dark side.

For that, Frenda was willing to push her worn-out body just a bit farther.

(So where can I attack to bring down Sakuya’s plot all at once? That is, what is her Achilles heel?)

In a direct attack, the Mugino Family could not defeat Academy City.

But by focusing their attacks on the parents scattered throughout the outside world, they could bring down Academy City’s defenses.

Sakuya was an embodiment of guile.

By setting the conditions just right, it would be possible to trap even Academy City.

(But I can’t thoughtlessly try to attack Sakuya herself when she has such sturdy defenses. Trying to protect the parents scattered across the country isn’t realistic either. Then what can I do?)

There was another option.

Killing the parents across the country on its own would simply be indiscriminate murder.

Violence on its own was only violence.

An initial threat and a later announcement were necessary. By making demands, they could profit greatly, either directly with money or not. If they wanted to extract cutting-edge tech from Academy City, they could do that. And if the criminals wanted to safely negotiate with the VIPs, they would need someone with specialized skill other than violence.

As a bomber, Frenda was very familiar with this idea.

(Still, they want to threaten Academy City of all places? That’s a much greater challenge than disarming a cruelly-designed bomb. A reckless job like that will require a specialist.)

In other words…

“A negotiator. They’re going to need someone who specializes in that kind of threat.”

So if that negotiator could be eliminated, Sakuya’s parent killing plan would fall apart. And if Frenda took the negotiator hostage, she might just learn some interesting things about Sakuya.

This wasn’t about being a hero. Frenda wasn’t that shameless. Still, she couldn’t just ignore the imminent threat to the parents.

Proving her own innocence could wait.

She had already decided she would be watching her sister in the Daihaseisai, right? How could she do that if she failed to defend the gentle environment surrounding that 7-year-old girl?

Plus, she did have a hint.

She only had to think back.

“Ksh. Ksh! New orders from Sakuya-sama. Crossword needs to get out of here! Top priority!! This is all for nothing if we lose our negotiator!!”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to take care of things here. I’ll head to the forest safe house!”

Frenda Seivelun looked down to the small radio she held.

They likely changed frequency and encryption method periodically, but it would still work for now.

She could use this to pursue them.

(Crossword. So you’re my next target.)

Now that she had a plan, she had to act on it.

Immediately.

She forced strength back into her weary body and slowly stood back up from the pavement.

Orange was creeping into the darkness.

Dawn had arrived.

Part 2

Several beams of light flashed out.

Mugino Shizuri had not stopped with just the one.

The mansion’s front hall was large and devoid of cover. And even if there were any thick walls in the way, Meltdowner would have pierced right through them. And yet.

“!!”

The old man in the tuxedo and monocle ducked low as he ran. Instead of taking the shortest route, he weaved sharply side to side. So instead of pure speed, it was his irregular zigs and zags that caused Mugino’s predictions to repeatedly fail her.

A dull impact rang out.

Mujinayama had already arrived right up in front of Mugino Shizuri.

Her vision twisted around.

First, he threw a punch, forcing his target to use their arms to defend. Once their body had stiffened, he could easily grab their sleeve and collar to swing them around. Once begun, the throw was completely inescapable.

He was known as the Mountain Sniper.

This self-defense technique was meant for throwing a wild boar charging from the nearby bushes by grabbing its fur. It was not meant for use against humans.

If Kinuhata hadn’t made a flying kick from the side, Mugino would have crashed into the nearby pillar without any chance to soften the impact.

“He can super dodge while doing that!?”

“Don’t fall for the monocle, Kinuhata! Mujinayama is a pro sniper. Like hell his eyesight is bad!!”

With a sharp sound, the scarlet carpet fluffed up. At the last second, the butler had accurately escaped just outside of Kinuhata’s attack range.

And this was no time to relax.

He disappeared.

The next audible footstep came from right next to Kinuhata. Of all people, he was targeting Kinuhata Saiai, whose Level 4 Offense Armor made her Item’s greatest close quarters fighter.

After using the motion of going for a body blow to put her on guard, he used his shoulder to to tackle her hard high up on her upper body. That much she managed to follow.

The rest was a blur.

All Kinuhata knew was that her feet left the floor after she took a defensive stance. The vector made no sense. Something more must have been done to her in the air because, instead of flying backwards, she was slammed straight down onto her back.

“Khah, ah!? Y- cough – you!!”

“Excuse me. …It is against my style to attack a child, but I am a Manager who serves the Bloodline. My personal way of life does not apply here.”

She had defended her entire body with her power, but she still had the breath knocked out of her.

Without those defenses, her thick spine would have broken and pierced her heart.

Offense Armor was an ultra thin and ultra strong shield created by compressing the nitrogen in the air. That he managed to break through it was a surprise, but it was also a surprise to find Mujinayama had done it with his bare fist and not broken his hand.

It was the same idea as passing your hand over a candle flame in an instant. He had moved so quickly not enough energy had managed to reach his fist.

But even if they understood how that worked, how many people could actually pull it off?

(Cough. He’s a super monster to outdo an esper without powers of his own.)

Collapsed and unable to move much, Kinuhata tried to grab Mujinayama’s ankle with a hand more brutal than construction machinery, but the butler had already disappeared.

Keeping his distance put him at risk of projectile attacks – such as Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner – but he didn’t seem concerned.

Mugino aimed her palm his way while propped up by Takitsubo.

Right, left, right, right.

Several beams flashed out, but none of them ended the fight. Mugino clearly had the greater deadly force, but it was the butler who had control of the scene.

Mujinayama’s actions weren’t normal.

They were as strange as someone moving the same way they always did while on a tightrope.

There was a grinding noise.

That was Kinuhata Saiai digging her nails into the floor and trying to rejudge the distance between them.

And because she excelled at martial arts, her eyes widened even as she struggled to breathe.

That butler was a sniper, but he could do all this outside of that area of expertise?

“You’re kidding, right? Cough, he’s right in front of Mugino, gasp, and she’s firing Meltdowner blasts super everywhere!!”

“You cannot see lead bullets in flight either, but they are equally deadly if they hit. Piling more destructive power on top does not change what I must do in response.”

His voice remained calm.

In this case, the most fearsome person was not Academy City #4 Mugino Shizuri.

It was Butler Mujinayama who could stand before that monster and fight on the same or a higher level instead of being killed instantly.

He had no esper power.

Nor did he have any unique next-gen weapons from Academy City.

There were no tricks here.

All he had was a single body kept moving by nerves and muscles and fueled by the oxygen he breathed and the circulation of blood.

“That old hag Sakuya must be going senile,” spat Mugino. “Does she really think getting one old man on her side is enough to solve the entire Mugino Family succession issue?”

“Did you think it was only me?”

“…”

“The Bloodline increases their position in the line of succession by collecting the trump cards of the Management. Whoever collects the greatest number of the most powerful cards will be the next family head. And after pouring in significant effort behind the scenes, Sakuya-sama is in the lead. This is not an illegitimate rebellion. Sakuya-sama is reaping the benefits of the power she gathered legitimately.”

Was that a bluff? No, that wouldn’t accomplish anything here.

More of the Family’s Management and troops had joined this rebellion than Mugino Shizuri thought.

Enough that she could be seen as the traitor at this rate.

“Mugino. We should withdraw for now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Takitsubo!!!”

“Sakuya is gone.”

The #4 fell silent.

At times like this, the track suit girl did a great job of keeping an eye on the entire battlefield.

(So he was focused on buying time for her to escape instead of trying to win the fight.)

A single Meltdowner blast could burn right through Mujinayama no matter how much he tried to defend Sakuya. He could not protect her as a shield. So to ensure her safety, he had drawn Mugino’s attention long enough for Sakuya to escape.

Even his superhuman movements had been no more than a means of protecting the Bloodline.

How very like a butler.

Including how his behavior remained unchanged even in the presence of Academy City’s #4.

“Mugino.”

“I know.”

Pounding footsteps were approaching.

A lot of them.

Mugino was concerned about the safety of her grandfather, but she didn’t know where in the maze-like mansion he was. For that matter, she didn’t even know if he was in the mansion at all.

It was time.

Kinuhata Saiai looked to Mujinayama.

He was brimming with energy. She could just about see a mirage-like aura coming from his shoulders.

“(But super what do we do now? With the way his monocle is shining, I don’t think that superhuman old man is going to let us escape.)”

“Then there’s only thing to do.”

Mugino didn’t bother keeping her voice down.

She made a show of holding her palm out, but not straight ahead at Mujinayama. She was aiming higher than that.

In other words…

“Is grandfather in his usual bedroom? I bet he’s fast asleep at this time of night.”

“The head is a very busy man. He may not even be in the country.”

“But that railroad model diorama he loves so much is in his bedroom, isn’t it? It’s so big I doubt he can bring it with him when he travels overseas.”

“Wait just a moment, Shizuri-sama. The head learned the basics of dioramas in France and then spent 40 years gradually adding to that masterpiece. You must not even joke about something like this. I do trust that not even you would perform such a profoundly reckless act, but destroying that is a line that cannot be uncrossed. And as manager of the mansion, it would be me he scolded over-”

A thick beam surged out.

She did not wait even a moment.

She even stuck her tongue out a little as she mercilessly unleashed a Meltdowner blast that broke through the wall and tore through a corner room on the 3rd floor, which was in fact the family head’s bedroom. A hole with a diameter of more than a meter had been annihilated.

While Mujinayama looked back in that direction and petrified, Item made their move.

If they directed killer intent his way, the old butler would instantly regain his senses.

So they rushed to the mansion’s front entrance.

They ran to the exit.

“Okay, that’s one card turned over. It turns out even that monster Mujinayama still has something he fears.”

“Hey, you didn’t just super direct some even scarier old man at us, did you!?”

Part 3

The first wave had ended.

Mugino Shizuri and Frenda Seivelun had both escaped, but that wasn’t what mattered.

Sakuya remained confident within a long, skinny blast and bullet resistant car that could probably carry 20.

The driver couldn’t hear her with the thick glass between them, but…

“Experts from the strange land of Academy City attacked, but they were forced to flee without killing their target. That alone qualifies as a success. The Mugino Family power I have gathered already rivals Academy City’s dark side.”

Of course, Sakuya was not heading to a hideout linked to the Mugino Family.

A new phase had begun.

From here on, she had to be cautious of the Mugino Family Bloodline. So she was on the way to a resort hotel she had acquired using hidden assets unconnected to the Mugino Family.

The physical distance was irrelevant.

Was there a link in the data or not? That was what mattered in the world of more shadowy pursuits. As long as no one knew you were there, you could be safe hiding in the adjacent room.

“Hm, hm♪”

In a corner of the Kingdom Suite taking up the entire top floor, an extra room had been built without the knowledge of the hotel’s owners. That said, it was only something that could be assembled on site, such as a simple sauna or a soundproof room.

“What’s the latest word on the Management?”

Sakuya’s question was answered by Mujinayama who had rejoined her after taking a different route. He looked as unconcerned as ever.

Nothing could be more reassuring for someone plotting misdeeds.

“The ones pretending to work for Eika-sama, Ginsuke-sama, and the rest of the Bloodline will be joining us soon.”

“Good. Now none of the Bloodline can interfere.”

The Management were an important part of the Family.

Ougigumo was in charge of the spinning business.

Bakyaku excelled at horse racing and other forms of gambling.

However, the Management did not draw a line between the legal and the illegal. So Ougigumo still ran a forced labor system where people were bought and imprisoned, just with those unthinkable things referred to by more modern terms like “online loans” and “away-from-home employment with free housing provided”. Bakyaku would work alongside the official gambles to dope the racehorses or to lay high-interest traps for shady investors and rich kids who had never worked a day in their life.

More than simple deadly force was asked of the Management.

They each had to monetize their business and expand their influence beyond the Mugino Family. For simple money, the Family could rely on their legal grain production corporation. The Management involved themselves in illicit businesses so they could listen in on what people were saying in every industry and at every class.

“Sakuya-sama.”

Mujinayama, the old butler in a tuxedo and monocle, bowed with greater precision than an automatic door.

This was an exciting crossroads in her life, but Mujinayama, who stood there with her, remained as precise as ever.

How reassuring was that?

That alone told her she had the upper hand on Shizuri.

“You have finally made a big step forward.”

“It took much too long.”

“There is no going back now. Sakuya-sama, victory is the only path left.”

This was a coup.

Mugino Sakuya’s methods might seem rash and risky, but she didn’t actually have much time left.

Because her greatest rival, Mugino Shizuri, was Academy City’s #4 Level 5.

That girl’s body itself was filled with the secrets of esper development technology. Investigating her body would reveal it all. By abusing that and mass-producing espers, the Mugino Family would transform into the world’s greatest violent group, both in name and in fact. That girl didn’t have to do anything at all. She didn’t need a vast fortune or army. She only had to return home to the Mugino Family and she would bring the Family a greater reward than the rest of the Bloodline combined.

If nothing was done, she would take the head spot.

Sakuya’s generation would be skipped over and Shizuri, of the next generation down, would take it all.

How could she just sit around and let that happen?

“What will you do now?”

“Good question.”

Sakuya smiled at Mujinayama as he bowed obediently.

“I must swiftly search out a path forward.”

She didn’t care that a man was present.

The beautiful woman reached around to her back and gracefully unzipped the back of her dress.

She removed the gorgeous dress.

Along with her underwear.

Then she stepped through the door and entered a small 2x2m room.

And then something crashed into her bare body.

“Snails” “That’s why Sayu says” “Finally reached a million!!” “Umeboshi are” “Here goes!!” “Aeuiueahoh” “Who killed him?” “Tomorrow’s weather in Kantou will be” “For a limited time only, you get 50% off!” “Next is Ikebukuro. Repeat: Ikebukuro.” “This one product is all you need for your basic makeup.” “Join me in prayer.” “Not just the redback spider! You also need to watch out for” “Now you need to stir it all together. Think of it like getting some air into” “To prepare for their harsh journey, the migratory birds will” “Be especially careful when fishing for bass” “The founder’s secret is” “You will never have to drink tap water again” “We’ve arrived on the scene, but the suspect is nowhere to be found! We will begin a search of the surrounding” “Continue north” “You were the traitor!?” “Hat” “Here you want to move the Gold to 63” “A brand new age of ramen” “Ahhhh!” “1, 2, 3, 4” “In zero-g outer space”

It was a flood.

A deluge of sound.

The room contained countless speakers. Like an octopus’s suckers or a peacock’s feathers, the cramped space was filled with circular patterns of various sizes. They were all simultaneously playing different voices.

It physically vibrated her fine skin. She received all that information at once through not just her eardrums but her entire body. The vibrations in her bones stimulated her brain.

Of course, not every voice meant something. She employed the cocktail party effect. When people were surrounded by a lot of noise, psychology said they would subconsciously select the topic that most interested them and try to focus on that voice alone. Using that, the information she most needed at the moment would rise to the surface even when she would have a hard time consciously picking it out.

She couldn’t assume she was blessed.

Thinking she had the perfect position was the same as giving up on thinking.

She had to always focus on her hunger.

Mugino Sakuya grinned as she picked up on one term.

“ ‘Fishing’ is it?”

Part 4

She was out of breath.

Surprisingly, it was Kinuhata Saiai who first gave up and stopped moving.

“Pant, pant. Why? I super don’t get how I could lose to Takitsubo-san.”

“Kinuhata, you’ve been running at an anaerobic sprinting pace. You only want to run all out until the enemy has lost sight of you. Then you switch to an aerobic marathon pace or you’ll wear yourself out.”

The difference in their dark side experience showed itself in these places.

And since Takitsubo couldn’t directly fight, failing to hide or escape would get her immediately killed. She would never get careless in those areas. Plus, the track suit girl was the kind of person who could float face down in the pool for a disturbingly long time.

“A-anyway, I made it. Cough, I super somehow managed to escape!!”

“Kinuhata. We need to check each other for injuries.”

“Eh? Huh?”

“You can’t check your own back, can you? When extreme exercise leaves the brain short on oxygen, your ordinary sense of pain can numb over, so it’s safer if we do a visual check of each other.”

“Ah, ah, wait! Help me, Mugino! Am I super trapped in this pattern where I get attacked right when I think I’m finally safe!?”

It was still 4 or 5 in the morning and no one was around, but a public road was no place to be stripping a girl. Nevertheless, Takitsubo performed the task calmly and expressionlessly.

“Mugino, Frenda disappeared.”

“Hey, don’t strip me! And wait, do we still have to go after her!? The Mugino Family is clearly the super real danger!!”

“Either way, I think we should run into Frenda if we pursue the Mugino Family.”

It didn’t matter if they did or did not have a reason to fight her.

If Frenda got scared and chucked a bomb their way, they would die. The real question was how Frenda viewed Item after they had been hunting her.

Was their enemy Frenda? Or the Mugino Family?

Mugino scratched irritably at her head.

“Tch. …If we can’t trust the Family, then we can’t use that hotel anymore. For that matter, Mujinayama arranged it for us, so Sakuya definitely knows all about it.”

They might as well have made an enemy of the entire city of Yokohama.

A decent number of the butlers and maids of the Management appeared to have joined Sakuya’s rebellion and it seemed unlikely the name of Mugino Shizuri would be enough to get the soldiers to open the way.

“…”

“Listen, Shizuri-sama.”

An old memory returned to Mugino.

She had obtained her esper power in Academy City, but that old butler was at an even deeper part of her.

She remembered the time she had followed that butler into the winter mountains while carrying an old wood stock rifle (while very much inside Japan). Her target had been a large animal, but thinking back, he had been acting more as an instructor than a spotter.

“Just as the recoil of firing a gun causes you to tense momentarily, all attacks give the enemy an opportunity. Whether close or long range, this is a common fact in all fields other than sniping.”

Mugino breathed out while concentrating Meltdowner in her palm.

(So Mujinayama is the enemy’s pawn. This is going to be a pain in the ass.)

The light in her palm vanished.

Her power was an ultra-powerful projectile. It was possible that old butler’s education had affected her psyche in a way that caused her control over electrons to manifest in that form.

Her attacks gave the enemy an opportunity.

In fact, Mujinayama’s martial arts had surpassed Academy City technology. Easily.

There was more that worried her.

“With Frenda staying on the run this long, they’ll probably be sending in another team before long.”

“Super meaning?”

“If we don’t do something soon, something’s going to happen inside Academy City.”

They all fell silent.

They had known Frenda’s Achilles heel from the beginning.

Item hadn’t played that card.

But not out of kindness.

If they relied on that and the unexpected happened, it could greatly distort the nature of Frenda Seivelun’s villainy.

And there was nothing more frightening than a skilled villain who had succumbed to self-destructive thinking.

Part 5

Inside that wall lay Academy City.

Some men performed their final checks in the back of a windowless work van parked on the curb during the night.

It was clear they had done this before.

“Our target is Fremea Seivelun. Age: 7. Location: a District 13 student dorm.”

“Why are we nabbing her?”

“We weren’t told. But given the size of the reward and the chosen intermediary, it probably isn’t just some pervert.”

They were Army Ant.

Their usual job was debt collection on the dark side, but making money off of villains on the brink of losing everything meant they also dabbled in abduction. If it was necessary to get someone to pay their debt in full, this group would crush that person with hundreds of thousands of atmospheres of pressure to convert them into diamond pieces.

Thus, they did not bother demanding an exorbitant ransom from Anti-Skill. They were already making a profit just from the share they received when getting the debt repaid.

Stability was best.

Although on occasion, those talents would inspire an intermediary to hire them for a job like this.

They saw it like a bonus side job.

“What’s the roleplay?”

“The target’s a first grader. And it’s September shortly after the end of summer break. The standard route would be to say this was her first year in the esper development and finding out she’s a Level 0 was too great a shock for her.”

“So she despaired about the future and ran away?”

“Then let’s prepare for that.”

New school years and new school terms were always a time for trouble.

The abduction of a 7-year-old child would stand out, but they only had to scatter around some false signs and explanations that would get the story buried in all the other records. Like placing a translucent red sheet over the problem set to hide the red text.

Besides. A unique city where 80% of the population were students was an extremely strange closed environment where accidents and incidents involving children were too common to stand out.

Which created room for a business profiting off of such things.

“This was one of the good intermediaries. Only the big shots in the administration use them. Like the Board. What do you think the girl’s family did?”

While the District 13 dorms were well defended, those defenses could be neutralized by rewiring the security system. By loading a gas-powered injection gun with a fast-acting liquid anesthetic, they could snatch the girl without her even uttering a scream.

“Don’t forget the neutralizer in case the anesthetic is too effective. 7-year-olds are small, so a mistake in calculating the dosage could kill her.”

“It doesn’t matter if she does die as long as whoever’s being threatened with her doesn’t know it.”

As they chatted, the men donned large masks shaped like ant heads to hide their identities.

The work van’s rear door opened and they began to exit.

Immediately, a giant bluish-black blob swept the first one away.

They didn’t understand.

It was warm and soft…and yet was the polar opposite of gentle.

The lead man vanished outside the van and the rest froze inside the van.

Completely baffled, they noted a very familiar smell.

The stench of a filthy urban river.

In other words…

(Sludge?)

It would sometimes fill rivers or the sea, preventing even large ships from traveling, but it was in fact an accumulation of dead organic material that could not decompose. In other words, it was the corpses of microbes.

“My, my.”

Someone stood there.

A woman in a gas mask.

Hanatsuyu Kuchikusa the Converter.

The biology researcher (wearing a knit dress that actually had large holes all over it) waved test tubes of colorful liquids.

Unable to leave the work van, the men fired their gas-powered injection guns from the open rear door in a panic, but the bluish-black mass wriggled all on its own to protect the roughly-dressed young woman from the tranquilizer rounds.

Attempting to defeat her in the field of toxins and medicines was a fatal mistake.

By mixing still-living microbes and precisely controlling their release of putrid gases, she could move that 50ton troublemaker of urban rivers as easily as her own limbs.

Of course, this technique was one of the mutations born of the dark side.

The ultimate mama(?) systematically scattered liquid droplets from her test tubes.

“I must be getting old to be so upset over the possibility of harm coming to a child. Hee hee. Having a family really does change how you think☆”

It wasn’t just the humans. The wet sound of destruction crushed the bulletproof van as well.

Part 6

Frenda sighed with her phone to her ear.

It was always worth asking. A report had come in via a combination of code words on a disaster notification message board to prevent a third party from tracking what was said.

(I thought I could use Hanatsuyu Kuchikusa and I was right to put together that macro just in case.)

Basically, Frenda had set things up so, if she didn’t contact her sister’s phone in a certain amount of time, an email asking for a defense job would automatically be sent through a series of intermediaries before reaching Hanatsuyu Kuchikusa. Payment upon completion of the job had been set up to work automatically as well.

Insurance like this was worth setting up while you were still safe. It was too late to scrape something together once you were already in a crisis.

For now, her sister was safe.

But that wouldn’t last forever. It would be best to not let this issue drag on.

“Now, then.”

She consciously shifted her focus.

Even with all her countermeasures in place, her phone was for emergencies only. She wanted to avoid using it as much as possible. Since the Mugino Family was from outside Academy City, she doubted they could intercept the signal, but Item was from Academy City.

So Frenda made her way to an internet cafe near Yokohama Station.

Any information from lodging and rest facilities would reach the Mugino Family before long, but she could still use them if she knew she would be found out. Basically, she had to keep it quick.

To avoid looking suspicious, she ordered the complimentary curry rice and melon soda.

(The luxury of getting as much of the food as you want is a selling point, so it’s weird they don’t have canned mackerel as an option.)

Then again, she was on the run, so she was lucky to be able to eat at all. Frenda entered the booth closest to the emergency exit, got on the computer, and began a speedy search for information.

“Crossword, Crossword… Oh? In the end, is this it?”

The ordinary search engines only provided links to a lot of puzzles with prize rewards, but a check through an underground search engine revealed some more dangerous articles.

This was the unseen negotiator for an organization.

“Kidnapping, threats, embezzlement, poisoning, a bomb threat at an international airport… Wow, he was the reason the president canceled his trip to Japan at the last second 5 years ago? Not bad.”

Frenda stopped eating the mild curry rice.

Even though she saw herself as the kind of scum who could eat while watching a livestream of people killing each other in the Colosseum.

On the other hand, they had anonymously exposed illegal bidding prices for construction projects. But based on the rest, that hadn’t been done out of a desire to see justice done – it was probably used to get the police to crush a rival criminal organization.

They were a genius in a single field.

By swapping out words and using language as a weapon, they could freely manipulate the emotions of enemy and ally alike to control individuals and organizations, or even tear them apart. They were like an expert in the unseen curse where the resistance each individual thought was best ended up working against the organization as a whole.

People like this were rare, but they did exist.

The Brain who gave advice to the Board of Directors and the Voice on the Phone who acted as a go-between for the legal and illegal worlds were probably that type.

Much like Frenda’s bombs, this was a power on a different axis from Academy City’s esper development. Those without a special power could only survive by keeping a hidden weapon that they had thoroughly honed. This person believed themselves superior and carried a variety of complexes.

Frenda must not stand on the same playing field as them.

No matter what.

“Argh. This is the kind of person I’d normally blow up before they could speak a word, but I’m supposed to capture them alive? Who knows when they’ll kill me in my sleep afterwards.”

(A number of these incidents don’t seem to have any link to the Mugino Family…no, that’s probably not it. In the end, that Family is just so big I can’t see every part of it. How far do their roots spread across the globe?)

As the name Crossword suggested, the negotiator would apparently cut printed character out of newspapers and magazines and paste them into letters to make threats. That would normally provide a lot of information from the paper, the blade used, the glue, and the location it was mailed from, but they calculated all that out and used it to their advantage. Such as being in Yokohama but throwing off the investigation by using newspapers delivered from Kansai or Hokkaido. By taking a hair from an enemy and mixing it into the glue, they could guide the police to a false arrest to punish that person for them.

(A paper magazine lover who dislikes email, huh? In the end, all the cutting out and pasting seems like it would just make the process harder, so maybe they’re the kind of person who enjoys doing things with their hands?)

A quiet craftsman who specialized in intellectual crimes.

As an energetic bomber, Frenda could sniff out the subtle differences between them.

Not even the sites that gathered underground articles on the cases had a photo of Crossword or their real name. In the end, all of their threat cases had gone unsolved. It didn’t sound like there was going to be any word on past convictions.

But Frenda did find one interesting piece of information.

“Crossword only ever uses synthetic glues. Not once in the past cases, did he or she use a traditional natural glue made by crushing rice.”

“I see. So do they have a severe food allergy?”

(Rice is everywhere in this country. Even when you buy wheat bread, it’s often made in the a factory that also uses rice. But when hiding out in a single location, it’s hard not to get sloppy with food. …They were headed to a forest safe house, right? Even if they fled there in a hurry, they would have to gather up a fair amount of allergy medication.)

“Specifically, antihistamines for regular use and epinephrine for emergency use. In the end, I should be able to find out Crossword’s identity by tracking down anyone who bought an unnatural amount of those medications today.”

Starch glue had many uses outside of stationery. For example, sturdily binding the pages of a thick book and keeping wallpaper on the wall. It was a landmine found all throughout life. Even the laundry starch used to keep blouses and shirts unwrinkled was essentially the same thing.

And while modern stamps used a synthetic adhesive, they used to use a starch glue. That meant there was a chance they used rice. Even when you tried to be careful, there was always the fear of some getting mixed in by mistake. It was unlikely they actually licked the stamps used for the threatening letters, but they would have to consider the possibility.

Frenda checked the clock in the corner of the desktop screen.

She was out of time.

“Oops. It’d be a shame to let this curry go to waste.”

The blonde girl used the largish spoon to scarf down the rest of the curry while organizing the information in her mind.

Antihistamines could be bought just about anywhere, so they wouldn’t be very useful.

So she decided to run one last search: sketchy online shopping sites offering epinephrine.

Crossword would have seen the same sites.

Part 7

Hotels and inns would be watched by the police and criminal organizations, but there some surprising places remained unmonitored.

Like a small multi-tenant building.

This one in particular was a makeshift office used by phone operators hired out by companies.

The people who thought they were calling up a big corporate headquarters to complain would have been shocked to see this.

The skinny building was as thin as a watermelon slice someone had failed to cut evenly and it was filled with locked rooms, but just one of the small rooms contained a sofa and a bed. If you didn’t make any noise, no one else would notice. If you wanted a bath, you could visit the spa across the street. It was perfect as long as you weren’t too concerned about complying with the laws governing the hotel business.

“…”

And Kinuhata Saiai was viewing it with her mouth forming a small triangle.

Noticing her gaze, the track suit girl spoke.

“It’s alright, Kinuhata. I’ll do it for you later.”

Takitsubo Rikou sat on the edge of the bed.

Mugino Shizuri was lying down with her head resting on the track suit girl’s lap.

Takitsubo was cleaning her ears.

And it didn’t seem like the first time she had done this.

“Wow.”

“This really helps calm her down,” said Takitsubo, keeping her hands working. “Mugino, what will we do now?”

“With the Sakuya faction as large as it is, Sakuya can’t protect each and every one of them, right? And as members of the Mugino Family, they aren’t innocent civilians, so we don’t have to hold back. As soon as they show an opening, we can start tearing through their troops and get whatever information we can out of- kyah!”

“Mugino,” briefly said Takitsubo.

Mugino was resting on her lap and getting her ear cleaned out, so Takitsubo had a small bamboo stick in her right ear.

Deep inside, but precisely controlled.

“Hey…you intentionally didn’t bring this up until you had me like this, didn’t you?”

“Because you would have snapped and started firing Meltdowner if I hadn’t.”

…The girl really did understand Mugino’s personality. At any other time, she might very well have blown away one of her teammates.

“Blindly tearing through the enemy will only hurt you in the long run, right? The Mugino Family is your family.”

“They’re after my future and my life. I can’t survive if I go soft like that.”

“I will come up with a method.”

Part 8

The Mugino Family head really was not in the mansion.

He had left on a job before midnight.

The well-polished black bulletproof car was parked on the curb in the verdant city outskirts.

“Oh, the sun’s coming out already. I really am becoming nocturnal now. That’s so bad for your health… The line is so fuzzy when doing things online, but now that that amateurish group of false billing scammers causing so much trouble in the area has been dismantled in a game of .50 caliber target practice, I really thought I could rest easy and get some sleep, but now this.”

The elderly family head left the car.

The man in a fancy Italian suit breathed in the biting chill of the early morning air, released a white breath, and gazed into the morning sun. Without really focusing on it.

A maid called Kagyu bowed respectfully next to him. She had only just been promoted from the troops to the Management. That meant she was still a new Manager. That wasn’t a position that normally let one speak directly to the head.

The reason for this was obvious.

“We still cannot reach Sakuya-sama. Roll call is underway, but we still do not know how much of the Management has rebelled. Plus, those who did obediently respond could always be spies.”

“I see.”

“Shizuri-sama was seen around, but we do not know where she has gone. According to the troops present, she did not seem intent on joining Sakuya-sama. She escaped after catching Manager Mujinayama off guard. …That we had no information on her before this suggests Sakuya-sama’s faction was monitoring her actions and keeping any reports from reaching the Family as a whole.”

“…I see.”

The number of butlers and maids who responded to his lowered gaze was noticeably small. All the trump cards known as the old-timers or veterans were missing. Even Mujinayama, who had acted as the chief holding Management together, had left the head’s side and gone into hiding.

That would explain why Shizuri’s presence in Yokohama had not reached the head’s ears.

Their betrayal had not been revealed by mistake. At this point, there was nothing he could do with this knowledge. Sakuya was making her intentions clear.

The amount of Management on your side was directly linked to your strength in the Bloodline.

This alone revealed the scope of Mugino Sakuya’s rebellion. Maybe that was a natural cause of concern for the one whose throne was being targeted.

Except this wasn’t about that.

“I can only think of one reason Mujinayama would freeze long enough for Shizuri to escape. She fried my diorama, didn’t she?”

He had spent 40 years on that. A man would have things he prized more than his life. Quite a few things.

The Italian suit man’s shoulders slumped and he leaned his weight against the handle of the shovel sticking into the ground.

And in that ground, men with the fearsome look of professional criminals were buried upright with just their heads sticking out.

Who the row of heads belonged to was obvious.

These were the troops of the rival organization who Frenda Seivelun had baited into a shootout with the Mugino Family. They apparently operated in budget padding.

The head spoke quietly.

“Who do you think you are giving me more work to do at 4 or 5 in the morning? Well, it hasn’t been fun for you either, I suppose, but the fact remains that you fired bullets toward our mansion. You have to pay for that.”

“We’ll pay you money. We know how the professional world works. Violence is our business and we know what it’s worth. We’ll even throw in some extra so the Mugino Family will profit from this. How does that-”

“Satou-san was out taking a walk.”

The criminal organization men had no idea who that was and fell silent.

But they had misread the situation.

“The Suzuki couple were out jogging in the morning like they always do. Yamada-kun, a scholarship student, was out delivering newspapers. Yabe-san the baker was taking a break after finishing his morning preparations. He had left his bakery to visit the nearby convenience store, a small joy he treats himself to every morning. Because he lately learned that Kimura-san the convenience store manager has a shared interest with him.”

He knew them all.

But not to find new sources of money for his criminal organization.

This was what mattered to him.

“You weren’t worried about stray bullets? Not even a little? Professional criminals like you should know just how much lead hurts.”

“W-we didn’t hear anything about anyone being hit.”

“Whether or not anyone was actually hit isn’t the point.”

A chill entered the air.

The Mugino Family didn’t put all that much weight on illegal sources of income.

They made all the money they could need with their above-board grain production business that filled 1.4 billion people’s stomachs. And without having to worry about money, they could stick more strongly to their principles without ever compromising.

If they didn’t need money, why did they support crimes like gun running and people smuggling?

So they could hear the voices of people from every business and class.

Like St. Mary Magdalene who protected sex workers and others of low status, or like Enma who viewed all of an individual’s sins and judged them accordingly.

“This comes before that,” said the great umbrella that drew no line between good and evil. “The very act of firing guns plants fear in this area. You wield your guns for your own purposes and commit crimes without a second thought, causing the local people to withdraw. You have put the entire Yokohama area on edge. Satou-san, Suzuki-san, and all the others did nothing wrong. Yet they are afraid, reluctant to head outside early in the morning, and have unfairly lost some of the options they should have had in life. Doesn’t that seem like an unforgivable misdeed?”

“What are you babbling about? None of that changes that we’re both criminal organizations!”

“Which is fine. I am simply trying to help the incredible people who can do what I can’t.”

He answered right away.

He didn’t yell and he didn’t scorn.

The Mugino Family’s king had long since moved past anger.

“Since you don’t seem to understand, let’s discuss definitions. All the people who live normal lives in the ordinary world are incredible people deserving of our respect. We couldn’t manage that, so we need to understand that on a deeper level than anyone. That’s why I won’t let you harm those people who have outdone me so thoroughly. I won’t.”

Sensing something, the young maid stepped back, so he couldn’t swipe her handgun.

So instead he raised the shovel in both hands and smashed each head in turn.

Right on down the row.

This boosted the despair and terror.

The next man in line glared resentfully, but not at the family head.

At the maid.

The criminals were crushed without the right to a quick and painless death.

It was all over.

The maid began to hold out a handkerchief but hesitated. He was entirely soaked with blood. A single handkerchief wouldn’t make a dent in that.

The Mugino Family head ignored the blood as he stabbed the heavy shovel into the ground again.

“You said someone fired the ALCMs without my permission?”

“Yes. We detected a variable-sweep wing aircraft take off from the remote island. That Russian four-seater is not designed for stealth, so that is worrying. We assume it was launched by Sakuya-sama’s faction.”

“And Shizuri was using her Academy City power all over the place.”

“Yes. Meltdowner, I believe it is called. I believe she is ranked as the #4 Level 5 in all of Academy City.”

So much for regional stability.

Who was it that was most responsible for Yokohama being on edge?

That went without saying.

“Sakuya made the first move and then Shizuri responded. So from the other likely candidates, Horika and Ginsuke must be waiting to see what happens. Of course, those cunning brats probably won’t aim for the top spot themselves. They’re more likely to side with the most likely winner and then turn them into a puppet ruler.”

Just because a Bloodline member wasn’t acting now did not mean they were a pacifist.

They were viewing the map and lining up their pieces in their own way.

The family head smiled bitterly while dyed red with the blood of around a dozen people.

“I dread to think what will become of the Mugino Family.”

Part 9

Mugino was freed from the ear cleaning.

Takitsubo Rikou got the conversation started in the makeshift office they were using as a hideout.

“Between Frenda and Sakuya, Sakuya should be easier to find. And the two of them will clash without our help. So we can find them both by pursuing just one.”

“But super how are we supposed to track her down? Even if she has an advantage, she’s still in the middle of a coup. Seems to me that puts her in a delicate position.”

Takitsubo had an answer for Kinuhata’s question.

The track suit girl had said she would come up with a method.

“Sakuya isn’t a trusting person. Not because she’s clever, but because people who profit by betraying others assume everyone else is doing the same thing. That keeps them from opening up to anyone. It’s like a curse binding them.”

“And?” irritably asked Mugino.

“Sakuya will be monitoring her allies even more than her enemies.”

The track suit girl flicked something with her finger.

An eraser-sized machine slid atop the glass table.

“A bug,” said Kinuhata, exasperated.

“It was on the inside of the maid’s collar. I of course made sure it isn’t functioning anymore,” said Takitsubo. “Inside Academy City, it would be less conspicuous to bug their phones. That way the targets would recharge it on their own. But they must use independent devices out here.”

A bug was a device that picked up surrounding noises with a microphone and then transmitted that data. As long as you knew the frequency, you could track down the source of the signal with a cheap walkie-talkie or radio.

Kinuhata looked uncertain.

“Do the Sakuya faction butlers and maids super not know about this?”

“Of course they know. One or two would be one thing, but hiding it from all of her troops just isn’t possible. If those bugs are listening around the clock, how many hours would the batteries last? And what if they wash their clothes with the bug still attached? It’s like the body cams used to catch crooked Anti-Skill officers. They know they’re being spied on.”

Item would use whatever they could.

The bug signal wasn’t all that powerful, but they could pick up the weak signal if they increased the size of the antenna.

“What’s the biggest antenna in the Yokohama area? That big antenna tower on top of a phone company? Or are we going to attack and take over that landmark skyscraper?”

“We don’t need to go that far. There’s a small electronics district near Yokohama Station, right? The frequency isn’t much different from an AM broadcast, so we can wrap some copper wire and make our own flat 5m-diameter antenna.”

Part 10

This early in the morning, no one was around. So Frenda attacked the physical “warehouse” for a sketchy online store that sold quite a few strange medical products.

It was a major drugstore.

Of course, the entire group wasn’t part of the illicit business. A hired pharmacist was making some extra money on the side. But that wasn’t her target here.

“Uonaka Ichijo. Hm, all easy kanji.”

Frenda smiled bitterly at the print-out she held.

Images from security cameras outside Academy City were grainy, but she did have an image of his face. It had only been a few hours since he disappeared, so she didn’t have to worry about him changing his face with plastic surgery. Just like when falling and scraping your knee, it could take days for even a small wound to heal. Unlike in TV dramas, surgery to the entire face required a lengthy schedule before the bandages could be removed.

She knew about the forest safe house thanks to intercepting a radio exchange.

Not all of Kanagawa was big cities and tourist destinations. It was mostly associated with the coast, but more than a third of its area was taken up by mountains and woods.

The resort areas where redevelopment had failed were in a tragic state. When buying a house, people ordinarily took out a mortgage at the bank and spent their entire life paying it off. But in these places, a lot of properties went for less than a million yen. And even with such low prices, the places were ghost towns. There weren’t any stores nearby and cell coverage was spotty at best that deep in the mountains. Living there was about as inconvenient as could be, but it was easy for shady people to acquire a temporary hideout there.

So it was time to get moving.

“Whew. In the end, I’m glad it turns out you can hitchhike in Japan.”

“You can’t! It’s way too dangerous! What is a teenage girl like you thinking flagging down cars? What would you have done if I hadn’t picked you up!?”

She was on her way to her destination with some help from a worrier of a trucker.

…The long-distance trucker reminded her of the truck driver killed by the explosion in Shinjuku, Tokyo, but that was meaningless. She tried to force the thought from her mind.

And couldn’t manage it.

(Damn.)

She glared at her silly face reflected in the passenger side door window. She lived in Academy City’s dark side. She had seen plenty of lives she hadn’t been able to save.

The driver’s eyes widened when they arrived at her destination.

The air was damp. The cricket and katydid cries were nearly deafening.

Even in early September, the mountain trees had not yet begun turning red.

“You really want to get off at this ghost town overgrown with weeds? What are you even doing here?”

“Ah ha ha. My grampa moved here for a new life after retiring. The houses here are super cheap and did you know there’s a hot spring near here? It’s a great place, but his laundry piles up if I don’t visit him every so often.”

“Huh, so your grandfather loves Japan, does he?”

“More like he loves Japanese military history. Apparently a lot of famous Japanese warriors lived around here. I only half listen when he goes on about it, so I don’t remember any of the names other than Takeda Shingen.”

“Oh, Sengoku period warriors? That’s a little different from the Minamoto clan or Shizuka Gozen, I guess. But maybe it has to do with Odawara Castle or Tsukui Castle?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

Frenda smiled and kept on telling lies.

If he got the impression she was out in the mountains to kill herself, he might try to stop her. …And a kindhearted man like that would only shorten his lifespan considerably by getting involved in this mess.

She wasn’t responsible for the Shinjuku bombing.

But she was sick of feeling the way it made her feel.

She waved as the truck drove off and, after making sure it was good and gone, she got to work.

(In the end, I’m going to end this here.)

She entered the ghost town overrun by weeds.

This was also a route leading to Academy City, but the scenery was completely different from the route to the east gate going through Shinjuku. Here near the south gate, everything was mountains and greenery.

It felt chillier than in Yokohama, but instead of the altitude, it probably had to do with the lack of the heat island created by the concrete and asphalt.

(Honestly. In the end, it’s hard to believe Academy City is right on the other side of the wall from this.)

The natural scenery seemed like a good fit for a semiconductor plant…or would a hot springs region actually be a bad fit because of all the extra minerals in the water?

The rusty road sign said this was the road to Hot Spring Shrine. Before science had explained how hot springs worked, they may have been linked to mountain worship.

(That traditional atmosphere is nice. Seems like it would actually be better for your health.)

Mountain worship. That meant this was a place for ascetic discipline. Searching on foot was probably going to be a pain.

The mountain road mostly took a winding route up the slope, but tiers had been dug into the slope to create a level surface for a small hot spring inn, a hotel, and more…or what had once been those things. The tiers were uniform, but the heights of the buildings differed, so some buildings stretched up higher than the next tier.

“No sign of life here. In the end, the place can’t be entirely abandoned.”

After spotting a deteriorating gate for a Spring Water Shopping District, Frenda left the winding mountain road.

She expected she was overthinking things, but a single long path was a scary thing for a professional bomber. It would be the perfect place for tripwires, sensors, and other traps. She slipped past what looked like an abandoned souvenir shop and walked through a weed-filled garden before finding some steep stairs climbing the concrete retaining wall holding the tiered slope in place.

She hadn’t found any traps yet, but that was no reason to relax.

In a minefield, one step being safe was no guarantee the next one would be.

She didn’t see any graffiti on the walls or anyone sleeping on the roadside. Probably because people still lived here, however few they might be.

More than just conifer trees, the foliage in the area included some chestnut and tea plants. Had someone grown them in their garden, or had animals carried the seeds here?

Animals.

“…”

Just as Frenda moved out onto the mountain road again, she crouched down and glanced at the guardrail which had fallen into disrepair.

She saw fur.

The tuft looked like wild dog fur except thicker. Had it been scraped off as the animal passed by?

“Ugh. In the end, they have the non-cute kind of bear around here?”

On the other hand, a wild animal like that would have triggered any kind of detailed and sensitive explosive trap. Frenda wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or see this as a threat.

She wasn’t sure if they were bulbuls or starlings, but some wild bird cries passed overhead.

She placed her hands on the rusty guardrail and took a look at the scenery below. She spotted a straight line cut out of the fluffy forest. A mountain railroad must have run through here at some point. And it looked like there was another road too.

She slowly but surely climbed the mountain.

She felt impatient.

But she knew this would end with conflict. She couldn’t afford to have her legs worn out by the time she arrived.

The actual elevation to her destination couldn’t have been even 500m. It was higher up the slope, but nowhere near the summit.

“Phew.”

For some reason, she found a barrier similar to at a railroad crossing in the middle of the road. The metal pole had rusted and broken and the sign had fallen to the ground.

Scenic Heights.

“In the end, this must be the place.”

This wasn’t like before.

Had her senses been sharpened by walking so long without meeting anyone?

She couldn’t say what exactly was different, but she sensed an unnatural “regularity” to this scenery. It was an indescribable sense of wrongness, like finding the overgrown weeds had been combed into place.

This was proof that someone had been in and out of here.

It would have been prime real estate back when the hot spring resort was functioning, but now the weeds had grown to Frenda’s hip height. Instead of inns or hotels, two or three story villas were lined up irregularly. Had those all been ultra luxury second homes that could draw spring water directly from the hot spring? The barrier from before may have meant this had been a fenced-off gated committee. And now look at it. It reminded Frenda of the Japanese idea that the prosperous will eventually decline.

The safe house being used by Crossword Uonaka Ichijo, the Mugino Family negotiator, was a villa toward the back.

The wooden villa was as big as a school building.

Just to be safe, Frenda slowly approached from downwind.

(Anyway, I need to capture Mugino Sakuya’s negotiator. Then my counterattack can begin!)

While organizing her plan in her mind, Frenda Seivelun approached the giant villa in a ghost town that had been forgotten by time.

And a moment later…

Something exploded.

Frenda wasn’t even close to the blast, but her small body was still knocked to the ground. If she hadn’t known how to land safely, she might have broken a limb.

More than half the mansion-like villa had been destroyed.

The building’s cross-section was plain to see.

(What in the…!?) Frenda Seivelun was a professional bomber. She had confirmed in advance that there were no explosives in the area. And yet this had happened.

The sound of something beating at and slicing through the air passed by overhead. It turned in midair and directed its nose toward her.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

That was a remote-controlled, Academy City attack helicopter.

“A Two Wings… Damn. In the end, Academy City has crossed a line now!!”

Part 11

Sobasaka Michio’s eyes widened after entering Kanagawa without permission.

“What the hell is that!?”

A formation of Two Wings soared rapidly by above his car.

A single attack helicopter would be bad enough, but this was a whole group.

Even now, their Gatling guns were firing bands of light from the sky and the wings on either side had spread out like arms to launch tank shells that tore into the ground and exploded.

…Was this really Japan?

The Kanagawa police department would protest to Academy City, but the city would never listen.

Or would the headquarters request to have fighters scrambled from an airbase?

That might get fighters in the air, but this ghost town was still classified as an urban area. Firing live ammo on this unidentified force simply wasn’t happening. Their department was an odd one that proudly exclaimed that their lack of combat experience was proof of how peaceful their country was.

The helicopters made no attempt to hide what they were doing. This wasn’t some reckless attack. Academy City had probably already set up the laws and treaties in their favor.

Academy City was the headquarters of every academic field, so they would of course have plenty of top class lawyers as well. Trying to compete with Academy City in a brainy field was a mistake.

“I-it’s not too late to turn back!” shouted Sobasaka’s new partner. “This isn’t a job for the police!!”

“If you don’t like it, hop out and walk back, newbie.”

“If I’m left out in these mountains, I’ll be torn apart by stray bullets!!”

“Then prepare yourself. We need to be on the scene. A crime is being committed before our eyes. I don’t know what those helicopters are firing at, but if the police give up, then the law ceases to function in this country!!”

Part 12

Frenda Seivelun immediately hid behind a nearby tree trunk bigger around than she was.

Even that cover would be shredded if an attack helicopter took aim at it.

Along with Frenda hiding behind it.

(What do I do? Withdraw? Think. That would be the smart thing to do, but in the end, what happens to me if I leave without capturing Crossword!? If I keep doing the “smart” thing to avoid any risk, my chances will only continue to shrink!!)

Frenda was panicking, but then she noticed some motion in the distant rubble.

Through the cross-section of the half-destroyed mansion, she could see inside the second floor

A man was there.

He was still alive.

At this point, she didn’t care how injured he was.

(Uonaka Ichijo. If he’s alive, then I have to capture him!!)

On the professional battlefield, getting greedy was a good way to get yourself killed. That was an inviolable rule, but Frenda had somehow managed to avoid being killed instantly.

She heard another rotor.

The Mugino Family must have had their own secret attack helicopter. The aerial weapon must have been dismantled, the pieces packed into separate shipping containers, and then reassembled inside Japan.

(A large Russian helicopter?)

This changed the Two Wings’ priority.

From ground attack to air combat.

(Uh, oh. In the end, that thing can’t beat the Two Wings!!)

Frenda kept an eye on the sky as she ran toward the blasted rubble.

That was a global best seller in the category of attack helicopter, but it was still inferior to a cutting-edge Academy City model. Besides, the large Russian helicopter had cargo space for eight soldiers in addition to its direct weaponry. When compared to a helicopter designed only for direct combat, its belly had a van’s worth of extra volume.

The Two Wings moved faster, located enemies faster, and attacked faster. It didn’t leave any openings.

The monster even had a secondary jet engines. It could make sharp emergency slides to the side and even perform a flashy loop-the-loop despite being a helicopter. The basic specs of the two models of helicopter were just too different.

As Frenda watched, the air-to-air missile launched from the Mugino Family helicopter was easily evaded. More than just moving fast, it had to be emitting IR, EM, or something else invisible that disturbed the missile.

An explosive boom sounded.

A horizontal storm of fire sliced through the air in counterattack, tearing apart the large helicopter.

The five-piece main rotor spun fruitlessly as the burning hulk dropped. Like a meteor. And of all places, it was falling straight toward Frenda as she ran along the ground.

“Dammit!!”

Her heart froze. There was nothing she could do.

Then there was another explosion.

The Two Wings had fired its 120mm cannon to shred the falling helicopter. That was blatant overkill, but the program must have continued attacking because the metallic reading designated as its target was considered “still flying” as long as it continued gliding for a certain amount of time.

Just before small pieces of scorching metal poured down like rain, Frenda scrambled through the villa’s entrance and into its main hall.

Then again, that wasn’t much in the way of cover. The initial attack had only left the front wall intact and the blown-up rear led directly out into the grass.

Razor-sharp rain filled the space on the other side of the wall.

Climbing those crumbling stairs scared Frenda, but she couldn’t be picky right now.

Once on the second floor, she saw someone curled up in fear.

Was that him?

Mugino Family Sakuya Faction Negotiator, “Crossword” Uonaka Ichijo.

He was the foundation of the parent-killing plan.

The ceiling had collapsed, making the hallway something like a convertible and something was staring down at her from the wide-open sky. The Two Wings attack helicopter had locked onto its target again.

“!?”

(If I don’t capture him alive, I won’t be able to control Sakuya!!)

She had to make Sakuya reluctant to lose him. If the hostage died, the enemy boss wouldn’t hesitate.

She would give the go-ahead and a reckless slaughter would begin.

There was no time to complain.

Frenda just ran.

She rushed toward the man frozen in shock and then soared out through the building’s cross-section.

The 120mm cannon opened fire.

Explosive flames filled the second floor of the school-sized villa.

Frenda and the man just barely managed to fall down to the enormous dining room on the first floor, breaking the surviving long table on their way to the floor.

“Kh… Don’t die on me!!”

She grabbed his arm.

The wet sensation was of course blood.

Still, Frenda Seivelun had just barely secured the negotiator.

She dragged him over to the surviving wall and barely avoided the line of fire from a 20mm autocannon.

Staying here wouldn’t work.

She needed a sturdier shield. The bullets were bad enough, but an explosive blast could fill the space and circle around behind walls. Frenda turned her head to look at the mountain slope past the crumbling outer wall. This early in the morning, the orange sunrise was visible too.

“What? Why are you helping me? Are you giving me a chance to confess my sins?”

“Oh, shut up. If you don’t want to die, you need to get to the mountain tunnel!! In the end, we can escape the Two Wings’ bombing there!!”

With the large helicopter shot down, all of the soaring Two Wings could once more focus on the ground. Their top priority would be “Crossword” Uonaka Ichijo, but Frenda could easily get blown up right along with him since she was lending him her shoulder.

The man groaned and coughed up blood.

“Leave me here…”

“Enough complaining.”

“I’m going to die either way. Whatever you’re hoping to get from me, it won’t work. So leave me here.”

“I’m not doing this to save your villainous ass! Shut up and run!!”

He was clearly taller and heavier than Frenda and he was worn out and near death. Even running 20m lending him her shoulder would be risky.

Nevertheless, they managed to dive into the tunnel together.

A powerful explosion erupted nearby. Apparently the 120mm cannon had crashed into the thick mountain face.

Frenda’s hearing was drowned out by an intense ringing for a bit.

But that meant she was still alive.

She grimaced and placed her hand on the tunnel wall to stand back up. She grabbed a first-aid kit attached to the wall, opened it, and pulled out the disinfectant and bandages.

He pissed her off, but she couldn’t let Crossword die from his blood loss.

Maybe it was too little too late, but she had to do her best to stanch his bleeding. This was a struggle only available to her because she was still alive. Although she did make sure to apply the disinfectant and tie the bandages as painfully as she could manage.

“Ugh! B-be more gentle…”

“You think you’re in position to make demands? Think before you speak next time. In the end, I’m not your big sister!!”

But Frenda Seivelun could not reflect on the ordinary joy of survival.

She had a bad feeling.

“…”

An icy sensation crawled along her spine. Something in the air changed. Or so it seemed to her.

“What? Why are you-”

“Sh.”

She held out a hand to shush Uonaka Ichijo.

Quietly, Frenda poked her head out from the tunnel to take a look.

And she frantically pulled it back inside. With her breath caught in her throat.

That was not who she wanted to see.

Mugino Shizuri and Item.

Mugino Sakuya and the Mugino Family.

A cold sweat poured down Frenda’s brow.

They were both monsters. She had just risked her life to capture someone who might just be able to stop the killing of parents across the country. If she was caught up in another battle here, the negotiator – the key to it all – could be killed.

The bloody man leaned back against the wall and sat down on the ground before asking a question while breathing heavily.

He hadn’t wanted to sit. He just couldn’t stay upright any longer.

“Wh-what are you going to do?”

“We need to get deeper inside the tunnel. Listen. I need you to help stop the killing of the parents. Don’t you dare die before that’s done. In the end, I’ll resuscitate you and then kill you in a much more painful way myself!!”

Part 13

Of course.

Mugino Shizuri and Mugino Sakuya had not enjoyed a friendly journey deep into the mountains together.

Their battle had begun on the way.

“As expected, you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. You’re as stupid as Eika. Everyone, land this fish before she breaks the line.”

The woman wore a gorgeous storybook dress.

Mugino Sakuya sneered thinly.

This wasn’t the time to be picky. Shizuri raised her voice.

“Kinuhata!! You focus on the ones with blades who move in such a pain-in-the-ass way!! I can fry all the second-rates who keep their distance and rely on projectile weapons!!”

“Super on it.”

With a dull “thud!!”, Kinuhata’s head jerked upwards.

The motion was a lot like receiving an uppercut, but her entire body was guarded by a thick nitrogen barrier.

A swooshing sound came later.

“You’re a tough one, little lady. A 12-gauge from that range isn’t enough to knock you down? I guess our assumptions out here don’t apply to you Academy City kids.”

“I’m super flattered.”

“But a slug’ll break through. Sure, you’ve got a special power, but your specialty is martial arts, isn’t it? I’ve fought someone like you before. I just have to remember that time I had to fight a tiger and brown bear covered in bulletproof armor.”

The man wielded a nunchaku shotgun made by linking two shotguns with a short chain. Wasn’t he called Ougigumo?

The shotguns so loved by the American military caused the most damage when pressed directly against the opponent’s gut and fired. And the nunchaku was less about the destructive force of the physical impacts and more about creating strange, ever-changing trajectories that defied the enemy’s ability to accurately predict them and slipped past their defenses through sheer unexpectedness. It might seem silly at first, but the combination of a close-quarters shotgun and ancient martial arts may have been surprisingly effective.

“Let me enjoy this a bit, okay? Your great Academy City power isn’t flimsier than a bulletproof car’s door, is it!?”

The shotgun was the ultimate close-quarters weapon and he could cover all 360 degrees.

All Ougigumo had to do was get close to his enemy and he was unstoppable.

Except…

“By the way, this super isn’t a completely deserted ghost town, is it?”

“?”

“That means the power, gas, and water lines should still be active. And this deep in the mountains, they won’t use city gas carried in through pipes. They’ll use giant propane tanks brought in by truck, don’t you think?”

“Gwoh!?”

When Kinuhata used Offense Armor to lightly kick up like she would a soccer ball, the American shotgun moved on reflex. The idiot accidentally triggered a powerful explosion.

A large motorcycle engine roared through the mountains.

Holding his heavy machinegun like an old knight would a lance, Bakyaku spoke up in exasperation.

“Don’t get yourself killed before I can even try to work with you, Ougigumo. I’m docking you points for that.”

“12.7mm… I’m super taking him out first!!”

“Kinuhata, what should I do?” asked Takitsubo.

“Get in some building or another and stand by! If I have something for you to do, I’ll super call your phone!!”

Kinuhata shouted that, kicked off the nearly vertical retaining wall nearby and climbed up to the next tier.

Unless it was a specialized off-road motorcycle, motorcycles were generally not a good choice for rough mountain terrain. Driving through the weed-filled gardens and across the overgrown grass would get foliage tangled in the wheels and chains. He couldn’t drive up the concrete retaining walls to prevent landslides, so he had to use the winding mountain road to move between tiers.

Thus, anyone who could move directly between tiers could run circles around him.

Kinuhata had the advantage.

Keep this up and he was bound to make a fatal mistake.

(That heavy machinegun is more of a threat than a 2000x damage boost, but I can super attack him whenever I want since his movements are so restricted. I can focus on staying behind cover while moving along the roofs to reach a good attack posi-)

It came from the side.

Without warning, the large motorcycle’s front wheel charged sharply toward Kinuhata.

That was way too soon for him to have gone up the winding mountain road!

“Wha-?”

She didn’t have time for surprise.

With a dull thud, Kinuhata’s small body was thrown to the asphalt. The big motorcycle had slammed into her. She rolled back, hopped up, and finally took intentional evasive action. Bakyaku’s heavy machinegun roared and easily plowed the pavement in pursuit of Kinuhata.

She let Offense Armor protect her as she broke through the window of a nearby inn and fled deep inside the abandoned building.

She spied out from a 2nd floor window and thought.

(Tch!! I see. So that’s super it.)

The mountain road zigzagged back and forth, but the concrete retaining walls had steep stairs and the tall hotel rose higher than the next tier up. There were plenty of alternate routes a large motorcycle could use as a shortcut.

Kinuhata heard the roar of the engine.

It was close.

Bakyaku was probably already inside the same old inn. Still on the large motorcycle.

With Offense Armor, a close-range shotgun blast would only make Kinuhata bend back some, but a heavy machinegun was another story. She might be able to use her full strength to stop a single shot, but she might not manage that if several hit her in quick succession. And of course, once her power slipped. Her flesh and bone body would be obliterated.

(Should I break the windows to spread glass shards around? No, I don’t know enough about him. If those tires were injected with plastic instead of air, like the ones bulletproof cars use, then I can’t super puncture them!!)

A thumping sound came from the stairs.

Kinuhata turned that way with a very bad feeling and the bright beams of headlights shined out at her.

Bakyaku.

A Mugino Family Manager.

The young butler spoke, still straddling the large motorcycle.

“I have nothing against you, but you sided with Shizuri-sama, which makes you Sakuya-sama’s enemy. I do thank you, though. By serving Shizuri-sama, you have contributed to the Mugino Family. I have no intention of taking that from you.”

“You have some guts saying that while super taking the side trying to kill Mugino, you rebel.”

“I need no excuse. This is my way of expressing my love for the Family.”

The motorcycle engine howled. The two-wheeled hunk of metal shot forward. With the heavy machinegun aimed at little Kinuhata.

Not even Offense Armor could stop that destructive power.

“Prepare yourself.”

“And…done,” said a sluggish voice.

It was Takitsubo Rikou.

She had horizontally extended a wire made from winding together several thin steel wires. At about face height.

Bakyaku’s body swung around with his head as the center point. The motorcycle continued on ahead as the body stayed in place before falling to the floor. The biker-killing wire trap had caught him right in the neck. Of course, she hadn’t been holding the wire by hand. It was wrapped around something like a large reel.

“Wh-where did you super find that?”

“There are a bunch of them over there. The inn’s banquet hall has a small stage, so I think the wires are used to raise and lower the curtain.”

Several lights flashed outside the window.

Those would be Mugino’s Meltdowner.

She didn’t even need to actually destroy the butlers and maids. By melting the mountain road’s asphalt or the concrete retaining wall, the rank and file troops pursued by the orange rivers would be forced to flee. Instead of a situation where risking their lives could end up with both sides dead, challenging her was like sticking your head into a blast furnace. Apparently not even the Mugino Family troops were that reckless.

Kinuhata stared out of the inn’s window.

“Sigh. We super can’t rejoin Mugino with all that going on.”

“If we reach the goal first and wait, she’ll catch up with us.”

And so Kinuhata and Takitsubo decided to climb the mountain ahead of Mugino.

On the track suit girl’s instructions, Kinuhata silently eliminated the snipers and marksmen hidden in the bushes along the way.

“But what is Sakuya’s faction doing way out in the mountains like this?”

“Who knows. Maybe they have a hideout here?”

Item had made it this far following the signals from the bugs Sakuya used to keep her people loyal. When all they needed were the coordinates, they didn’t need to decrypt or decipher the signal. So they had made it this far without knowing what the plan was.

“And super Frenda-san is supposed to be here too, but what would she be doing here?”

“Again, maybe this is their hideout.”

They climbed the winding mountain road all the way to the top.

The track suit girl really was good at these tests of endurance. She remained expressionless even though she wasn’t physically boosted in any way like Kinuhata was.

They arrived at what looked like a group of luxury villas…or what was left of them. If Frenda wasn’t here, either Mugino or Sakuya would probably find her while climbing the slope. What that meant regarding Frenda’s safety was less certain.

“(Where is super Frenda-san?)”

“(Sakuya is here, so Frenda should be here somewhere.)”

She wouldn’t be anywhere obvious. That bomber girl’s life was on the line. Although it seemed safer to these two if Frenda made her appearance now while none of the Mugino Family Bloodline – neither Shizuri nor Sakuya – were here.

“If there’s any chance of this working out, we need to super find Frenda-san before it starts raining blood. Takitsubo-san, where do you think we should start looking?”

“Wait, Kinuhata.”

They heard something slicing through the air.

That was an Academy City Two Wings attack helicopter.

An entire group of them.

“Damn!!”

As soon as Kinuhata pushed blankly-staring Takitsubo behind a nearby boulder, a series of powerful explosions erupted.

The Academy City unmanned weapons were bombing something. Something nearby.

The noise was so bad it seemed like that alone would kill them, but it did appear that they weren’t the target.

“Are they after Frenda?”

“How should I super know!?”

And the catastrophe did not end there.

A beam of light lanced out.

And a second and third.

Something was approaching. Clear human killer intent spread across the nearly deserted abandoned buildings.

“That’s Mugino.”

“Takitsubo-san, you hide somewhere. Always keep an escape route in mind and be super ready to move at any time. You have 60 seconds.”

“Wait, Kinuhata.”

“She keeps firing those stupid powerful beams, but things still haven’t settled down. That means Mugino is being pushed back! I’ll gather as much attention as I can, but that means I can’t focus on protecting you while I fight!!”

Part 14

She threw punches and kicks.

But just before the moment of maximum impact, he would strike her wrist or push on her shin to sap the force of the blow. She combined ordinary martial arts with surprise Meltdowner blasts from her palms, but the old butler in a tuxedo and monocle only swung his head to the side to easily dodge them.

Mujinayama.

He swung something around like a club.

It was a precision sniper rifle.

That was not meant to be used as a striking weapon. But sniper rifles were made sturdy enough to endure their own recoil. Thus, it provided Mujinayama with competitive-level precision as well as a weapon for dirty brawling. He was very careful to ensure the blows did not send too powerful of vibrations to the barrel or workings of the gun. Just like a mountain sniper who was forced to treat his tools roughly.

“You’ve honed your skills this far and a silly coup’s the best you could come up with? What do you live your life for, Mujinayama?”

“Whether or not this is ‘silly’ is not for the lowly butlers like me to decide. That judgment is made by Sakuya-sama who will soon stand at the top of the Mugino Family.”

“You don’t get to complain how tough life is as a Manager who can’t choose the Bloodline they serve. You left me and sided with Sakuya. You betrayed the Family of your own free will.”

“I know nothing I say can-”

Mugino Shizuri sent a Meltdowner blast his way mid-sentence.

At the same time, something dropped straight down like a lightning bolt.

It was Kinuhata Saiai.

She landed with a dull “crash!!!”, the asphalt denting below her.

On the other hand, that was all that happened.

That surprise attack using her Academy City esper power should have been unavoidable for someone outside the city. But not even that could reach Mujinayama. He had already jumped backwards. The soles of his shoes skidded along in a harshly weaving S-shape as he did so.

He had gotten away.

“Shizuri-sama’s daily complaints about Academy City’s espers have told me all I need to know. I know you each have a single trump card and I know how you think to ensure you can make the most of that card. Thus, a surprise like this is well within my expectations.”

“Kh.”

Aside from that, there weren’t many people who could take on both a Level 5 and a Level 4 while remaining in control and protecting Sakuya.

“You should not have come here, Shizuri-sama. I gave you more than enough time. If you still have not found a way to kill me, then so be it.”

He remained composed while staring down Academy City’s #4.

Mujinayama was not unarmed.

He held a spear-long sniper rifle. Things had change since they were in the Mugino Family mansion. The old butler’s playful air was gone.

“Mujinayama is a family of mountain snipers. …I never imagined you would try to fight him in place like this. You did not think this through. You have given us far too great an advantage.”

Behind him, Mugino Sakuya whispered in obvious enjoyment.

The old butler was currently serving and protecting Sakuya, not Shizuri.

“Mujinayama, hurry up and kill her. You must protect the Bloodline you serve, no matter what. Hee hee. With a setup like this, even you will be forced to take this seriously, won’t you? You cannot protect me without killing Shizuri.”

The girl wasn’t even looking at the true villain of Sakuya.

The #4 was glaring only at the old butler.

“Mujinayama,” she growled.

“There are reasons I cannot abandon Sakuya-sama. They are, however, silly personal reasons not even worth conveying to you, Shizuri-sama.”

“This isn’t your rebellion. It’s Sakuya’s selfish desire!!”

“Be that as it may, I cannot leave Sakuya-sama alone. I simply cannot. Think of this too as the fate of a Manager serving the Bloodline and give up on me, Shizuri-sama.”

The atmosphere strained under the tension.

Mujinayama’s muscles crawled quietly below his luxurious tuxedo. The bundles of muscle fibers moved tightly as they entered a mode intended to kill.

This was the ideal form of the world’s most powerful predator which surpassed even the lion and the great white shark.

In other words, the human.

“Prepare yourself. You may be a legitimate member of the Bloodline, but you failed to gather the Management and are thus our enemy. I pray that this conflict will lay the foundation of further prosperity for the Mugino Family.”

His monocle did not even waver.

He scored a perfect 100 as a Manager serving the Mugino Family.

How ironic it was that his loyalty to the Family would turn around to threaten Shizuri as an individual.

Part 15

Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai. Even in Academy City, where esper development was the norm, they held positions near the top of the ranks at Level 5 and Level 4.

Mujinayama didn’t care.

He slipped forward.

And then suddenly vanished.

Maybe he had intentionally let Mugino’s eyes get used to his movement before breaking free with his top speed.

She couldn’t be certain.

The color white scattered in her vision.

It had happened to her, but she couldn’t tell what it was that had happened to her.

Had he hit her?

Her brain was badly shaken, but even this was Mujinayama showing mercy.

Just this once.

If he could slip past her guard and slam the stock of his sniper rifle against her nose, he could just as easily have crushed her eyes or torn out her throat.

(This isn’t just about me. He broke free of Kinuhata’s eyes at the same time!?)

“Tch!?”

“Even the same, for example, right motion could lead to an attack with the fist, elbow, or shoulder, each of which will have a very different reach or power. You must always be cognizant of at least two, and if possible three, options so the enemy cannot predict your actions. I thought this was a lesson I had drilled into you from a young age.”

At this point, Mugino couldn’t afford to hold back.

Holding the struck bridge of her nose, she stepped back and held her other palm out front.

A beam exploded out.

Academy City’s #4 Level 5, Meltdowner.

When the old butler in a tuxedo and monocle sighed, it contained a note of pity.

Butler Mujinayama did not try to stop the attack. He simply sidestepped the deadly attack and walked toward her.

Right, right, left, right, left, left.

“Y-you’re kidding? So it wasn’t a fluke before. He’s really dodging Mugino’s super Meltdowner from head on like that!!”

“Holding your hand out to aim? That is so simple I almost thought it was a feint, Lady Shizuri. It does not matter how powerful an attack is if it is so predictable.”

Of course, Mujinayama did not have the power of precognition or mind reading. He was probably predicting Mugino’s aim from the distance between them and using the signs she gave him, but that wasn’t the biggest issue.

Drilled into.

From a young age.

This old butler had looked after Mugino Shizuri as far back as she could remember. That length of time was his greatest weapon. He knew this monster’s idiosyncrasies possibly even better than she did herself. This could not be overcome overnight. She could try to change those idiosyncrasies, but she could not consciously cover these things right away.

Mujinayama was getting closer.

A direct hit here would be deadly.

Everyone here knew that. He was an ordinary human who had not gone through the esper development, but he had still easily beaten down Kinuhata Saiai while she was boosted by her Level 4 Offense Armor. He really could slay a grizzly or lion barehanded. All of Item believed so without real evidence. This attacks were not something a human could endure.

And he was right there.

Mujinayama spoke while strolling below a row of cherry trees.

“Is this all you have, Lady Shizuri?”

But she couldn’t hit him.

The beams always sizzled right past the butler.

Mugino Shizuri’s deadly attack was ineffective against Mujinayama!!

“If so, you are no threat at all. Not even with that superpower you acquired in Academy City.”

“What, is a Mugino Family Manager hesitating to kill once it comes down to it? You’re gonna make me cry.”

“I have not been playing around.”

Metal audibly scraped against metal.

“Mujinayama is not a family of geniuses. Thus, we always make certain. The first shot is used to reveal all the small errors introduced by reality.”

It was the sound of him pulling back the sniper rifle’s bolt handle and loading the first round.

The Mountain Sniper whispered.

“Shizuri-sama, this little game of ours has allowed me to accurately measure your range of motion. My adjustments are now complete, so the next time it will be a real bullet.”

Part 16

Someone was watching all of this play out.

It was Frenda Seivelun waiting near the tunnel entrance.

“Are you kidding? In the end, Mugino of all people is being pushed back? She has Takitsubo and Kinuhata with her and she’s struggling against a single old man? In the end, it looks like Item can’t get by without their true star – Frenda-chan.”

Things were not going well.

But for some reason, Frenda still wasn’t moving.

She was hiding in a tunnel. If she cut through the mountain and left through the other end, she could escape.

Her reason was obvious.

“She’s the #4. There’s no way she’ll let this beat her, right? But that old man’s movements are definitely superhuman. Watch out, Mugino! Ahh, she’s gonna lose. Ahh.”

It was her eyes.

She had the same look in her eyes as the big sister chasing after her racing 7-year-old sister with a video camera.

The skill difference with Mujinayama was just that great.

Whatever the case, she couldn’t just let this happen.

Item’s advantage was their Academy City esper powers. Those unconventional powers were being pushed back by the overwhelming numbers of the Mugino Family. After all, there were only three of them. If Meltdowner and Offense Armor weren’t up to the task, then they would be crushed by sheer numbers.

Do not forget.

A single bullet was enough to kill someone. The esper development did nothing to change the biological body.

The time had come to think carefully.

(What can I use right now? I’m in a tunnel, so I can get potassium nitrate from a smoke bomb, there’s ethanol disinfectant in the first-aid kit, and I can probably separate the sodium from the de-icer. Or would the disaster tools include a small generator? If there’s any gasoline or diesel left in the tank, it would be faster to mess with that!)

Bloody and captured Uonaka Ichijo groaned.

“Hey, what’re you doing? Aren’t you gonna run?”

“In the end, the Sakuya faction will surround me and kill me if Mugino is defeated here. Even escaping through the tunnel will only keep me alive for a day or two before I run out of places to hide. So I can’t let them kill Mugino!!”

Part 17

Mujinayama was a sniper.

First, he accurately shot through the extra fuel tank of a Two Wings unmanned attack helicopter flying by overhead, causing the jet fuel within to explode. A shockwave dropped down on the entire area like a suspended ceiling. Mugino grimaced and was delayed by half a step while Mujinayama pulled the bolt handle to eject the empty cartridge. Then he loaded the next round.

“Gah!!”

With a bang, Kinuhata flew backwards.

She had moved in to guard Mugino.

She had recognized that the #4 would be hit if she didn’t.

Even with Offense Armor, it was a serious blow. A 7.62mm sniper round had nearly twice the bullet weight of an ordinary assault rifle round. And by intentionally shifting the center of gravity back, the big game round would bend 90 degrees on impact, releasing all of its kinetic energy 5cm within the target. Kinuhata rolled along the ground, doubled over and coughing.

Mugino clicked her tongue and launched Meltdowner, but the old butler in a tuxedo and monocle only took a step to the side. He calmly pulled the bolt handle and loaded the next round.

The next one would end it.

Mugino Shizuri accepted that fact.

But a sudden explosion threw the series of events into chaos.

“In the end, pull yourself together, Mugino!!”

The voice was familiar.

Frenda Seivelun, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, must have tossed in a home-made bomb.

Despite the fact she was being hunted.

Almost as if she just couldn’t resist.

Mujinayama had avoided a direct hit, but he still flinched and froze for a moment. Yes, the seemingly untouchable old butler had actually reacted to this fully unexpected attack. His complete lack of openings before had been the result of his complete understanding of Mugino Shizuri.

Because he was the one who had taught her how to fight and survive within the Mugino Family.

(Oh! In that case!!)

Mugino Shizuri didn’t let the fear win and actually moved forward.

She aimed for an ear.

After all, she had knocked out a white tiger with a single palm strike back in the Colosseum. This had happened in a city of science, so there was of course a reason why it worked.

She had rattled the inner ear to throw off its equilibrium.

(If I want to get in an attack, I need to bring down his guard first!!)

She couldn’t quite reach. Her fingers were 10cm away from the sniper rifle’s muzzle.

But there was an impact.

Not from her elbow or fist.

But with the longer reach of the cardigan she had been roughly wearing.

“Always be cognizant of at least two, and if possible three, options, right!?”

“Nh!?”

Something audibly and violently struck the air.

With the correct snapping motion, any cloth could become a whip.

In the instant he flinched, Mugino once more stepped toward Mujinayama. She moved in low and pushed up on the long barrel of his sniper rifle with her right hand as she did so.

She didn’t bother trying to snatch it away in a game of tug-of-war.

She melted and blew away the center of the rifle with Meltdowner.

Mujinayama had expected her to pull on it, so he was caught off guard and frantically staggered.

Increasing your options wasn’t the only way to gain an advantage.

You could reduce your options yourself to lead your opponent toward self-destruction.

And a basic fact and goal of all forms of art was that information was harder to remove than to add. Adding it could be enough to reach proficiency, but only one who had learned to remove it and was recognized for this could be called a true master.

“Lady Shizuri. I never taught you to do that.”

“No. It’s my own self-taught style!!”

And that prevented even Mujinayama from keeping up with her thoughts.

Their gazes clashed.

But Mugino managed to act a single moment before Mujinayama could regain his balance and strike back.

A roar exploded out.

It was the sound of Mugino Shizuri’s fist accurately finding the old butler’s cheekbone.

She didn’t rely on the easy and deadly Meltdowner.

She had learned more than just her esper power.

This was the experience and violence that Academy City’s #4 had sharply honed in the darkness after leaving the protection of the Mugino Family and entering Academy City where Butler Mujinayama was not watching.

She used only her bare hands.

And that was what surpassed Butler Mujinayama in the very, very end.

“Well done. You really have grown, Shizuri-sama.”

He collapsed.

Slowly.

His words carried utter satisfaction.

Like they always did.

He viewed her with the eyes of a man watching his grandchild.

If only he would say everything had been a lie – a silly act.

That would have made it so much easier.

It was Mugino Shizuri whose face crumpled up.

“Are you kidding me?”

She grabbed the tuxedo’s collar.

And forced him back onto his feet.

She could kill him at any time with Meltdowner.

Yet she was the one trembling and trapped.

The words spilled out.

“You taught me how to hold a pencil, how to use chopsticks, and how to ride a bike.”

She seemed to be speaking through a bit lip.

But her voice soon grew to an unstable shout.

She was shaken.

Traitors deserved death.

But she couldn’t do it.

Not with Mujinayama. This old man had always been at the very foundation of her personality.

He had been a solid, unshakable presence in her life. Like a large tree. He had been an old man in a monocle since she had first been introduced to him.

“Even once I was in Academy City, you stayed on the phone with me until I learned the times table. That’s how it always was for everything! Are you goddamn kidding me!? Why do you have to be my enemy!?”

“…”

Why?

Mujinayama kept his silence in the face of that obvious question.

He had said repeatedly he had his reasons for not betraying Sakuya.

Was it truly a matter of loyalty like he said? Or did he owe her a personal debt such as saving him or his family?

But.

What did that matter?

He should have come to her before the interest grew too large for him to refuse.

He was a Manager who served the Mugino Family.

And Mugino Shizuri was part of the Bloodline.

Neither the troops nor the Management were simple sacrificial pawns. Protecting them was the Bloodline’s duty – their noblesse oblige.

Because the Management risked their lives doing the dirty work, the Bloodline had to risk their own futures to protect them. That was an inviolable rule. It was that give and take that allowed them to rule the world as a single whole. That was the rule anyone who wished to lead the Mugino Family had to learn first and foremost.

Yet Mujinayama hadn’t come to her.

He had feared involving her.

He hadn’t let her do her job.

As a result, he was forced to attack Shizuri on Sakuya’s command and now he had placed the noose around his own neck.

Still, he did not utter a single word of complaint.

He didn’t need to see anything other than how she was biting her lip.

“Honestly…” whispered the old butler in a monocle, slowly shutting his eyes.

He had the look of a grandfather observing his grandchild’s growth even in the middle of a horrific conflict between two blood-related members of the Bloodline.

“That kind of soft thinking…will not let you inherit the Mugino Family which fills 1.4 billion stomachs around the world…”

The gentle air was shattered.

By an explosive sound.

The sound of an explosive detonating.

But this did not come from Frenda. The blonde girl’s eyes were widened with surprise too.

This was more accurately described as the report of a handgun.

Butler Mujinayama swayed to the side and then crumbled unnaturally to the ground.

Standing behind him was Sakuya.

She was holding a two-round handgun small enough to hide in the palm. It would only be accurate up to a range of around 5m, so it was not meant for an actual firefight. It was likely an assassin’s handgun meant to be hidden up the sleeve.

“Whose side are you on?”

Despite the smoking handgun, her voice wavered, like that of a lost child.

They were aunt and niece, weren’t they?

Whatever anti-aging methods she was using, Mugino Sakuya looked at most nearly 30, but her actual age was unknown. Although that she was putting in an effort suggested an effort was necessary.

But it may have been the same for her.

Mujinayama had served the Mugino Family for a very long time. So just as he had taught Mugino Shizuri to ride a bike and helped her learn the times table, he may have also been by Sakuya’s side when she was a child.

But Mujinayama had let go of her hand in the very, very end.

His smile had been directed at Shizuri, not Sakuya.

So.

“Go...to…helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!”

A fearsome beam of light raged out.

Part 18

It happened suddenly.

Frenda Seivelun was the one who tackled Mugino Sakuya out of the way.

After missing its mark, the Meltdowner beam sliced through the abandoned villa area.

Takitsubo and Kinuhata joined her.

Not Mugino Shizuri, but the runaway blonde girl.

“Nice one, Frenda.”

“But what’s your position here anyway!? Because I’m super ready to give you an Offense Armor punch if you make it necessary!!”

While they had been given special permission to pursue Frenda, Item could be broken up if they killed anyone unconnected to Frenda outside of Academy City. Even if no one would move directly to make that happen, there were plenty of forces on the dark side who were probably watching on, hoping that would happen.

“Is this any time to argue!? In the end, do you really think Mugino’s gonna give us time to chat? We’ll be fried in an instant if we’re not paying attention!!”

Frenda’s goal was to return to Academy City and reclaim her usual life. She wanted to live it up on the dark side while also hiding that side of herself as she followed her 7-year-old sister’s efforts in the Daihaseisai with a camera in hand. It was a selfish goal, but to make it happen, she had to prove she had not intentionally escaped outside the wall and she couldn’t have Item eliminated.

That meant she definitely couldn’t let Mugino Shizuri commit mass murder outside Academy City and she couldn’t let Sakuya, the mastermind behind the entire incident, die. Having that villain confess to it all was her best bet.

They must have been programmed not to feel fear. The Two Wings carelessly attempted to attack Mugino Shizuri in her current state, only for each of them to be shot down in turn.

It went without saying what would happen to the human body if one of those beams hit it.

They couldn’t kill outside of Academy City.

They couldn’t leave Mugino Shizuri in this state.

Takitsubo Rikou, Kinuhata Saiai, and Frenda Seivelun were a team again.

They had a single goal.

They would not let their teammate die. They would save her here.

And to do that…

“We have to defeat Academy City #4, Mugino Shizuri!!”

Between the Lines 2

Either hang her head or bear with it.

Those were her only options as a child.

In the Mugino Family, it was a foregone conclusion that the Bloodline would compete.

You couldn’t let your fragility and weakness show.

Because the rest of the family would actively use that as a target to strike.

So Mugino Sakuya always left the house and went somewhere deserted to tremble all alone.

She couldn’t make friends at school and even the teachers only nervously watched her from a distance, never approaching. She wasn’t treated like anyone else. Because she had been born to the Mugino Family. The true nature of that family never leaked out, but everyone in the honest world could just tell she didn’t fit in.

The family head was always assessing her, the adults were already disappointed in her at her age, and she was forced to compete with the brothers, sisters, and other relatives of her generation even though she knew she couldn’t win. In that shadowy world, it seemed like everyone indulged in the dark joy of tearing down people weaker than themselves.

There was no ordinary love there.

There was no rest for Mugino Sakuya. She knew she would only be worn down little by little no matter where she went, but she had no chance to recuperate. The heart in her small chest would only continue to be torn apart until there was nothing left. She knew that, but there was nothing the helpless girl could do about it.

No one was coming to save her. And she didn’t expect anyone to. When the police or her teachers saw her scraped and bruised body, they would only click their tongues and look the other way.

But then.

During it all.

“Oh, dear. Is this where you got off to, Sakuya-sama?”

There was one kind voice.

Whenever Sakuya went missing, he was always the first one to find her. Not her parents, not her siblings, and not any friends or teachers. It was the butler in a black tuxedo and monocle who always found her first.

Mujinayama had been Mujinayama since long before Sakuya was born.

He seemed permanently unchanging, like the sacred tree at a Shinto shrine.

When Sakuya was weeping and feeling crushed by the weight of her own weakness, he would rub her head and speak to her.

Patiently.

As many times as it took.

“Listen. Strength comes in many forms. Eika-sama has her form of strength, but you too have your own form of strength. You simply have yet to realize it. If you are only given the opportunity, you will become stronger than anyone.”

“…Even stronger than the head?”

“Yes.”

“Even stronger than you?”

“Of course.”

“Nuh-uh. No one can beat you.”

Mujinayama smiled gently.

Thinking back, that had less to do with the small girl’s words and more with the fact that the girl who could only hang hear head or bear with it had finally shown him an awkward smile.

Mugino Sakuya asked a question as they returned to the mansion, hand in hand.

Hesitantly.

“Hey, Mujinayama?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing can stop the fighting between the Bloodline. And the struggle over the Management is only going to heat up. …Will you stay with me to the end?”

“That has always been my intention.”

And so.

And yet.

Chapter 4: Blood Against Blood

Part 1

Mugino Shizuri.

Academy City’s #4 Level 5, Meltdowner.

If you lived in that city and took even a step into its darker side, you would know you must not challenge her to a fight, no matter what. It was an inviolable rule. Before even considering how you could win, you had to search for a way to avoid conflict with that monster. That city was crawling with espers who could break the rules of Newtonian physics, but this was one rule even they had to follow.

These girls knew that better than anyone.

But they still chose of their own free will to step past it.

“(In the end, do you know what you’re doing here?)”

“(Yes, I super do.)”

“(We charge at Mugino together on my signal. She won’t be able to defend against us all in time, so one of our attacks should reach her.)”

Item wasn’t an easygoing enough group to hold a lengthy strategy meeting right in front of their target who had a deadly projectile attack. They compressed the information in something similar to shorthand and instantly conveyed their general intentions with only their eyes and fingers.

Since she was a Level 4 who specialized in defense, Kinuhata managed to keep up despite being new to the team.

“(The one thing we have going for us is that Mugino’s power is super offense-oriented. Which means it isn’t good for defense. No matter how deadly her attacks are, her body is the same as anyone else’s!! She’s a super normal human who will pass out if we rattle her brain or compress her hear-”

It came without warning.

She didn’t even use her palm. Mugino Shizuri sent a storm of fearsome beams shooting from all across her body.

They didn’t have time to wait for the signal. Takitsubo and Frenda leaped toward Kinuhata, who was standing still in shock, and forcibly knocked her to the ground.

It no longer mattered that they were with Item.

The primary target of Mugino Shizuri’s rage was Sakuya alone.

But she would also use her full power to fry anyone – even the tiniest bug – that sheltered that woman or got in the way.

Meltdowner bisected a large Mugino Family vehicle.

Fortunately, it was a truck.

The rear container was sliced away and the American multiple rocket launcher contained there exploded, but the driver’s compartment remained intact.

Not even Level 4 Offense Armor could stop that.

A direct hit would mean instant death.

“Damn!!”

“We need to block Mugino’s view.”

Avoiding the first attack wasn’t enough to relax.

Frenda had no trouble propping small Kinuhata up on her shoulder (possibly because she so frequently carried around explosives and other things) and she rushed behind a nearby villa. As soon as they practically rolled there, a beam swept by at about a meter up. It sliced right through the former luxury villa’s thick soundproofed walls. If they hadn’t gotten on the ground when they did, everything from their hips to their chests would have been vaporized.

“Where’s the super villain!? Y’know, that woman who looks like Mugino if she used makeup to look younger.”

“Huh? Kinuhata, I think you have that backwards.”

“In the end, it doesn’t matter which one’s older! Sakuya, if you’re alive, go hide somewhere!! If she locates you, she’ll concentrate her fire on you!”

Dark soil fell onto their heads as they yelled back and forth.

Their ears weren’t working right.

They had to raise their voices to hear their teammates who were right in front of them.

The nearly ruined building wasn’t going to help much.

Not up against Academy City’s #4.

A tunnel running deep through the mountain might not even provide effective cover.

Their half-baked plan was already falling apart.

You could say this had rid them of their wishful thinking and optimism, but they would be killed if they didn’t quickly rework their thoughts to deal with reality. They didn’t have time to waste on panicking.

“In the end, there’s no way we can get close!! What do we do!? Throw a bomb from a distance to knock her out with the shockwave!?”

“She’d just blast it before it reached her. And when you leaned out from behind cover to throw it, she’d blast you. In fact, even if you did duck back behind cover, she could shoot right through that cover as soon as she knew where you were.”

“Enough smug contrarianism! In the end, do you have a better idea of how we can defeat Mugino!?”

“…”

“No!? You’ve got nothing!? Oh, no. And now she’s circling around toward us!!”

Not from the right or the left.

The unpleasant creaking sound came from above.

From the roof.

Mugino Shizuri was not a stationary cannon.

She was athletic enough to silence a white tiger with her bare palm.

“You’re…”

The #4 was persistent.

She had decided she was killing Sakuya. And she would fry anyone – even the tiniest bug – that sheltered the woman or got in the way.

“…dead mea-”

Frenda and Kinuhata shouted at about the same time.

“Here she…”

“…comes!!”

Mugino herself dropped sharply toward the ground.

From the two-story roof. If she simply landed on them, she could easily break all the bones in their bodies.

They had to avoid this. Even if it meant rolling.

But if they carelessly fled in any direction, they would be skewered by Meltdowner.

“Split up!!”

Takitsubo didn’t shout that because it gave them a chance of winning.

It was more about keeping their losses to a minimum by not bunching together.

The only reason they weren’t bisected regardless was because Kinuhata (still lying on her stomach) slammed her small fist into the ground just before Mugino landed.

It was only 5cm.

But the ground there did sink down. Mugino misjudged the moment she would land and failed to absorb the force of the fall with her knees, causing a slight error in her aim.

The second blast was coming.

The briefest of moments before she could aim the light compressed in her palm, Frenda chucked an explosive.

And detonated it.

As soon as the light and the explosive came in contact, an explosion erupted right in front of Mugino, but there was no need to check to see if she had survived.

If Frenda hadn’t immediately scattered bombs across the ground and blasted the soil into the air – and if she had been satisfied with that and not ducked down and raised her guard – the third beam would have blasted off her head.

“In the end, it didn’t even scratch her!?”

“I told you. Bombs won’t work on Mugino.”

“Why do you look kind of pleased about that!?”

They had scattered in different directions, so Frenda, Takitsubo, and Kinuhata were hiding in different abandoned buildings.

(Tch. In the end, Mugino knows how to defend too. She really is a thorough pain in the ass as an enemy!!)

On the dark side, that was the greatest possible compliment.

An explosion was really just an expansion of gas. When an explosive reacted, the gas would instantly expand hundreds of times over, creating a thick wall of pressure. An explosive was really no more than an object that would rapidly expand from only a small stimulus. So even water, which was about as far from fire as you could get, could be used to create steam explosions. Even liquid nitrogen would burst on its own if left at room temperature.

On the other hand.

It was an extremely rough way of phrasing it, but if you struck back with a surface of even greater pressure, a bomb’s blast could be overpowered. As long as it was an expanding gas, all explosive blasts would behave like air in a balloon: they would naturally take the path of least resistance.

Mugino’s fighting style was a lot like a bullfighter.

She did not have full-body armor like Kinuhata did.

Because the #4 herself lacked armor (and because she wanted to avoid a longer battle in which she was driven by fear and forced into a state of extreme tension), she would charge in, parry all else with her own attacks, and pierce her enemy with a merciless blast once they were defenseless.

But of course, if the others just waited to see what she would do, they would be filled with holes by wild Meltdowner blasts. In fact, they could end up with their entire bodies – down to the very last toe – vaporized as they stood.

7m. Kinuhata’s breathing was unnaturally shallow. That was enough distance to get a fresh start in a barehanded grapple, but against Mugino the tension was so great she thought her heart would stop.

“Searching out a more solid wall will only mean super delaying the inevitable, won’t it?”

“It would be better to reduce her cards first. The idea that she’s just a normal human wasn’t wrong. A blow to her jaw will rattle her brain and knock her out like it would with anyone else.”

But even if she was normal in that way, actually pulling that off in reality was the challenge.

Mugino turned her head.

(!? In the end, this is too much for those two to handle!!)

Frenda’s action was far from a big one.

At 10m away, she slowly circled around upwind of Mugino. The fireworks-like smell of explosives would trigger the part of Mugino’s brain developed on the dark side.

It would draw her attention toward Frenda. It was time for Frenda to show her resolve.

Although she might end up with her torso sliced through a moment later since she didn’t actually have a plan.

A voice spoke from a different direction.

“Frenda.”

“Idiot! Why are you trying to super show off!?”

Something was tossed her way.

They were rectangular bottles meant to contain a strong drink. The many heavy bottles shattered on the ground, a sticky flame spread around them, and an unnaturally white smoke billowed out.

After a quick test breath, Frenda immediately held her breath.

The tip of her tongue and her right cheek were already feeling numb.

This was bad news.

(Hexachloroethane​!? It is technically flammable, but in the end, it’s not a good choice for an incendiary round. So why use it?)

“Hold your breath and come this way!! Hexachloroethane​ has a mild anesthetic effect, but I do not know how effective it will be against Shizuri-sama with her ultra-high temperature beams. There is a good chance she will burn it away before she inhales it!!”

Frenda felt woozy even upwind of it, so it had to be a lot worse for Mugino downwind.

Several beams tore through the anesthetic smoke while Frenda ducked low and approached the voice.

It was the Molotov cocktail maid.

Wasn’t her name Hanagai?

“Hm? In the end, why are you taking our side!?”

“The Mugino Family Bloodline has many members, but it is obvious the competition will come down to Shizuri-sama and Sakuya-sama in the end. The worst possible option is for both of them to be killed here. We serve the Mugino Family as a whole, so we cannot allow the most likely heirs to be lost here!!”

A large motorcycle roared.

Bakyaku was there with his 12.7mm heavy machinegun held like a lance. So was Ougigumo with his nunchaku shotgun made by attaching two shotguns with a short chain.

“Tch. If we let Shizuri-sama continue like this, our Sakuya-sama will be at risk. Prepare yourself, Ougigumo. I know you’ve been polishing your skills so you can overpower one of those Academy City espers!!”

“Are you serious!? You want me to battle that ultimate monster head on!? Hah hah! Sounds like a dream come true!!”

Mugino Sakuya’s condition was unknown, but she had been torn up on the inside when she shot Mujinayama in the back. It was doubtful she was acting based on anything resembling rational thought.

The best bet for the Sakuya faction butlers and maids may have been to get Sakuya into hiding while gathering attention to themselves.

A deafening roar shook the air.

That was the deep sound of a propeller slicing through the air. Something massive passed by over their heads. It was an American transport plane that had to be at least 40m long. With Meltdowner beams flying around, flying through this airspace was tantamount to suicide.

And it didn’t just pass by.

A row of large parachutes formed as it dropped something. More than 300 somethings. That was more than an entire school’s worth of students.

People were dropping down.

A lot of them.

The mountains were different than the plains, but the transport plane was still quite close.

It may have been reducing the drop time for the parachutes to reduce the odds of them taking anti-air fire, but that also increased the risk of them failing their landing and breaking their legs.

They did it anyway.

The transport plane spat out all the parachutes, just barely made it over the summit, and disappeared on the other side of the mountain.

“What? In the end, has the cavalry arrived!?”

“That’s not the Sakuya faction,” said Takitsubo.

No, it wouldn’t be. Sakuya’s troops and Management had already been deployed across the mountain. She couldn’t call in this many reinforcements.

In that case, were these the troops and Management loyal to some other Bloodline member?

“It super couldn’t be.”

“Shizuri-sama!!”

They said it.

The maids clearly said it.

“Forgive us for arriving late and leaving you in such a crisis.”

“But we have still sworn to share your fate. No matter what your situation, we will never abandon you!!”

They did exist.

Mugino Shizuri herself had thought of herself as the lonely one at the top, but there were butlers and maids in the Mugino Family mansion who were secretly rooting for her.

Frenda’s eyes widened.

“Argh, showing up in big numbers now will only mean more deaths as they get blown away!! Do they really think Mugino can tell friend from foe right now!?”

“So what?” calmly asked a classic maid as she unfastened her parachute harness.

She may not have been so calm on the inside.

The generic 7.62mm machinegun in her hand was far too brutal.

“When a friend fell victim to a dreadful land shark and I had no idea what to do about it, young Shizuri-sama was the only person in the world willing to give me the solid punch I needed and then save me. Even though sheltering me could have dragged the entire Mugino Family into that conflict. My soul should have died back then. So I do not care what happens to this extra life she gave me!!”

She wasn’t alone.

More and more people in tuxedos and maid uniforms spoke.

“She fought and destroyed a cult taking advantage of freedom of religion and retrieved my grandma’s mattress money.”

“She was the only one who believed my drug addict brother’s testimony and she helped me catch the real murderer. And the confidence my brother gained from that helped him turn over a new leaf.”

“A reason? Why should I need one? The Mugino Family gave garbage like me a home. What more reason do I need to risk my life for them!?”

This probably wasn’t limited to Mugino Shizuri.

The Sakuya faction’s Management and troops had begun a reckless coup on the orders of their Bloodline, so they likely respected Mugino Sakuya after she saved each and every one of them in some way. So when the time came, they had entrusted their lives to her. With no consideration for morality.

The Mugino Family’s Management had gathered for Sakuya and Shizuri now.

(It’s a start, but in the end, it’s not enough to stand up to that stark darkness.)

Frenda clenched her teeth.

No matter how many Managers they had, Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner was too overwhelming. Not even a concrete wall could stop it, so the standard strategy of “hide behind cover until the bullets stop flying” would only get them all wiped out.

At this rate, all the people who had gathered to stop Mugino Shizuri would be blown away by the #4’s own beams.

“I won’t let that happen,” whispered the track suit girl.

Takitsubo Rikou’s eyes opened unnaturally wide.

“That Mujinayama guy could predict her actions, so I won’t let anyone say I can’t do it too. That old man isn’t the only one who knows Mugino.”

Part 2

“…”

Sobasaka Michio sat silently with his face buried in the airbag even as it began to deflate.

His unmarked police car was stopped while crashed into the mountainside.

The bumper was definitely broken. The engine compartment may have been crushed as well. He doubted the car would start back up if he turned the key. He had come to Kanagawa without permission and he would be found out if he called for a tow truck. Still, the crashed car was city property. He couldn’t just abandon it out here.

His new partner was sitting dazed in the passengers seat. Good thing he had actually been wearing his seat belt. Otherwise he might have flown right on out through the windshield.

“This is going to mean more than some docked pay.”

Sobasaka Michio had been fed up with it all since the attack helicopters showed up.

It wasn’t just one side of the fight that was special. Both sides had fought it out in the air and then some beams of light had torn through them all.

What had he hoped to accomplish rushing in here with only a baton and handcuffs? The threat was in sight. It was within arm’s reach. So what? Why had he assumed he could defeat the criminal? Why hadn’t he considered the possibility of the villain tearing his throat out with their powerful jaws?

Maybe he never should have tried it.

Carrying a police badge didn’t make him anything more than a government worker. Maybe he should have suppressed this weird desire for justice and simply put in as much work as his salary warranted.

(I’ve turned into such a pathetic adult. Would you be angry with me, Hiyamugi?)

And while he was letting the regret wash over him, someone suddenly peeked in through the broken driver’s side window.

The elderly man wore a fancy Italian suit that didn’t look at all suitable for hiking through the mountains.

“Hello, officers.”

“!?”

“You are police, correct? I was hoping you could help me. To keep the peace, of course.”

“Wh-who are you?”

“The head of the Mugino Family.”

The gravity of that statement stopped Sobasaka’s breathing.

The young maid standing by the man’s side slapped her forehead. That likely had not been in line with the manners of high society.

“What is the guy at the very top doing wandering the front lines for? Are you stupid?” asked Sobasaka, taken aback.

“I am perfectly safe even 5cm away from the enemy so long as they are unaware of my presence. Conversely, even the most heavily defended fortress would be bombed or assaulted in no time if people knew I was there. That is how this shadier industry of ours works. Being elusive and slippery is the greatest trump card in our deck.”

The Italian suit man smiled bitterly at Sobasaka’s dumbfounded look.

“Also, no one would follow us if we didn’t give them something to aspire to. Help me out. We need to show those unruly young ladies just how cool a sophisticated adult can be.”

“I-it’s already gotten bad enough you can see the flashing lights from here. How are we supposed to fix this now?”

“What option is there but to fully stop this tragedy in its tracks?”

The man didn’t hesitate.

He somehow reminded Sobasaka of Hiyamugi.

In a way, he seemed more police-like than Sobasaka Michio himself.

“I don’t have a problem with them going after me. The position of head is nothing but risk. I mean, the reason each head looks so grim is because we don’t want to force this throne onto the next generation we so adore. It’s the rest of the sacrifices I won’t stand for. I will make those rampaging fools pay for the trouble they’ve brought to the public, the chaos they’ve caused, and all the death and tragedy they’ve scattered about. I swear it on my name as the Mugino Family head.”

“…”

What had happened?

This wasn’t a recent development. He may have been fighting alone for a long, long time before the world turned out like this.

But then the Mugino Family head grinned.

It was a perfect smile, but that was what made it seem inauthentic.

“You see things the same, don’t you, officer? If you were satisfied with doing just enough work to earn your salary, you wouldn’t have crossed the prefectural border to drive all the way out here. Because it’s your duty? To protect all the good people out there? No. It comes down to you needing to go after everything you refuse to accept. You reject crime for being illogical and you want to make all the villains out there pay for their crimes. Right?”

…Right.

But something about this was bothering Sobasaka.

Yes…

“Are you saying there’s more to this? The unmanned helicopters and the rampaging esper are enough. I already have plenty of stories to tell my future children or grandchildren.”

“You are a government worker and they are Academy City. You’ll be slapped with an annoying gag order and won’t be able to tell anyone about this. You knew that, which is why you broke the rules to be here.”

The Mugino Family head’s tone was carefree as he invited Sobasaka to ruin his life.

Then his voice dropped to a whisper.

“This is Academy City we’re talking about. They won’t just give up after sending in a few Two Wings. If we don’t cut it off at the source, reinforcements will be coming.”

Part 3

She wouldn’t die.

She stood before Academy City’s #4 and still she wouldn’t die.

They were only about 10m apart with nothing in between. Track suit girl Takitsubo Rikou leaned loosely to the right.

That was all.

A fearsome beam scorched the air. But it missed her. It came awfully close, but a miss was still a miss.

The butlers, the maids, Kinuhata, and Frenda were all holding their breath.

Was she observing fluctuations in the AIM diffusion field? No.

“What’s wrong, Mugino?”

“…”

“I’m playing the bullfighter role. Just like you.”

She patted her hand across her track suit and then held it out toward Mugino Shizuri.

She hadn’t been brushing off the dirt.

In fact, she had been getting the dark soil from her clothes to her palm.

Or more accurately, the iron sand.

A few more beams surged out, but they just couldn’t seem to hit Takitsubo Rikou.

“You release electrons as-is, instead of as a waveform or a particle. It’s a terrifying power, but Meltdowner is still manipulating electricity. Which means it creates a magnetic field.”

She was gathering up all of that minute data, processing it in her head, and predicting Mugino Shizuri’s next move in real time. That was why the deadly attacks could not annihilate the track suit girl.

“…”

Takitsubo sent Frenda a sign with her fingers and eyes. She could communicate with her elite partners that way, but it wouldn’t work for the butlers and maids she had only just met. Oral communication would be too slow. Knowing the right answer would only get them blasted if the information didn’t arrive soon enough, so it might be best if they fell back.

No, Takitsubo Rikou wasn’t the only one reading the other.

“Kh.”

When the track suit girl saw an opening, she pulled a small case from her pocket and threw it. Body Crystal. That special substance intentionally forced an esper’s power to run wild, but Mugino Shizuri immediately released a thick beam to fry and annihilate the case in midair.

“(Now we can’t stop her by making her power run wild.)”

Takitsubo Rikou and Mugino Shizuri.

Those two had known each other much longer than they had Kinuhata Saiai or Frenda Seivelun. They knew each other too well.

Their confrontation wasn’t visually exciting.

It was all contained in their gazes, their breaths, the slight tension and relaxation of the muscles in their necks and shoulders, and the shifting of their legs and center of gravity.

Whoever managed to read the other with even a millimeter greater precision would take it all.

And.

This was the best way to save Mugino Shizuri.

Takitsubo Rikou spoke softly while glaring at the #4.

“Every single Academy City esper power requires you to use your brain to swap in a quantum mechanical perception of the world around you. Knock Mugino unconscious and the threat of Meltdowner is gone.”

“Knock her unconscious? How!? Even if I could sneak up behind her and get her in a chokehold, it would take a few dozen seconds of pressure to her carotid artery to knock her out. Meanwhile, she only needs an instant. If she reached a hand behind her and blasted Meltdowner, I’d be a super goner!!”

“Then leave it to me.”

Several explosive booms followed.

Caused by gunpowder. The young butler aboard a large motorcycle had fired the heavy machinegun he held at his hip, but not at Mugino herself.

Something exploded, its remains blasted high into the air.

It was a high-voltage power line.

A few power pylons were lined up along the mountain slope in positions meant to not ruin the scenery. The hot spring area would likely had a geothermal powerful plant and related facilities in addition to the hot spring resorts.

A home power outlet was no comparison. Power lines carrying more than 60 thousand volts enveloped Mugino Shizuri like a swarm of snakes. They were as destructive as a train power line.

“That should do it.”

Something loudly burst.

Mugino Shizuri didn’t speak a word.

This wasn’t just a stun gun. The high-voltage lines carried more than 60 thousand volts. More than being knocked out, her body could easily have been obliterated, but instead the #4 stood there silently.

“Wha-!?” groaned Bakyaku, eyes wide. “I-it didn’t even scratch her!!”

“Mugino’s Meltdowner burns through objects by manipulating electrons as-is rather than as a wave or as a particle.”

“You super mean…?”

“She can control electricity, so electrocution attacks will not work on her.”

A fearsome light flashed.

This wasn’t even a simple Meltdowner beam.

A disconcerting tremor, a lot like a minor quake, shook the ground below their feet.

“Wh-what is this? In the end, the damage to the slope isn’t about to cause a landslide, is it!?”

“This doesn’t feel like the ground pushing up from below. It isn’t an artificial quake. Could it be volcanic activity?”

“…”

They all fell silent.

This was a hot spring region, wasn’t it? That meant it could easily have volcanic activity, but why would Takitsubo be bringing that up now?

“Mugino’s power could be roughly described as the power to control electricity.”

“Don’t tell me…”

“If she can also influence natural phenomena related to electricity, then it is possible she could, for example, create enough magnetic power to drag up the magma deep below the surface.”

With a glooping sound, the soft ground broke open and something like smoke erupted vertically out.

A light like a camera flash surrounded Mugino’s body.

The fine volcanic ash was rubbing together in the air to produce a massive amount of static electricity. To look so much like lightning, it had to be around a billion volts.

And that electric storm boosted Mugino Shizuri’s power.

“You’re kidding… What is that!? S-since when can Mugino consume electricity to super power up!?”

“She is ranked at #4 in Academy City. She’s the Level 5 with the unfair power to control electricity without defining it as a particle or a wave. You didn’t think all she could do was shoot projectiles, did you?”

But that wasn’t what concerned Frenda Seivelun most of all.

“In the end, what’s the range of this?”

“…”

It wasn’t that Takitsubo didn’t know.

She fell silent because the worst possible answer had come to mind.

“What if it isn’t just here? In the end, if she can trigger a chain reaction across multiple active volcanoes, she might be able to trigger a major simultaneous eruption of Mount Fuji and all the other active volcanoes in Kantou!!”

Part 4

Detective Sobasaka and the gang lord were on the slope a short distance away.

The Italian suit man smiled in through the driver’s side window of the crashed car.

“By the way, how much do the police know about the Mugino Family?”

“Well…”

“Ha ha. Don’t want to say it in front of the family head? It’s your public duty to investigate criminals, so there’s no need to be shy. At the very least, I’m sure you know about the grain production corporation that fills 1.4 billion stomachs worldwide. The Mugino Family is involved in every single field related to food.”

“Yeah, I know that. Which is how you’ve managed to cover the world in airfields and shooting ranges while calling them ‘farms’ on all the paperwork. And how you develop drugs in your food labs. Unfortunately, it’s all rumors even more sketchy than the Kuchisake Onna, so there’s no actual evide-”

“You see, the Mugino Family has used food as a pretext to fake the paperwork for launching a few satellites without the Japanese government knowing. On paper, they are agricultural support weather satellites owned by a front company, but in truth, well, they’re used for communications to help move our troops around more efficiently.”

He admitted to a shocking truth as if it were nothing.

And if that was true, did it mean they really did have an army?

But even that wasn’t the main point.

“One after another, we have been losing control of those super expensive Mugino brand criminal satellites. It doesn’t seem like trouble with the parts or with communications. That means something must have attached itself to the exterior of the satellites themselves. After sneaking up in the silence of space.”

“Wait, are you implying…?”

“They’re OMVs. That is, orbital maneuvering vehicles. Sounds just like an Academy City trick, doesn’t it? These are satellite-mounted lasers, but they haven’t launched any of the big and damn heavy power units of their own. These are the bare minimum. So they send in a probe with a thin arm that looks all the world like a toy so it can grab onto someone else’s satellite, steal its electricity, and then prepare to activate the laser. I’m sure either Hikoboshi or Orihime are packed full of those ‘work probes’. That’ll reduce the launching costs to maybe less than a thousandth of a strategic military satellite. And after using the laser, it’ll slip away and disguise itself as debris until it burns up in the atmosphere, so no matter how much you might suspect, there’s no decisive material evidence leftover.”

It couldn’t be more obvious where on earth Academy City would be targeting.

They wanted to end this entire incident as soon as possible.

So they would pour glowing rain down across the entire mountain region before long. Nothing at all would remain. Only incomplete records of the bizarre and utter destruction, much like the Tunguska event. The remaining fragments would be so far removed from the truth it seemed more like a ghost story than anything real.

“They are taking bold action here. I imagine the destruction of all their Two Wings was the trigger, but I didn’t expect them to give up on their #4. So now it seems my adorable granddaughter is being rejected. And because dead men tell no tales, their brutal laser attack will probably be blamed on her esper power going berserk.”

“I won’t let that happen. This might be an abandoned resort in the mountains, but there are still some occupied homes in the area!”

Sobasaka recalled his childhood friend who had gone to Academy City and never returned.

Hiyamugi.

Until now, Sobasaka had thought he had vanished into the shadows of history as a poor victim.

He had thought he had been crushed before he could cause the city any trouble.

But that wasn’t the only option.

Hiyamugi could also have become an extraordinary monster like that.

What if that were the case?

Would that make him beyond saving?

The answer was no.

“So that…#4, did you say? If she’s an esper, that means she’s a teenager in middle or high school, right!? I’m a police officer. I chose that path for myself! I won’t let her die for some silly adult nonsense!!”

“…Yeah.”

The elderly man grinned.

The smile was as perfect as ever, but there was something subtly different this time.

That must have tickled him just right.

“With that established, I’d like to get to the specifics, but can you use the power of the Japanese police to stop Academy City right this instant?”

“…”

“I thought not. The Mugino Family’s power can’t do that either. We can’t win. So I’d like for us to join forces and overcome this Parasite Laser threat. Are you with me so far?”

“I’m not about to assist a criminal organization, but what were you hoping a police detective like me could do?”

“You just have to hold your head high and do your job.”

He made it sound like nothing.

The Mugino Family had around a hundred thousand troops globally. The head of that international gang spoke.

With a smile.

“Arrest me.”

Part 5

One hit was all they needed.

A single clean hit would knock out the monster named Mugino Shizuri and she would go down.

The butlers and maids forcibly rotated an anti-air cannon with only two wheels in order to adjust the angle.

Its caliber was a shocking 8.8cm.

It had likely come from the family head’s antique collection. Keeping it operational was highly illegal, though.

“At this range, we can omit the preparation process. Prepare to load the first shell! Use a self-destructing warhead. That is, a dirt wall. The shattered pieces will slam into Shizuri-sama and render her unconscious!!!”

The anti-air cannon was fully covered by thick shielding, but that was meant to defend against enemy shells when battling a land target and to protect the gunners if a shell exploded closer than expected. In other words, it was thick enough to contain its own blast.

“Ahhhhh!! D-dodge!!”

It didn’t matter.

A scorching attack sliced diagonally through the shielding and, a beat later, the shell still inside the cannon exploded.

If the butlers and maids hadn’t leaped to the ground the second before, they would have been blown away along with it.

“Idiots!! In the end, directly challenging Mugino in attack or defense is suicide! What you need is mobility!! You need to keep moving…and dodging!!!”

Just as Frenda shouted, the heavy mortar hanging from an American transport helicopter was cut away by Meltdowner.

And as the transport helicopter tried to fly away in a hurry, a follow-up attack flew after it.

The mountain forest was suddenly set ablaze.

If the helicopter hadn’t fled over the sharp ridge to the other side of the short mountain, it would have exploded too.

Frenda caught a glimpse of something that made her throat go dry.

That frilly lace belonged to Sakuya’s dress.

She was in a daze while some maids dragged her away.

Had shooting Mujinayama done that? How much love and hatred had been spiraling inside her?

It looked more like this was a way to motivate the troops than to rescue her.

That said, it was over the instant Mugino Shizuri noticed. A barrage of Meltdowner blasts would pierce through any shield.

The time to act was now.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Butler Bakyaku kept his large motorcycle in constant motion while aiming this heavy machinegun at Mugino Shizuri. He didn’t get any clean hits. The light in her hand swirled around and formed a giant glowing shield. But without that barrage of bullets, Mugino would be free to act. Without that, the maids and butlers protecting Sakuya would have long since been vaporized.

The real attack was coming from someone else.

Ougigumo repeatedly fired with his nunchaku shotguns. Something like white smoke rose from wherever the bullets hit. He didn’t seem to be using nonlethal bullets made of salt or flour.

The young butler groaned.

“N-not even carbon monoxide works!?”

“Argh, you explosives amateur! That’s only toxic because of the incomplete combustion! When Mugino’s Meltdowner thoroughly burns it, it turns into harmless carbon dioxide!!”

A dull “thud!!” rang out.

While holding his heavy machinegun at his hip and spraying 12.7mm bullets, Bakyaku and his motorcycle were dragged to the side and collapsed. Mugino Shizuri had used her entire body like a spring to tackle the motorcycle. She had caught up to it with her flesh and blood legs.

She got on top of him and raised both hands.

Light compressed between her hands until it emitted a sinister glow.

“Tch. What a super pain!!”

Kinuhata Saiai kicked up a nearby rock, caught it, and threw it like a fastball.

It struck the light just before it was launched and exploded.

Apparently her own power was one thing Mugino couldn’t stop. After rolling off of the butler, she silently stood back up.

She glared at Kinuhata, viewing her as an enemy.

“Ah.”

Kinuhata’s breath caught in her throat.

Mugino had clearly locked onto her. As a dark side pro, she could tell there was no saving her from the next attack.

Takitsubo Rikou’s predictions just weren’t enough.

“Excellent work buying us time,” shouted the Molotov cocktail maid. “Detonating!!”

The earth split open.

It started from one point and spiderwebbed out like a pane of glass after a hit from a bullet.

The battlefield shattered over several kilometers. In only a few seconds, trenches two or three meters deep spread out like a spiderweb, creating a strange design made from countless straight lines branching out. To put it another way, the ground had a labyrinth several meters deep dug into it.

They could now escape below 0m. That is, below the ground.

Molotov cocktail maid Hanagai gestured them over and shouted.

“Hurry!!”

This was better than nothing.

Frenda and the others dove headfirst into the hole in the ground, just barely avoiding the deadly beams.

“Super how did you manage this?”

“Did you notice how each villa in this hot springs resort draws in spring water but there aren’t any rivers for dumping the water afterwards?”

The Molotov cocktail maid happened to be nearby, so she obediently answered.

Since they were a criminal organization, some of the butlers and maids were smoking to replenish their nicotine or passing around a small bottle of brandy to share. Regardless of what effect that might have on their judgment, the smell alone would give them away, but they entirely ignored that basic idea.

Frenda crouched down in the makeshift trench and looked up into the sky. She was dying for some canned mackerel.

“Oh. In the end, this was spring water drainage.”

“They had built special underground waterways for getting rid of the spring water. And they were spread out like a spiderweb. I didn’t even need to bother with long-hole blasting which would have required setting up explosives across a long distance. I only needed to send some coal powder underground and blow it through with a fan. The total length has to be more than 100km, but from there, I juts had to trigger one of those dust explosions that explosion lovers are so fond of.”

“Hm? Why don’t they super use the normal sewer?”

“Kinuhata. Hot springs have a lot of useful substances dissolved in them, so sending the spring water into the sewer would shrink the infrastructure lifespan. You need a dedicated spring water drainage made of special materials that won’t deteriorate.”

A fearsome beam passed by overhead, cutting off any further chatting.

They all fell silent.

“…”

They had escaped the open sudden-death zone, but the walls here were only dirt. If they stayed in one place for too long, they would be located and pierced by Meltdowner. But having anything at all to obstruct Mugino Shizuri’s aim was useful.

Frenda whispered a question while constantly moving through the branching trenches so they couldn’t be targeted.

“(In the end, what do we do now?)”

“(If we fall back, Mugino will only kill us with her beams. Our best bet is to approach without her noticing.)”

Fortunately, the land was covered by a spider web of trenches 2-3m deep. There had to be a route that would take them right up to Mugino.

If they waited too long, Mugino herself might jump down into the trenches, but then several beams flashed out in quick succession.

For some reason, the Meltdowner blasts were directed into the sky instead of at the ground.

And several explosions soon followed.

“That was…an ALCM launched from a bomber. Shizuri-sama’s body is no more sturdy than a normal human’s, so with half ton explosives dropping toward her one after another, I suppose even she needs to prioritize intercepting them,” whispered Molotov cocktail maid Hanagai while ducking low in the dirty trench.

Those tactical weapons were meant to be safely launched from outside the interception range to blow away an enemy fortress or fleet, but launching several of them only bought them some time here.

(Cruise missiles don’t work and she can burn away gasses or germs to neutralize them. Honestly. In the end, can that monster girl stop all existing weapons!?)

Frenda and the others held their breath as they moved through the straight line trenches.

They were doomed if Mugino noticed them. In truth, the result of a surprise attack was mostly determined by the enemy’s actions.

The blonde girl asked a question, her voice low.

“Hey, Molotov maid. In the end, what are you going with?”

“Maybe a concussion blast to make sure I knock Shizuri-sama out? If a close range shockwave with no fragmentary effect hits her skull, it will give her a concussion.”

“In the end, it’s gotta be that or to use intense vibrations to damage her red blood cells, prevent her blood from carrying oxygen, and give her cerebral anemia.”

The two bombers exchanged a nod.

If they were using different methods, it would be more effective if they both attacked at once.

The ALCMs were a threat, but that wasn’t a trump card a nonmilitary force could have. The difficulty of acquiring them would mean a limited stock. Not even the great Mugino Family could continue firing them forever.

It would be a miracle if they could even creep up to the #4’s position.

How many tactical, and possibly even strategic, weapons were being wasted for this one opportunity?

Frenda and Hanagai each pulled an explosive from their skirt.

“Three.”

Frenda was afraid.

She was, but panicking would only waste this chance.

“Two.”

She gulped, dug her toes into the soft earthen wall alongside the Molotov cocktail maid, and prepared to pop up from the 2-3m deep trench.

They were only a few meters away from Mugino.

“One.”

Something flew up over their heads.

Before they had thrown anything.

The sunlight sparkled as it reflected off of…a card? No, was it a semiconductor from the core of a Two Wings unmanned attack helicopter?

“Watch out, everyone,” warned Takitsubo Rikou.

A Meltdowner beam solidly struck the soaring circuit board.

The beam branched out and scattered in every direction like light from a disco ball.

After striking the semiconductor overhead, a storm of light rained down.

The term “air burst” came to Frenda’s mind.

Hiding in the trench was meaningless now.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

She screamed and rolled.

Intense pain ran through her right cheek.

A few drops of dirt melted to a glowing orange must have splattered onto her.

Meltdowner.

A direct hit from that would have sliced the blonde girl right down the middle before she could even feel any pain. And it wasn’t an attack you could reactively dodge.

But Frenda couldn’t rejoice in her survival.

The threat level had increased.

“D-diffusion!?”

Yes.

The density of beams filling the space overhead rapidly increased. Anyone standing on the surface would be fully annihilated with no room to dodge. Not even the ALCMs flying in from the sky would be able to slip through that barrage.

That had been Mugino’s first time using that air burst to attack the deep trench from above, so had she not been able to aim it well?

But she would fine-tune the various values next time. She could shoot down cruise missiles with perfect accuracy, so it wouldn’t take her long.

Frenda and the others had to rethink things.

The straight trench now had parts of its walls and ground orange and bubbling. Those spots were only the size of puddles for now, but if Mugino fired more beams, the entire maze-like safe ground would turn into a scorching moat filled with molten glass.

“The Two Wings,” said the track suit girl.

Despite the situation, Takitsubo Rikou placed her hands on the edge of the straight trench and poked her head out while looking to the nearby bushes instead of into the sky.

“That special semiconductor from one of the crashed attack helicopters happened to cause some kind of reaction in Mugino’s electricity-based Meltdowner.”

“Y-you’re kidding, right? Why would something like that be super conveniently lying around?”

“It’s not a coincidence. Mugino’s power can be used for more than just attacking. I think she was helping with the R&D for new AIs and quantum computers. In the end, if the quantum Hall large-scale hybrid integrated circuits used in the Two Wings are new Mugino brand products, it’s not surprising they would interfere with each other!!”

The seven Level 5s were used for research to earn great fortunes in a variety of fields.

It was an unpleasant look at how Academy City worked.

Used right, this could influence the #4 esper power, but they had too little data. And it hadn’t shown strong enough directionality to send the beams back at her.

Would they be pierced by a straight beam or riddled with holes by the diffusion storm?

When it only let them choose how they died, you couldn’t exactly call it a weapon. They had only found another card to go in cruel and brutal Mugino’s deck.

Takitsubo ducked back down into the battered trench and whispered expressionlessly.

“But this can’t be fun for Mugino either.”

“In the end, was there some delightful surprise I missed? It seems a little early for a visit from a miniskirt Santa.”

“Did you forget, Frenda? Mugino is using her ultra-powerful Meltdowner in a way not even she planned on.”

“Super what’s your poi-”

Kinuhata trailed off.

After hearing a sizzling sound.

Like water droplets on a hot frying pan. Those were burns. Mugino Shizuri’s own body couldn’t withstand the thick beam she was unleashing.

At this rate, her skin would peel back, her flesh and bone would boil, and her own power could char her body.

“…”

Everyone fell silent.

If all they wanted to do was defeat Mugino Shizuri, doing nothing at all might be an option. Who could say how many of the maids and butlers would be killed in the process, but this was over as long as Mugino burned herself to a crisp before the last of them had died.

Muddy Frenda raised her head toward the heavens.

For some reason, she was smiling.

“Ugh. In the end, the trouble I go through for her.”

“But her flaws are what make Mugino so cute,” added Takitsubo.

However, that wasn’t how Item wanted to win this.

What did it mean to win?

After some thought, they added a new win condition.

Their battle against the unbeatable now had a time limit.

Part 6

Mugino Shizuri could not be defeated by normal means.

The ground was rumbling irregularly. All of this had apparently been a shock to the hot spring area’s active volcano.

Academy City’s plan to solve this problem was to blow away the entire mountain region with lasers fired from satellite orbit.

And yet…

“I-is this really the time for that?”

“Just do it!!”

The unmarked police car had crashed into the mountain slope, but its radio was still functional.

Detective Sobasaka pressed the button and grabbed the mic.

“Requesting support from Kanagawa Prefectural Police!! I have arrested the head of the Mugino Family in the act! We can finally settle things with him. I want to transport him out of here before his troops can take him back. I need backup ASAP!!”

What would this accomplish?

Sobasaka Michio wasn’t sure what else to do as he held the mic, but the Italian suit man appeared to be enjoying himself.

“That should do it.”

“Do what?”

“A perverse bastard who loves observing human society from his scientific ivory tower is about to join the party.”

That casual comment proved to be prophetic.

Someone who clearly wasn’t with the police spoke from the car’s police radio.

“Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

The fishing hook had gotten a bite.

The confrontation with an even bigger name was beginning.

“Oh? Why should a noble educator like you care what happens to a filthy criminal? The Mugino Family is a grain production corporation that fills 1.4 billion bellies worldwide, but we have failed to make any inroads in Academy City thanks to your agricultural buildings and clone meat. So whether I live or die seems like it should be none of your concern, Board Chairman.”

“…”

This was not a secretary, an AI, or even one of the 12 members of the Board of Directors.

He had personally joined in.

It had happened at the very, very last moment, but for this alone Sobasaka could only consider himself lucky.

An unpleasant sort of luck.

That was a terribly unreliable factor, but in his field of work you would be brutally killed without enough of it.

“Then again, maybe it is your concern. Because we do have our fingers in every pie related to food. For example, the sweets industry. You know, crepes, pancakes – things like that. Could it be that even you could be in some trouble there?”

Was that old man making a joke here? Sobasaka’s eyes widened, but to his further surprise, the response from the police radio was entirely serious.

“So that was intentional on your part.”

“That’s right, big shot. For another example, there’s barley and wheat.”

The Italian suit man grinned.

A chill fell over the air.

“You mustn’t waste food. Even a child knows that’s a vice. And barley is an ingredient in malt.”

“…”

“Malt is most well-known as an ingredient for beer, but it has more uses than that. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Malt is a natural chemical factory. It’s a crucial ingredient for making the fine adjustments needed in a culture medium for making agar and gelatin.”

A culture was a way for humans to grow living things for their own purposes.

They were an inextricable part of the health and food industries.

“Plant-based agar and animal-based gelatin…why, aren’t those foods? Oh? And aren’t glucose and salt necessary parts of biological research? Well, would you look at that. Our fields of work are more similar than I thought.”

“Academy City can produce and grow all forms of food in our massive agricultural buildings. In high quantities.”

“Ah hah hah. Maybe so, but the unit price is quite different depending on whether it is meant for food or research. After all, research supplies are always kept dirt cheap because they don’t need any extra added value. What percentage of your total production would that eat into? If you redirected all of that to your labs, Academy City’s food businesses would start going under one after another. You could cover it up on paper, but there’s no hiding the reality.”

Academy City was nearly 100% self-sufficient thanks to its agricultural buildings and clone meat.

That much was true.

But…

“Academy City is too fixated on your self-sufficiency rate on paper. People can’t eat numbers. Focus too much on that and you put off ensuring people actually have food on the table. Hitting you with any other ingredients would be a pain and I’d feel bad doing it to your people, so we’ll stick to wheat and barley for now. Glue, art supplies, fermented products like penicillin and streptomycin, and high tech lab supplies. Academy City is actually very reliant on malt and agar. Aren’t you?”

Of course, Academy City received help from foreign groups around the world – the so-called “cooperative institutions” – so the Mugino Family could not directly contaminate them like this.

Nevertheless…

“So will you rely on major grain producing regions like France and Australia? You think you’ll be fine thanks to your cooperative institutions? …C’mon now. We are Mugino. Did you really think anyone could outdo us in the field of wheat? We fully control 1.4 billion stomachs worldwide and we have at least some influence on everyone else’s dinner tables. If the world’s most powerful grain production corporation applies pressure, it doesn’t matter that you’re Academy City or that you have cooperative institutions. Do you really think you’ll be able to find any wheat or barley for you? Even a single grain?”

The air seemed to strain.

Sobasaka held his breath just listening in, but the Mugino head appeared to be enjoying it.

Was he the sort of person who could convert a thrill into strength?

“You’d be in trouble if you lost your malt and other ingredients, right? Same for agar and gelatin. And for sugar and salt. Your human esper development and most any other research with the term ‘bio’ in it would grind to a halt. But if the head of the Mugino Family is arrested and accused of being a gang leader, the global food economy will be thrown into chaos. And the wheat and barley supply network might just wind up in a crisis too. A major one.”

To repeat, Academy City and the Mugino Family did not make any direct deals with each other.

But food supply wasn’t so simple. If one region didn’t have enough food, it could trigger a chain reaction of shortages. And when shortages were predicted, people would start planning to stockpile the food and sell it at a markup. That chaos would eventually engulf Academy City and its cooperative institutions, causing even greater chaos.

So even without a direct link, there were ways to indirectly apply pressure to Academy City.

It just took some doing.

This was not about the quality of weapons or number of troops. This was the first and final trump card available to the Mugino Family as a global grain production corporation. It was a new form of using food as a weapon.

“Do you want me to escape?” asked the Mugino Family head.

The gang lord kept going with the rope around his neck.

“Then you need to think carefully.”

However…

…

…

…

The air currents clearly came to a halt. Even Sobasaka could sense the great tension.

This had to be a gamble for the Mugino Family.

It was a huge wager that put his life and fortune at risk.

They had only managed to survive so long despite being so obviously suspect because the grain production corporation that filled 1.4 billion stomachs was valuable to the people who ruled the world.

And a threat naturally led to a recalculation of the risks and returns.

If Academy City’s ruler’s calculations determined that the city did not need the Mugino Family, the punishment would be swift. The laser weapon parasitically-attached to someone else’s satellite would send down glowing death and create a giant crater in the Kanagawa mountains. Everything the Mugino head had built and the justice and common sense Sobasaka believed in would be blown away like scraps of paper.

Needless to say, Academy City was powerful.

Make an enemy of them, and your organization would be dismantled from the outside and inside.

That was no exaggeration.

The reason the police, the JSDF, and all the other basic systems even children were familiar with had failed to function was because someone had decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It was a cruel and coldhearted decision, but as far as “correct or not” went, their calculation was likely correct.

But this man was taking the risk.

He was directly confronting the city’s leader with no tricks.

This was indeed a gamble that the government and public power could not make. Grasping at an aggressive opportunity while risking death was the realm of the shady gang leader.

The five seconds that passed were excruciating.

Was that a long or a short time to spend in thought for the Board Chairman who managed Academy City?

They had their answer.

“Very well.”

Two simple words.

With that, the police radio went silent.

Sobasaka moved a frightened look between the radio and the Mugino head’s face.

“H-hey. What did that mean? You could take it a yes or a no!!”

“Let me tell you one rule of the shadowy part of the world. If you intend to kill someone, you don’t bother responding at all. Someone like that isn’t worth speaking to, so you silently pull the trigger. (I should know. I’ve done it a lot myself.)”

Did that mean they had survived by the skin of their teeth?

The exceedingly thin skin of their teeth?

“This will only work once. Now he knows of a flaw in their global supply chain, so he will soon rework their supply routes and fill in the holes. All while weaving in some kind of PR campaign, of course. The trump card of the Mugino Family’s demanding compliance has been used. The lord of Academy City isn’t kind enough to let us get away with this again.”

But even if it was a one-time thing, they had gotten through it.

They no longer had to worry about a threat from above.

But that didn’t meant it was over.

“The stage has been set. Don’t die now, you fools.”

Part 7

Bullets didn’t work.

Thoughtlessly throwing a bomb would only got them blown away by the blast and shockwave.

An anesthetic like hexachloroethane or a toxin like carbon monoxide would be rendered useless by the heat.

But that didn’t mean they were out of options.

“A concussion blast probably won’t reach her. If it isn’t detonated a meter or two in front of the target, it can’t rattle her skull enough to knock her out, but anything at hand-thrown speed will be shot down before getting that close.”

“That’s fine, so just do it, Molotov maid! If we rattle her body with the shockwave of several explosions, it’ll damage her red blood cells and oxygen will stop reaching her brain!!”

Frenda and Kinuhata stepped forward.

Takitsubo could predict Mugino’s actions to an extent, but only Item could communicate rapidly with their eyes and fingers. It would take the Mugino Family longer to decode the message, which would increase the odds of them being blasted and killed.

“You cutesy housekeepers can provide support from behind. Just keep throwing bombs over our heads. We’ll draw Mugino’s attention on the front line and divert her Meltdowner fire elsewhere!!”

“We’re risking our lives too. Even with Offense Armor active, I’ll be super killed if that hits me.”

A fearsome beam flew in from dead ahead.

At this point, most cover was only an obstruction to their own view and movement. Frenda suppressed her urge to flee in that direction and swiftly hopped to the left or right in accordance with Takitsubo’s instructions.

Dodging even a single blast was a lot like a miracle.

But Takitsubo, the star of the show in that regard, spoke up.

“Frenda.”

“What, Takitsubo!?”

“I don’t think we’re going to last long enough to destroy enough of Mugino’s red blood cells.”

“Kh. In the end, who said that was the real plan!?”

That was mostly a bluff, but it wasn’t entirely untrue.

Takitsubo was always accurate as their sensor, yet Mugino’s head began to wobble as if to contradict Takitsubo’s prediction. She even placed her empty left hand on the side of her head.

“Orthostatic hypotension.”

With a name like that, it might sound like a complicated disease.

But it really just referred to feeling dizzy when standing up.

“In the end, you’ve been forcing yourself through superhuman actions too. Your circulation isn’t going to remain normal forever!!”

In the brief moment the Meltdowner attacks ceased, the Molotov cocktail maid leaned out from the trench and tossed an explosive that detonated right next to Mugino.

A concussion bomb.

That nonlethal weapon rattled the brain with the shockwave itself instead of using a fragmentary effect.

But track suit girl Takitsubo shouted sharply for once.

“Dodge, Frenda!!”

Someone grabbed Frenda’s collar from the side before she could react. Kinuhata’s skinny arm used the strength boost of Offense Armor to swing her around like a wrecking ball.

A beam pierced the exact spot Frenda had been standing a moment before.

She didn’t feel saved.

Kinuhata was almost as bad as Mugino. Her senses were supposedly those of an ordinary human despite her esper power, so how did she have reflexes like that?

Frenda clenched her teeth.

The red blood cell destruction via shockwaves wasn’t fast enough. And neither the orthostatic hypotension nor the concussion bomb were enough to knock Mugino unconscious.

If none of it was effective, then they were really and truly out of options.

The Molotov cocktail maid spoke as if despairing in her impeding doom. She had supposedly learned from the style of Western gangs, but she showed an oddly Japanese side here.

“Shizuri-sama is Academy City’s #4 Level 5. She is literally a product of science and technology. Perhaps it was a mistake to attempt to challenge her using cheap explosives made from chemical fertilizer.”

Chemical fertilizer?

Frenda Seivelun stared wide-eyed as she muttered to herself.

“No, it can’t be, but in the end…wait.”

“What is it, Frenda?”

She didn’t have time to answer Takitsubo’s question.

She was too busy working a massive amount of calculations in her head.

“I can’t be certain, but this might work. Hey, Molotov maid!! I need your Mugino Family help too!”

“What kind of help?”

“In the end, our esper can gather the nitrogen from the air!!”

There wasn’t time.

That monster wouldn’t give them a chance to hold a lengthy strategy session.

The maid was a pro too.

When Frenda kicked up a parabolic antenna (presumably for satellite TV) that had fallen to the ground from a villa roof or balcony, Hanagai seemed to catch on. She nodded.

“…”

Mugino Shizuri also slowly moved.

Was she worried about making herself dizzy again? She didn’t need to run or leap. She only had to slowly direct her right palm toward them from a distance.

There really wasn’t time.

“Kinuhata, activate Offense Armor. To the very limit!!”

“No matter how super much I defend myself, a direct hit from Meltdowner will obliterate me!”

“Kinuhata.”

At Takitsubo’s gentle urging, the little Level 4 pouted her lips and obeyed.

The air swirled around her.

Kinuhata Saiai’s Offense Armor gathered just the nitrogen from the air around her and compressed it to such an extreme it could defend her entire body.

Nitrogen made up more than 70% of the air. Nitrogen itself was a nontoxic, nonflammable, and stable gas.

But make no mistake. No substance in the world was truly safe.

Yes…

“Nitrogen compounds are a representative explosive ingredient.”

Of course, gathering all the nitrogen in the air wasn’t enough to create an explosive, but Frenda was a professional bomber. The knowledge and skills she had learned in Academy City told her countless ways of converting nitrogen into a dangerous compound. And despite their vast fortune, the Mugino Family had intentionally used cheap explosives as a “signature” left at the scene of the crime. That meant they would have plenty of tools for creating nitrogen compounds.

This was very dangerous.

It was so delicate a task that Frenda would ordinarily have wanted at least half a day to work on it.

She was interested in the compound, not the nitrogen on its own. Which meant she needed other ingredients.

For example, she needed a large quantity of sulfur.

However, she couldn’t spend the time and effort it would take to create an ammonium nitrate explosive.

But she did know an explosive she could make more directly from nitrogen and sulfur.

(Tetrasulfur tetranitride. Heat or even an impact will make that dangerous crystal explode!!)

“In the end, it’s a good thing we’re in a hot springs area far from the city. And blasting the spring water drains exposed a lot of it to the open air.”

The manpower of the Mugino Family boosted their manufacturing rate by a lot.

They combined cutting edge Academy City tech with Mugino Family tradition.

And then they forced it through with their own luck.

“In the end, I can endlessly gather up explosives from all over the world as long as I have Kinuhata with me!!”

Once ignited, the world was compressed.

And in that moment.

What Frenda, Kinuhata, and Takitsubo released while holding hands may have been more like an artillery shell than a bomb.

Ordinarily, an explosion would spread out in a sphere, but that shape could be adjusted. Using what was known as a directional explosive. For example, if the explosive was spread thinly across the inside of something like a concave mirror or a parabolic antenna, the blast would be concentrated on a point out ahead, creating enough explosive force to blow through the door of a bulletproof car more than 100m away.

Furthermore, if the parabolic explosive had metal particles like iron sand mixed in…

It would become a self-forging fragment.

A special kind of warhead designed to pierce through a tank’s thick composite armor.

She reacted.

To an attack that had to be well past the sound barrier. And she made it seem normal. Mugino Shizuri really was a threat. Specifically, the deadly beam flew straight toward them before she could even move her raised hand to take careful aim with her palm.

But.

For some reason, not even the Academy City #4’s Meltdowner could vaporize the self-forging fragment. Instead, it was sliced through from the middle and scattered all around. Its force was not lost. The scattered smaller rays of light sliced through the surrounding villas and streetlights.

That meant the flying weapon had a secret.

The coating used to form the projectile had been a semiconductor from a Two Wings.

This triggered diffusion.

That new substance had been created using the research done on Mugino Shizuri herself.

Yes.

The three of them hadn’t been enough.

Only all four Item members together could pull this off!!

(In the end, we forced it through!! And I trust you’re too much of a monster to let a little thing like this kill you, Mugino!!!)

It exploded.

Mugino had fought it with all her might and it indeed did not make it all the way. The semiconductor self-forging fragment melted and vaporized just before reaching Mugino Shizuri’s nose. The gale produced by an exploding projectile swirled around her. The vacuum blade appeared to have shallowly slashed her on the right cheek, but that was all.

It had been negated by Meltdowner.

Even this may have been a notable accomplishment, but they couldn’t let this satisfy them.

There were only two options here: 0 or 100.

If they didn’t win, it was all meaningless.

“…”

Mugino Shizuri’s lips moved.

Not good enough.

That may have been what she was trying to say.

But it was Frenda Seivelun who grinned.

“Did you forget, Mugino?”

Mugino herself had made this talented girl join Item because she recognized her skill.

And the pro bomber spoke.

“In the end, if you forcibly remove the nitrogen making up more than 70% of the air, the concentration of oxygen and hydrogen will rapidly increase!!”

Something exploded right in front of Mugino Shizuri.

The air itself had become a bomb.

A massive shockwave compressed the air at 300m/s, violently rattling the #4’s skull.

Silence.

No, not a chance. The tremendous explosion had simply temporarily deafened Frenda.

First a shrill ringing and then the actual sounds eventually returned to her.

And in the few seconds it took for her hearing to normalize, she had stood completely exposed in front of Mugino without being killed.

Yes.

Mugino Shizuri wobbled to the right.

And this time…

“We got h-”

“Not yet.”

Frenda’s celebration was cut short by Takitsubo Rikou.

She wasn’t even given a moment.

The track suit girl always seemed out of it, but she was always correct.

“I-In the end…”

Frenda Seivelun’s breath caught in her throat.

Something was wrong with her heart.

The intense fear kept her from even controlling her body.

“After all that…we still can’t stop her!?”

Mugino had wobbled to the side, but she hadn’t collapsed. She caught herself. Her center of gravity was still shifted unstably as she glared at the other girls.

She wasn’t broken yet.

Even from a distance, the girl covered in burns held out her palm.

Almost like she was asking for a farewell handshake.

It ended in an instant.

Oddly, Frenda found laughter growing inside her.

(Ha ha. So in the end, she’s prepared to take us down with her?)

Frenda’s luck had run out.

Or so she thought.

But.

Not yet.

Behind Mugino.

Someone who couldn’t even get up from the ground still managed to lift a bloody right hand to gently grab at her cardigan.

Frenda and the rest of Item, the maid wielding Molotov cocktails, and the butler with the heavy machinegun were not the only ones fighting here.

There was another.

Still.

“Honestly.”

This other stopped her.

It was the old butler Mujinayama.

He had been shot in the back.

He had been injured too severely to stand back up.

He had to dig his nails into the dirt to crawl toward her.

“The trouble you put me through.”

For Mugino Shizuri, that one statement must have been far more devastating than an Academy City Level 4 or a cutting-edge bomb.

The old man in a tuxedo and monocle was still alive.

That one small answer briefly stopped Academy City’s #4 monster.

She tried to turn toward him.

A moment later, Frenda and Hanagai both threw explosives and detonated them above Mugino Shizuri’s head.

One destroyed the red blood cells throughout her body.

The other rattled her skull, giving her a concussion.

She received a solid hit from both and was finally brought down to the dirt ground.

Part 8

Up in the mountains, an old man in a fancy Italian suit stared far, far up into the sky.

“Whew. I don’t see any deadly rain coming from satellite orbit, so I think it’s over now.”

“Do you really think I’m just going to let you go?” asked a low voice.

Sobasaka glared at the underworld king while still in the crashed car’s driver’s seat.

How silly this must have seemed to the ruler watching it all from his lofty heights.

“I’m a police officer. Maybe I’m just some small fry who isn’t worth anything to you, but I’m still a government worker paid with the people’s taxes. I can’t betray all those people who believe in peace. I must fight back against all that threatens their ordinary lives. Whether I could win that battle or not wasn’t why I chose to become a detective.”

“…”

Remember. This is what Hiyamugi would do.

He was sure of it.

“What was that battle just now? There are gonna be charges based on laws banning things far more dangerous than ordinary guns. I don’t need to go out of my way to gather the evidence necessary to corner the Mugino Family. What I’ve witnessed here is enough for an arrest.”

“Yeah, probably so.”

The old man smiled a little.

And the next words came almost too quick.

“But I don’t want a man like you to die.”

Obvious tension filled the air. For the head of the Mugino Family, this was not a bluff. They were out in the mountains where there would be no witnesses or security cameras. Killing a handful of people and hiding the bodies would be easy enough.

The Italian suit man smiled bitterly.

“Don’t worry. I said I didn’t want you to die, didn’t I? A public servant who isn’t led astray by the benefits provided by Academy City and can actually direct his anger their way is worth his weight in gold. I’ve long since lost all faith in public institutions to accomplish anything, but you haven’t. You’re doing something I can’t.”

He even seemed to be enjoying himself.

Which only made it more disturbing.

“And when I say I don’t want you to die, I’m not qualifying that with an ‘if possible’ or ‘but alas’. Letting a man like you die here would damage my reputation.”

“?”

A metallic sound came from the man.

Had he just received something from the young maid by his side? Sobasaka realized the Italian suit man was now holding a bouquet of flowers. He was holding it out toward Sobasaka, but with his hand still solidly gripping it.

But what had that metallic sound been?

The quiet but solid sound squeezed at Sobasaka’s heart.

“A gift from a villain.”

The bouquet’s presence gathered even more weight.

It was hiding something.

Mugino’s ruler smiled.

“I grant you a ticket to survival. One reward and one warning. That should be simple enough to understand.”

Part 9

The greatest threat, Mugino Shizuri, had been neutralized.

It didn’t look like Sakuya was going to wake back up and regather her maids and butlers.

She was currently being dragged out of a trench by a young butler, but the troublesome villain showed no sign of waking.

In fact…

“Wh-what do we with Mugino now? Even if we handcuff her and super wrap her in rope, I’m afraid she’ll still use Meltdowner and go wild again.”

“The Molotov maid had hexachloroethane, remember? The anesthetic. In the end, why not put her to sleep with that until we’re back in Academy City?”

In fact, would that be what had put Frenda herself to sleep when she was initially taken from Academy City? By ordering the truck driver. If so, that drug had a lot to answer for.

And while they were discussing this…

“Everyone alive?”

Someone approached them.

As if taking a casual stroll.

The old man wore a fancy Italian suit and held a bouquet of flowers.

The mood changed. Due to the maids and butlers. They all – yes, even the ones who sided with Sakuya and participated in the coup – kneeled and bowed their heads. As if they so respected him they considered it wrong to even gaze upon him without permission.

The attitude likely came from appreciation.

The young maid who had never left his side even during the chaos remained by his side now. This had all been a conflict over succession in the Mugino Family, but the affiliations within the maids and butlers appeared to have been redrawn.

The old man smiled and approached Item.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about Academy City. No more Two Wings will be flying this way and there’s no risk of lasers from satellite orbit either. I had a chat and resolved all that trouble.”

He sounded carefree.

Then he looked elsewhere and raised his voice.

“One more thing! Who was it that dragged the 8.8cm out from my collection and then blew it up!? Don’t worry. I’m not mad. But we are all going to have some painful discussions tonight!!”

Frenda couldn’t react.

Lasers from satellite orbit? That was something not even the dark side girls had been aware of. Had Mugino not been the only threat?

The Academy City bomber gulped.

“I-in the end…who are you?”

“Do I really need to say it?”

That was as good as an answer.

Why were all the butlers and maids here displaying absolute obedience to him? Why were they so reluctant to break the silence that even the injured ones weren’t so much as groaning?

Put all that together and this man’s identity couldn’t be more obvious.

“In the end, Mugino doesn’t look anything like her grandfather.”

“Pff!! Our family is famous for our beautiful women. As her grandpa, it’s a little sad that she doesn’t take after me more, but it’s probably for the best she didn’t inherit my thuggish looks.”

The Italian suit man shrugged.

He pulled off the suit even better than blonde-haired, blue-eyed Frenda would have.

“I do apologize for how rude our younger generations have been to you. I owe you one. Now, the Mugino Family could make you very rich, but…hm, I get the feeling that isn’t what you want. There’s no point in discussing money with someone who’s already wealthy.”

“In the end, were you checking the brand names of my clothes? Don’t look over a teenage girl from head to toe when you’re supposed to be apologizing, you creep.”

“Ha ha ha,” laughed the old man.

You aren’t even going to deny it, you old lecher? Look, that young maid is giving you an exasperated look.

“I see Shizuri is asleep. Sakuya too.”

“Hey. In the end, don’t wake them up. Let them smell some ammonium carbonate now and their claws will come out again.”

“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot. Sorry about my kittens.”

That said, a weary tone entered his voice.

“Fighting over who gets to be heir, hm? I don’t care who it ends up being, but I’m not going to agree to it until they bring in a trophy bigger than mine. I thought I’d made that clear to my adorable dragon and tiger.”

He still sounded carefree.

But linking together the fragments of information made the meaning clear.

This was the man who had successfully made a direct deal with Academy City.

The higher ups had succumbed to his threat.

Anyone who really wanted to take the Mugino Family for themselves would have to accomplish something even greater.

Most likely, not even Item could manage that.

The higher ups of that city had made it clear they were willing to dispose of the #4 Level 5 if necessary. That meant talent held by only seven people wasn’t enough to shield her. They had weighed the risks and the costs and decided it wasn’t worth keeping her around.

“Wh-what did you do?” asked Frenda.

“You know I can’t tell you that. Underworld jobs are generally kept secret.”

He really was head of the Mugino Family.

It didn’t look like his position would be shaken anytime soon.

The young maid who had stuck by him throughout the coup hesitantly spoke up.

“Th-then is it all over? That’s good.”

“No, not yet.”

The atmosphere froze.

No, he took control of the atmosphere.

The family head spoke quickly.

He never did let go of the bouquet.

“A debt must be paid. Especially in our world.”

No one there was unaware what he meant.

On either side.

There was one person Frenda had failed to save.

“There was an explosion in Shinjuku. The truck driver was an ordinary person, even if he was threatened by a villain. Someone did that. Who was responsible?”

“I was,” said Hanagai.

“I see.”

Gunpowder detonated with a “bang!!”

The bouquet had hidden a double-barreled shotgun. The stock and barrels had been shortened as much as possible.

The Molotov cocktail maid collapsed backwards like a piece of wood.

It happened so easily.

No one was even able to move.

The head of the Mugino Family didn’t bat an eye.

“No emotion or feeling. …That is what human death is like. You can’t force that on someone else, now can you?”

All was silent.

A scent similar to fireworks hung in the air.

The Mugino Family head commanded hundreds of thousands of troops across the world.

He may have seen scenes like this countless times.

That he stood on the front line himself instead of commanding from deep inside the mansion may have been to prevent himself from treating human death with businesslike detachment.

And…

“…Cough…”

There was a sound.

A breath.

The Molotov cocktail maid appeared to be trying desperately to fill her lungs with oxygen as she trembled on the ground.

The family head rested the gun smoke smelling bouquet on his shoulder.

“I used blanks. But even that’s going to cause some real pain to your heart. Death is frightening. Of course it is. But the Mugino Family deals in death because that last resort is sometimes necessary. Make no mistake. No matter how many extra trump cards in your deck, the value of a human life doesn’t change. You can’t just play that card whenever you want. Now you should have some idea what it feels like to have your heart senselessly stopped by someone else. Right, Hanagai?”

The maid had only been following orders.

In a way, that was what the Management who served the Bloodline were meant to do.

The truly responsible party was the one who had used their tool incorrectly.

The family head made an announcement while staring down at the unconscious dress woman who had butlers and maids in position to protect her.

“Bring Sakuya with you. I will calculate out exactly how much trouble she caused the world and punish her. In accordance with the inviolable rules of the Mugino Family which has existed since the Bunmei Kaika.”

Mujinayama simply watched on.

He had the look of the loyal retainer watching his lord’s castle crumble.

After agonizing over the issue more than anyone else could imagine, the old butler in a tuxedo and monocle had ultimately sworn to himself he would continue to fight alongside Mugino Sakuya. He had gone astray in accordance with his own righteousness, so how did it feel to see the many other butlers and maids carrying her away?

Molotov cocktail maid Hanagai had been forgiven, so perhaps he would be spared by the same logic.

But while forgetting his own injury, he seemed to curl up as he bowed toward the family head and spoke with a tremor in his voice.

“I only ask that I can spend my final moments by Sakuya-sama’s side.”

“What? No. You need to get the hospital. That wound is from a 9mm. You were shot in the back and the bullet’s still inside you, isn’t it?”

“But this is far too light a punishment for what I have done!!”

“Oh? Were you under the impression I wasn’t upset with you, Mr. Lady Killer?”

The old man grinned as he crouched down to bring his face in close. With no expression on that face.

“(If you ever make my adorable granddaughter cry again, I will break every one of your 206 bones and hear you scream 206 times before I kill you. And I will be counting the screams.)”

“…”

“This is the head of the Mugino Family talking. My words carry more weight than the death threats thrown out by a random drunk on the street. You know that, don’t you, Mujinayama?”

Part 10

And a short distance away, inside a crashed unmarked police car, the new partner finally came to in the passenger seat.

“Yawwwn… Huh? Senpai, weren’t you going to go arrest the Mugino Family?”

“They took you hostage.”

But not just with bullets.

Something had been balled up inside the bouquet.

And it wasn’t just an English language newspaper used for decoration.

The document wasn’t something you would ever find searching in the police database.

It was a death certificate.

It clearly stated the fate of the smiling boy who had once been known as Hiyamugi.

This time, there was no redaction.

It provided all the information needed to determine who had done what.

(But it’s still going to take a long time to drag this into the courts where our rules apply.)

Perhaps the Mugino Family head lived in that world so he could deal with the problems someone had covered up like this.

Epilogue: Thornless Villains

“Yes! We’re finally heading back to Academy City now, right? I made it in time for the Daihaseisai. I might actually be able to see my sister competing in her gym clothes… Wait for me, Japanese bloomers!! Actually, in the end, I also want to go around having some fun in Yokohama since we’re already here!”

“How do you super have so much energy left after being hunted for so long?”

“Frenda. How about we grab something to eat in Chinatown and walk around there?”

“I already went there.”

“Eh? You super went there without us!? No fair!!”

“Will the Mugino Family really be safe? When he was talking about the boss of Academy City, he meant the Board Director, right? And he threatened him? I hope the Family doesn’t end up broken up by all sorts of forces both legitimate and illegitimate.”

“They’re a grain production corporation that fills the stomachs of 1.4 billion people worldwide. In the end, putting them out of business would cause a significant percentage of the world population to starve to death. And if you include the indirect fighting over food, it could even spark an endless war covering the entire planet.”

“They might have some ups and downs, but I doubt the Mugino Family will entirely go away, Kinuhata.”

“Oh, right. In the end, what do we do about the Two Wings wreckage?”

“Yeah, Mugino shot down a ton of them and they’re super scattered across the mountain.”

“Kinuhata. I think a grownup organization will retrieve them. The Hound Dogs, Spark Signal – there are plenty of options. We don’t have to worry about it.”

“There’s the south gate. In the end, I can see it.”

“It really is just in the mountains, isn’t it? It’s super nothing like the east gate near Shinjuku.”

“Gwahhh!! I didn’t get a chance to have any fun in Shinjuku at all! I only managed to visit this really tasty set meal restaurant with taxis all around it!!”

“Takitsubo-san, can I go ahead and super punch her just once? She caused us so much trouble while she was going around enjoying the food!!”

“You could dent in her skull if you aren’t careful, so no. And we’ll have a chance to visit Yokohama and Shinjuku again as long as we stay alive.”

“Right, Mugino?”

“…Oh, shut up.”

The heavy gate closed with a “thud!!”

All four Item members had returned to the city of cutting-edge science.

Afterword

If you picked them up one at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

This time, I took a serious look at Mugino’s family which had been fairly shrouded in mystery. They are a gang that mixes Japanese and Western. They were at the foundation of what Mugino was doing in Item Volume 1, so you might discover some new things if you reread that.

If you compare Mugino Shizuri, Mugino Sakuya, and the family head, you should see something like their different styles. They share the same genes, but two of them still have a long way to go.

Also, the story made Frenda a fugitive in order to break the usual four-person structure of Item. I think being completely isolated like that allowed Frenda to draw on her greatest strength of being able to immediately make friends with anyone. In fact, I think who she is shines through in the small kindnesses that had nothing to do with the main plot. She helped people in need here and there, she gave into her desire and ate some autumn Chinese steamed buns in Chinatown, and she was determined to survive until she could see her 7-year-old sister compete in her first Daihaseisai. In that sense, this role had to go to Frenda.

The other extreme kind soul was Mujinayama. He is a sniper, so he does not usually fight like that. And yet he was extremely powerful. He was forced onto the front line by Sakuya, but if you also imagine him being dragged around by Sakuya like that when she was little, you should be able to put together an enjoyable image of little Sakuya. I know you can do it. And you should also be able to imagine a young Shizuri awkwardly learning to ride a bike and a tiny Shizuri desperately trying to learn the times table! Yes, don’t you see those two very similar selfish young ladies in your mind’s eye!?

In his long years of service, that butler probably worked with a few other daughters of the family as well. Damn lady killer.

Also, let’s review some information related to Meltdowner. Specifically, this time the diffusion attack hinted at from Item Volume 1 took actual form. Creating these links between the past and the present is always fun. I think that’s one of the best parts of this sort of spinoff. I have created other links as well, so I hope you will look for them too.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Nilitsu-san and to my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. The past, outside Academy City, Tokyo, and Kanagawa… Those factors alone must have made this a tough one, but the Mugino Family and all the next-gen weapons must have made the illustrations even more challenging. Thank you yet again.

And I give my thanks to the readers. The maids in Japanese entertainment have to be powerful fighters, don’t they!? I poured my love into that idea this time, but what did you think? Thank you as usual.

And I will end this here.

This world is pretty awful even outside Academy City.

-Kamachi Kazuma

Ending

“Hi. Hanano Choubi here. Eh? Do my job? I did. I got Item all worked up and chucked them outside the city. It’s always like this with you. You seem on edge. Did something happen with the higher ups?”

“I have a warning as the Brain of one of the Board members. Item’s position still isn’t stable. I’d say the negatives outweigh the positives here.”

“Even though they dealt with the Mugino Family problem?”

“Even though.”

“The confusion caused by the Mugino family head will be resolved in about a week. A week is a very long time for Academy City, though. Malt and agar, huh? Top rate culture media? That’s going to cause some volatility in the stocks related to pharmaceuticals, so I’d pull out now if I were you.”

“Ahh!! Why would you tell me that!? Now that I know that, it counts as insider trading! …I was already planning to sell that stock soon, but am I stuck with it until all of this settles down? Do you have any idea how much I could lose from this!?”

“I did it knowing full well how much. It’s called lashing out. I am the Board’s Brain. Do you really think I would accidentally let information slip?”

“You really are upset about something. But it doesn’t seem like it’s related to your work. Oh, is it about that pointy-haired boy?”

“…”

“God, you’re a pain in the ass! Stop taking it out on me when it’s hot out and some younger boy won’t give you the time of day. …Wait, what was that click? It wasn’t the phone, so- how did you locate my hideout, Kumokawa-sa- gyahhhh!?”

“In the end, it’s tooooooo hoooooot!!!”

“Then why did you invite me to a sauna? It’s super hard to refuse when you’re new to the team like I am!!”

It was September.

The weather was cooler than during summer break, but when the sun was in the right mood, the midsummer heat could still return. And yet the blonde-haired blue-eyed girl had grabbed Kinuhata (who looked bored without any friends outside of the dark side) by the hand and dragged her to the sauna. However, this sauna was not a hangout for old men. It was a sweet smelling place built as part of a women’s sports gym.

This was apparently normal for Scandinavian girls.

It was really hard to decide if she was serious or joking. And Kinuhata didn’t know the blonde girl’s actual nationality.

It was just the two of them today.

Frenda sat on the wooden bench in the strange sauna that was advertised as being authentically Scandinavian yet used Japanese cypress wood.

“What I want to know is why you’re in such a bad mood. Here. In the end, I’ll fan you with this☆”

“That’s so damn hot it’s gonna burn me!! Do you really not know that only makes it worse!? I’m starting to think your claim of being Scandinavian is a super lie.”

“It’s not a ‘claim’. Fan, fan.”

“Gyahhhhh!?”

Frenda set down the fan and opened the front of her towel to use it to fan.

Was this what happened when the north wind and the sun joined forces?

The (oddly sweet) heat wave threatened to burn all of Kinuhata’s skin.

Tightly covering herself with her towel to protect herself, Kinuhata sweatily continued speaking.

“Anyway, let’s make that the last time we play tag. This wasn’t just a little dangerous – it was super dangerous.”

“Again, I was forced into that position.”

(Naked and sweaty) Frenda retied her towel with practiced ease.

She stared blankly at the joint thermometer and hygrometer on the wet wooden wall.

“Also, it didn’t feel like I was going to die there. Almost like it isn’t my time to die yet.”

“?”

Not her time?

She had been all alone and hunted by Academy City and the Mugino Family and it had ended in a battle against Academy City’s #4 Level 5. Kinuhata hadn’t been in Item for long, but she couldn’t imagine much greater danger than that.

Frenda herself, however, remained carefree.

At least on the surface, anyway.

“I mean, you know how my greatest weapon is my ability to make friends with anyone? In the end, Mugino Shizuri is no exception there.”

Something froze solid.

Even though they were inside a sweltering sauna.

“I’m going to continue making friends with as many people as possible in my daily life. Just in case I do get caught in some real trouble someday, I’ll go around saving people to leave a good impression. And then, at the last moment, they won’t be able to do it. I’m pretty good at that, right? You know what I mean, don’t you, Kinuhata?”

“Super I guess…”

“That villa area was wide open with no cover. Ordinarily, there’s no way I could have directly faced Mugino there and lived to tell the tale.”

“…”

Mugino had briefly hesitated.

Even if it had been a subconscious thing.

The #4 Level 5 power was a masterpiece of science, but it was ultimately wielded by a human. So that possibility did exist.

But.

The nature of that fact changed greatly depending on if it was a naturally-occurring miracle or if it was an intentional calculation.

Item was from the dark side.

Did that fact change when they left Academy City?

“You super shouldn’t tell Mugino that.”

“She knows. She has for a long time. I’ve been with Item for a while now and Mugino’s been saved by my extensive friends list more than once.”

Surely you haven’t forgotten how Butler Mujinayama trusted in his righteousness and remained loyal.

But that allowed Mugino Sakuya to drag him into her coup and, because he also worried for Shizuri, he was shot in the back by Sakuya herself.

Trying to get along with anyone and everyone could shorten one’s lifespan.

Especially on the dark side where the division between enemy and ally was stark and you were often forced to take one side or the other.

“I can be anyone’s friend.”

Frenda Seivelun said this in her towel.

Cutely.

But also with a self-deprecating smile that resembled succumbing to a peaceful death.

“In the end, I end up being everyone’s friend.”

Prev	[v d e]Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament GT Volume 1 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 4 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 5 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 6 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 7 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 8 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 9 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 10 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 11 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 12 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending [v d e]Side Stories Volume SP Illustrations - Stiyl Magnus - Mark Space - Kamijou Touma - Uiharu Kazari - Afterword Railgun SS1 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Kanzaki SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun SS2 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Road to Endymion Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 Necessarius SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Virtual-On Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Railgun SS3 Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Biohacker SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 Agnese SS Illustrations - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 Railgun LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword Item LN Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 2 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 3 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 4 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Cold Game Toaru Jihanki no Fanfare Toaru Majutsu No Index: Love Letter SS Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: A Superfluous Story, or A Certain Incident’s End Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: Shokuhou Misaki Figurine SS Toaru Majutsu no Index: A Certain Midsummer Return to the Starting Point Toaru Majutsu no Index: Using Final Bosses to Determine a Sociological Threat Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Thus Spoke the Kumokawa Sisters Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Vooster's Cup, The Day Before Toaru Majutsu no Virtual-On: Misaka Mikoto's Dangerous Tea Party Toaru Majutsu no Index: Birthday Through the Glass Toaru Majutsu no Index: New Testament 20 Bonus Short Story Toaru Majutsu no Index: Misaka Mikoto’s Teamwork A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament SS [v d e]Official Parody Stories A Certain Prophecy Index A Certain Academy Index A Certain Gift Exchange A Certain March 201st Novel I Don't Want This First Story of A Certain Magical Index!! or I Don't Want This Final Story An All-In "World" Tour of Academy City, the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion, and Ground's Nir Kamijou-san, Two Idiots, Jinnai Shinobu, Gray Pig, and Freedom Award 903, Listen Up! …Fall Asleep and You Die, But Not From the Cold☆ We Tried Having a Group Blind Date, but It was an All Stars Affair and a World Crisis Will the Spiky-Haired Idiot See a Piping Hot Dream of His Wife? Dengeki Island: A Girl’s Battle (Still Growing) Kamijou Touma Visits Another World Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch Crossover SS Toaru Majutsu no Index X Apocalypse Witch X Heavy Object Crossover SS I Still Want to Do a Summer Fair A Certain Collaboration Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 Kamachi Crossover Illustrations - Preface - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - A.E. 02 - Afterword Durarara Crossover Preface - Academy City Chapter - Ikebukuro Chapter	Next NA