Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6

Novel Illustrations

• 
  Cover
• 
• 
  Contents Page
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Opening

What is right depends on one’s point of view and circumstances.

But the cost of betrayal will never be cheap.

Prologue: Betrayal’s Beginning

“God, why do I have to go to the bank in the middle of a weekday? In this day and age?”

“Of course you do, Mugino. Banks are closed on weekends and at night.”

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, Frenda Seivelun, and Kinuhata Saiai.

The four of them had arrived at a small and perfectly ordinary bank in the shopping area of District 15.

It had all begun with a strange kangaroo game (that Frenda had gotten from somewhere).

The odd ritual which began in a karaoke box had ended in a complete loss by Mugino Shizuri. Owing the other three Item members lunch wasn’t that big a deal, but the real trouble had started when the e-payment function on Mugino’s phone mysteriously stopped working. …If only she had noticed this before arriving at the restaurant.

According to blonde Frenda (who had apparently trained plenty in the game with her 7-year-old sister):

“In the end, did you recently shove all your credit cards and smart cards onto your phone? I bet there’s a conflict between the different payment apps.”

And so they did some research and paid a visit to the phone service counter, but with no luck. When the young woman working the counter couldn’t solve the problem, they were forced to head to the bank which handled the link between Mugino’s phone, card, and bank account. Was this some kind of orienteering?

(How long has it even been since I spoke to a bank teller? Dammit.)

Mugino snatched a numbered paper sticking out of the machine near the tellers. #35. Looking up at the counter, the most recent number called was still in the late 20s. Even after all the trouble and walking around, this was going to take even more of her time. And there was no guarantee waiting until her turn would even get the problem solved.

“I’m not even in the mood for food anymore. I just want to get home and take a nap.”

“You only say that cause you’re the one who super has to buy us lunch. I haven’t forgotten how much business that paella place by the station was doing!”

The girls bickered back and forth and killed time on their phones. Unable to stand it any longer, Mugino lay down on the sofa while Takitsubo lent her her lap.

It was just past 2 PM when it happened.

“Nobody move!”

Someone raised their voice.

Their voice was unnaturally shrill, like they had inhaled helium or something.

It belonged to a girl with her blonde hair worn in twintails. She looked high school aged. No, or maybe middle school? She wore a combination of a triangular bikini top and a short tight skirt. A thin stole was wrapped around her body and she held a…thick hot dog in her mouth? No, it wasn’t actually in her mouth. Was it a special mask held on with a transparent band? It also had sliced olive and tomato decorations, so it was likely meant to fool facial recognition algorithms. In Academy City, it was commonly known those algorithms tended to glitch out if there were several large round objects near the face.

Mugino was still resting her head on the track suit girl’s lap.

The robber girl shouted while waving around an exceptionally large handgun that she would likely have trouble operating with one hand. The gun had a bulky holosight on the top. It was a top-of-the-line Academy City product that would accurately measure the nearby wind speed and the distance to the target (which meant it was fairly useless at close range indoors).

“I’m here to recycle all this world’s excess money! It’s called being eco-friendly and none of it will go to waste, so help me out here!! Slowly remove your hands from your landline phones, computers, smartphones, radios, and the secret switch under the table! Then gather over by the wall there!! C’mon, I can see all your smart watches and smart glasses, so remove them and give them here! Water absorbs EM waves and a certain specialized liquid does an even better job. Using that Diffuser, any message you do try to send won’t even make it two meters!!”

The bank made their move.

A middle-aged man in glasses and a suit emerged. He looked like the type of person who lived for office work. He was skinny for middle age and he approached nervously.

“P-please wait. I suspect you have chosen the wrong target. You cannot use any money stolen from a bank these days. Did you think no one would notice if the bills’ serial numbers were nonconsecutive? Oxygen and microbes deteriorate paper and the slight folds and wrinkles create something like a fingerprint. There are countless ways to track the stolen bills, so you will be caught as soon as you spend them somewhere.”

The robber girl pistol whipped the branch manager’s bitterly smiling face right in his nose.

A violent crunch and the red of blood were followed by a series of screams within the bank.

Down on the floor, the branch manager held his face and trembled while looking up at the robber girl.

The bikini girl with the lower half of her face covered by a thick hot dog mask again spoke.

Her demand was simple.

“I’m the kind of person who spams the ‘agree’ button until the long explanation finally ends. Do I need to hit you again?”

A series of loud bangs followed.

That gun was fully automatic.

If she hadn’t been aiming at the ceiling as a threat, the branch manager would be dead. The middle-aged man only now realized the situation he was in and an unpleasant ammonia stench wafted up from him.

When the robber girl lowered the gun and dropped the empty magazine to the floor, another magazine flew from the back of her hip. It entered the large handgun’s grip all on its own.

“(Was that an esper power?)”

“(No. In the end, I’ve seen contraptions like that before. They do something with the ultrasonic technology used in microactuators. You can supposedly reduce your reload time below 0.5 seconds using one of those.)”

In a very Academy City move, the robber girl was using quite an odd reloading tool. It was as accurate as if an electromagnet or something were sucking the magazine into the slot.

Then the robber girl aimed her gun straight ahead and beckoned someone over.

“You, the woman who’s figured out the button below the table isn’t doing anything. Stop wasting your time and get over here! The drum security robots aren’t working either, so kicking one won’t set off the automatic alarm. All I want to do is quickly finish my work here and leave peacefully, but if this takes too long, I will line you all up by the windows. Now, a question: who wants to be my human shield against Anti-Skill snipers!?”

She must have talked too much without breathing any more helium because her voice was starting to return to normal.

The girl inserted a spray can’s thin tube in the gap between her skin and the thick hot dog mask and inhaled some helium.

“You four with the slack-jawed stares!! You’re gonna want to stay on my good side cause whoever I like the least gets to be the one to walk out in front of the TV cameras with a bomb in your hands so you can beg and cry for no one to approach the bank. If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, then do as I say!!”

Mugino Shizuri had sat up by this time and she slowly raised her hands when the large handgun was aimed her way. Very slowly.

Killing that girl would be easy.

In fact, she had left enough openings for Meltdowner to kill her at least three times over by now.

However…

“(Be careful, Mugino. You gain nothing by acting out in a bank full of security cameras. There are also laser and ultrasonic senors. The microwaves are probably blocked by that Diffuser that emits an invisible mist, but the point is the bank uses several different kinds of sensor. I can also see directional microphones in the floor. I think those are meant to detect the footsteps of someone wearing meta-materials. Anyway, this is a bad location for us. Not to mention all the witnesses.)”

“(You might be hailed as a hero in the evening news, but after they super research your identity some more, you’ll be listed as a wanted criminal in tomorrow’s morning news.)”

That made it hard to intervene.

The robber was covering her face. Did that mean the line for the special emergency buttons had been cut, but all the security cameras were still functioning? Self-taught criminals could develop their skills in weird directions, so what had this girl done? If she had cut all the lines, Mugino could just kill her without worrying.

“(You’re kidding me. These days a bank branch will only have maybe 20 million in cash sitting around. Why would you risk your future attacking here? You’d make more money attacking an armored car going around to the ATMs.)”

“(In the end, I think the money is a diversion,)” said Frenda. “(Look, Mugino. She surreptitiously stuck something into the outlet on the wall. That thing with all the cords. The door next to it is the special consultation room for high value account holders, right? Bugging that room will give you tons of advance information on stocks and futures. The room is meant for corporate executives and investors to receive consultations on loans and trades.)”

“(So it’s an information source for insider trading. Does she want to set up a cycle of continual profit instead of making money off a single robbery?)”

Did this mean the outdated bank robber had wracked her brains to come up with some way of not being left behind by the times?

And Item wasn’t about to stay quiet about this.

They were a dark side team.

Their lives and assets had been put at risk by a criminal’s attempt at profit. They saw that as picking a fight with them. The etiquette about not involving ordinary people no longer applied.

Not even a dark side team could take things too far with the bank’s strict security, but Item didn’t intend to take this sitting down. …Letting someone get away with this once would be mistaken as an opportunity by the industry as a whole and there would soon be attacks at government offices, public facilities, and relay cameras. If that happened, the victims of the stray shots would be the same kind of ordinary people who made up the majority of the people in the bank now.

“Frenda,” was all Mugino said.

“That robber has a gun, right? So in the end, I say we get it to misfire and blow her hand off. That rids her of her weapon and badly injures her, so it’s two birds with one stone.”

Frenda rattled off her response without even having to think about it.

Kinuhata gave her a look like she was inspecting the product on a shopping show.

“Can you really super do that?”

“Why would you think I can’t? In the end, I am the Academy City Bomber and I hope I don’t have to explain to you that guns use explosives.”

Frenda brushed her fluffy blonde hair off her shoulder and a small cylinder mysteriously appeared in her hand. That assassin’s handgun was about the size of a lipstick tube and held only one round. She could completely hide its presence by holding it in her palm. That the tiny thing included a suppressor and flash hider demonstrated just how insane the Academy City Bomber was.

The cute menace operated the weapon with practiced ease and a bullet flew from the bottom end. It was based on a 9mm, but it wasn’t made made of lead.

Mugino didn’t seem particularly surprised.

“A disappearing bullet, huh?”

“Technically it’s made by using a press to compress a clump of dust at 80 thousand atmospheres. When the bullet shatters and scatters through the air, the forensics team will ignore the pieces even if they do find them.”

The robber’s gun would end up rupturing from an exterior impact instead of from within, so there would actually be room for suspicion, but the bullet fired from a second gun would never be found and, more importantly, the first gun belonged to a criminal. The normal(?) conclusion would be that the exterior of the gun had already been damaged from rough usage.

The robber girl took a silver attache case from the sweaty branch manager.

She put on quite the act for someone who wasn’t actually after the cash.

“Perfect. Oh, and there is a reason for the locations being hit, so do look into that after I leave. If you don’t solve the puzzle, people much like me will keep doing this.”

It wasn’t just an issue of lax security. Her point was to ask why this specific branch had been singled out as especially lax. That meant someone on the inside had leaked information. …But the branch manager didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy holding a security paintball gun behind his back and waiting for an opportunity.

Item couldn’t care less what harm came to the VIPs who used that secret conference room in the back of the bank.

But they had come to the bank because the link between Mugino’s phone and credit card wasn’t working. Any further problems and the bank would be unable to continue its ordinary duties for the day. Mugino couldn’t stand having to wait a full day without solving this little annoyance.

“In the end, are you really gonna do it here, Mugino? If we wait for her to leave, we won’t have to worry about the bank’s cameras.”

“If that dumb bitch takes one step outside the building, this gets promoted from ‘attempted robbery’ to ‘robbery’. Then Anti-Skill will really start working on it, making it all a huge pain in the ass, so I’m crushing her now.”

“Fair.”

No matter how foolish it was, that girl was still a bank robber. If she had worked out a plan and broken in, she had to have put some real effort into this. She wouldn’t just thoughtlessly leave through the front entrance. There had to be a secret entrance for safely carrying in large quantities of cash. And secrets were worthless if they had been leaked. Reforming an entire sturdy building was hard, so they preferred not to let even Anti-Skill and the fire department know about them.

In this case, it was a nearby silver door that looked like no more than a small fire door.

However, the two keypads were unusual for a simple fire door.

If they were going to do this, it had to be when the girl was so confident of her success she had let her guard down. In other words, now.

Kinuhata had nothing to do, but she figured she should at least stay in a position that let her protect Takitsubo from any stray shots. It was during that somewhat detached decision that she noticed something.

The robber girl was acting weirdly.

She was whispering something. Kinuhata focused on that.

A young male voice came from the robber girl’s phone, like a synthetic voice reading a text.

“You are falling behind the timetable we gave you. Hurry up and end it.”

“(But someone is going to end up taking the fall for this, won’t they? Insider trading is a crime. If suspicion falls on whoever uses the conference room, won’t they get arrested by mistake?)”

“Did you think you were in any position to defy us?”

“(Point made! I’ll do it – I’ll set it up like you said, so keep your hands off my parents!)”

“…Ughhh.”

Kinuhata Saiai heard it all.

She quite earnestly wished she hadn’t heard that.

So was this person just an ordinary person who was being threatened by a specialist!?

(Th-this is crazy. Have criminals gone so far past blackmailing people into picking pockets that they’re getting them to attack banks!?)

Wasn’t the Diffuser supposed to block EM waves? Or was she communicating using IR?

Mugino Shizuri was already in murder mode. Her dark side persona had switched on.

Item would show no mercy when a villain bared their fangs against them.

If Kinuhata tried to protect the girl, she could get killed right along with her.

A glance over at Frenda was enough to tell she was super serious about this too. She toyed with the one-shot assassin’s handgun hidden in her palm and licked her lips. That was the look she got when she was preparing to “play with” a powerful dark side foe.

Kinuhata Saiai stepped to the side, blocking Frenda’s line of fire.

This person didn’t seem to be powerful or from the dark side at all.

“(Huh!? In the end, acting like a klutz won’t make me find you cute, you stupid dead weight!)”

Kinuhata-chan didn’t let the fierce irritated glare from the older girl get her down.

(I can’t help it. If I super don’t do this, you’ll kill an ordinary person who’s only being threatened! I don’t know what the response to that will be, but it’s possible Item as a whole will be branded a team of dumbasses who accidentally killed an innocent person!!)

That stopped Frenda, but there was still Mugino.

Then Takitsubo Rikou detonated a fire extinguisher.

That blocked the robber girl’s view, but it also hit Mugino Shizuri.

“Wow.”

“Gyahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

As white foam covered anything and everything around, Takitsubo accurately and gently grabbed the robber girl’s hand. She then obtained a firm grasp on the wrist of the hand holding the gun.

“Uh!?”

“(This way. You too, Kinuhata.)”

Takitsubo super intentionally raised her voice for the next part.

“Mugino, you’re in the clear. The fire extinguisher foam will keep anyone from seeing, so start blasting with Meltdowner.”

“Cough, cough. Not your best ad lib, you idiot! I can’t see a damn thing! And don’t use my name and esper name here!”

Now Mugino definitely wouldn’t start firing blindly.

Takitsubo and the other two made their way to the inconspicuous back entrance for armored cars.

…Kinuhata Saiai followed along as told, but then she tilted her head. Huh? Was there any real reason for her to escape too?

But she had already exited into the small employee parking lot in the back.

Returning now to the bank packed full of killer intent would be mega awkward.

So the three of them walked from alley to alley until the robber girl held the handgun to Kinuhata’s temple while so worked up she was trembling. Wait, why did that track suit girl let her break free so easily!?

It looked like the girl had passed some kind of limit.

And someone like this was actually more likely to kill someone than an always cool and composed assassin.

“Wh-who are you people!? Stop right there! I can’t take any more of this! Nothing’s going as planned and you’re just making it all so much more compli-”

“I’ll be super taking that.”

With that causal comment, Kinuhata now had the gun in her hand.

The robber girl’s eyes widened and Kinuhata gave her an exasperated look.

“What, have you never heard the standard theory? Even the Anti-Skill manuals super tell you to keep your gun out of the suspect’s reach when aiming at them.”

Plus, Kinuhata had Offense Armor, so she didn’t even have to risk her life to snatch the gun away. It helped a lot to be able to tank a gunshot. When you weren’t worried at all, you could move swiftly and accurately.

Track suit girl Takitsubo gestured toward the direction of the bank with her chin.

“If you still want to follow your plan, you can always return to the bank. Armed Anti-Skill officers will probably be rushing in right about now, making it a nightmare for you, though. Not to mention that Mugino will use whatever openings she can find in the chaos to come kill you.”

“Who the hell is Mugino?”

The mystery bikini girl had shifted from anger to trembling. She quivered like a wet puppy. Even though the helium had run out and her natural voice was a mature-sounding alto.

“You will die if you don’t stray from your plan,” said Takitsubo with no emotion in her voice. “So can you be brave for now?”

The (attempted) robber girl nodded over and over. Something wobbled up and down in front of her face. Why didn’t she just remove that thick hot dog mask already?

Emergency vehicle sirens passed close by, distorted by the Doppler effect.

Kinuhata sighed in exasperation.

“But she does have a point: super what do we do now? She’s still at risk, so we’ll have done a poor job of saving her if we just let her go.”

“Kinuhata, she’s being threatened right? So let’s take out whoever’s at the top.”

“You make that sound super easy, but we’re combat experts who take jobs from the Voice on the Phone. I can’t imagine Mugino permitting us to pour a bunch of money into helping someone in need when there’s no profit in it.”

“Worse than that, she sees this robber as an enemy of Item. Mugino will probably kill her as soon as she finds her, so we can’t let Mugino find out about this.”

(Huh? Hold on. Does that super mean…?)

The blank-faced and harmless track suit girl explained what she meant.

Without prevarication.

“If we really want to save this girl, we need to betray Mugino.”

?

Kinuhata’s mouth formed a small triangle.

No one had told her that.

No one had said this would mean that. They hadn’t even hinted at it!!

“Wait, hold on, why are you more super into this than I am? Takitsubo-san? Hey, wait!”

“I’m trying to protect you, Kinuhata. I can’t believe you would turn on Mugino to protect a criminal stranger. How can I abandon someone so careless?”

“…”

“Or are you going to give up here and go home? By abandoning that bank robber? That would be a lot easier for me.”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

“Okay, we have our work cut out for us.”

“You must know how terrifying Mugino Shizuri is more than anyone else!! You’ve been with her the longest!!!”

You mustn’t forget.

Takitsubo Rikou was also a member of Item. She too was one of those super dangerous people.

Chapter 1: 2_on_2.

Part 1

Sirens were blaring all around.

Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou peeked out at the main street from the alley and sighed. At about the same time.

“Really, super really!? Why wouldn’t you turn off your phone’s GPS when robbing a bank!? Are you legit suicidal!?”

“I-I-I-I did switch it off in the options! I know I did!!”

“The option it shows you isn’t enough. Have you never noticed how the weather forecast app still shows the correct district even with the GPS switched off? That means your location is still being tracked even with the option off.”

“Why do you two know so much more about this stuff than a bank robber?”

Kinuhata and Takitsubo coughed in sync with each other.

…Hiding in the narrow alley was no guarantee of safety. There were security cameras everywhere and there were plenty of non-fixed cameras such as cleaning robots and security robots.

The city’s safe blind spots were something only people from the city’s true dark side knew how to identify.

After all, this was a bank robbery.

Those were actually rare in the modern day, so Anti-Skill wasn’t going to just let it slide. Just as Kinuhata was wondering if every news source from personal social media accounts to the major newspapers were having a field day with it, Takitsubo Rikou whispered to her.

“Looks like they’ve gone.”

“Super so what? We’re talking about a bank robbery here. Anti-Skill and Judgment are going to be super gung ho about such a fun surprise event.”

“But remember, they’re still human.”

The track suit girl was not daunted. She was as expressionless as ever.

“People’s focus waxes and wanes. Thirty minutes out from the start, their hope of catching the criminal red-handed will be fading and their excitement will fade with it. The ordinary Anti-Skill officers will be discussing their next plan, so they’ll let the security robots handle the search for the time being. So this is our best chance.”

“And if we super miss this chance?”

“The pros will regain their cool and begin a thorough search. Once they make up their minds tonight, it won’t matter how late it is.”

An immediate response was a form of magic.

Hearing Takitsubo’s voice just about got Kinuhata to go along with it.

However…

“No, wait. Doesn’t this city super have a satellite?”

“That’s why we traveled through a few underground malls and underground parking garages on the way. Besides, they’re busy practicing for the Board’s parade right now, so I doubt they can dedicate many resources to a sudden case like this. Screw that up and, not only will they lose their job, but it will be a disciplinary firing which makes it hard for them to find another job.”

The bikini girl gave them a look that seemed to ask why they knew so much about this, but they were under no obligation to respond.

Simply put, if they didn’t slip past the cordon to safety soon, this would get a lot more annoying. They needed to leave the district.

Kinuhata Saiai roughly scratched at her hair and turned to look at the third person here. She had had enough of calling her “(attempted) robber girl”.

It had to begin here.

“How did you get into this mess!? Super what’s your name!?”

“S-Sudori. Sudori Sayu…”

Then it was time to enjoy a daring getaway with the attractive alto-voice Miss Sudori (who was equipped with a bikini and a thick hot dog).

“It sounded like you were unwillingly following someone’s orders during that bank robbery. Just to be sure, was it one of those blackmailers?”

“Y-yes…that’s right…”

Kinuhata was pretty sure a blackmailer was one of those people who gave instructions over the phone get people to do bad things. …The term had been all over the TV and internet news in Academy City, but maybe it would be safest if she double-checked the definition.

“They don’t ask you to do crimes at first,” politely began track suit girl Takitsubo.

Kinuhata decided to listen in.

“They send a message via an online message board or social media site offering a good-paying day labor job or something like that. Usually weaving in some fictional concepts like saying it’s a job targeted toward students or to test some new Academy City system. Most people won’t go for it, but some will respond to the sketchy address.”

“Ugh,” groaned Sudori Whatever-san.

“Then they explain that it’s an easy job, but it requires registering with them to receive your payment and they ask for a lot of difficult-to-change personal information. Your Bank ID for example. Even fewer people will fall for that, but not none.”

“Ughh.”

“Academy City is an enclosed city thanks to the wall. With your personal information taken, there is no more safe zone for you. So unscrupulous people will use that as a shield. They start controlling people by making threats like ‘we’ll burn down your dorm’ or ‘we’ll hurt your loved ones’. Then they order the victims to attack a jewelry store, a rich person’s home, or whatever else and have them steal anything of value.”

It was like a super powered up version of a group of delinquents threatening a timid classmate into shoplifting for them.

And the person who carried out the actual crime was actually paid for it. Just a bit. Of course this wasn’t about the villains being particular about promises. No, they simply wanted to make the victim feel like an accomplice, trapping them further. By making the victim feel like a criminal who couldn’t go to Anti-Skill for help, they became a lot easier to control.

The enemy was probably a group.

With an unseen group like that, a true solution to the problem wasn’t going to be easy.

But they couldn’t let Mugino Shizuri know.

That meant they also couldn’t use the delinquents of the support team.

Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou would have to manage it on their own.

“Kinuhata, where should we start?”

“~ ~ ~! With Sudori-san’s super home!!”

Part 2

Kinuhata and Takitsubo arrived in District 8.

Keeping this a secret from Item’s leader Mugino Shizuri meant they couldn’t use the support team’s cars. Thus, they had to travel by train. How they managed to safely use public transportation while the authorities were on alert will be omitted here. …Because safety measures tend to be very boring.

District 8 was a jumbled mixture of new and old buildings and it contained more teachers and office workers than students. The hierarchy was plain to see. The latest, high-tech estates and high-rise apartments were home to the wealthy, so you can guess who ended up in the old buildings.

Sudori Sayu’s home was in a two-story apartment building.

She did not live alone as a student. Her entire family lived there.

The girl walking around in a bikini and a thick hot dog was half-panicked.

Even though they were getting close to her home, she had been getting more and more flustered.

Or maybe that was why she was flustered.

“W-wait. Why do we need to go to my home? I can’t let my parents see me now. They’ll think I’m friends with people like you and get all worried.”

“…” “…”

Kinuhata and Takitsubo both gave Sudori Sayu a look.

The message on their faces couldn’t have been more clear: we wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t tried to rob that bank.

They must have gotten through to her because the public bikini girl shrank down.

“Okay, fine. I’ll die then. Sorry for being born. Look, everyone, I’m about to livestream my own death…”

Maybe they had gotten through to her a little too well.

“Ahh!!” Kinuhata frantically snatched away her phone (with a powerful Offense Armor arm). “Why are you trying to physically and socially kill yourself simultaneously, you super troublemaker!?”

“I should’ve just done this in the first place… I don’t want to be a victim, but I don’t want to be a criminal either.”

What was the bank robber saying now? While trembling. She really couldn’t be much more of a nuisance.

And Takitsubo Rikou responded with a tilt of the head.

“Suicide isn’t considered a crime, but it doesn’t eliminate civil responsibilities. That means it can create financial problems.”

She might be expressionless and seem out of it, but she was still part of the dark side.

She probably wanted to prevent this suicide, but the words she chose were pretty awful.

“Stopping a train or leaving a rotting stench in a rented room will incur a fairly large debt. And since the person who killed herself can’t be charged, the debt goes to her family. …Do you want to cause even more trouble for your parents?”

“…”

“I don’t know if video sites do that kind of thing, but if you violate the terms of service to use their site in an inappropriate way that gathers a lot of attention, you can’t exactly complain if they demand a large payment.”

That was a side issue and didn’t really matter.

It was time to get down to business.

Kinuhata sighed in exasperation first.

“Blackmailers obtain compromising information on their victims and then threaten them into committing crimes. It’s safe to assume they have a negotiator posted near your home to keep tabs on your family. That way they can threaten to harm your home or parents if you super hesitate to go through with the crime.”

“You mean one of the villains is near here? B-but would they really be that easy to find? They’re so scary because they’re a faceless presence, so I doubt they’ll be anywhere near me.”

“Sudori. If they threatened you into stealing jewels or fancy watches, how are they supposed to get the stolen goods? They must have a contact point for handing those things over. And using the mail doesn’t work well with jewels or watches that lose so much value from even a small scratch. They are threatening people because they want money. That means there is a physical connection even if you aren’t aware of it. This is one of them.”

Sudori Sayu looked left and right while cowering down, but they weren’t going to be that easy to find.

If one of the official members of the group was here, the best plan was to locate that person and get the details out of them. Using the unspeakable methods of the dark side. Once they had information on the enemy group, it would be time to physically crush it.

Then Sudori Sayu’s shoulders shook.

A door on the two-story apartment complex opened. A middle-aged man emerged. She hadn’t mentioned which room was hers, but that reaction was enough to know that had to be her father. The timid-looking man watered a planter with a watering can.

He was home at midday, but Kinuhata and Takitsubo didn’t take that to mean he was “one of them”.

Money problems also meant time problems. People in a bad position had no freedom. He may have simply been forced to live an irregular life with no boundaries between day and night or between weekday and weekend.

“My dad works at a milk delivery company. It’s small, but he’s the president,” muttered the robber girl. “All the neighbors say it’s an outdated company and it’s getting harder and harder to survive in the industry thanks to online shopping and with bike and drone deliveries soon to be common. He should really shut down his business and use his know-how in another industry, but then he would have to fire the students who are using their part-time jobs to pay their tuition. So no matter how bad it gets and no matter how bad the future looks…”

“…”

Kinuhata didn’t know the actual numbers, but she could guess it was quite dire.

This was a problem a parent would try their best to hide from their child, yet it had grown to the point even the child could tell. He must not have had any room left for pretending.

“All I wanted was to help my family pay the bills.”

The robber girl – Sudori Sayu – stared at that peaceful scene.

As if it existed in some far distant world. While trembling.

“They said I could earn 100 thousand yen in a week if I worked hard. They said it would be four times that in a month, which would be more than the monthly salary of a new office worker. I thought I could support my family. I thought I could relieve the tension there. But I didn’t know my Bank ID, so I sent them the number written in my mom’s notebook. I thought it was a normal process. I never imagined I was selling out my own parents…”

She only had herself to blame.

…Or did she?

Kinuhata Saiai was from the dark side. She was a member of Item who took jobs from the Voice on the Phone and knowingly wielded violence for money and to secure a place for herself. So she was not a kind enough person to feel pity for a foolish criminal who had intentionally chosen to set foot in that guilty world.

But this was different.

It felt wrong.

“You worry me, Kinuhata.”

The track suit girl was glaring (super exasperatedly) at Kinuhata, but that didn’t change her view.

An ordinary person was dragged into a world of crime without any advance notice, they were sent past the point of no return, and their family and friends were taken hostage to force them to commit crimes. Nothing was done to protect the victim. They were disposable tools whose eventual arrest was all part of the plan.

None of this would have happened if she hadn’t done what she did. That was true.

But…that didn’t meant she had intentionally chosen to set foot in this world.

Part 3

The blackmailers abused their victim’s Bank ID to threaten them and force them to steal valuables. With the victim’s home and family used a shield, a negotiator had to be nearby.

For Kinuhata and Takitsubo, locating that negotiator would give them a chance to fight back.

Track suit girl Takitsubo glanced over at Kinuhata.

“This residential area doesn’t have much in the way of entertainment, but there are still some people coming and going. We have to identify the suspicious person among them, so what do you say we should do, Kinuhata?”

“The security drum robots are effectively small communication servers.”

“And?”

Takitsubo Rikou’s expression was always blank.

But what was this? There was a hint of a grin in her eyes.

Was she shifting into some kind of drill sergeant mode?

“By borrowing one of them and messing with the wiring a bit, we can monitor the nearby communication situation. For example, the number and location of phones.”

The bikini and tight skirt robber girl nervously spoke up.

“Wh-what good is knowing where any phones are? Everyone has one. You’d be hard pressed finding someone who isn’t carrying one.”

Ignoring her as a distraction would probably get her trembling and suicidal again.

So Kinuhata sighed and answered.

“It’s true carrying a phone is super common.”

“Then what good is it?”

“But people using phones for crimes generally use a few different phones for different purposes. That will work against them here. What if we find someone in the neighborhood who’s carrying five or even ten phones? Wouldn’t that be super sus?”

Being caught on camera while capturing the mobile security cameras that were the security robots would be suicidal for a dark side member. So Kinuhata crept up on one from behind and immobilized it with an (Offense Armor boosted) attack from its blind spot.

Then she only had to tear off the exterior panel and attach her phone with the appropriate cable.

When you knew how to do it, it didn’t take long.

Cautioning the robber girl not to look in that direction was a lot harder.

“I super found them. Ten meters northeast of your home.”

“Eh? You mean that white truck? Wh-why would an old newspaper collection service do that?”

Appearances could be deceiving. It could have been a sweet potato seller or a (somewhat sketchy looking) used electronics collection service. Residential areas were the residents’ territory. The idea was to create the appearance of an outsider who could stick around for a while without arousing suspicion. A pizza delivery driver or newspaper deliverer couldn’t slowly circle around the same area for very long.

Takitsubo nodded.

“Now we physically tail them. That should lead us to their base.”

“Wait. If you already knew where they were, you should have super told me.”

“This helps me too. There are no textbooks in the field of criminal searches, so other people’s ideas can be a valuable learning opportunity. Knowing how other people think can also help you obstruct them.”

Their target was in a light truck, so they couldn’t pursue on foot. The target appeared to be circling along the same course. While strolling past the slowly circling truck, Kinuhata flicked a small wireless earphone into the back of the truck.

Then they just had to open a map app and use the lost item search function.

Kinuhata Saiai spoke up right away.

“I’ve super got the signal.”

Part 4

Mugino Shizuri took on the bearing of a wealthy daughter.

After all, she had been caught in a bank robbery.

There were Anti-Skill checkpoints everywhere and the drum-shaped security robots had been deployed en masse. She had nothing to do with the robbery itself, but she wanted to avoid being questioned about it and risking discovery of her extremely illicit secrets.

After slipping out of the bank’s front entrance to escape the chaos, the Item members split up (while getting rid of the fire extinguisher foam covering them), vanished into the streets, and made sure they weren’t being watched or tailed before regrouping at the luxury hotel they were using as a temporary home. They were specifically using a suite in a massive tourist hotel in District 5, which was full of college students.

Mugino scratched roughly at her head in the elevator.

(They always increase security here whenever anything happens. We really should’ve gone with an apartment instead of a hotel anyone can stay in.)

“Huh? Where’d Takitsubo go? And Kinuhata?”

“Don’t ask me. In the end, I’m not their chaperon,” casually replied Frenda who had arrived in the suite before Mugino and was mixing a non-alcoholic cocktail in a shaker.

Were those two together, or were they acting separately? Surely they weren’t stupid enough to get questioned by Anti-Skill and then screw it up so badly they got arrested. Mugino considered the possibilities for a moment, but then her phone emitted a tone. She grimaced after checking the screen.

Frenda hopped into the sofa and sipped at her blueish drink as she glanced over.

“In the end, who’s that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

For some reason, Frenda answered that with a nod. That had apparently told her exactly who it was.

It was the Voice on the Phone.

“We only just got back after dealing with some trouble. What do you want?”

“I have a job for you.”

“…”

“Have I ever called you for any other reason?”

Mugino Shizuri very nearly threw her phone into the wall.

“You expect me to head back out into that heat and work some sweaty job when I’m already goddamn furious!?”

“Suit yourself. This is one of the best jobs that’s ever come your way, so it would be a waste to let it go. I’ll just have to give it to someone else.”

One of Mugino’s eyebrows shot up.

The Voice on the Phone was an expert negotiator. This might be nothing more than bait, so she remained cautious.

“You don’t normally talk like that.”

“Ah ha ha. The client must be panicking because they set the reward wrong. It’s turned into an easy job you can solve with a single shot but the pay is excellent☆”

Part 5

Kinuhata and the other two arrived in the college-focused District 5.

…Mugino and Frenda would be in the luxury tourist hotel in the same district, so they had to be careful. Carelessly encountering those two would mean death.

District 8 was full of chic and mature-looking luxury brand shops for all the teachers and office workers there, so it felt like their surroundings had reversed. The city seemed to be sleeping below the blue sky.

Because…

“A used clothing store for luxury brands? Yeah, that sounds super right.”

“Think of it like a pawnshop that intentionally buys stolen goods.”

Sudori Sayu (who thought she was hiding but was doing a very poor job of it) was trembling and teasing her bikini strap with her fingers.

“But don’t they just need to convert their stolen jewels and brand-name bags into cash? Why do they need a place like this when online auctions and flea market apps exist?”

“Sudori. It might seem simple, but that’s a lot more trouble than it looks. Your screen name can be whatever you want, but it’s hard to avoid any link back to yourself when it comes to the bank account or credit card used to pay. It’s not completely impossible, but there are around three hurdles you have to clear.”

That villain sounded like she had actually done that before, so the robber girl fell silent.

It was hard to argue with someone who had actual experience.

Sudori Sayu did eventually respond while snapping her bikini shoulder strap with her fingers.

“B-but now what? How exactly are we supposed to defeat their boss? We don’t even know if all the stolen goods are in the back of that shop.” (snap snap)

“They’re stolen. They won’t be sitting out where anyone can see them. And we’re super not Anti-Skill, so we don’t need material evidence or a warrant. Now that we know who’s our enemy, we just have to barge in and beat them up.”

“Eh? But…actually who even are you two?” (snap snap snap!)

(Generally small) Kinuhata ground her teeth.

She was shaking.

“Hey, can you stop snapping your super bikini straps!?”

“I got these clothes in a hurry for the bank job, so they aren’t quite the right size. There’s a chance Anti-Skill could search for me using my fashion sense or where I bought them, right? So I chose a swimsuit I would never ordinarily wear. D-did you think I was in the habit of walking around in a bikini?”

Sudori Sayu breathed a heavy sigh.

“And it keeps wanting to come undone if I don’t fix it. I’ve always been bad at tying bows, both with shoelaces and ribbons.”

“Is that even something you can be good or bad at? That sounds like your parents didn’t teach you right when you were little.”

“Huh? This is my issue, so don’t drag them into it.”

Her voice dropped low for once.

But a second later, she shrank two sizes smaller than before.

Kinuhata sighed.

If you care about your parents so much, don’t become a criminal.

Anyway, all that remained was making the actual attack. Takitsubo Rikou was in charge of searching out the enemy and Sudori Sayu was in charge of being nervous, so this was a job for Kinuhata. If this shop was the boss’s home base, then this would bring an end to this mess. And if there was an even bigger boss, she could beat up his subordinates and get them to talk.

“Wait, Kinuhata.”

But Takitsubo, who had been kindly watching over her (to an annoying extent) in drill sergeant mode, stopped her here.

This was unusual.

“The member of the blackmailers you discovered was carrying five different phones, remember?”

“Super what of it?”

“We can’t check all the data in those phone right away, but we can take remote screenshots of the lock screen. What do you make of this?”

“Huh? A baby…photo?”

Kinuhata’s mind nearly went blank.

Kinuhata had never done it with her own phone of course, but she knew using a photo of your child as your phone background was a classic choice in the grownup world. But no one on the dark side would do that. A third party might get a look at your phone’s screen and nothing good came of letting a bloodstained person on a crime scene get a look at your young family member. And a blackmailer who made a living using anonymous threats to get people to do their bidding was an expert at that sort of thing. They would be more careful with their own Achilles heel than anyone.

Which could only mean…

“They might not be from the dark side.”

“…You’re kidding. You mean the people who collect the stolen goods and even the people running the shop are all being threatened into it with compromising information? Super just like Sudori-san!?”

“Defeating the mid boss won’t be enough to end this. Until we defeat the final boss at the very top, any empty seats will just be filled with another threatened person. And if it’s found out Sudori fought back against that hierarchy, they might retaliate against her parents.”

So everyone except the final boss was disposable? Quite the criminal infrastructure. The final boss had to be pretty sure they wouldn’t be ganged up on by their many subordinates and partners in crime. …That spoke to a lot of confidence.

But Sudori Sayu couldn’t ignore this.

Word of the failed bank robbery would eventually get back to the blackmailer boss. Then she would either be given an even worse job or her home and family would be crushed and she would be eliminated as a lesson to others in her situation. In either case, they couldn’t abandon her now.

And unlike Kinuhata and her worries, Takitsubo was quick to make up her mind at times like this.

She had already stated her stance.

Item was not Anti-Skill.

“Kinuhata.”

“Super what?”

“Go beat up the people in that shop. To a nonlethal degree.”

Part 6

It less than thirty seconds after Kinuhata Saiai stepped through the front door of the used brand-name products store. The security cameras inside (which used 2mm lenses disguised in the walls and ceiling to hide them from the ordinary customers) had already been deactivated of course.

“All super done.”

“I see.”

(With Offense Armor, it’s actually super hard to stop people without smashing them to pieces. It takes as much skill as cracking and frying an egg with construction equipment. A little more appreciation would be nice.)

The lack of resistance was to be expected from victims who were only being threatened into it.

But just as she was thinking that…

“Kinuhata.”

Something rolled along the floor. The metallic object was smaller than a baseball.

It was a grenade with the pin removed and lever pulled out.

Which meant only three seconds remained.

“!?”

(These are ordinary people!! And there super are other people in this area!)

Kinuhata kicked it out the window.

Then the small girl grabbed both Takitsubo and Sudori and pushed them down to the floor.

The explosive “boom!!” was unexpectedly high pitched. It was followed by a ringing sound that seemed to gradually grow from deep in her head.

The bikini girl groaned on the floor.

“Ah…kh…”

“Super bear with it.”

A grenade that scattered small fragments would have a lethal range of over ten meters. However, if you remained standing, the horizontal storm of glass shards from the broken window would leave you bloody even if you were outside the blast’s range.

And Takitsubo remained expressionless even now.

“This will draw attention. We need to gather information fast.”

Takitsubo climbed over the trashed shop’s counter and operated the online register that was really just a computer. Why couldn’t she do it all from the start?

Then she froze.

The LCD screen displayed some data that would never appear during normal register operation.

Specifically, the secret financial records that included all their criminal activity. Although Kinuhata didn’t know how to read the cryptic symbols in the spreadsheet software.

“Super what is this, Takitsubo-san?”

The look in her eyes had changed.

Her usual vacant stare was gone and she now looked like she was viewing a bug displaying bright and toxic colors.

“Kamigi Ryouichi.”

“Eh? Eh? Who’s that?”

Sudori felt left behind as usual, but Kinuhata was right there with her this time.

Kinuhata pulled out her phone and…

“Let’s see. I can find stuff on him on the open internet, so is he a super ordinary person?”

Apparently he was the president of a company that started out as a restaurant chain, shifted into food distribution management, and was now gaining a foothold in the IT realm with online shopping and a food delivery app. Just the publicly available annual sales figures were at 180 billion yen and who could say how much more he had made with stocks and such. Simply put, he was a success story of the “open” world. So much of a success he probably used terms like “Cayman Islands” and “tax haven” more than he did “thank you” and “I’m sorry”.

The official website of his restaurant group displayed a photo of a young man who looked like a grown-up delinquent in a pricey Italian suit. He had the unmistakable look of new money.

“He’s the wallet of one of the Board members,” flatly stated Takitsubo Rikou.

“…” Kinuhata’s voice was hoarse as she asked, “Are you super serious?”

Takitsubo barely changed expression. Barely.

“He said openly on a video site that he doesn’t get directly involved in politics because he finds all the rules constraining. He said not being able to go to your local festival or send a bouquet to a friend sounds like too boring a life for him.”

He certainly sounded like the confident type.

He wasn’t afraid of making enemies with the things he said.

How had he silenced his detractors in a brightly lit world where violence wasn’t an option? Most likely by using sneaky and unnaturally bloodless methods that even the villains avoided.

“But the video sites and his official social media don’t mention that Kamigi is attempting to take over Academy City by building up a position where he can influence the political world from the outside. I don’t know how successful he’s been there, but he has been adopted as a wallet by one of the 12 Board members. He is also good at manipulating public opinion and covering up inconvenient statements.”

“…”

Uh, oh.

The inexperienced antenna Kinuhata had tried her best to develop had heard enough to know this information came with considerable risk.

“Quick question. Why do you super know all of this, Takitsubo-san?”

“A bug maker told me about it. I haven’t been able to contact him lately though.”

“A bug maker…?”

Bikini Sudori sounded astonished, but her imagination was probably having trouble keeping up.

The girl with a much more precise antenna than Kinuhata’s continued.

“The Unseen Director. The 13th. He’s secretly known by a number of names, but that means he’s famous enough to earn those names yet the Board hasn’t eliminated him. They know about him but can’t stop him. That sort of villain makes for a powerful enemy.”

He effectively had as much power as the Board of Directors and he was from the “open” world.

If Kinuhata and Takitsubo of the dark side silenced him with their fists, they would likely make a wide variety of enemies. There would of course be powerful people who weren’t too fond of Kamigi, but that was no guarantee they would protect Item. They would delight in learning some dangerous criminals had eliminated their political enemy and then let the troublesome criminals go down with him. That would be the cleanest resolution.

The die had been cast.

There was no turning back.

And if they were to fight, they had to start by coming up with a method.

“But if he’s that super rich, why is he taking the risk of running a blackmail- oh.”

Kinuhata realized the answer to her question halfway through asking it.

“He isn’t after money. Is he essentially mining for safe and disposable pawns who will take any super risk he wants as long as he scares them or flashes his money at them? He’s trying to build a legal form of violence?”

“D-disposable? How can this be legal!?”

“I’m trying to help you fight him, so don’t super take it out on me.”

Kinuhata could only respond with her mouth forming a small triangle.

Item was a team of criminal girls who performed dirty jobs, but they had an unofficial connection to those higher up in the city. To put it another way, the Board of Directors had that card in their deck. And they might have many more besides Item.

In that case…

“I said he was controlling the political world from the outside, remember? Money and power aren’t the only ways to protect yourself. He will want some way to stop any bullets flying his way. So he probably wanted to create a hierarchy of people who will take on dirty jobs, right? Just to be safe.”

“Yes, safety measures need to be ready super before trouble happens.”

Just to be safe.

Being threatened into committing crimes and ruining their lives just in case a complete stranger ran into any future trouble couldn’t be fun for the blackmail victims, though.

So the blackmailer was the parent organization. And Kamigi Ryouichi’s “safety measure” used a quantity over quality strategy as opposed to preparing an elite team like Item. Although if he continued to increase the quality of his threatened agents, he might end up with an elite team eventually.

“The question is how far his trump card has been built.”

“If brute force can solve the problem, then we just need to use brute force. Super courtesy of my Offense Armor.”

It probably took a high level Esper of the dark side for brute force to be an option here.

Kinuhata kept her voice low.

“I say the question is super how we attack this public big shot. The dark side needs to follow certain procedures to go after someone like that. For example, when a job falls to Item because the media digs too deep into a personal scandal and it might start affecting other VIPs. But given Sudori-san’s situation, I don’t think we have time for an investigation to prepare for a long-term fight.”

On the dark side, you didn’t cause trouble for the “open” world.

That was an unspoken rule for those who lived in this city’s shadows.

On the basis of how much trouble a single death would cause, they really didn’t want to get involved with important and well-known people like the president of a large company, an entertainer, or an athlete. That dividing line pissed off Kinuhata as someone who was ranked lower there, but it was the truth.

That didn’t mean it was impossible.

Item had in fact eliminated some corrupt idols on a job.

But that was only after the Voice on the Phone had laid the necessary groundwork.

They didn’t have that this time.

“B-b-but.” Bikini Sudori was trembling. “We’re talking about the boss of those blackmailers, right? That’s a crime, so isn’t that enough of an Achilles heel for an important person?”

“Sorry, but we’re not talking about whether it’s legal or not. We want a scandal on a level that even a super VIP can’t wriggle out of it. Specifically, something he can’t escape by assigning the blame to a sacrificial pawn.”

“Remember, Sudori, Kamigi Ryouichi went to the trouble of putting together this enormous plan, so he will have insurance in place so he can escape if anyone tries to use it against him. Maybe he has someone with the same name he can blame, or maybe he’ll just claim someone stole his official profile or Bank ID and used them to open a bank account in his name.”

As a famous person and a corporate executive who didn’t use a stage name or handle name, there were unique strategies available to him.

The villain could use the blackmail hierarchy to order around any number of terrified people, so he could prepare as many “fall guy Kamigi Ryouichis” as he needed.

Sudori leaned forward.

“Then what do we do!? If our attack doesn’t finish this, then it’ll be his turn! And it’s not just about me! My parents are at risk too!!”

“Kamigi Ryouichi would never dream that it’s super best to have an Achilles heel without any kind of safety measure…”

Kinuhata’s phone chose this annoying time to ring.

Kinuhata pulled it from her pocket and was disappointed to find it wasn’t a social media notification. Then she could have used a trick to read the message without sending a read receipt and ignored it.

“Is this Mugino?”

“Doesn’t your phone tell you that? Where are you? Is Takitsubo with you?”

“Well, super um…”

Should she tell her? But lying seemed like it would only wrap the noose tighter around her neck. With her phone in hand, she glanced over and saw the track suit girl give a slight nod. With her usual lack of expression.

“Uh, yes. She is super here.”

“Hm? Whatever. Get your asses over here. Free time is over.”

“Eh? We have an Item job right away?”

But they had to find some way of tearing down the defenses of an irritating and (technically) non-dark-side VIP who was known as a Board member’s wallet.

Mugino seemed to be in a good mood as she continued.

“The Voice on the Phone says it’s an easy job that won’t take more than a single attack. Yet it pays a ton. Something about the client being new to this and we get to reap the benefits? I’m already in a bad mood after everything at the bank, so let’s accept this last-minute windfall and have a real feast for dinner.”

“…”

(Wow, why does she choose super now to be thoughtful!? If only she was like this every other day!)

“…Why aren’t you saying anything? Do you have other plans?”

“No, no, no, no!! I was just wondering what you’d be treating us to! I’m in the mood for some super Thai food!”

“I thought you wanted paella? But Thai’s fine too. And if we’re gonna do it, let’s get stuff as good as what they serve in the royal court. Whatever we go with, I need to blow a bunch of money on it to get out of this funk. See you in 20 minutes at the hotel.”

She hung up.

…Mugino Shizuri, the wicked rich girl, was giving some slight hints of a shopping addiction, but that wasn’t what most bothered Kinuhata Saiai as she stood there blankly with phone in hand.

“Oh…oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

Sudori Sayu was shaking. Did she think they were going to abandon her? She was shaking so hard her bikini’s knots looked ready to give up the ghost, but Kinuhata didn’t bother warning her. Looking after her boobs was her own job, so she could deal with it.

But what were they supposed to do about this?

“Kinuhata, you go.”

“Why do you always choose these moments to act all responsible and start raising death flags!? You’ve known Mugino the longest, so you know better than me how terrifying she is, so why are you super pushing your luck like this!?”

“You have that backwards. I’ve known her longest, so I know best how to evade her followup questions. I can get out of it just this once, but I’m worried about you since you’re so new.”

“Ugh…”

“It’s a job, right? Mugino has switched modes. One of us missing can be passed off as a minor accident, but she’ll get suspicious if both of us are absent. …There is no guaranteed right answer here. We can only try to mentally simulate Mugino’s capricious actions. Kinuhata, can you do that?”

That was right. Kinuhata Saiai lacked the experience needed to say anything with certainty here.

When it came to bluffing or anything else, Takitsubo knew Mugino Shizuri very well.

“Don’t worry. I will take care of Sudori.”

“Kh. Don’t blame me if Mugino super finds out!!”

Part 7

Kinuhata Saiai hurried back to the District 5 tourist hotel and arrive just as Mugino Shizuri and Frenda Seivelun were leaving.

“Where’s Takitsubo?”

“What? Does this job super require her searching skills?”

She couldn’t answer that question, so she avoided it with a question of her own. The trick was to avoid pausing too long. (A lesson she learned after screwing it up earlier.) Then she went on to lay out her own rules.

“Since you super called my phone instead of Takitsubo-san’s, I assumed you needed strength for this job.”

“Fine, whatever.”

Mugino brushed it off as unimportant.

Frenda sighed while hefting a bag that seemed to be full of various heavy items.

“So how are things outside? That bank robber is still at large, right? Is Anti-Skill still out in full force? In the end, I’ve been intercepting their radio signals and spying on the street cameras on video sites, but as a dark side bomber, I’m pretty curious what things are really like out there.”

“Nothing special. They super seem to be in a lull.”

“It’s 3 in the afternoon. After searching around without finding anything, they must have gotten bored and decided to stop for some afternoon tea. The higher ups will notice soon and yell at them, so the patrols will find a new store of motivation before long. Let’s get this job over with before that happens.”

They left the grown-up District 5 to reach the more eclectic District 7.

On the way, Kinuhata received an overview of the job.

This time they would be destroying something rather than someone.

It was a sabotage job.

“Since we aren’t just killing someone, I get the feeling there’s some nasty link between different villains here.”

“The higher ups have their own issues.”

“In the end, it’s about adjusting the power balance. There are a lot of skilled people at the top, but one of them has gotten carried away and started infringing on other people’s turfs. So those others are going behind the scenes to smack him and bring him back in line.”

(If this isn’t an urgent case of saving a hostage or stopping the imminent leak of a biological weapon, couldn’t this have super waited until later?)

Kinuhata kept that thought to herself.

If she acted natural here, Takitsubo would be free to do her part with Sudori Sayu, so she had to remember she was accomplishing something here. She feared the impatience would overwhelm her if she didn’t find her own motivation like that.

In any case, it was time to get to work.

The work wasn’t confined to District 7. They also went around to other districts.

They performed some quick work at each stop.

“Super what is this? What are we doing?”

“In the end, we’re doing something important enough to ruin a certain someone’s life☆”

After somewhere between half an hour and an hour of work, there was a ringing from a fossil of a pay phone remaining on the side of the road.

Mugino Shizuri grinned and picked up the receiver.

“Is ‘hello’ the right thing to say with a landline phone? Was my data security too good for you to find my personal phone number?”

“Damn you!!”

“Yes, it was us. We’ve been busy going around destroying a few of your factories and warehouses for eco-friendly dishware. But we made sure the damage was light enough to recover from in a few days, so you don’t have to worry about bankruptcy. Still, food isn’t the only important supply for restaurants. This should be a significant problem for a chain that needs to supply these things as cheaply as possible. The knives and forks can be washed and reused several times, but your group as a whole must still have to dispose of quite a few each day. And without new supply, you can’t open your doors.”

Kinuhata couldn’t believe her ears.

That’s what they had been doing?

Just thinking about the extent of the losses terrified her.

Mugino Shizuri took on a singsong voice with the receiver against her ear. The man on the other side was shouting shrilly.

“Do you understand what you’ve done!? Including my artwork and real estate, my personal assets amount to more than 100 billion yen. That isn’t the company’s money – it’s all money I am free to use however I like! I can keep sending in assassins until all of you are dead without having to lift a finger myself!!”

“Oh, really? Then how about we cover your wonderful golf course with agrochemicals next? Or what about sending bomb threats to the shopping mall owned by your group? Being famous does have its drawbacks. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, everyone around you will be demanding answers. Sooooo if you don’t surrender now, you’ll just have to watch as the value of those assets plummets.”

“No. Do you really think that absurd reasoning will work!? I am known as a Board member’s purse. I am a big deal in the public world! If you filthy dark side dogs try to bite me, you will regret it!!”

“Frenda.”

“Sure thing.”

The ground shook. As if jutting up from below.

Followed by a chain reaction of distinctive electronic tones coming from all the phones in the area.

Mugino smiled and continued.

“That was an artificial earthquake.”

“…”

“Humans can indeed cause earthquakes. Do you know the primary cause of them? Roadwork? Subway trains passing by? Oh, wait. Isn’t the answer nuclear tests in labs built deep underground?”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………No, you couldn’t have.”

He was speechless.

Frenda Seivelun smiled maliciously.

As the Academy City Bomber.

“In the end☆ That was☆☆ A pencil nuke☆☆☆”

Cold sweat poured from Kinuhata Saiai’s body.

Frenda…wasn’t joking.

And the object she was twirling in her hand like a pen was exactly what she had described. Did nuclear weapons that small really exist!?

“In the end, that’s a bomb that uses a rare radioactive material called californium instead of uranium or plutonium. It’s what’s known as a super heavy element bomb. The nuclear material itself is a sphere with a diameter of only one centimeter, but I think it’s powerful enough to blow away about a district’s worth of land when used in an open space? Although they’re being developed to be bound together and stuffed inside a larger cluster bomb.”

The blast had been contained because Academy City had many different research labs, both legitimate and illegitimate, which weren’t found on the map.

Otherwise, it would have badly contaminated the land, and the 2.3 million people living there, even if detonated deep underground.

“How far are you willing to take this, Mr. VIP?”

Mugino Shizuri snorted with laughter.

These people really weren’t normal. Kinuhata Saiai was certain of that now. Trying to fight them and win was crazy. Who knows what you would be forced to lose even if you won in the end!

“That isn’t our only trump card, by the way. Chemical weapons? Biological weapon? Anti-ship EMP bombs? Take your pick. We’re willing to keep it up until you give up, but it’s you and your public position that will suffer as this continues. The complaints will start rushing in. Scandals are generally graded with a demerit system. It doesn’t work like a poorly-written success story movie where a single good deed turns everything around. By the end, the average people out there will probably be ready to kill you.”

“…”

“Listen, you corrupt VIP. Once you’ve been stripped of the power your money gives you, you’re nothing more than a naked ape. Are you ready to sleep under a bridge? And once you’re wandering the streets with nowhere to go, that’s when Item will hunt you down and kill you. Once you’re attempting a no-gear challenge run of life, we can bide our time and kill you in whatever gruesome way we like. If that doesn’t appeal to you, then you should give more thought to how you behave yourself. This was a major blow, but you still have some money left. For now anyway.”

“…What are you saying I should do?”

“Look deep inside yourself and consider all the misdeeds you’re involved in. Then pull out of them all. That’s the bare minimum we’re asking for. Oh, right. And if you don’t go through with it in even one case, your money and your life are forfeit, so keep that in mind.”

At that point, Kinuhata Saiai frowned. She had worked this job without knowing whose life they were ruining, but she was feeling some déjà vu here. She had noticed Mugino Shizuri using some familiar terms.

A higher up in Academy City.

Someone famous in the public world.

A corrupt VIP.

(Wait. Could it super be…???)

Part 8

Takitsubo Rikou held her phone to her ear.

“Did you see that strange video of Kamigi Ryouichi sobbing as he smashed something with a hammer? Apparently those were the disks and drives used to store his blackmail material. He backed out all on his own. Kinuhata, do you have any idea why?”

“That was amazing, Mugino Shizuri! I super love you!!”

“Hey, why are you hugging me!? Get away from me!”

“?”

The track suit girl tilted her head at the voices coming from her phone.

“Well, as long as Kinuhata is alright.”

Most of the people had been freed by this: the bottom rung workers, the negotiators, the contact points, the executives, and so on. None of the blackmail victims needed to do as they were told anymore.

And the video had to have been a complete mystery for the many ordinary people with no connection to crime. Takitsubo noticed comments wondering if that company president was exhausted from overwork. The sudden bizarre behavior had also caused the stock price to fall off a cliff. At this rate, the management of the company would soon be given to someone other than the founder.

Takitsubo didn’t know what it was, but he must have sensed some kind of danger and done this to protect himself. It appeared to have completely backfired, though.

Illegal actions weren’t the only way to cause a scandal.

Being famous had its downsides. A single mistake could have lasting consequences.

“Super how are things on that end?”

“Hm?”

Takitsubo looked to the side.

A weeping Sudori Sayu was hugging her parents who looked taken aback in front of their cheap old apartment.

(We already took the real gun from her. Now we have to swap that out for a model gun and claim the bank incident was an ill-advised punishment game. Where she shot the ceiling might make that difficult, though.)

“Dad, mom! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Oh, dear. What’s this about? What’s the matter, Sayu?”

She could hear it clearly from here.

Takitsubo Rikou slightly narrowed her otherwise expressionless eyes. As if viewing something bright.

That was a sort of life that Level 4 Takitsubo Rikou and Level 5 Mugino Shizuri could never have.

That bikini girl had barged into a bank with a gun in hand, but the thread of tension appeared to have finally snapped. Sudori Sayu hugged her father and wept like a small child.

That was probably how crime was supposed to work.

There really was something wrong with Item for enjoying it and eagerly charging straight into it.

The track suit girl was still here because she wanted to check around with her searching skills for any remaining members of Kamigi’s blackmailers in the area.

She hadn’t found anything.

“For dinner, how about I make stir-fried vegetables with lots of your favorite: chicken.”

“By the way, why are you wearing a swimsuit? And what’s that hot dog toy? Is it Halloween?”

“Um!? W-well…”

Sudori wasn’t sure how to answer her parents’ innocent questions, but she still looked happy.

That was now a different world from Item’s. Once the track suit girl left, it would be fully cut off from the dark side.

That girl had been freed just like so many others.

Takitsubo Rikou gave a simple report to Kinuhata as she quietly departed.

“Let’s just say it ended exactly the way you hoped for.”

Chapter 2: A Maple Syrup Kind of Day

Part 1

Mugino Shizuri looked puzzled.

Item was in their luxury hotel suite in the college-filled District 5.

The basic furnishings were no longer the only interior decorations there. Specifically, something new was hanging by the window: a mesh pattern box of less than 15cm.

“Frenda, did you buy some new product again?”

“Yup. In the end, I have a curse where I’ll die if I don’t buy all the latest trends.”

The small fluffy blonde haired girl answered while sinking into the one-person sofa.

Frenda Seivelun appeared to know a logical explanation wouldn’t work so she was trying to dodge the issue with meaningful-sounding words. It may have been a variant of chuunibyou.

Short, refreshing chirps were coming from the box.

“Wait, there’s a super bug in there?”

Kinuhata’s slight surprise was not the result of her laboratory upbringing(?) leaving her unable to touch Mother Nature’s bugs. She was more concerned with the responsibility that came with caring for a living creature. After all, the illicit nature of Item’s work meant there was never any guarantee they could return home after stepping out the door. If they wanted to be soothed by the presence of a puppy, they had to either go to a pet cafe or watch some animal videos.

But Frenda smiled bitterly in the sofa and waved her hand.

“No, no. In the end, it’s just an audio device. It’s called a bug cage speaker.”

“?”

“The thing has around thirty thousand different autumn insect sounds in it. The internet is flooded with people insisting they got their best sleep in years leaving it on overnight.”

“Ugh. Thirty thousand? You mean there are super more autumn insects than the bell cricket?”

Don’t try to imagine it, Kinuhata. There aren’t actually thirty thousand of them stuffed inside that small box.

The point was to create an autumnal mood.

“They apparently included some pretty rare ones. Like the jungles of Southeast Asia and Central America where millions of species live.”

“How is this any different from having your phone play the sounds?”

Mugino was quick to smash Frenda’s dreams.

Maybe that was how it felt for people who weren’t interested. Those people would also casually reject an LED lantern that let you listen to a music subscription service over your wireless LAN. When no one saw the appeal of these silly products, it could be surprisingly painful for the person who had brought it along.

However…

“Frenda.”

“In the end, what do you want, Takitsubo?”

“Wasn’t there a rumor about people suffering brain damage after listening to the chirping of a special cricket in Central and South America? Y’know, like a natural ultrasonic attack.”

Sounds of people scrambling around in a hurry continued for a bit.

Modern electronics did not come with a paper manual. That wasn’t an issue most of the time, but it meant you lacked the necessary information when something did come up. They all began searching on their phone, found a site gathering the manuals for different manufacturers, realized that was a fake site meant to get the user to set up their smart electronic device in a way that leaked their personal information, and wound up back at square one. In the end, Frenda ended up looping a few times through the same dialogue with the manufacturer’s crappy official AI chat before she finally arrived at a list of the insect noises included in the device.

There were around thirty thousand of them.

“In the end, what’s the actual name of that special cricket from Central and South America!?”

“Um, I’m searching for that too. Is this it? I found the District 23 insect museum’s site. The cricket is called…”

“This super lets you do a site-wide search by tapping here. That cricket name…is not among the thirty thousand on the list.”

In the end, there was nothing to worry about.

If only all the world’s problems were that way.

“Nhh…”

Mugino Shizuri raised her arms and stretched.

She was generally like this after they were paid and didn’t have to worry for a while.

“I’m bored. …How about we go clothes shopping?”

“Mugino, I really think you’re showing signs of a shopping addiction.”

Part 2

The grown-up District 5 was full of college students.

Item arrived in the luxury hotel’s first floor lobby.

The place had a distinctive air to it.

“Whoa. In the end, there’s even more now. They’ve got bite-sized mackerel pizzas!”

“Mugino. That says they have salmon mince. Is that actually any good?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Large hotels like this usually had restaurants and souvenir shops on the lower levels. All the English words like “lounge” and “gift shop” made it seem fancy at first glance.

Among all the restaurants, curry rice was weirdly prevalent. And the many souvenir ships meant even the little snacks available for sale tended to be on the fancier side of things.

“Super what were you hoping to shop for?”

“I said clothes, didn’t I?”

…The clothing stores and beauty salons in fancy hotels like this tended to be for people preparing for a wedding or other formal event, so they likely didn’t carry the kind of clothes Mugino was interested in.

So they left the hotel and walked along the main street of that grown-up district.

They were met by a lazy afternoon mood.

Apparently it was still too early for the college students to be out enjoying themselves.

There were quite a few luxury brand shops who were likely known all around the globe. Item was here for clothes, but it seemed likely they would end up bringing home shoes, bags, and jewelry too.

When Mugino walked past the large mirror placed next to a fitting room, something activated and some unfamiliar clothes were superimposed over the Mugino in the mirror.

“The hell?”

“Mugino, this says it’s a virtual fitting service.”

Mugino tried twirling slowly on the spot…and the clothes followed her movement. So this wasn’t just a product image being displayed over her body. It could handle all 360 degrees. So did it use a 3D model instead of a photo?

That did seem more convenient than having to change into each individual outfit…but why did she feel so disappointed?

Like it had ruined her fun.

It reminded her of how she felt seeing the ad for a rare natural hot spring in Academy City where the cutting-edge high-tech bath could cleanse your body in just three seconds. On a day off, she preferred taking things easy.

“Feels more like they’re trying to get people talking than providing a practical service. Do they only care if people make a big deal about it?”

“This says it instantly scans your figure with microwaves and then chooses the best products for you. Incredible.”

“!?”

Mugino frantically covered her body with her arms.

Takitsubo expressionlessly tilted her head.

“Look, Mugino. It shows an assessment and some brief advice on the side: ‘we recommend clothing that obscures your hips and legs.’ ”

“That’s none of their business!!”

Mugino Shizuri wasn’t the type to lash out at a machine, so she could only blush and yell. An accurate program could provide a false 2D moe smile but couldn’t provide any flattery at all, so it could be cruel at times like this.

Also, a top-of-the-line brand would already have its regular customers’ data on file, so was this kind of toy even necessary? Formal clothing above a certain level of quality tended to be tailor made, after all.

…In that sense, this may have been a unique oddity of the college-filled District 5 where pricey brand-name products sold like hotcakes, but the customers were easily influenced by the current trends and thus regular customers were hard to come by.

Mugino raised her voice as if to reclaim control of the situation.

“Anyway, we need to choose some clothes. Let’s make it into a game. It can double as a periodic test for working on the dark side. Let’s find out if you can take everything from the present situation to the current trends into account to choose clothing that will let you blend in. Oh, and if you choose an outfit that stands out for no good reason, you get punished, okay? Anyone who makes a joke to avoid giving a serious answer will soon regret it.”

Frenda froze in place halfway toward grabbing a mini-China dress.

Apparently going the silly route wasn’t an option here.

“Are there any super rules?”

“Good question. For now, try to keep it under a million per outfi-”

“Someone oughta strip this filthy criminal super naked and chuck her outside.”

For some reason, this pissed off Kinuhata Saiai. Even on the same team, they viewed money very differently.

And so the Item girls began to argue what would best suit each other.

They ended up visiting many different luxury brand stores.

“It’s my time to make the rules? Hmm…I don’t really care as long as the next person brings me whatever they think I would look best in.”

“That will super leave you with no way to refuse wearing a naked apron.”

Kinuhata made sure Takitsubo understood that.

You could never assume basic human decency on the dark side where people tended to take a cynical view of everything from donation boxes to the Board Chairman at the top of the city. Especially when Frenda was super grinning in the corner of Kinuhata’s vision!

The game rules they thought up on the spot were full of holes, so they took a lax attitude where they could simply fill in the holes whenever they ran across one. It helped that the idea was to make the shopping more fun, so there was no real need to strictly follow the rules.

“You’re next, Frenda. What rules do you want?”

“Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

Frenda Seivelun raised her hand and leaned forward.

An idea had apparently formed within her while she watched the other games.

“Three of us will split up and choose the clothes they think look best on the guest. Then the guest gets to choose which one she likes best.”

“Eh? You mean we’ll be super taking them out of the store?”

“Kinuhata. Let’s use that thing. The mirror that acts as a 3D fitting monitor. If you enter the number, it can apparently display products from other stores.”

“Huh, and what happens afterwards?”

“Whoever’s outfit gets last place has to buy the best outfit. In the end, how does that sound?”

Yes.

That did sound more like a real game.

The four of them excitedly prepared their outfits on the tall, mirror-like screen, but what they were really doing was spending obscene amounts of cash. The dark side girls behaved inappropriately in a different way while enjoying a day off.

And their outfits ended up as follows:

Mugino wore a thin dress with a thick, ankle-length coat worn over it.

“Well, it’s not great but it’s not bad either. I feel like you could have been a little more creative.”

Takitsubo wore her usual track suit, but with the cold-resistance boosted by a knit hat, earmuffs, and a jacket wrapped around her hips. The short lines of LEDs hidden in the lining were built-in heating elements.

“It’s fluffy and warm.”

Frenda wore a white jacket and light blue miniskirt combo. The gold decorations here and there made it look more like something from a military band or parade than a school uniform.

“Ehh? In the end, is this for a marching band? I don’t really play any instruments, though. And doesn’t the gold make it sparkle a lot?”

Kinuhata wore sportswear composed of a short-sleeved shirt and bike shorts. But she wore an old-fashioned leather pilot’s jacket over it, giving it a mixture of old and new.

“This jacket won’t restrict my movements in a pinch, will it? I super hope it won’t rip suddenly.”

They had their complaints, but “it’s just a game” proved to be a powerful argument. They might have taken ages to choose something on their own, but this let them decide in no time.

Mugino Shizuri reached for a random garment in one store and rubbed it with her fingers as if checking for something. It was available to try on, but the price tag was over 300 thousand yen.

Takitsubo tilted her head.

“What is it, Mugino? Do you want to buy that?”

“Not really…”

Meanwhile, Frenda and Kinuhata were running around. The youngest member was being chased by the big sister who was howling about how they still had to choose underwear.

Then Mugino spoke up without warning.

“Okay, let’s also buy a few dresses.”

“Hm? Super why?”

Part 3

Night had fallen.

Apparently long-range attacks these days did not require occupying a building rooftop.

Mugino made a final check over her radio while climbing the emergency stairs with baggage in hand.

“Frenda, I haven’t heard anything from you in a bit. Did you fall asleep?”

“In the end, I wish… What is this thing? The memory foam yoga mat you bought is just so comfy. I can feel myself drifting off as soon as I lie down on it…”

“Frenda, I know you want caffeine, but you shouldn’t drink so much black soda,” said Takitsubo, also on the other end of the radio. “You’ll regret it once you need to pee and can’t take time to go.”

They didn’t have to worry about the ordinary security. Kinuhata Saiai had secured a line of fire by cutting out a square of the tempered glass window in an unlit rental conference room located on the bottom ten floors of a towering skyscraper.

Mugino set a device down on the table and got to work constructing and making adjustments. Altogether, it weighed 30 kilograms, so the plastic and aluminum table creaked below it.

Kinuhata was already fed up with it all.

She was wearing a frilly party dress and carrying a fancy handbag too small to even fit a bento. It didn’t suit her at all and she felt like she was dressed up for the Shichi-Go-San.

“It’s not like we’re going to be sneaking in, so is this dress really super necessary?”

“Illegal security like that will set up maybe three lines of security using plainclothes guards and parked cars around the building. Getting close without being noticed requires a disguise.”

Kinuhata twirled something on her index finger.

“Including these pervert butterfly masks?”

“It’s that kind of party – a masquerade. Think of it like the 16th century version of an anonymous hook-up app.”

Apparently Mugino wouldn’t be using Meltdowner this time. Probably because it was too powerful. Her ability wasn’t great for targeting an individual within a group.

Kinuhata’s role was support.

By aiming a directional gun mic at the distant party venue, the festivities within reached her earphone loud and clear.

“Those agrobuildings are going to make a fortune.”

“But buying an entire building is a steep initial investment…”

“Global climate change will be along soon. Then the price of fruits, vegetables, and grains will all rise without end. But anything produced indoors won’t be affected. By cheaply growing crops that can be harvested more than 20 times a year and then selling at those higher prices, you will make back that investment in no time.”

“If it doesn’t use natural sunlight, how will this building be powered? If fuel and heating costs also rise, then the profits will evaporate.”

“What does the price of petroleum have to do with Academy City’s wind power?”

Damn those masqueraded tuxes and shoulder-baring dresses. They were all discussing sketchy investment opportunities.

Academy City was supposedly a happy and blessed city, but that assessment was badly skewed by the average income and savings data of a tiny minority that made up less than 0.1% of the population.

The city showed off its perfect image by silencing the people who were drowning in debt and being threatened by blackmailers.

“The place is called the Ceremony Hall, right?”

“One of Japan’s unique church-like buildings that are not in fact churches. It’s used for weddings and such.”

Mugino didn’t even need to look through the binoculars equipped with targeting support functionality.

The white building was impossible to miss thanks to the powerful lights illuminating it from below. It stood out clearly from the surrounding darkness. It looked to be around the size of a school building maybe? It was supposedly meant to look like a church, but it looked sort of like a Greek temple to Kinuhata. Maybe a side effect of being made by science-focused Academy City.

“But it’s secretly also used for mysterious parties that can’t even be held at the extraterritorial embassies or consulates.”

“It’s not some super sex thing, is it?”

“This time it’s an auction. And not even one where they buy and sell humans. I believe it’s about the right to use trigger capsules.”

“Trigger what?”

“A drug that causes a painless death as peaceful as drifting off to sleep.”

Kinuhata’s focus shifted away from the gun mic.

She looked to Mugino and saw the #4 chuckling.

“Super really? These rich assholes have made enough money for multiple lifetimes and the final luxury they look to…is how to kill themselves?”

“I doubt many of them actually want to die right away. When people feel like they’re already dead – or like they can escape into death if things get bad enough – they can run their business much more boldly. It’s a hollow and suicidal thing, but the psychological effect does have some beneficial results. Haven’t you heard of rich people in other countries who have a handgun and a small bottle of whisky hidden in a desk drawer?”

“That super wasn’t just something the movies invented?”

Were they wearing those pervert butterfly masks for the masquerade in order to hide their sickly pale faces, or because those corporate executives couldn’t let anyone else see their weakness?

Either way, it felt like a concern from another world to Kinuhata.

It was an unthinkable luxury on the dark side where you would be ruthlessly killed if you got careless.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo spoke over the radio from her position in a skyscraper located in a different direction entirely.

It probably wasn’t even visible from here.

“The target has emerged onto the roof. As per our intel, he is empty handed and appears to be receiving something from a drone to get it past the baggage inspection at the front entrance. Probably a weapon.”

“I have a visual too. Okay, let’s get started. Kinuhata, put the gun mic away. This is about to get noisy, so you’ll burst your eardrum if you keep listening in like that.”

“Super yeah, yeah.”

“It’s time, everyone. Frenda, say hello.”

“Takitsubo, stop rubbing my butt. In the end, I’m awake, okay?”

Orange sparks flew in the distance.

.50 caliber heavy machinegun bullets tore away earthquake resistant metal fittings. An air conditioning unit larger than a vending machine fell to the side, blocking the metal door leading back inside from the rooftop. At this range, Mugino couldn’t hear the sound of the metal being destroyed.

“Isn’t it super backwards that a big, full-auto machinegun can hit better than a specialized sniper rifle?”

“The gun alone weighs more than 35kg. Which doesn’t count the spare barrels and the bulky ammo belts. In the end, you’re about the only person who can run around the jungle or desert carrying this heavy-ass gun.”

Either way, this prevented him from reentering the building. Unless he could lift an industrial air conditioner unit weighing over 300kg, that is.

Mugino Shizuri switched her radio to a different frequency.

He didn’t have the equipment to do anything to them even if they gave away their position.

“Can you hear me, Private Casino?”

“Eek!? …No way. Is that…Mugino Shizuri?”

“And you would be the bookmaker who rakes it in through the gambles you run. Tonight you were taking bets on how many people would survive if a skyscraper went up in flames. Isn’t that why you’re there? …To set up the bomb you stole from where Frenda had set it up elsewhere?”

She was smiling.

Mugino Shizuri was grinning.

“I’m thankful really. I never did like the way you move money around using the deaths of ordinary people while insisting you never directly harmed them, but it would cause far too many problems if I killed a colleague who hadn’t made himself our enemy. …So I really have to thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving us a reason to kill you without taking any blame.”

“Wait. No, wait! Yes, I took that bomb, but this will benefit Item in the long term!”

Mugino Shizuri ignored his plea and tapped her phone.

The 30kg mass on the table gave a roar.

Next, a muffled “bwoof”.

In the distance.

Something like a thick smokescreen spread out on the building rooftop. But that building was being used for an illicit night party, so the blast-resistant structure prevented any of it from reaching the interior. Meltdowner had too much penetrative power to supply so light a touch.

Unlike the Frenda-Takitsubo team, the Mugino-Kinuhata team did not have a sniper weapon set up.

Theirs was an automatic grenade launcher that fired 40mm objects.

And the grenades it used were not normal.

(Really, it’s probably partly because this wouldn’t be as fun if he died right away. The white phosphorus in there is highly toxic and burns the skin on contact. …I suppose he’ll be slowly smoked to death by the high-temp poison gas. This means this is super what would’ve happened to me if she found out about the bank robbery. Offense Armor isn’t all-powerful. Ugh.)

There was something severely wrong with the world since those were officially designated as smoke grenades rather than lethal rounds.

If she wanted to, Mugino could have continued firing and covered the entire roof, but she didn’t.

As large as the building was, its roof was still a limited space. No matter where he ran, he would still be caught in the white phosphorus smoke, but the longer he could struggle, the longer his terror and agony would last. The duct filters could apparently block the white phosphorus, so everyone inside the building would be safe.

“In Item, we do not forgive traitors,” murmured Mugino. Looking unamused.

She waited until the target had collapsed and ceased moving.

“If we head back now, it’ll be past three. How about a late night meal?”

“Meatloaf! In the end, I could really go for some meatloaf.”

“Eh? That super sounds like a specialty dish. Are any restaurants open this late?”

“Kinuhata, they’re having a special event at a gyudon place that stays open late. They can probably manage something with the hamburger meat they use for the cabbage roll and loco moco bowl.”

“You want to talk about ground meat right now?”

They weren’t cleaning up the body this time. Because this job was meant as a message to the dark side to keep anyone else from trying what he pulled.

“Okay, let’s contact his number 2 or 3 and have them pay us for our trouble. We gave them the top spot without them needing to bloody their hands, so while they might act furious, we all know they’re smiling on the inside.”

“Mugino, and if they refuse to pay?”

“Frenda can handle it. She blasts them with a drone and we contact the next person down the line. It’s all the same to us if it’s their number 4 or 5 who ends up paying us☆”

Mugino sprayed the barrel with a silver ion deodorant to get rid of the gunpowder smell.

Were they done now?

Kinuhata intercepted the radio signals of the security team that was only now starting to freak out.

“Won’t the others continue Private Casino’s super abuse of ordinary people’s deaths?”

“Only their leader did that. The other high-ranking members have their own nasty gambles, but that only takes dirty money from other dirty villains, so I’m quite fond of those. We can ignore the rest.”

Item had once again completed their job flawlessly.

Part 4

Item had returned to their suite in the District 5 hotel.

“Oh, ohhhh. Super ohhhhhh…”

Kinuhata Saiai was thrashing about on the floor even though there were plenty of chairs and sofas.

Wet-haired Frenda, who was wearing a towel and cutting across the large room in search of a hair dryer, frowned (and showed no concern about the extreme low angle Kinuhata would have from the floor).

“In the end, what has you so worked up this early in the morning?”

“Right this very moment, they’re showing a trash movie that was never released in Japan! At a Mexican restaurant!! I just called to check and they said all the seats were full! Even though I said I’m perfectly fine standing!! Why can’t I watch it on that TV right over there!? What kind of niche industrial service does that restaurant have their monitor hooked up to!? I’m super jealous!!”

If it wasn’t available on a phone movie subscription app, was it such a minor film that no one could track down who owned the rights anymore? It could also be such a horrifically gory movie that all of the ordinary apps’ regulations kept it out.

“Ugh…”

A lump in the bed groaned as if the shouting voice had struck it like a physical blow.

That lump was Mugino Shizuri.

Takitsubo Rikou climbed into the same bed and spoke quietly to her.

“Mugino.”

For some reason, Mugino wouldn’t look her in the eye. This was extremely unusual.

Takitsubo continued with no change of expression.

“This was your decision, so if you’re going to do it, get started.”

“Ehhhh? But…”

“It’s already October, so the heat no longer works as an excuse. You need to start jogging.”

The track suit girl was Item’s oldest member.

She knew very well how to deal with Mugino Shizuri.

“Look, these are the numbers on your health app.”

“Ugh.”

“This shows your current calorie intake and exercise level. If you keep this up, the results will be tragic a month from now. The changes will be noticeable in your figure. Especially in the hips and legs.”

“…”

“Mugino. I know it’s in season during autumn, but you’ve been eating too much fatty salmon. Are you going to go jogging?”

The daughter of the Mugino Family silently got out of bed.

This was unusually obedient for Item’s leader, but if she refused now, the track suit girl might continue pestering her. And there was no escaping that search expert when she wanted to find you.

Mugino left the suite alone and took the elevator down to the ground level, but she had zero intention of jogging.

“It doesn’t matter what I do as long as I lose some weight, right? That doesn’t require running on my own two legs.”

Mugino grumbled to herself as she walked to a business that was hardly unusual in the grown-up District 5.

The sign out front called it a beauty salon.

Just as a barber would pay careful attention to their hair and clothing store workers would wear the store’s clothing as a form of advertisement, the college-aged receptionist at the counter had an unnaturally model-like figure. She looked somewhat surprised to see Mugino.

But not because Mugino had shown up without an appointment.

“Why, if it isn’t Shizuri-sama. What brings you here today? Need to alter your body to the point your own parents wouldn’t recognize you?”

“Don’t be dumb. I wouldn’t screw up that bad. Is the doctor in?”

“She’s ready when you are☆”

This salon used the swelling and slimming effect of the body to remake one’s body lines so a criminal could slip past the latest security cameras that, in addition to facial recognition, would analyze your build and bone structure.

Incidentally, the place next door was a repair shop for leather products like bags and belts. But it was also known as an ID forging specialist that carried all sorts of different special inks. The intended clientele here was more obvious than a bicycle shop right next to a school.

Mugino was guided to a locker room where she changed into the paper underwear and grabbed a towel before heading to the treatment room.

The blonde woman in her mid-twenties waiting there was something else entirely from a doctor.

“Wah hah hah. Those are some nice tits. Man, isn’t youth a wonderful thing?”

“Shut up and get to work.”

“Then will you lie down there for me?”

Mugino Shizuri lay face down on on a stretcher about as tall as a desk.

Something fell onto her back. A liquid.

“Hot! What is this!?”

“Massage oil. This is better than ice cold, don’t you think?”

Hands reached for her unguarded back.

“Ohh, ohh. You dark side customers are fascinating. The firmness of the skin and flow of the muscles differs so much from person to person. It makes great study material☆”

“Damn anatomy model freak.”

“Yes, Academic Hall’s latest model looks very nice indeed. I just know that was designed by someone who’s seen real living organs and not just the samples floating in formaldehyde. The old Tanaka Educational Model Shop has to be panicking right about now.”

“…”

That was what you got with this blonde woman who bought a new one each season like they were body pillows.

“God, you really are a pervert.”

“My, my. But a human’s skin is only a fraction of their total weight. Trying to measure the extent of human beauty from the exterior alone is quite frankly ridiculous. You need the bone, the muscle, and the fat below or the skin won’t have that alluring firmness and spring to it. Human beauty is more than skin deep.”

She was supposedly the best esthetician in the business, but she was definitely enjoying the ways she used her fingers a little too much.

Still face down, Mugino spoke up in annoyance.

“Nh, kh…hey, is this really necessary?”

“The human body is over 60% water. Shifting its location can drastically change your appearance. As a liquid, it can change shape freely. This lacks the permanence of cosmetic surgery, but it can easily redesign your figure for a short time☆”

The massage oil had been a little too hot at first, but it adapted to her body heat as the esthetician worked it in with her hands. As the boundary between temperatures faded, the oil felt like it was silently entering Mugino’s skin. Adapting? Fusing? With her eyes shut, her awareness of her own body seemed to glitch.

“Let me know if this hurts, okay? I might not do anything about it, but I’d still like to know.”

“Well, nh, it’s a small price to pay for easy results. Jogging is a pain in the ass and I’m all for real-life pay to win if it buys me time. I’ll just put up with it and enjoy the easy weight loss.”

“Oh, uh, no matter where I move your excess water around, the total amount will stay the same, so while you might look slimmer, your weight will not change.”

Mugino threw the wet towel into the esthetician’s face.

Part 5

The lower levels of the fancy District 5 hotel were filled with restaurants and shops. You could find most anything walking around there.

But it wasn’t an ordinary shopping area, so there were some weird gaps in what was available.

That evening, Frenda Seivelun was screaming in a hotel shop.

“Nwohhhhhh! Th-they don’t sell ear picks here… In the end, you can find those in any 100-yen shop! Ahhh, the inside of my head itches so baaaaad!!”

“Places like this want to sell the products that let you enjoy a luxury lifestyle. Won’t they have a super hard time selling 100-yen products?”

“Surely we’ve got an ear pick somewhere in our room.”

They had all sorts of items in their hotel room, including brushes and hair ties. They had a brand-name hair drier, a large humidifier, as well as knives, pots, and a cocktail shaker at the suite kitchen counter. But was there an ear pick? Thinking back, the four of them didn’t remember seeing one.

“Why not super order one online?”

“I need it now. There’s no way I’m waiting until tomorrow! I can’t stand another second of this!”

And so they were forced to head out on short notice.

…They could have just sent Frenda off on her own, but Mugino and Kinuhata tagged along because they also had things they wanted to buy.

There was a taxi loading zone in front of the hotel, but they walked a bit further to reach a bus stop.

Kinuhata asked a question while boarding a large bus that made a big loop around District 5.

“Super where would they sell ear picks?”

“Literally anywhere else. In the end, even a normal discount shop will work!”

Did Frenda sound so impatient because of the super sketchy ad for a bunny girl ear cleaning salon playing on the LCD screen near the ceiling? Was that weird ad campaign a variation on the autumn moon viewing series of ads? Whatever the case, it was driving Frenda’s need for ear cleaning wild.

To provide for the many college students, District 5 had a fairly large discount shop. The chain was one found anywhere in Academy City, but this one was especially large and seemed halfway on its way to becoming a theme park. It had seven different entrances on the first floor, which seemed a little excessive.

“Ear picks, ear picks, in the end where are the ear picks…”

Frenda was muttering to herself like a starving animal as she made her way to the health products section. She was wobbling side to side as she went. Hopefully she wouldn’t start cleaning her ear before paying at the register.

The guide map said the place was three floors in all and the escalators were at the back of each floor.

“I’m gonna super take a look at the bath goods section. Will you be buying anything, Mugino?”

“Some cheap food. The salmon stuff at the hotel’s souvenir shops is meant to seem fancy, which means it’s all really fatty. That’s not bad, but after eating so much of it, I’m craving some dry flakes.”

Takitsubo Rikou whispered quietly in her ear.

“Mugino.”

Mugino wasn’t careless enough to turn in her direction.

She looked over at a nearby mobile accessory shelf to view the figure reflected in the clear plastic wrapping.

The girl was about 20 meters away and looked to be high school age. Her short black hair and glasses were her most notable traits.

She wasn’t wearing an armband.

But Mugino Shizuri saw right through that from the way she was standing near the exit and staying a short distance from the crowd so she could keep an eye on it all.

“That busty glasses girl… Is she Judgment?”

Between the Lines 1

Tokyo was their backyard. With the exception of Academy City surrounded by its wall.

They were on the sixth floor of a perfectly ordinary multi-tenant building. They had chosen the old and filthy building to give any possible visitors a chance to get scared and turn back.

“Ugh. The smell of blood is making me woozy…”

The groaning came from an elderly man in a pricey Italian suit.

Or more accurately, the head of the Mugino Family.

This was happening at the office that provided consumer credit at unthinkable interest rates. Bloodline members would never directly involve themselves in illegal activities, including contacting, visiting, or even engaging in inter-office cooperation with one. …but things were different in the elderly man’s case.

A rusty smell filled the room.

Girls in classic maid uniforms were using a powerful bleach to mop the floor, but the smell hung in the air even with the source gone.

The family head sank into a leather sofa and called out to the elderly butler standing stiffly next to him.

“Mujinayama. How’s that old woman doing?”

“The bleeding has been stanched, so her life should not be at risk. Our medic Yamaarashi has confirmed it. It should be safe to transport her to an ordinary hospital via ambulance.”

“Then do so.”

The Mugino Family hadn’t done anything to the woman in question.

The old woman had visited the shady consumer financing office and slit her wrist. With the kind of large razor not often seen in the modern day.

She had said something about that being her “backup plan” if she couldn’t borrow any money here.

Her voice had been shaking with fear the entire time.

“A reverse mortgage, huh?” muttered the Mugino Family head.

That service allowed the elderly to use their own house as collateral so they could borrow a large sum of cash from a real estate agent or money lender on the condition their house would be sold upon their death. That in itself wasn’t a problem, but…

(There are some real estate agents who leave a lot of “loopholes” in the related contracts, leaving the client in a dangerous position.)

In At Home & Finance’s case, signing the contract to sell your house to them after your death would give you a large sum of money, but it was paid out in small monthly payments.

But if the elderly client died before the full sum was paid, the unpaid amount could be seen as a violation of contract and be treated as a scam, so the remainder would be paid all at once to a convenient family member.

That created a perverse incentive.

“No matter how it happens, if they die, their family is given a large sum of money. In other words, suicide pays big. And this is after the life insurance industry did so much to avoid this situation.”

And even after going that far, the payment would only be in the tens of millions of yen. That was certainly a sizable amount of cash, but it was a measly amount for buying a house in the city center. Ultimately, At Home & Finance knew very well that their elderly clients had only come to them after failing to get a long-term loan from an ordinary bank.

Mujinayama calmly continued his professional explanation. Which didn’t mean he didn’t have any personal feelings about the issue.

“That loophole in the contract was likely left their intentionally. Because it allows them to buy prime real estate at a convenient price and sell it for a profit. They end up paying less than a tenth of what it would normally cost.”

“I get that.” The elderly man pouted his lips like a child. “But why did that old woman want so much money that badly? She would have to die for it, so it obviously isn’t for herself.”

“She had a digital recorder with her. Although she used the old-fashioned method of recording the message by holding it to her landline phone’s receiver. It appears she was being threatened. Something about evidence that her grandchild was accomplice to a crime.”

“A blackmailer then? …That’s Academy City criminal lingo. Don’t they abuse people’s ID with the city’s…Bank, do they call it?”

“Because the method has yet to spread beyond that city.”

Did that mean this detrimental technology eventually would spread across the world?

(Oh, god. In a way, I feel like that city is the root of all evil. On a global scale.)

“What was the bastard’s name?”

“It was mentioned in the recording. They called themselves the Information Broker. Not much to go on.”

This was a further application of the method used by the former blackmailer.

Was the villain not satisfied with threatening ordinary people into committing crimes, so now they were threatening the victim’s family too?

“Is it spreading?”

“Probably.”

“I had a feeling it would. It’s not too surprising. It’s just that no one’s taking accurate statistics. We only see it as an unusual spike in the number of people showing up for loans this month.”

“A new crime must have been invented within Academy City.”

The old butler was not making a dark joke.

This was an important point.

“The family members outside of the city want to directly help their families, but that enormous wall is not so easily crossed.”

“And Academy City wants to preserve their clean image, so if anyone submits a complaint, they’ll just cover it up entirely. The very existence of the reports will disappear.”

The thick wall meant to protect the children of Academy City was instead putting them at risk.

Things like that happened a lot.

Being part of the legitimate world did not mean someone was safe. As seen in At Home & Finance and in Academy City, there were forms of righteousness that were even more bad for your health than the bleach splattered on the floor here.

“If they would only use organized crime to collect on those debts, then we could fight back in our own way.”

“Being entirely legal is their greatest selling point. They all know where the line is and make sure to avoid crossing it. I imagine they don’t want to get in a turf war with our shady consumer finance business that lends money at unthinkable interest rates.”

Their business often discussed loan terms that would make the police raise an eyebrow if they overheard it. Hopeless people like handsome men who acted like they worked in a host club or self-proclaimed musicians would regularly be charged 10% interest every ten days. Despite what movies and TV would have you believe, kidneys didn’t sell for very much, so having it removed by a proper(?) black market doctor who didn’t accept insurance would leave you in the red. The Mugino Family was wellllll aware of this.

But…

“She was willing to sell her house and throw her life away for her family. And whatever their reasons were, her family member did get involved in crime. Nevertheless, she was willing to throw away her entire life to save her family. …Heh heh☆”

“Master? Your bad habit isn’t rearing its ugly head again, is it?”

“How can I compare to that!? As a human!! I can’t go that far. If anyone is foolish enough to break our inviolable rules, I will punish them, family or not. So I’ve lost to her as a person. And what else am I to do now? …That old woman who slit her wrist for her grandchild is an amazing enough person to single-handedly outdo the head of the Mugino Family. Someone that respectable deserves to be treated right.”

The elderly butler sighed.

He had been right. That bad habit was back.

But that was why all the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and executives followed that man.

“What do you intend to do?”

“Oh, a lot. But for now, let’s do something about her debt. After all, we provide consumer financing with unthinkable interest rates. I’d say 0% is pretty ‘unthinkable’, wouldn’t you?”

Chapter 3: Pulling the Strings

Part 1

It was evening at the District 5 discount shop.

Tension ran between the four members of Item.

The presence of Judgment, who maintained order within Academy City, was nothing unusual. The city was full of schools and each one had a Judgment branch, so there had to be a decent number of them around.

Not wearing the armband wasn’t unusual either. Judgment members were also ordinary students who studied at school and they would only don the armband when trouble broke out between students or they otherwise felt the need to work, so they would spend the majority of their time without the armband.

However…

“(I don’t like the way she has her armband off but is in that sharp-eyed work mode. What is this? Is there some reason she can’t loudly announce her presence as Judgment? Like quietly setting up a perimeter before they capture a major target?)”

Of course, the student-run Judgment wouldn’t be operating a large-scale arrest like this. The students were able to blend in better, so had they been sent in first to secure the location and set up a perimeter before the fully-equipped adult Anti-Skill officers barged in?

“(In the end, I don’t think Busty Glasses there has noticed us.)”

“(Is Judgment even super after us?)”

Kinuhata’s question was understandable, but whether this was about Item or some other fugitive, they could still be caught up in this arrest. Those criminal girls couldn’t just hope for the best. Even a simple question about their address or occupation could prove dangerous.

“(Mugino, what do we do?)”

“(Let her pass us by.)”

That was an awfully passive opinion for Mugino Shizuri of all people.

However, this was the result of the unique education she had received from the Mugino Family.

“(Killing her would be easy, but it would only work against us. It’s the same reason gang members avoid killing cops.)”

Maybe setting up the perimeter surreptitiously was the priority here, but they didn’t seem to be setting up any baggage check points or metal detectors. So mixing in with the other customers would likely be enough to slip out the exit and escape.

Or so Mugino thought until Takitsubo spoke up again.

“Mugino. Something’s bothering me.”

“Huh?”

“Staying near the exit to keep an eye on the entire place is the usual tactic, but the Judgment girl over there has chosen a bad position. That decorative column next to her should be blocking a large portion of her view, but she doesn’t seem bothered at all.”

“That Busty Glasses, you mean? You sure she isn’t just too stupid to know it matters?”

“She might have a power that lets her see through obstacles. Like Clairvoyance. …And something about her seems familiar to me.”

Kinuhata just about turned around to get a look, but Mugino grabbed her head with a hand to hold it in place. Why would you try to hurriedly hide from someone who could see through any kind of cover?

Mugino reorganized her thoughts based on this new information.

Judgment and Anti-Skill were preparing for a major arrest in this discount shop. They likely weren’t after Item, but as criminals they might end up as an unexpected bonus prize if they were caught up in it all.

They couldn’t afford to be arrested here.

No matter what.

“This could be bad if she really does have Clairvoyance… If she notices us trying to sneak out, we’ll have no choice but to kill her.”

Part 2

Judgment and Anti-Skill were slowly and quietly completing their perimeter.

They likely weren’t directly after Item, but with so many illegal actions in their past, they would be in trouble if they were caught in this big arrest.

They needed to escape and quick.

And they had to do so quietly and inconspicuously instead of mowing down those arbiters of justice and making a break for it.

“So who are these overzealous Judgment and Anti-Skill people actually after?”

“Mugino, probably her.”

Takitsubo indicated a distant point with her gaze alone.

A girl with a ponytail was sneaking around there. And her shopping cart contained…

“That’s a lot of insecticide and bleach. More than a normal household would ever need.”

“That’s gotta be for sulfur dioxide. It’s an ingredient for sulfuric acid.”

“Yeah. In the end, hasn’t there been a recent thief who keeps dissolving the dials and levers to safes? They’re known as the Bubbly Burglar.”

“So are we super going to create an opening there?”

They didn’t need to arrange a detailed plan.

The four of them got to work.

Frenda grabbed a high-end mobile battery from a shelf of phone products and slipped it into the fugitive’s pocket. While her hand was still in the girl’s pocket, she yanked on a loop of thin wire.

A shrill roar sounded. It was a shoplifting alarm.

The criminal herself had to be the most surprised.

“Dammit. Why, why, why!?”

“Warrant posted. This is Anti-Skill! This is not voluntary. If you resist, it will only add to your charges!!”

They must have decided the criminal would panic and take some other customer hostage if they stuck to “slowly and quietly”. Judgment and Anti-Skill rushed toward the source of the noise.

None of them were paying any attention to Mugino and the rest.

The perimeter had collapsed.

“(This way.)”

Mugino guided the other members to one of the seven exits.

Clairvoyance allowed its user to see through objects and view what was on the other side, so staying behind cover wouldn’t work. …Or so one would think, but that wasn’t actually true.

“It comes down to the number of layers.”

“?”

Kinuhata tilted her head, so their leader elaborated.

“Clairvoyance has to be focused just like ordinary vision. If it could truly see through everything, it would also see through the person on the other side of the wall. That would be no different from not seeing anything at all, right?”

“Oh, I get it. So she has to super focus it on whatever she’s trying to see.”

“We can use that to our advantage. If she has it set to view things through one wall, we can remain hidden behind a wall if we make sure there are three layers of cover between us and her. Takitsubo.”

“I can tell generally how far she’s viewing based on her posture and her center of gravity. It looks like she isn’t paying any attention to anything other than the decorative column in front of her. That means she has it set to see through one layer.”

The discount shop provided plenty of obstacles. The section with cheap licensed character T-shirts hanging everywhere would be perfect for use against Clairvoyance. The one small space contained a large number of “layers” arranged haphazardly.

The security cameras were operating.

Mugino and the rest moved from cover to cover while making sure their actions remained natural enough to not arouse suspicion if the security footage were later reviewed.

And as they did…

“Mugino.”

“?”

Mugino immediately raised her guard.

This was one of Takitsubo Rikou’s “oracles”. Those were never good news.

“The glasses girl has shifted her center of gravity forward a bit. She’s looking farther away. I can only guess, but I would say she’s changed to view through two layers if not more.”

“(Nothing’s scarier than when they act on a meaningless whim like that! There’s no way to predict it!!)”

Mugino clenched her teeth and got moving.

But not to hide behind the shelves. Instead, she walked right out in front of the Judgment’s Busty Glasses. At close range.

The Judgment girl’s Clairvoyance was set to view through at least two layers.

That meant Busty Glasses was currently seeing straight through any object that wasn’t hidden from her by at least one layer.

The Judgment girl shifted her focus elsewhere without any apparent suspicion, so Item took that chance to walk past her. Less than a meter away from her.

They reached the exit without being noticed.

They found the ordinary evening outside.

However, that nostalgic and gentle scene was disturbed by restless red lights.

Parked just outside were several special vehicles painted white and black and decorated with red lights and speakers. The four girls kept away from those as they took the sidewalk away from the store.

Frenda looked down in her hand.

“Oops. In the end, I brought the ear pick with me.”

“Super why do you care after they caused us so much trouble?”

“There was an incident. One caused by Anti-Skill themselves. We had to leave in a hurry. If there’s a fire while you’re in the fitting room, they won’t arrest you for theft if you evacuate without changing back into your original clothes, right?”

That said, did this mean they had finally escaped to safety?

Takitsubo Rikou was as expressionless as ever.

“We made it.”

“I get the feeling Takitsubo-san has more super guts than any of us,” said an exasperated Kinuhata. Her heart was still pounding.

“Of course she does,” said Mugino like it should be obvious. “A while back, we had some traitors in the support team. Some pieces of shit were leaking information. Threats and torture aren’t always enough to track someone like that down. In the worst case, I was thinking I’d have to eliminate all of them to make sure we got the traitors, but then she comes along and solves the entire case on her own. …Takitsubo identified the traitors after asking the support team five questions. She got every last one with a measly five questions.”

Kinuhata looked at Takitsubo again, but the girl’s expression was still blank.

Frenda sighed.

“So Clairvoyance, huh? As the Academy City Bomber, that’s one of the last powers I want to tangle with. On the other hand, it ranks pretty high on the powers I’d love to have.”

“We don’t know the exact conditions of that Judgment girl’s power, though.”

Still, it couldn’t hurt to be cautious.

It likely came from being raised as a born gangster, but Mugino Shizuri didn’t seem to have relaxed her guard even after escaping.

“This doesn’t smell right to me. I mean, do you really think we’d be caught up in this by chance?”

“Mugino. They were trying to arrest some other fugitive, so it isn’t like any of us made a mistake.”

“I didn’t say you did. But someone could have led that fugitive to our location. Without her even noticing.”

“In the end, are you trying to say someone else secretly sent Anti-Skill and Judgment after her? In order to harass us?”

They had to find out who had done it.

The fastest option there was to start by learning why they had done it and what they gained from it.

“In the end, has there been any real conflict within the dark side recently?”

“I don’t know. There’s always someone fighting somewhere.”

Frenda and Mugino began trading thoughts while Takitsubo kept her position a step removed and listened expressionlessly to the debate.

And.

Someone else had sweat dripping down her face.

That someone was Kinuhata Saiai.

An unseen villain had encouraged Anti-Skill and Judgment to attack a target. While the villain themselves watched on from safety.

That sounded far too familiar to her.

Wasn’t that very similar to how the blackmailers operated? She had thought that was over after defeating the “legitimate” VIP who acted as a Board member’s wallet, but could it be?

(O-oh, no. Could that still not be super over???)

Part 3

Everything was peaceful.

It was the day after the weird incident at the discount shop.

Frenda had walked to District 13 between jobs. In the normal world, it was the time known as afterschool. However, it was still before three, so the sky was still blue. The weather was nice again today.

The trees lining either side of the wide street were dyed in reds and yellows.

It was already October.

Gone was the heat that made her curse the sun whenever she walked outside. However, the ultraviolet was still there, so she couldn’t let her guard down just because it seemed cool.

Her 7-year-old sister was walking by her side and holding her hand. She was wearing her backpack on the way back from school.

“Have you chosen a Halloween costume yet?”

“Hmm?”

Frenda Seivelun looked up into the blue sky in thought.

Halloween was still viewed as a temporary fad in Academy City and had yet to become an established annual event, but people were saying it would catch on before long. The manager of the elementary school dorm (a place where seasonal events were of the utmost importance) even dressed up in costumes on a regular basis. Furthermore, the Seivelun sisters’ blonde hair was neither dyed nor bleached. So whether or not it had caught on in Japan, it was a familiar event for them.

And while the capable older sister used her eye movement to guide her younger sister’s eyes up toward the blue sky, she operated her phone in the blind spot this created.

After a “poof!” of cloth inflating with air, she was wearing a full-body mascot costume.

“Whoa!? Th-that’s so cool! But in the first place, what is it!?”

“Costume outerwear. In the end, it’s equipped with a small electric fan.”

“Nyah,” cried the cat-like costume.

Clothing equipped with cooling fans was convenient, but it had been derided as ugly because of how it swelled out from within…so this had been invented to take advantage of that downside. It was normally worn as a thin hoodie or coat, but a phone app could inflate it into a costume. There was no need to stuff it with cotton or shape it with a metal frame.

…The biggest problem was the “so what?” question. In a normal life, there was no need at all to instantly switch between ordinary clothing and a costume. In the end, it had no use outside of magic shows and Halloween-like events.

“In the first place, what should I dress up as?”

“How about you let your handy sister sew something for you? Maybe a magical girl? Or Alice? In the end, just let me know and we can go select the material☆”

“I don’t want yours. You have childish tastes.”

The 7-year-old was pouting her lips and complaining. Little sisters were a challenge.

“Here, here,” said that little sister as she tugged on Frenda’s hand. It only took an instant to switch back from costume mode.

“I’m in elementary school now, so I can choose my own clothes. In the first place, how about we go there? I’m so grown-up now!”

The sparkle in her eyes was something else.

She had chosen the kind of cheap fast fashion shop found in just about any district of the city, but it seemed to look like an indoor amusement park to the 7-year-old.

And they appeared to sell Halloween costumes here.

Halloween. It had not yet fully caught on in Academy City, but maybe the company wanted to create a one stop shop for everyone’s clothing needs.

Event costumes weren’t bought on the day of, so they already had a special section full of colorful costumes: witches, fairies, maids, etc. But wait. Were maids really a Halloween thing?

“In the end, what type of costume do you want, my sister? A good guy or a bad guy?”

“Something cool!!”

So not cute then. But what did a 7-year-old consider cool?

The younger sister spoke with the college-aged woman who had been stocking the shelves. She was explaining what she wanted with lots of gesturing and smiling. This was one more thing she could do on her own now.

The next thing Frenda knew, several employees had gathered around to debate the issue. Eventually, the little sister returned to Frenda with a costume folded up in her arms.

“In the first place, I chose this! Now to try it on.”

“That looks like an unusual costume with lots of zippers and bows. In the end, can you put it on yourself?”

“Thou shalt not treat me like a little kid.”

The 7-year-old refused any help and shut the fitting room curtain.

…And since when did that little sister talk like that? Maybe she had picked it up from one of the employees. The righteous big sister glanced over and the group of female employees all averted their eyes.

“Huh? In the first place, this part goes like this and then I zip up the back, so…huhh?”

The squirming behind the curtain suggested she was having a hard time.

Figuring the wait was going to be a long one, Frenda grabbed a nearby Halloween costume.

(Wow. In the end, how do you even wear this mummy girl costume? Oh, you wear something like beige full-body tights below. Like a figure skater. But your figure will still show through.)

“All done, Onee-chan! Trick or treat!!”

The curtain flew open.

She was dumbfounded.

Frenda Seivelun, who could shrug off seeing a dead body, was truly dumbfounded.

Someone was posing in something like a bunny girl costume except with bat wings and curly horns. She had her hands up next to her face in a grabbing gesture and a tail was swishing side to side behind her hips.

She smiled and spoke in front of petrified Frenda.

“Tah dah! This was the shop’s top recommendation. They said it was the most grown-up and cool one. In the first place, I’m dressing up as this suck-you-bus thing this year!!”

“I-in the end, who was it! What stupid employee recommended my pure sister should dress up as a succubus of all things!!?”

“Hm? Suck you☆”

Part 4

Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou descended to the luxury tourist hotel’s first floor lobby.

However, they were not there to enjoy some afternoon tea.

They had something to discuss without Mugino hearing as she lazed in the suite’s unnecessarily fancy bed.

“This is super bad.”

Apparently the blackmailer case wasn’t quite as over as they had thought.

If nothing was done, Sudori Sayu and the other ordinary people could become targets again. And if the events leading to saving those people were brought back to the forefront, Mugino could discover Kinuhata and Takitsubo had lied to her and acted behind her back. No matter the reason, betrayal was punished with execution. There would be no exceptions there.

Which meant Kinuhata Saiai had something to do.

“They directed Anti-Skill and Judgment there to catch us. What if that’s just an extra component super added onto the previous blackmailer system?”

“Our previous solution will still work. The odds are good they will have a negotiator posted near the target to keep an eye on things.”

Strangers were used to attack the target while the villain never left their safe zone. For the target, this could not be more annoying because defeating the physical attackers wouldn’t solve anything, but at least they could counterattack using the same method as before.

“Then let’s capture some super random security robot around here and look for anyone walking around with five or ten phones.”

That was when Kinuhata’s phone rang. As if someone were watching them.

She looked down at her phone’s screen.

Number withheld.

“…”

Not answering the call would ordinarily be the right move, but she pressed the talk button.

A young female voice answered.

It may have been a girl around their age.

“Good morning. Just making a business greeting. Now, do you know who I am? Given then timing, you should be able to guess I’m not just pretending to play a role in this.”

(Did she call us because she knew we’d super locate her? That means she wants to stay in control.)

Her “role” here was obvious.

But they didn’t know her name or what she looked like. They knew disturbingly little.

“Yes. In the end, you don’t know who or where I am. Which is good because that’s how my job works. However, not having anything to call me would be awkward for you, so…yes, you can call me the Information Broker. It isn’t inaccurate.”

“Are you the blackmailers’ boss?”

“Hmm? That’s not quite accurate…but I am higher up than them.”

A few questions immediately came to mind.

But peppering her with questions wasn’t going to receive answers for all of them. She could end the call at any time.

So what did Kinuhata need to ask first?

“Why did you super decide to contact us? The incident should have ended when we defeated that legitimate VIP, so you could have escaped to safety by keeping your mouth shut and playing dead.”

“That’s the thing. I can’t just stop doing my job.”

Kinuhata glanced aside as she continued the conversation.

Takitsubo had captured a security robot a short distance away. While back behind a decorative column, perhaps to keep a ceiling security camera from seeing, she snuck up from the blind spot of the security robot’s camera lens and snatched it with both hands. Quite a bold move given they were in a hotel lobby.

Was she planning to trace the phone signals flying around even as Kinuhata spoke with the Information Broker?

Then Kinuhata had to make sure the girl on the phone didn’t notice.

“Oh, was that too subtle for you? I’m trying to say I’m pissed. Extremely.”

…Apparently she wasn’t the type to hang up when provoked.

And she got more talkative when pushed.

She wouldn’t hang up as long as she still saw herself as in a safe zone.

“I am a seller. Or maybe ‘creator’ would be the simpler term. I create intellectual criminal plans like that blackmailer one and sell them to consumers. They view the plans, construct the actual criminal infrastructure, and acquire massive fortunes, while I take some of that as a usage fee for my crime. I get a percentage off the top. That’s how the world works. I make a living through intellectual property.”

A breath of laughter followed.

Don’t get upset.

It’s easier to get information out of the enemy when they think they have the upper hand.

“That blackmailers were quite a lucrative client of mine. You slaughtered the goose that was laying golden eggs for me. I’m not going to be delighted about that, now am I? So I’ve decided to make you pay.”

“Do you think we’ll super sit here and take it? If we’re talking about who crossed the line first, you’re clearly the one who attacked ordinary people. That seems like enough reason to kill you if you ask-”

“I’ll tell Mugino Shizuri everything, dammit.”

The air froze.

A cold sweat poured down Kinuhata’s back.

And then…

“Just kidding☆ That’s my only trump card here. Use it and I lose all control over you. So don’t worry. I won’t blab that easily. But this means obeying me is your one and only path to survival. Does that clarify your situation?”

Of course Kinuhata was going to worry.

But she did understand the situation now.

“What are you super going to have me do?”

“Yes, what should I start with? What I want right now is the money I would have gotten from the blackmailers plus a little something extra for the trouble you’ve put me through. I hear you have quite the wonderful power, so you should be able to pay off this debt if you put it to criminal use.”

“…”

“Item, hm? An interesting arrangement you have there. For starters, you can launch a surprise attack on Mugino Shizuri and replace her as Item’s leader. That will turn you into an even more valuable pawn. You can begin repaying your debt after that.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re saying here?”

“Oh? I thought I was telling you to kill her. Did that not get across? Mugino Shizuri will find out eventually whether I tell her or not. If you want to survive and enjoy your life, you need to eliminate that deadly possibility. You already betrayed her once, so now you have no choice but to finish the job. Half measures aren’t enough. This plan benefits us both.”

Launch a surprise attack on Mugino Shizuri.

Kill her.

So she could survive.

But there would be no peace on that bloody path. The Information Broker was telling Kinuhata to become the leader “for starters”. That meant it didn’t end there. It was obvious these absurd orders would continue endlessly even after betraying, killing, and taking the leader position.

And, having knocked over and silenced the security robot, Takitsubo spoke calmly from nearby.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“…Who are you?”

“You’re planning to become a faceless presence on the phone who orders a dark side member to complete violent jobs so you can profit from your safe zone. But isn’t that butting in on the Voice on the Phone’s territory? …The villains higher up in Academy City will take action if you violate their territory and steal their profits. All of them will. Sounds like suicide to me, but it’s your choice.”

The response was swift.

The call suddenly ended.

“Super wait!” Kinuhata was flustered. “Why would you anger her before we figured out who she is!? She was willing to talk on and on as long as we kept her going!!”

“She’s an expert at blackmail. She’ll be better at protecting her privacy than a video streamer, so I doubt even the sounds audible in the background would help you track down her location.”

Takitsubo was her usual self.

If Mugino Shizuri discovered their “secret”, she would kill them. Some mystery girl held that trump card in her hand. And if Mugino of all people was going to dole out punishment, it would be something so gruesome it would go down in legend even on the dark side. Takitsubo would be able to imagine that even more vividly than Kinuhata.

“Your life is more important. So first we need to keep that blackmail expert from acting. It’s true she can’t play her ‘tell Mugino’ card so easily, but there is still a chance she will. So I increased that to a 100% chance she won’t. That is obviously more important.”

“Is the Voice on the Phone really that super powerful of a card?”

“Not even we know who she is. That alone says a lot.”

Takitsubo didn’t hesitate to answer.

This dark side search expert could be scary in a different way from Kinuhata.

“It sounded like that Information Broker didn’t know anything about the Voice on the Phone. So she should be hurriedly searching for information on her identity right now. And she won’t dare to give us any orders until she feels comfortable there. If we manage to track her down and attack her before then, her threat will hold no power over us.”

The logic seemed solid.

But…

“That means we super don’t know the actual time limit… It’s still a precarious situation.”

“Kinuhata.”

Takitsubo pointed over at a nearby wall.

Kinuhata peeked around the thin wall.

Frenda Seivelun was pressed against it, pouring with sweat. Carrying quite a few cans of mackerel. Had she been resupplying at a popup shop within the hotel? That girl was highly skilled but was sadly deficient in luck.

“I-I didn’t hear anything…anything at all…”

She wouldn’t look them in the eye.

The fluffy blonde girl was asking them to believe the implausible.

The other two Item members had been worrying themselves half to death over this, but Frenda was trying to retreat to a position of safety? Still holding her canned mackerel and sodas, she was now seated in a Chanel sofa that must cost god knows how much.

Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou exchanged a look and a nod.

And they said it.

“We ended up super betraying Mugino together. Tee hee☆”

Frenda tried to flee at Mach speed.

Except Takitsubo Rikou wordlessly stuck out a leg to trip her, causing her to face plant on her very first step. Kinuhata did have to respect the guts it took to protect her canned mackerel more than her face. Even though denting the cans wouldn’t alter the flavor any.

“Frenda, I can predict your every move.”

“D-don’t trip the Academy City Bomber. D-d-d-do you want to trigger an explosion and reduce us all to charcoal?”

“Kinuhata couldn’t let that bank robber be killed because she was an ordinary person being threatened by the blackmailers, so she lied to Mugino and let the criminal escape, but wouldn’t you know it? Now a different villain who sold the design for the blackmailers’ crime has shown up. There, now you’re all caught up. And you’re one of us.”

“Noooooo!! Don’t tell me that! Don’t drag me into this! In the end, those three lines have ended my life!”

Frenda held her hands over her ears, but it was too late.

She tearfully shouted.

“You lied to Mugino and kept secrets from her!? In the end, that’s definitely getting you killed! You know she isn’t the type to listen to excuses and explanations!”

“Good point. Which means you’re at risk too,” continued Takitsubo with no change of expression. “You can run if you want, but if Mugino catches us, we will tell her it wasn’t just us and that you knew about it too. Then she’ll treat you like one of us.”

“…”

Mechanical lie detectors had their pros and cons.

Did Frenda know about the betrayal plan? Between yes and no, it would say yes. It couldn’t dig into the details of when and how she found out.

And she would have to be lucky indeed if Mugino was calm enough to use anything like a lie detector in the first place.

“Mugino won’t be finding just one traitor. And after she finds two, do you think the third will be safe? Do you think she will calmly listen to your explanation when she snaps and becomes truly indiscriminate? Let’s hope she doesn’t blast us all with Meltdowner right away. But if you’re brimming with a baseless confidence that you alone will be safe, then feel free to head back alone and tell Mugino all bout it.”

Frenda didn’t move.

She had petrified.

…It was times like this that told Kinuhata Saiai that they really weren’t the good guys. Even when she risked her life and protected Academy City\’s peace, she found herself surrounded by something very different from justice.

So the filthy villain spoke with a smile.

She delivered the finishing blow.

“If you don’t like it, blame your own idiotic actions and choices. Super welcome to the world on nightmare difficulty☆”

“Noooooo! In the end, why would you do anything as ultra suicidal as throwing your lives away by lying to and deceiving Mugino!? Don’t drag me into thiiiiiiiiis!!”

She complained, but she had given up on running.

It was obvious which direction Frenda Seivelun’s villain side was leaning. Bright and shining things like love and justice did not apply to Academy City’s dark side. You wouldn’t last by betting on the possibility of a miracle. It was Frenda’s trust in Mugino Shizuri’s violence that told her her life was over if she didn’t come up with a physical safety measure here.

However, that didn’t mean she was through talking.

“D-do you really think Mugino is going to forgive a traitor!? She’ll attack us even more harshly than she does ordinary enemies. I was framed that time I was thrown out into Tokyo, but even that was hard to smooth over! But this time you really have stepped on the landmine! We’re dead for sure!!”

This wasn’t about Mugino Shizuri’s personal preferences. It was apparently the ideology and belief of the Mugino Family as a whole. One of their own, Sakuya-sama, had tried to take the family head’s life, but where was she now and what was she doing? She had completely disappeared.

“She’s a daughter of the Mugino Family. That born gangster doesn’t forgive traitors, so her punishment will be thorough. In the end, you’ll wish you’d never been born!!”

“Then let’s super use that. Say what you want, we can’t ignore this Information Broker thing, so we aim for two birds with one stone.”

Kinuhata hid her fear to get the response out.

Frenda didn’t follow her thinking, so she replied with a tremor in her voice.

“U-use it how?”

“Mugino super doesn’t forgive traitors, right? Then during our fight against the Information Broker, we have Mugino betray us. Then that born gangster will feel indebted to us and won’t be able to subject us to that terror show of unilateral slaughter. And if the gangster logic is that deeply rooted in her, she won’t be able to ignore that debt. Then if we finish off the Information Broker, this will all be over.”

“…”

“That could work,” said Takitsubo after holding her index finger to her slender chin and thinking through it. “My top priority is Kinuhata’s survival after stepping on that Mugino landmine. I won’t let anyone in Item be lost. Canceling out betrayal with betrayal would do that. In fact, I don’t see any other way for everyone to survive, but what do you say, Frenda? Do you have a better idea?”

Frenda Seivelun’s mouth formed a small triangle.

It would work.

But something felt fundamentally wrong about it.

“Aren’t you just saying that finding a real answer is too hard, so you’re just going to set a trap for Mugino? In the end, that crazy idea seems like even more of a betrayal to me.”

Between the Lines 2

An hour before, when the call to Kinuhata Saiai’s phone was made.

There were many different types of plastic pools out there and they were not all meant for little kids. The more expensive ones were as large as 15 meters across.

This one was usable in October thanks to the dozens of tons of water being warmed by the large external pump that was constantly circulating hot water. Although that seemed to make it more of a large open-air bath than a pool.

A girl with silver hair and dark skin lay on one of the nearby beach chairs.

She was around 14 and wore a two-piece swimsuit.

“The Voice on the Phone? I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Wouldn’t that be the dark side intermediary and point of contact who is partially considered a legend? I don’t know if they really exist. Could she have been making that up to buy time?” asked the large man standing next to the beach chair.

The brown girl shook her long hair and chuckled.

“I don’t actually need to track down their identity. All I need to know is if they’re getting involved in this.”

She was not alone.

She ordinarily did not dirty her own hands. So she did have some burly soldiers to do her bidding.

She tugged down her sunglasses with a finger and glanced up at the person standing right next to her.

“More importantly, we are now a step away from completing our criminal infrastructure. This is always when trouble decides to present itself. I need your Dark Rescue Squad on standby for some rough work.”

Dark Rescue Squad.

Armories, drug factories, garages for repainting or swapping the plates on stolen cars – criminals tended to handle dangerous objects a lot more often than ordinary people. One mistake and they could be caught in a fire or explosion. But even if they were engulfed in flames, their life was over if they called the ordinary fire fighters for help. They might be rescued from the burning building, but they would then be handed over to Anti-Skill.

Which was why the dark side had its own rescue squad that specialized in dangerous disaster sites.

The Dark Rescue Squad would rescue any criminals who had a contract with them, use the flames or explosion to destroy the evidence, and transport the criminals to safety before the actual fire fighters or Anti-Skill arrived.

Their origins were similar to that of black market doctors. That illegal industry existed because hospitalization would lead straight to arrest for certain types of injuries. This was the same idea but for fire fighting.

They were the girl’s pawns.

Instead of simple destructive power or lethality, their were experts in enacting a safe and sure withdrawal. They were the trump card for survival rather than death. That she had chosen them in particular hinted at one aspect of the girl’s personality.

(Well, they seemed sick of charging into disaster sites full of fire and toxic gas for no more than the cheap contract fee those thugs pay. It wasn’t hard to get them to follow when I took advantage of that displeasure.)

She would complete a new criminal system before long.

Then each member of the Dark Rescue Squad would receive plenty of money. Unlike a bank robbery, this wouldn’t be a one-time payment. They would regularly receive that money for life. None of them would be hurting for money ever again.

The Dark Rescue Squad members were all itching to get started, but the girl alone smiled icily.

The girl with long silver hair and dark skin sang softly.

“Watch out overhead.”

“?”

“It’s hard to pick up by ear, but the mechanical sensors can tell. I can hear rotors far overhead. …And given how quiet it is, it’s probably a Two Wings attack helicopter.”

The Two Wings was an aerial weapon with a complicated development history. The official adoption competition had been won by another model, so it had no official model number. …But some VIPs must have decided to take advantage of that because it was seen in unofficial use like here.

Nothing would be recorded in the official records, so no authorization was needed to make an attack.

The higher levels of the dark side operated almost exclusively through paper documents and digital databases, so it was said a lot of them didn’t even know it existed.

Did that qualify as a sort of stealth?

Still lying on the beach chair, the girl whispered in a singsong voice.

“A VIP blackmailer’s obvious crimes made for nice camouflage, so it’s a shame really.”

The Information Broker girl sighed in exasperation.

By voicing the image in her head, she gave concrete form to the vaguer parts of her thoughts.

“But with that shield broken, our top priority is keeping our names and appearances hidden. Which is why the most troublesome enemy at the moment would be Kinuhata Saiai and Takitsubo Rikou who broke that blackmailer shield and are now trying to track down our identities.”

“You mean…?”

“Yep. Now we crush them to keep ourselves safe. That’s our top priority.”

The most comforting thing for servants was clear direction from their superior. The more succinct the better.

Mincing your words because of the danger would not earn trust. Trust was born by being open and honest even in a dangerous situation.

…Even if you were actually hiding the real truth below that.

If you were going to be dishonest, you had to stick to it.

As long as they never found out, that trust would remain intact.

“We need to make sure the blackmailers remain the only new social problem plaguing Academy City. We can’t allow them to look past that and discover our business.”

The girl removed her sunglasses and got up from the beach chair.

Slowly.

“Now, let’s get started. First stop: a certain luxury hotel in District 5.”

Chapter 4: The Cost of Your Choice

Part 1

The situation was changing at dizzying speed.

On the first floor lobby of the District 5 tourist hotel, Kinuhata Saiai could tell she was breathing heavily. Now was no time to panic. She was currently on a dangerous tightrope walk where failing to organize the information would guarantee her death.

“Phew.”

She had to sort through the information, be it good or bad.

Striking back at the Information Broker was her top priority for now.

At the same time, she would have to finally deal with the fundamental problem of Mugino Shizuri. She doubted lies and deception would work forever there. The more she tried it, the more likely she was to make a mistake or rouse suspicion. So she had to make Mugino feel guilty by making her commit the one thing she disliked most of all: betrayal.

Then the born gangster’s own wicked principles would prevent her from attacking Kinuhata and the rest. The gang logic would muddle who was owed what.

Letting Mugino find out about any of this was out of the question, so they couldn’t rely on the support team. Kinuhata, Takitsubo, and Frenda would have to solve the Information Broker and Mugino problems on their own.

So…

“We’ll super pit Mugino and the Information Broker against each other.”

It was two in the afternoon.

Kinuhata Saiai made this suggestion while soaked with a cold sweat.

“We make it look like I got dragged into that fight. It would work best if I get injured. Then Mugino will kill the Information Broker for us and Mugino’s ‘betrayal’ of me will give us the upper hand with her. That’s the only way if all of us are going to survive. We let it all be super water under the bridge by negating betrayal with more betrayal.”

“In the end, are you serious? There’s no safety measures there.”

Frenda’s shoulders slumped, but she didn’t seem to have an alternative.

Track suit girl Takitsubo nodded a little.

“It’s more likely to work than trying to continue lying. Mugino hates betrayal from one of her own more than anything. Based on her gangster logic, not simple emotion. …So how much do you think she will blame herself if she suspects a teammate and turns out to be wrong? Especially if that teammate ends up injured as a result.”

It wasn’t a solid plan.

It would be a perilous tightrope walk. In fact, the very idea of using this loophole against her could be seen as a betrayal of Mugino.

One shoulder of Frenda Seivelun’s clothes slipped down.

Her thoughts were written plain on her face: she wanted to run with all her might, but she knew running would only get her killed.

“Ugh. Then what do we need first? That Information Broker’s identity and appearance? In the end, we can’t include her in our plan if we don’t know her personal information.”

“Then this should come in super handy.”

Kinuhata Saiai waved her phone.

“Just like when we dealt with the blackmailers, I have the location data found by messing with a security robot, hooking a phone up to it, and scanning for phone signals in the area. Anyone with five or ten phones on them is super suspicious, right? Then I have a candidate here.”

Frenda was skeptical. Which may have been the natural reaction after being dragged into a deadly problem for no good reason.

“In the end, do you really think the big boss would be wandering around on the front line?”

“You have it backwards, Frenda.”

“?”

“She can let her underlings handle a lot of the odd jobs, but not so with a delicate and difficult boss battle. It’s the same with Item and our support team, right? …If she truly sees us as a threat, the Information Broker herself will be the one gathering information.”

But that mistrust and unease regarding her own people had worked against her.

It had been convenient for Kinuhata and the others that the enemy was carrying five or more phones. They were likely for different uses – contacting her team, sending commands to disposable soldiers, etc. – but with five of them, it wasn’t a surprise to find one specific type of phone.

One for purely private use.

Instead of a pseudonym and a fictional address, this phone was linked to her real name and bank account and had tens of thousands of photos and videos on it.

They couldn’t steal all of those right away, but they could view the registration name on the small notifications and the lock screen wallpaper.

This was especially easy with narcissists who used their own photo there.

“Norsitro Chatellenie. …Finally super found you, Information Broker.”

She was a girl with silver hair and dark skin.

She looked to be older than Kinuhata and younger than Takitsubo.

Why her wallpaper was a selfie of herself smiling in only a towel was a mystery, though. Did she tend to take long baths with her phone?

Takitsubo Rikou had again shifted into drill sergeant mode. So annoying.

“Okay, Kinuhata. We know her name and appearance, but how do we find her hideout?”

“We super use her food,” succinctly stated Kinuhata Saiai.

Frenda sighed.

“Norsitro Chatellenie. In the end, her name does sound pretty French. Her phone’s default language is even set to French.”

According to Frenda, the towel she was wearing was from a fairly high-end brand. A French brand, of course. It was an offshoot of the fancy restaurant napkins and tablecloths the company was generally known for. Silks and dresses were one thing, but Kinuhata was a little surprised to learn there was even such a thing as a super high-quality towel. Takitsubo and Frenda went on to say the one towel cost more than two million yen. Now she was super surprised!!

“She’ll definitely be looking for the soul food of her home country. That doesn’t mean she’ll be super eating French food every day, but she won’t be able to stop completely. And if she does that when she’s letting off some steam, she will leave behind some small hints. We can use those to track down the elusive Information Broker.”

That must have been the answer Takitsubo was expecting.

She immediately returned the conversational rally.

“For food, District 4 would be best.”

“Yeah, they super have any kind of cuisine you could want. Which means that’s where a native would go if she isn’t satisfied with Japan’s French restaurants that unintentionally alter the food to fit Japanese sensibilities and work with the local ingredients.”

“But, Kinuhata, an entire district is a large area. Will Norsitro be going to a luxury French restaurant with a French manager, or does she visit an industrial supermarket with imported ingredients and do the cooking herself? Even narrowing it down to those two options leaves quite a few possibilities.”

“Will you super stop testing me?” Kinuhata sighed in exasperation and raised a finger. “B and C gangster movies always show the gang bosses and fugitives using fancy restaurants of their home country as a base, but you’d be immediately caught and arrested if you tried that in Academy City. The connection is too obvious. So if the Information Broker is trying to be safe by staying hidden, she super won’t visit a restaurant connected to her home country. By her logic, that would be suicide.”

She raised another finger.

“And that’s why she’ll have them come to her. At a disposable rental site of course. There are plenty of services that let you call in an expert chef to cook for you and even the rich in the legitimate world will do that for a home party. For a special fee. …That must exist on the dark side too, right? There must be a chef hiring service with options for every county around the world.”

“Correct.” Takitsubo laughed. “It’s called Kitchen Car. Those food specialists are based in District 4 and can enrich a criminal’s fugitive lifestyle.”

“Right. The chef’s skills are top rate, but they were unfairly fired when the entire restaurant got food poisoning or the ingredients were phony or something, so in the end, they were recruited in secret,” added Frenda.

Kinuhata sighed softly.

“That just leaves…the fact that it’s two in the afternoon. The next super time she could call a chef will be at dinnertime. How many hours are we going to end up waiting?”

“In the end, I doubt it will take long.”

“Kinuhata, proper French cooking requires hours of preparation. For a dinner scheduled for seven to nine in the evening, I wouldn’t be surprised if the chefs are already getting started.”

Oh, is that so, you damn dark side rich girls?

This was an unbelievable world for Kinuhata who was happy as long as she had movie theater popcorn and a soda.

Regardless, if Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie was a frequent user of Kitchen Car, this would be easy. Tailing their French chef would eventually lead them right to the Information Broker.

“There are a few things we have to be super careful about,” began Kinuhata. She raised a finger. “First, Kitchen Car will be experts at not being tailed. After all, their job is to provide a safe option for fugitives who can’t just go to a restaurant. Trust is their main selling point, so they will make super sure they aren’t being followed. What we do about that is our biggest problem.”

She wasn’t done yet.

She raised a second finger.

“Second, using this to attack the Information Broker would be easy, but we also have to see this through to the end while fooling Mugino. Defeating Norsitro Chatellenie is super meaningless if she makes a mistake and is killed by Meltdowner before we’re ready. And Mugino isn’t stupid, so she will get suspicious with all three of us missing.”

“Isn’t that great?”

Kinuhata couldn’t believe it.

The legitimate VIP whose downfall had been triggered by a super tiny pencil nuke. Private Casino who had been baked to death by a white phosphorous grenade on the party hall roof. The fates of those who had opposed or betrayed Item – or Mugino Shizuri, really – flashed through Kinuhata’s mind. This situation was placing a strain on her heart, but Takitsubo had casually called it “great”?

That search expert who didn’t participate in the direct fighting really did see things differently. …Was Mugino Shizuri really the most terrifying member of Item?

“We have internal and external enemies and the situation is extremely complex and annoying, but we only have two problems to deal with. That should tell you this mission is on easy mode, Kinuhata.”

Part 2

Takitsubo spoke up while operating her phone on a moving train.

“I found more on the Information Broker.”

“?”

Kinuhata frowned.

Their opponent was an expert at using information. She wouldn’t be operating in a way that made her real identity as Norsitro Chatellenie a household name.

So was Takitsubo researching the Information Broker identity?

“She appears to go by some other names, but the most notable one is the Faultfinding Demon. She might take a philanthropist who insists money isn’t everything and bury them in debt. Or she might take a lawyer who claims to be opposed to violence no matter the circumstances and place them under so much psychological pressure they end up killing someone in front of a TV camera. It looks like she targets anyone who performatively makes unrealistic claims to boost their public reputation.”

“But are you sure it’s really Norsitro doing that? Information Broker isn’t a super rare term or anything.”

“Kinuhata. Do you remember the bug maker I mentioned before?”

“Yeah, during the stuff with Sudori-san. You said they were investigating Kamigi when they disappeared.”

“Well, the title of information broker is even more common than that one, but I’ve heard rumors of a sudden drop off in how often it’s used. They must all be afraid of earning her disfavor by looking like a rival.”

That made sense.

This opponent was even more dangerous than Kinuhata had imagined. Not to mention self-centered and persistent.

“Is the super dark side just full of guys who are willing to die for their weird hang-ups?”

“Stop that, Kinuhata. You should try to use gender neutral language.”

Kinuhata got scolded by the capable big sister.

…But was that really necessary when complaining about brutal villains?

District 4 was located a bit northeast of Academy City’s center.

The district specialized in all things food and it was a very international place. The food market had small flags to indicate what nationality a shop specialized in, so the long street was reminiscent of all the flags at an athletic festival. The many signs jutting out from from the building walls was chaos itself. There were so many signs overhead it felt like walking through a colorful tunnel.

Broad categories like Asian or European had naturally gathered in clumps, but there was no strict division between areas. There was an Italian restaurant and an American South hamburger shop encroaching on the red Chinatown and a sushi place with the Central and South American versions of Spanish and Portuguese on the signs right alongside the European restaurants. The sushi there apparently used jalapeno paste instead of wasabi.

“This district is like a giant manifestation of choice paralysis.”

“Frenda, is this making you crave your own home country’s food?”

“In the end, I’d be happy living on the far side of Mars as long as I have mackerel.”

If the three of them stayed away too long, Mugino Shizuri would get suspicious. But that didn’t mean they had to solve this problem before that happened. In fact, they couldn’t have Mugino just stay in the luxury hotel. To trick her, to get her to betray them, and to survive, they needed Mugino to act of her own volition.

Suspicion was the greatest fuel for someone who hated betrayal more than anything else.

“So is super that Kitchen Car’s HQ?”

“I think so, Kinuhata.”

“But wait. District 4 is all about food…and they’re in a trash house!? I thought Kitchen Car were super culinary experts!! How could they let this happen!?”

“In the end, I bet this was what happened when those culinary experts decided to build a fortress everyone would want to keep away from. Inside, they’ve probably torn down some walls to turn into a maze. It’s called hiding in plain sight. If you’re looking for someone or something, nothing is more annoying than a trash-filled building.”

The structure itself was a four-floor multi-tenant building, but bulging trash bags were piled up in every door and window and even covered the front walk.

Was that supposed to be camouflage?

That had to be a huge nuisance for the neighbors.

The trio bought kebab sandwiches at a nearby food stand and munched on them as they waited for something to happen. There were an unusual number of people jogging, but was that the result of the overabundance of tasty foods in this district?

Frenda’s sandwich must have been too spicy for her because she kept going back to her cup’s straw for more sips of soda.

“In the end, do we have any reason to think the Information Broker will call Kitchen Car today?”

“There’s no guarantee, but I think the odds are good,” replied Takitsubo. “This is a big deal for her too. It might look like she’s the one threatening Item, but this only happened because she failed to deal with us earlier. If she screws this up, she’ll truly have to go into hiding and then she’ll have far fewer options. She should want to eat everything she likes while she has the chance.”

“There they super are.”

A mid-sized yellow truck slowly emerged from the trash heap of a place. Kinuhata was surprised to find there was a metal garage door there.

“That must be Kitchen Car’s truck.”

The trio waited for the truck to pass by and made the final check by nose.

“Bouillon and mirepoix. Also truffles, pickles, horseradish, and is that lobster sauce?”

“That’s not Japanese or Chinese cooking. In the end, it’s definitely French.”

…Kinuhata couldn’t tell a thing. But she wasn’t upset about it. Really.

But a truck.

Did they need a large vehicle to fit the ingredients and the cooking equipment? It wasn’t as bad as with Chinese cooking, but French cooking probably did require some industrial firepower.

Kitchen Car were experts at providing fugitives with delicious food. That meant they knew how to keep Anti-Skill from tailing them. This wouldn’t be as easy as attaching a GPS-equipped device to track it. The truck’s radio or sensors would detect the signal.

So Takitsubo made a simple comment.

“Frenda.”

“Yeah, yeah. In the end, one plastic bottle drone coming up. Makes me wonder what you would have done if you didn’t have the ultra genius and ultimately cute Frenda-chan on your side.”

“It’s French food, right? I planned to track the nitrogen gas used to keep the wine from oxidizing.”

“But in the end, Norsitro Chatellenie is clearly underage!”

Takitsubo and Frenda were enjoying their banter.

How could they be so calm?

Kinuhata frowned.

“Won’t your drone get super shot down by an attack helicopter?”

“In the end, anything small enough will be fine as long as it doesn’t move too fast. There are plenty of UFOs flying around overhead, including small birds and convenience store bags floating in the wind. The city’s automatic air defense doesn’t react to it all.”

Of course, Frenda wasn’t just guessing here. It was based on accurate data she had researched. And the standards had to change daily.

The tablet’s screen showed the yellow truck crossing a few district boundaries.

It finally arrived in District 2.

“Isn’t that the car-focused district?”

“In the end, they do weapons and explosives there too.”

They focused on the screen some more. The yellow truck drove below a building, likely into an underground parking garage, but experts at losing pursuit wouldn’t drive straight to their client’s hideout. Frenda cautiously sent the drone around a while longer to continue observing from the air until…

“Here they come.”

“Hm. When traveling on foot, they disguise themselves as a wholesaler that specializes in fireproof curtains and carpets. Well, the ingredients and cooking equipment unloaded from the truck would be too heavy to carry without a handcart of some kind.”

“Then is this it? What is this super place?”

“I see a lot of tall, fake structures and a bunch of ropes. In the end, it looks like some kind of training ground. If it isn’t Anti-Skill, could it be for firefighters?”

The place didn’t seem to be functioning. Was it abandoned? There was even a large plastic pool set up on the grounds.

“Is it time to head in?”

“I want to be absolutely certain first. They might take another vehicle from the parking lot here.”

They waited ten minutes, but that never happened.

That settled it.

It had to be this former training ground thought to be for firefighters.

“We have her,” said Takitsubo Rikou.

Part 3

She woke up.

“Hmm?”

Mugino Shizuri opened her eyes in bed. And slowly sat up.

She crawled out of the bedroom still in sleepwear that let her body show through pretty much everywhere.

“Takitsubo?”

No response.

She looked around without fixing her hair.

“Kinuhata, Frenda?”

Still nothing.

(Hm…)

Just once she consciously let out a breath.

Then she grabbed her phone.

She didn’t call her familiar Item teammates.

(Kinuhata and Takitsubo were missing after the bank robbery, but now Frenda’s gone too.)

She was already making some guesses. Like that they wouldn’t respond if she called them or messaged them on social media.

There was only one person to contact at a time like this.

“Mujinayama. You’ve been discharged from the hospital, right?”

“I must apologize for the inconvenience and trouble I caused you back then, Lady Shizu-”

“Don’t bother,” she snapped and the old butler immediately fell silent.

This was Mujinayama, so he obviously wasn’t intimidated. Even over the phone, he gave the sense of a grandfather playing with his grandchild.

“Hey, Mujinayama.”

“I am at your service.”

“How do I identify a traitor?”

Part 4

A firefighter training ground was an unfamiliar place.

Kinuhata had trouble deciding where any specific rooms would be located. The fake structures on the surface couldn’t be all of it, so there was likely more underground.

Now, where would that evil boss be?

“Can we super determine what floor and room they’re in based on Kitchen Car’s movements?”

Kinuhata knew that was asking a lot.

The grounds were large and there were probably lots of underground pathways connecting different areas. What they could see from the outside wouldn’t be enough to fully track Kitchen Car.

But Frenda sounded cheerful as she used a cable to link her phone to a panel on the thick wall surrounding the grounds.

“In the end, check this out, Kinuhata. The security camera records are just gone.”

“Does that super mean the Information Broker is using this place in secret?”

“Then what about this third floor special observation seat? I’m guessing that’s a VIP room for instructors to watch all the trainees and keep score, but the sprinklers have been turned off there.”

“Kitchen Car was transporting cooking equipment along with their ingredients, right? They can ventilate the smoke with a hose connected to the air conditioning vent, but the heat of the fire will still be a problem. So what if they want to use an industrial high-heat gas burner or oven outside of a proper kitchen?”

“You mean they would have to super switch off the sprinklers and fire alarms? Then they must be in the third floor VIP room!”

They were already in enemy territory, so they couldn’t use the elevator which could act like a dead end. It was only three floors up, so they took the emergency stairs.

“Takitsubo-san, the plan was to pit the Information Broker and Mugino against each other, right?”

“Right.”

“But how do we super call Mugino here?”

“In the end, do we even have to? Mugino will never forgive a traitor. She’ll track us down here on her own. We couldn’t hide from her even if we wanted to.”

However, they couldn’t relax just because they were using the emergency stairs instead of the elevator.

A wire crossed the path at above knee height, the most likely height for someone to hit.

Laying several layers of traps would also narrow the trap-layers freedom of movement, so they would only do it if it benefited them. …Hopefully this meant the enemy didn’t have enough personnel to have regular human patrols.

“Have you noticed, Kinuhata?”

“Yeah, I have. These traps are weird. They’re using the bare minimum of flammables like gasoline while using a super ton of oxygen tanks and air circulators.”

Kinuhata wondered if that was to avoid breaking the laws against weapons and bombs, but setting up any kind of explosive with the intent of causing an explosion violated the law anyway. Reducing the amount used wouldn’t get you off the hook in court.

The Academy City Bomber explained in exasperation.

“They’re using oxygen to guide the flames. Have you never heard of tactical ventilation? When firefighters enter a burning building, they will methodically break windows and doors to let air through and, in the end, guide the flames where they won’t hurt anyone while the firefighters complete their rescue. They will also sometimes intentionally increase the intensity of the fire elsewhere to prevent backdrafts and flashovers. But if you wanted to, you could also create a flamethrower-like blast of fire and bend it in an S-shape.”

They all exchanged a glance.

…Firefighters. Frenda had said it herself, but apparently even she hadn’t expected the phrase to pop up here.

“In the end, this is a training ground for them, isn’t it?”

“Super umm, can rescue squad people go bad too?”

“I’ve never heard of it, but it could be. They’re trained to break down doors and enter buildings above the ground floor, so they do have some abusable skills.”

“They also sound strong. In the end, they’d definitely make big burly troops.”

The three continued up the stairs while on the lookout for traps.

After reaching the third floor hallway and cracking open the steel fire door, they sensed a presence.

They spotted someone big and burly.

Kinuhata could defeat him with Offense Armor, but his identity was a bit of a mystery. Looking like a bad guy didn’t necessarily mean you were one. People sometimes behaved in weird, illogical ways. He might just be an ordinary body builder who had snuck into the former training ground (unaware of the traps) to get a workout there, so Kinuhata and the others waited until he had walked past before slipping out into into the hallway.

Takitsubo’s nose twitched a little.

“I don’t detect an appetizing aroma.”

“In the end, the room with the most suspicious electricity usage is the third door on the right.”

Then they would start there.

Kinuhata had assumed there was only one third floor VIP room, but it turned out there were several. After pressing her ear to the door and listening for any activity inside, she slowly opened the door.

“What is this super place?”

She found a dark room.

It was about the size of a larger convenience store.

The opposite wall was made of glass to provide a view of the outdoor training ground, but Kinuhata was more interested in something else.

LCD monitors lined one section with pricey-looking office chairs in front of them. More than half the space under the desks was taken up by what looked like industrial computers.

“Did the firefighter training ground also super teach them how to respond to emergency alerts and operate their radios?”

“This might have all been brought here after the fact,” replied the track suit girl.

The right and left walls were covered by steel racks packed with paper files thicker than brick blocks.

Takitsubo scanned the entire room with emotionless eyes.

“Frenda, let’s check the paper.”

“In the end, why not the computers? Paper documents don’t even have the bare minimum of a search option.”

“I don’t want to touch the computers when we don’t even know if they use a password, fingerprints, a security key, or facial recognition. We might get it locked down or even trigger an alert to their boss. The paper is better. I’ll handle the shelves, so you two check the ones around the desks.”

“Ughh. In the end, a note with their password written on it would be too much to hope for, wouldn’t it?”

“If they’re unlocking it every single time, there must be some kind of mark or hint,” said Takitsubo even as she walked over to the shelves.

All that information felt overwhelming to Kinuhata, but apparently it looked like a treasure trove to their search expert.

“This data is related to a vulnerability,” said Takitsubo as she flipped through something like a thick manual.

Kinuhata tilted her head. What kind of vulnerability?

“The wide variety of videos and articles strewn across the internet are automatically fact checked for accuracy…but there is no system in place to fact check the fact checking.”

“???”

“It’s complicated, but in short there’s a loophole in the network monitoring system. By converting a file to the fact checking file extension, it can slip right past Academy City’s automatic checking system. The legitimate files are 512 kilobytes, so anything larger than that would be detected as illegitimate, but you can fit a ton of text in a file that size.”

“Super so what? What happens if you can slip something past it?”

“You can send unchecked electronic data in and out of the city. Using the official fiber optic lines while ignoring the dedicated systems entirely.”

They all fell silent.

Hold on.

“Wh-what are you saying? That, in the end, all the city’s classified data on next-gen weapons and esper development could be leaked outside the city!?”

“…”

Instead of responding right away, Takitsubo took a look around the room.

She blinked a few times.

“If they are selling technology like that, why isn’t any of that data here?”

“Now that you mention it… They super have a loophole they could use, but I haven’t seen any data they could sell, like the plans for a stealth fighter or a Level 5’s DNA map.”

“So in the end, what is Norsitro hoping to do with that super convenient joker in her hand?”

That was when Takitsubo’s head shot up.

The search expert was looking off in an odd direction.

That was a warning sign.

“Kinuhata. Frenda.”

“Yes?”

“Watch out. The enemy is coming.”

The door burst open from outside.

Frenda immediately leapt behind a big decorative plant and Kinuhata moved in front of Takitsubo.

A girl entered flanked by two large men. They of course recognized that silver hair and dark skin.

That was Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie.

Her phone’s wallpaper had shown her in a towel, but now her body was tightly bound by a leather belt, miniskirt, and big boots that were a glittering neon green with silver thread woven in. It was probably meant to be a bondage outfit.

“Oh, hey. You were right, Matsuzawa-san.”

“I was lucky.”

“All we had to do was leave the ‘call center’ unlocked and unoccupied and they waltzed on in here like a bunch of roaches. Incredible.”

“Milady. Shouldn’t you compare them to something more appealing, like rhinoceros beetles?”

“Is that more appealing? You must like the outdoors, Haranaka-san. They’re both just shiny black bugs to me☆”

Part 5

Back in the tourist hotel suite in the grown-up District 5.

What Mugino Shizuri most wanted at the moment was the live words of an expert.

Needless to say, the Mugino Family was an international gang with hundreds of thousands of soldiers around the world.

Thus, they wouldn’t go crying to the normal police if some money disappeared or someone died within the Family. That would mean tearing down their entire violent system to solve one measly case. Still, there were on occasion fools who would periodically sell information to the police (because they were being threatened or something). To reiterate, the Family would not ask the police for help when something happened.

So they had a different solution.

They had an internal investigation department that specialized in identifying and punishing traitors in their midst.

“If it’s too weak, there’s nothing to stop the traitors, but if it’s too strong, it turns into a dictatorship that wields false accusations and purges. …Mujinayama, you know how to handle these things just right, don’t you?”

“Sigh… I would have preferred you came to me for advice on how to prevent the betrayal from occurring in the first place, but I get the feeling it is too late for that.”

“Hurry up.”

When Mugino lightly rushed him, the mood changed.

His world – the vibe of the Mugino Family he had served for so many long years – pushed in through the cold mechanical phone.

“The standard countermeasure against betrayal in a system of violence is to prepare for it before it actually happens. You do not want to be running around in a panic after you have been betrayed and real harm has been done.”

“Right.”

Mugino glanced aside with the phone against her ear.

At the empty boxes for luxury brand clothing piled up in a corner of the room.

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Is that so? I would expect no less from the one who carries the weight of the Family’s future on her shoulders. I am relieved.”

That old butler did not flatter people for no reason. If she couldn’t think of any reason for the compliment, there had to be more coming.

His ever gentle voice quietly gained the sharp edge of a knife.

“However, you must not forget that suspecting your companions is itself a small betrayal. It is necessary for the maintenance of a system of violence that cannot rely on the official power structures, but it is by no means a praiseworthy thing.”

“…”

“And what if your suspicions of betrayal prove to be false? Shizuri-sama, betrayal and the response thereof are a sort of gamble. You are not a righteous detective investigating each suspicious individual until you find the criminal like a game of concentration. If you choose wrong just once, responsibility for that mistake falls on you. Investigating a traitor carries the risk of becoming a traitor yourself. You must never forget this when seeking the truth in our shadowy world.”

That was why the internal investigation department paid exceptionally well while being exceptionally risky.

It was known as the hardest department to keep balanced.

And this summed up why Mugino Shizuri had gone out of her way to seek advice from the old butler who had served the Family for so long.

Yes. If she could be sloppy and get it wrong as many times as she liked, she would have done it all herself.

But that wasn’t an option, so she wanted to know the etiquette and secrets the gangs used.

“It also depends on the severity of the betrayal in question.”

The old butler used that as a starting point.

He did not mince words.

So whether or not he included that phrase would likely greatly change the impression left with the listener. Even if Mugino Shizuri didn’t yet know why it mattered.

“Complete traitors are actually fairly rare. Most traitors move back and forth between the two sides, so they always carry some small feeling of guilt with them. It is always gnawing at them, even as they eat and sleep.”

“Are you saying the losers who can’t stand the pressure will blow up first?”

“No. It affects everyone of all sorts. Someone who truly cannot bear the impure feelings won’t bother with all those tricks and will make a full-on attack despite the risks. The family head is the type to do that.”

…Mugino Shizuri bluntly concluded that man’s way of life was unfortunately not very useful for her. After all, that freak had once armed himself, single-handedly stormed an embassy, and dragged the corrupt minister off the embassy’s grounds just because a small child had cried and asked him to rescue his grandfather (true story). If she asked that ridiculous man how to find a traitor, she could easily imagine him telling her to build up enough charisma that no one felt the need to betray her in the first place.

She wanted to discuss a more realistic way of finding a traitor.

“It is not always a lack of skill that leads traitors to leave small clues and make mistakes. There is a part of them that wants to be caught. That is why their pursuer notices their presence. Lady Shizuri, I assume you came to me for advice because you already have some kind of clue. What felt off to you?”

“…”

For one, why had the other three members of Item gone missing at the same time?

If those three wanted to do something behind her back, wouldn’t they leave someone behind to distract her and keep her from getting suspicious? Why hadn’t they done that?

How could she explain it from a standpoint of pure function and efficiency?

(Hm.)

“Now let’s circle back to an earlier point,” said Mujinayama. In a voice that would make anyone’s back straighten. “How far must a betrayal go before you can truly call it a betrayal?”

Part 6

The silver-haired dark-skinned girl was Information Broker Norsitro.

Were the large burly men surrounding her illicit firefighters?

More importantly, Kinuhata had picked up on a curious word in their brief conversation.

The call center?

“(Kinuhata, anything the enemy freely says in front of you should be taken with a grain of salt. Don’t accept it at face value.)”

“Information you think you researched on your own can be externally controlled too, you know? All I have to do is manipulate what order you find the relevant data in, so it’s not hard at all,” pointed out Norsitro in her neon green bondage outfit.

Then what about the vulnerability they had just found? Using the fact checking file extension? Maybe they had to doubt the entire idea of freely communicating across the city wall. Were they back to square one?

“Kinuhata, what did I just say about things the enemy says in front of you?”

“Ugh.”

Kinuhata Saiai groaned at having to be told a second time.

The silver-haired girl smiled elegantly at how easily manipulated Kinuhata was. She even covered her mouth with a hand despite how that clashed with her outfit.

“So instead of leaping at the documents and information you find, you should be working out how and why they turned up here and then dealing with them accordingly.”

The Information Broker.

Norsitro’s job involved more than just gathering information. She had to decide how to use it. When was the best time to reveal it or hide it? She was an expert at using information as a whole.

“That said, get the balance wrong and you can end up paranoid and doubting everything you see, so hiring an expert at information management is the best thing to do for your mental health, if you ask me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kinuhata saw Frenda stir.

She stuck a hand in her pocket.

Kinuhata had been working with Item long enough to know what Frenda was planning.

Norsitro was still talking when Frenda pulled an explosive from her pocket and threw-

“I’m not done talking.”

Boom!! A dull explosion rang out.

Unsure what had happened, Kinuhata Saiai was thrown through a tempered glass window. In other words, she was tossed out from the third floor. That was about the same as the top floor of a school.

On the other side, the inner wall behind Norsitro broke through and a black Eastern dragon emerged.

No.

That was actually thousands or tens of thousands of flying objects about the size of paper airplanes made from fliers.

“In the end, is that a drone swarm!? Kinuhata!”

“Ohhh? Are you sure you should be focusing on her?”

A “zap!!” of bursting air rang out.

Along with a flash of light.

Frenda Seivelun fell to her knees.

“Kah…”

(Lightning, a high-voltage current? What the hell? In the end, does she have more than just next-gen weapons?)

Frenda collapsed to the floor and couldn’t move. She couldn’t even lift her head. The most she could manage was some trembling of her limbs. She could only thank her lucky stars that none of the delicate fuses and explosives hidden on her person had gone off.

The silver-haired girl glanced over at the only one left: Takitsubo.

“You’re dropping like flies. Which makes it easier for me, so I’m not complaining.”

The drones were black devices. They were the size of 10x20cm paper airplanes, but their jagged and distorted silhouette looked something like a Christmas tree. Would their precise classification be canard double delta?

And Takitsubo spoke quietly.

“Is this why?”

“?”

“Drone swarms can’t be defended against by existing missile defense systems because there are just too many of them, so in a way you could call them an even greater strategic weapon than a nuclear warhead. But the problem is the manufacturing and operating costs. The price has to be multiplied across the number of drones in the swarm, so building a thousand of them increases the cost a thousandfold and creating ten thousand increases it ten-thousandfold. Same for the fuel and maintenance costs. That isn’t something an individual can use.”

“Yeah, I do use around 250 thousand of them at once. And the number goes up to 1.75 million if you include the spares, so the final sum is nothing to sneeze at. Keeping them in top condition isn’t easy.”

“Khah. In the end, even if it’s fully automated and it only takes a minute per drone, how much effort are you putting into this? Did you buy an entire huge factory with multiple production lines?”

“Didn’t I just say keeping them in top condition isn’t easy? Besides, a single stealth fighter costs 20-30 billion yen. And that’s just buying it. When you think of this as a super weapon superior to nukes, it’s honestly a pretty good deal.”

Her neon green bondage outfit had silver threads woven in. Was that glittering getup actually a highly conductive full-body antenna?

Norsitro chuckled and spread her arms.

The word drone apparently originally referred to the buzzing of a bee’s wings and the drones surrounding her lived up to that origin. They were surprisingly nimble and reminiscent of killer bees or of flies buzzing around something dead. Some drones would come to a stop in midair, so they may have been capable of vertical takeoffs and landings using a lift fan or something.

Also, she had the high-voltage power that had hit Frenda.

“Committing perfect crimes in Academy City is a challenge. But not so outside the city’s walls. Isn’t that right? Especially if you can use Academy City tech out there. Then it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“You aren’t going after the parents, are you?”

“What, something like this: ‘Hey! If you don’t pay up soon, we’ll threaten your precious kid over and over and over again until they’re part of the blackmailer group themselves! Then they’ll be a criminal and your whole family will be in the news!’ ”

A grin split across the silver-haired girl’s face.

That was the devilish face of someone who knew how to cash in on people’s misfortune and tragedy with maximum efficiency.

“The towering wall surrounding the city prevents the parents outside from rescuing their child no matter how much danger they’re in. What, you think they should call Anti-Skill? Heh hee hee. You know better than that. The higher ups of this city are all corrupt, so they won’t allow anything to threaten the city’s public image. Oops, and now that report is being suppressed. There won’t be any kind of official record it ever even happened.”

The parents would be helpless while knowing their child was in trouble.

The only option left would be to pay a sum of money larger than they could hope to make in a lifetime.

They could always refuse.

But it was this girl’s job to give them a very good idea of what would happen then.

The large men – firefighters? – closed in on Takitsubo.

“Now, then. Your bodyguard went skydiving and your bomber was zapped into submission. The search expert remains, but what can you hope to do on your own?”

“I can do this.”

Takitsubo was quick to make up her mind.

She grabbed paralyzed Frenda’s collar and immediately jumped out the broken window.

Part 7

This wasn’t a suicide.

She fell to a location less than three meters down. It was likely part of the training ground, but a net was laid out there to catch anyone who fell.

Takitsubo wouldn’t have taken that sudden dive if she hadn’t recalled seeing it earlier.

“This way. Super this way!”

Kinuhata Saiai had fallen earlier and she was beckoning over from behind a large fake building wall. Takitsubo adjusted her grip on Frenda, dropped from the net to the ground, and ran over to Kinuhata.

Fake buildings, trees, streetlights, benches – there were plenty of places to hide, but the training ground was still an open outdoor space. Staying here was not an attractive option. If they wanted to avoid being caught in a pincer attack, they needed to find a back entrance and withdraw indoors.

Takitsubo lowered the fluffy blonde girl from her shoulder to a concrete-looking floor.

“Frenda.”

“What, can’t you tell? In the end, you can’t expect any help from me.”

“I want to know how those drones work. Only you would know that.”

Did Takitsubo Rikou know exactly what people wanted to hear at times like this?

The Academy City Bomber reacted with a twitch.

“Those are just your standard wandering self-destruct drones that carry a bomb and charge at their target, right? Their structure itself is simple. Based on how far Kinuhata was blasted, the explosive they’re carrying isn’t anything special. If they’re loaded with 100 grams and it expands 800 times, in the end, that’s about the same force as a grenade. The lethal range should be around 10m.”

…But 1.75 million grenades thrown at you one after another would be more than enough of a threat. A minor fortress or combat airfield could be stained with blood and destroyed by that.

“1.75 million… She can’t be controlling them all manually, can she?”

“In the end, she’s probably providing general instructions with her phone and the exact calculations are all handled by AI. Like playing an RTS on easy mode.”

“Then super what if we jam those signals? That will cut off the manual instructions and I bet they’re linked up to a fairly large supercomputer to constantly perform so many flight control calculations.”

“I doubt that would work. She uses 250 thousand at once and has a total of 1.75 million in case some are brought down. Even if each one has a cheap toy of a CPU, linking 250 thousand of them together in parallel will provide some decent processing power. They won’t need a stationary supercomputer.”

It sounded like jamming the wireless network itself would still work, but they didn’t know what the swarm used to communicate. And if they were military, they would likely use multiple methods at once: EM, IR, magnetism, ultrasound. Actually jamming them would require blocking every one of the methods…but how many methods was “every one” of them?

Kinuhata sounded fed up with it all.

“Drones that super small have to run out of fuel or battery before long, right? If we stay on the run to buy time, won’t they eventually break down?”

“Kinuhata, we can’t make that kind of assumption without seeing their design or specs. They might generate power from the wind or the sun and they might be remotely charged using ultrasonic waves or microwaves.”

A portion of the blue sky was colored black.

As if ink had been splattered into the world.

Frenda looked up with her lips twisted into a stiff half-smile.

“So…in the end, which sounds better to you: having them attack us in a straight line or having them spread out and attack us as a wall?”

“Either way, Kinuhata would be the only survivor.”

“250 thousand at once and 1.75 million in all… If I’m super pummeled by that many bombs, not even Offense Armor is going to last.”

Kinuhata could only watch the drone swarm in a daze.

They circled an area as large as a schoolyard as they took aim. Like a giant flying serpent. If the Item girls stayed outside, they would be swallowed by a sandstorm of mechanical explosions.

And…

“Ah ha ha. You call that escaping?”

They heard a voice.

“Being out in the open makes it easier for me☆”

It belonged to Norsitro Chatellenie.

She jumped lightly down toward them from from the broken window a few meters up.

She was less than a hundred meters away.

“!”

Still seated on the floor, Frenda immediately pulled multiple explosives from her short skirt.

“I seriously doubt that will work.”

The wind roared as it spiraled thickly around them.

A giant tower rose up on either side of Norsitro. The wind wrapped around and extended high into the sky, forming powerful tornadoes.

Realizing what that meant, Frenda froze before making her attack.

The brown girl’s hair and leather skirt were flapping wildly, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Handheld rockets have a terrible tendency to miss when exposed to crosswinds. I hear that world-famous Russian one that only costs 20 or 30 thousand yen has trouble hitting at even 500 meters. And with this kind of random turbulence, you have no way of calculating a path.”

Tornadoes.

Frenda’s eyes widened because she had already been hit by an esper power attack here.

“You mean…in the end, she doesn’t just have lightning!?”

“What’s wrong? Was there some other weather you were hoping for? Or were you worried about low pressure because you get headaches on those days? Just let me know☆”

Norsitro smiled in her bright neon green bondage outfit.

And it began pouring rain.

Less than five seconds later, it turned to fist-sized hail.

Then a clear blue sky shined overhead.

It was like she was casually flipping an invisible switch. Frenda Seivelun was completely dumbfounded.

Was this Norsitro Chatellenie’s power?

“You’re…kidding.”

“It super looks like she can control all forms of weather, including lightning, doesn’t it? Her power might control the air instead of electricity.”

“Kinuhata, don’t treat maybes like confirmed information. Remember what I said about information the enemy gives you?”

“Yes, yes, I have to super take it with grain of salt! …But how else are we supposed to explain that ridiculous power!? Mutter, mutter…”

Kinuhata’s complaints were cut off.

By the repeating sound of something beating at the air.

It was a Two Wings helicopter that could be flown unmanned…no, based on the arm-like wings spread out on the sides, was it a Six Wings?

250 thousand at the same time with a total of 1.75 million.

As those things flew around, the “black dragon” must have shown up on Academy City’s anti-air radar. Their operator must have known that would happen, but…

“Shut up.”

It exploded.

Even Frenda wouldn’t want to be chased by one of those. That was just how brutal the Six Wings’ air-to-air and air-to-ground armaments were, but it happened so easily.

“I said it’s a super weapon superior to nukes, didn’t I? You can’t expect ordinary weapons – even an entire squadron of attack helicopters – to deal with it.”

“So in the end, is there no way of stopping her?”

Her power was frightening, but it wasn’t just her power.

The drone swam was frightening, but it wasn’t just the drone swarm.

All three Item members had the same thought: how could they even begin to deal with a monster like this?

Even now, the two tornadoes were raging across the ground.

With a din of destruction, drink vending machines, streetlights, and fake buildings were torn from the ground and thrown into the air. People were meant to climb and descend them with ropes, so it had all been bolted to concrete pedestals, but it didn’t seem to matter.

If a human was caught in there, they would be thrown high into the sky…and then what would happen?

Norsitro grinned.

She wasn’t making a threat to negotiate. The joy of someone who planned to use it spread across her face.

“I’m not saying there’s no hope at all for you. After all, one of you is supposedly a shield esper.”

“…”

“But if protecting yourself from the fall is all you can manage, then I just have to hit you again from the side. Which would you prefer to kill you: the self-destruct drones or my power?”

She was extraordinary.

The three Item girls didn’t see how they could win even if they all attacked at once.

Norsitro Chatellenie held a position near the very top if you ignored the excessive financial cost of operating those drones as an individual.

But that was all the more reason to fight.

They couldn’t leave someone this powerful to her own devices. She would prey on Academy City’s ordinary students, drive them to the blackmailers, and even threaten the parents outside the city to make even more money. The people having their lives and futures ruined were not the fools who had purposefully rushed to the dark side to snag some dirty money. Norsitro was like quicksand that endlessly swallowed honest people with no such intentions. And because she was such a formidable enemy, she would cause a massive number of victims if allowed to go free.

It would be too late by the time the city’s wicked grown ups decided to do something about it.

If she wasn’t defeated here and now, there would be victims.

Kinuhata clenched her teeth. Takitsubo had accepted Kinuhata’s plan to survive by having Mugino betray them and fight Norsitro, but that plan had mostly fallen apart. Now it was more important to silence her as soon as possible. Kinuhata was a dark side villain, not an agent of good or justice, but she still felt that need.

And then.

“Hey.”

She heard.

A voice.

Coming from even further back than Kinuhata Saiai, Frenda Seivelun, and Takitsubo Rikou.

There must have been a different back entrance.

Was that squishy sound all that remained of an unlucky guard who happened to be there?

“Why would you go off and have a party without me?”

A grin split across Norsitro Chartellenie’s face.

“Oh, you’re finally here.”

Sweat poured from Kinuhata’s body.

The Information Broker was supposed to be an expert in handling all forms of information, so why didn’t she understand what it meant for her to be here? Why didn’t she understand the great risk there?

Regardless, the silver-haired girl spoke her name.

“Mugino Shizuri.”

Part 8

The density of the air changed.

In terms of human emotion, the most fitting word was probably “tension”.

Her presence made all the difference.

For better or for worse, Item…required Mugino Shizuri.

“Tch. Super how did you know where we were?”

Mugino answered Kinuhata’s trembling question by flicking something over without even glancing in her direction. It was a tag even smaller than a kernel of corn.

Takitsubo took it.

“Is this a brand-name clothing shop’s anti-theft tag?”

“The good brands use really nice ones. They’re convenient, so they come in handy.”

“What is it, Mugino? Do you want to buy that?”

“Not really…”

Was this why Mugino had been so fixated on feeling the clothing in that store? She had been interested in the anti-theft devices, not the fashionable clothing that cost 100 thousand yen each.

The silver-haired girl with her body contained in a neon green bondage outfit smiled thinly.

“Being a team leader is a challenge, isn’t it? Failure isn’t an option and that responsibility falls on your shoulders.”

“We’ve never met. Don’t act like you know me, trash.”

Kinuhata Saiai considered the situation.

Mugino Shizuri had arrived.

The plan was for Mugino to suspect them and act of her own volition, but they hadn’t finished setting things up for that. Simply defeating Norsitro Chatellenie wasn’t enough. If Mugino learned of the current situation as they did so, Kinuhata’s betrayal would come to light when Mugino started asking questions after the fighting was over. Then there was no avoiding being vaporized by Meltdowner. So this was her chance.

She knew that, but she still felt a cold sweat pouring down her back.

The fingers of death were running along her spine. She could feel them.

She had to deceive and betray Mugino Shizuri.

Screwing it up would mean death.

It was finally showtime.

Part 9

They were in the outdoor field of the former fire fighter training ground in District 2.

A great mass of moving air created a low roar.

250 thousand drones were packed together like a black dragon as they moved together.

They were all aimed at Mugino Shizuri alone.

The Information Broker laughed with her phone in hand. She held a hand over her mouth as she did so.

“Oops. I forget to ask.”

Norsitro’s expression was as casual as if she were out at the supermarket and realized she had forgotten she needed to buy the one item that was on sale.

“Would you prefer to be killed by my power or by the swarm? But asking now is a pain and it doesn’t really matter, does it? You’ll die a painful death either way.”

Mugino Shizuri gave a snort of laughter and flicked out a card she had pulled from her pocket. Before it could fall to the ground, she accurately struck it with a thick Meltdowner beam.

Silicon Burn.

Nearly 150 scorching electron beams thinner than hairs fanned out in front of her.

However…

“Tch. So a scattershot’s not enough.”

“I am using 250 thousand of them with a total of 1.75 million. But if you think you can shoot them all down, feel free to continue going for a high score. Although I expect you’ll be crushed to death first☆”

No matter how many Mugino destroyed, the number was replenished, so the swarm never dropped below 250 thousand.

And that wasn’t the main problem.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner had failed to bring down the swarm. Even when using her special Silicon Burn. With Mugino’s attack a failure, nothing could stop the endless drone force. This time they charged toward Mugino as if aiming for a cross counter. En masse.

A sticky blackness filled a large portion of the scene.

Like a bottle of pitch black ink had fallen over on a painting of Academy City’s scenery.

The black dragon devoured the blue sky. No, the swarm weapon made up of 250 thousand drones circled around together to attack Mugino.

According to Frenda’s analysis, each one was as destructive as a grenade.

But there were 250 thousand of them.

If they all attacked at once…it would be like taking a machinegun spray of explosive rounds head on!

“Mugino!”

“Want to make bets how many seconds you’ll last?”

Norsitro smiled in her neon green bondage outfit.

The following explosion felt like space itself were expanding.

But Mugino wasn’t injured.

Despite the many, many explosions going off.

“Oh? I thought you were all offense, but I guess not.”

She had a shield of light.

Meltdowner normally flew sharply out as a straight line, but she must have instead had it spiral close to her hand. It looked like a round shield fully covering Mugino’s body.

The sharp fragments and even the blast itself were pushed back. Academy City’s #4 had extraordinary specs in defense as well, but Norsitro wasn’t normal either. The very act of forcing Mugino Shizuri to defend – that is, to threaten that bundle of arrogance enough that she thought she would die if she didn’t defend – was extraordinary enough.

Adding Mugino Shizuri to the fight wasn’t enough to defeat Norsitro Chatellenie.

All four members of Item together couldn’t end this.

They were on the verge of death and cutting it close.

But that was more than just a risk. With a different viewpoint – Kinuhata Saiai’s for example – it could also be a one-in-a-million opportunity.

Win or lose? Live or die?

No one knew what was going to happen, which created enough of an opening to take otherwise unthinkable actions.

Here, she could force it through.

She concluded a chance like this wasn’t going to come again.

If she was going to fool that girl.

If she was going to get Mugino Shizuri to betray her, it had to be here.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner, even when scattered like a shower using the Silicon Burn, could not shoot down Norsitro Chatellenie’s 1.75 million drones.

To put it another way, it wouldn’t look strange if something unexpected happened here.

The countless wandering self-destruct drones sliced through the air as they charged in.

Now was the time to make up her mind.

Takitsubo and Frenda had both given Kinuhata some advice while they were pursuing the Kitchen Car truck to reach this place.

“Saying you will ‘deceive’ her may make it sound like something you do while watching on from some safe place, but that won’t work. A safe zone on a deadly battlefield where anything can happen will look suspicious to Mugino.”

“In the end, the only way to truly trick Mugino is to risk your life. So you can’t be lying to save your life. This is Mugino Shizuri we’re talking about. She’ll notice immediately if you aren’t truly risking your life with the lie.”

In other words.

…A liar wouldn’t do something so dangerous. Someone trying to trick me with a lie would make sure they were safe.

By taking advantage of Mugino’s low opinion of traitors, Kinuhata could hide in her blind spot.

So it had to be here.

It had to be when Norsitro’s drones charged in and detonated at close range. It was something only possible for Kinuhata Saiai who stood outside Mugino’s Meltdowner shield and who Academy City’s #4 could not fully protect.

She did it herself.

She deactivated Offense Armor.

“Gh.”

She felt a scorching heat. From her right flank. First she felt a twisting and tugging sensation on her skin and then her small body was thrown more than two meters straight back.

“…Gah…?”

She rolled a few times and her small body was left trembling.

(Oh…no.)

Had her fear of Mugino made her take the act too far? An iron taste seeped into her mouth. She could feel something throbbing inside her. She felt badly dizzy, perhaps from the blood loss, and she couldn’t tell which way was up as she lay on the ground.

She might really die here.

Takitsubo Rikou ran over, held the wound, dragged her behind cover, and waved her phone in her other hand while calling out to Mugino.

“Mugino, she’s lost a lot of blood. Her breathing is heavy and her pulse is falling. My health management app is giving red zone warnings. Kinuhata won’t last like this.”

“Huh!? …Because she was near me? But how’d she get hurt so bad when she has Offense Armor!?”

It was a valid question.

But…

“She was fighting before you got here. While protecting me. She was more worn out than anyone. If you use you power too much, you run out of stamina, right? That’s what happened here.”

…So that was the scenario they were going with.

If they didn’t push this through while Mugino’s thoughts were still confused by the red blood, they couldn’t avoid her questions about what the three of them were doing at this mysterious training ground behind her back.

So…

“Norsitro Chatellenie. In the end, she planned to kill you and take control of Item as a convenient system. Kinuhata was fighting with everything she had because she didn’t want that. She was fighting for you!”

Frenda sprinkled some kernels of truth in there.

The Information Broker didn’t just gather information – she was an expert in when to play her trump card. If they let her, she would start shouting the truth, but by establishing a different idea in Mugino’s mind first, Mugino wouldn’t listen to what the enemy was saying.

And while fighting back and looking irritated, Mugino Shizuri scratched at her head with a hand.

“~ ~ ~ Frenda!!”

“Not happening. She must have lost around a liter of blood already. The lethal limit is based on body weight and Kinuhata’s the smallest of us, so she has the least wiggle room there. Pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, drills – I have a lot of tools on me, but nothing that can heal people. In the end, I think the most I have is disinfectant, bandaids, and bandages?”

“1.5 to 2 liters is the limit even for a large man. Kinuhata is in serious trouble if she doesn’t get a blood transfusion immediately,” stated Takitsubo Rikou.

She never showed any emotion on her face, so she didn’t have to try and put on an act here. The listener would imagine their own emotional state mirrored back to them in her voice.

So the more pressure Mugino felt, the more urgent Takitsubo’s warnings would sound.

They were being pushed back. Item’s leader clicked her tongue.

“Did you call that kid the Information Broker? From the way they move, I’m guessing those guys around her are firefighters.”

“In the end, probably so.”

“That makes them a security team specialized in keeping her alive over defeating her enemies. …They should be prepared for any kind of emergency. Which means they might have transfusion kits for each blood type including Rh positive and negative.”

“Then what should we do, Mugino?”

Since Kinuhata couldn’t talk, Takitsubo organized their information from behind cover.

She showed Mugino the horrific values on the health management app.

“We can’t even withdraw with her like this. Moving Kinuhata in this state will kill her. Fight or run, we need to start by giving her enough blood to save her.”

…The numbers on the health management app were of course fake. The app was called Vital Jamming. It was a joke app that let you adjust some simple sliders to change the readings to show a minor cold, an injury, or even close to death.

“Look, these are the numbers on your health app.”

“This shows your current calorie intake and exercise level. If you keep this up, the results will be tragic a month from now. The changes will be noticeable in your figure. Especially in the hips and legs.”

…Takitsubo already had it installed on her phone to make the threats necessary to get Mugino to go jogging.

(Does that mean I’m still super alive enough she needs the app to make me look bad enough? Damn. And here I was getting all worked up thinking I might really die.)

Kinuhata felt regret. And embarrassment.

She was supposed to know this was all meant as a way to keep her alive.

The #4 must have decided Meltdowner alone wasn’t enough. She moved Kinuhata, who was lying collapsed behind some twisted metal with no engine or electronics inside. It may have been used to practice rescuing people from a vehicle after an accident. A moment later, that cover was engulfed in a series of explosive blasts.

Mugino grimaced at the continuous noise and raised her voice.

“If they have transfusion kits, where do you think they would be!?”

“Blood is a liquid, so it gets heavy if you have a lot of it. With A, B, O, and AB with Rh positive and negative for each, carrying around the liters needed to resuscitate people of any blood type would mean fighting with weights strapped to you. I doubt they would do that. But they never know when one of their people will be badly injured. In the end, they won’t keep it too far away.”

Or to put it more simply…

“At the very least, I doubt it’s in these fake buildings out here. If you want to find their transfusion kits, you’ll want to head inside the training ground’s main building!!”

They had an objective.

Of course, they couldn’t actually have Mugino save Kinuhata.

Their goal was for Mugino Shizuri to betray her teammate.

They needed the perfect genius of Academy City’s #4 to fail here.

“My, my. Oh, dear, dear. Hee hee.”

This came from Norsitro Chatellenie a short distance away.

She was here too, so she had of course seen that delightful drama play out.

Mugino was already under the impression that Kinuhata had been injured while fighting for her, so even if the Information Broker accused the other three, it seemed unlikely Mugino would blast them with Meltdowner right away.

As an information expert, she must have picked up on that mood.

So she knew nothing she said would get through to Mugino now that she was “the villain who harmed Mugino’s teammate”.

In her neon green bondage outfit, the girl shrugged and operated her phone.

“Sounds like you have an interesting predicament on your hands, but it looks like sticking to the villain role will be the most fun for me. Speaking of, do you think I’ll just let you through?”

“Tch!!”

One movement of her finger moved the swarm of drones.

Not even Mugino Shizuri could push back the entire swarm of 250 thousand drones with a maximum of 1.75 million.

Several beams sliced through the sky, triggering a few explosions, but that wasn’t enough to bring them all down at once.

“Mugino. Your wall doesn’t have to be sturdy. Even a curtain or net can catch and stop the flying drones.”

“Go to Frenda for little tricks like that!!”

The training ground facility included more than the outside field. Item carried injured Kinuhata down a flight of stairs and entered an underground field meant to simulate a subway station, but that didn’t last even ten seconds.

After a rapid series of explosions, the entire thin ceiling was torn away.

“You can’t get away.” The bondage girl was staring down at them with hands on her hips. “Training grounds like this are designed with wide open spaces underground. They’re fairly flimsy, which makes them easy to blow away. Although that means you won’t be buried alive below dirt, so maybe you should count yourselves lucky?”

They didn’t have time to complain.

The drones were like the downpour of flaming arrows meant to bring down a castle. More and more poured down from above, so Item had no choice but to run down the hallway and climb back to the surface at another exit.

Each individual phenomenon might not be so bad, but they couldn’t seem to regain control of the overall situation.

They couldn’t escape the palm of Norsitro’s hand this way.

“Mugino. In the end, they’re here too!”

“Kh. Kill them to clear a path!!”

Large men, presumably former rescue squad members, emerged from behind vending machines, benches, and other hiding places. They were armed with unique weapons like firefighting axes and rope guns that launched the rope with noncombustible gas.

On top of it all, Norsitro Chatellenie had an unidentified weather control power.

Everyone could tell things were only getting worse.

They were tumbling into the abyss and fast.

They could physically reduce the number of rescue squad members, but the number of drones never seemed to drop. No, Mugino and Frenda were shooting down quite a few of them, but that was like trying to change the weather by throwing stones up at the rain falling from the sky. It was a waste of time.

And if they couldn’t stop somewhere, they couldn’t stop Kinuhata’s bleeding.

They weren’t even supposed to move her right now, so what would happen if they tried to break through the enemy like this?

“Mugino… In the end, we have to give up,” said an astonished Frenda as she scattered mines to slow the enemy down.

…That Frenda could say something like this without it sounding out of place made Kinuhata suspect she was always adjusting her emotional distance even during ordinary conversations. Because what came next was a suggestion only allowed in the dark side.

“We can’t get a transfusion kit! We don’t even know if there’s one here, so we shouldn’t risk our lives looking for it. I get wanting to save Kinuhata, but you’ll be killed too if you keep this up!! This isn’t just about Kinuhata! If we don’t withdraw now, we’ll all be killed!”

“You’re the leader. So you decide,” added Takitsubo to drive the point home.

Item wouldn’t distribute the responsibility among its members. Stressing that this was Mugino’s decision applied pressure to her. That was a necessary part of setting things up for Mugino herself to betray Kinuhata.

They had no choice. There was no other way.

It didn’t really matter how Mugino phrased it.

But they couldn’t let her claim that they all made the choice together. So all of those psychological loopholes and outs had to be plugged up in advance. Item’s search and information expert showed no mercy here.

“Make a decision, Mugino. Without a choice from our leader, we will all die.”

With that, she preemptively eliminated the option of not making a choice and letting them run out of time.

Now Mugino Shizuri had no excuse.

Since they couldn’t overwhelm Norsitro and acquire a transfusion kit right away, Mugino had only two options: abandon dying Kinuhata and escape or choose nothing and let Kinuhata die when time ran out. Either option would mean Kinuhata’s death, so this was a powerful card to use against Mugino Shizuri who despised betrayal more than anything.

Kinuhata and the others had betrayed her first.

Mugino Shizuri would never forgive a traitor.

So for the three of them to survive, they had to cancel out their betrayal with Mugino’s betrayal.

“Mugino… In the end, I think Kinuhata wants to say something.”

The stage was set.

Takitsubo, supporting her bloody body behind unreliable cover, glanced over into Kinuhata’s eyes.

She understood.

The final emotional push would be most effective…coming from Kinuhata herself.

“Forget…about me.”

Kinuhata forced out the words as she gasped for breath.

This wasn’t an act.

She was cold.

They hadn’t managed to stop the bleeding. She could feel her body temperature dropping.

She hadn’t been killed right away, but she had lost a significant amount of blood. She found she couldn’t speak any louder than this.

“Whether or not there’s a transfusion kit somewhere in the facility…it’s super too late for an injury like this. So please…get out of here. You’re wasting your time. You’ll only get more of you killed. So please…”

An odd feeling filled Kinuhata as she spoke.

She was deceiving Mugino.

Objectively speaking, this was a terrible thing to do.

But she was finding she no longer had to consciously lie to betray Mugino here.

Strangely, she found she was speaking her true feelings.

She didn’t want Mugino to die here.

She didn’t have to lie about that, so she simply placed her current honest feelings in her words.

“I’m thankful… If you hadn’t taken me in, I’d probably still be on ice in the back of that lab. Gh… I was only meant to rot away without every leaving that place, so now I’ll just be returning to the earth. So you don’t have to feel bad about it… So hurry and go.”

(Yeah…)

The words left her almost on their own

And while it happened, a thought came to her.

(If only I wasn’t carrying all this baggage. If only I had super been the kind of person who could say this without needing to sully it like this.)

That could never happen.

The initial assumptions were wrong.

Or maybe this was the final destination of the traitor.

The end result for a selfish dreamer.

The final refuge of a fool who couldn’t bear the weight of reality.

“I was only ever something extra you picked up, right? So you don’t need to bet the fate of Item as a whole on someone disposal like me. Go!! I’ll break their perimeter. I’m going to die anyway, so I might as well go out in a blaze of glory and take a ton of them with me. Cough… That’s a hell of a lot better than dying a meaningless death!! There’s no saving me now, but I’ll super use what time I have left to make Norsitro and her people regret crossing us! So get out of here already!!!”

She drove her point home.

Kinuhata Saiai waited for Mugino to speak.

For her to say, “Fine then. If there’s no other option, we’ll leave Kinuhata here to die.”

For her to admit, “I don’t want to die here, so if you’re going to die anyway, you take care of it.”

Reality wasn’t like the movies. Especially in Academy City’s dark side, a heartless response like that would hardly be a surprise. And because Kinuhata knew that, she bet on it happening. She bet her life and future on it. Bring it on. Because if Mugino didn’t abandon her here, this would end without her receiving the bargaining chip she needed. Then she would be accused of betrayal and reduced to charcoal.

In the distance, a neon green bondage outfit creaked and Norsitro shouted to them in amusement.

“What do you think you can do with that dying body? You can’t even act as a shield against my swarm, so how do you expect to break our perimeter!?”

Something exploded.

The rusty smell grew stronger again.

A sharp fragment must have grazed her because Mugino had a cut on her right cheek.

The drones were only as big as a paper airplane made from a flier, so they could only carry so much explosive. And Frenda’s expert analysis said they weren’t carrying anything special. Each blast was only about as much as a grenade, so the lethal range was about 10 meters.

Even so, a lethal range was a lethal range.

Rapid-firing Meltdowner beams wasn’t enough to stop them all, so Mugino destroyed the base of a nearby fake three-story building to topple it and use the plywood as a shield. She could shoot down the leading drones, but that wouldn’t last forever. And even if she did defend against the sharp fragments, the shockwave still circled around the cover and struck her body.

A single bomb or bullet could kill. Far too easily. That was how it worked on the dark side. A total of 1.75 million? No, she couldn’t let her guard down with even a single drone.

But.

Even so.

“…Takitsubo.”

“What?”

“There’s still a chance, right? If I manage to get inside that building at the cost of my own flesh and blood and acquire a transfusion kit, we can save Kinuhata, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Heh,” laughed Mugino Shizuri.

And she gave her answer.

Item’s leader held her palm straight out and stepped forward. Out from behind cover.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

…Wait a second.

Why isn’t she betraying me?

“I’m not running.”

Her voice wasn’t particularly loud.

But Mugino Shizuri did speak.

She had to know how bad the situation was for her. She had toppled the fake building to create a shield because she knew she couldn’t shoot down all the drones with Meltdowner.

But a fake building was only a fake. While the drone attacks weren’t designed with penetrative power in mind, this wouldn’t last long. Once the consecutive blasts broke through, it was all over. And Mugino had stepped out from even that much cover.

And yet.

She completely thew out the cold calculations of the dark side.

“I will never abandon a teammate and run.”

A drone exploded.

Close by.

Kinuhata received no new injuries.

Because Mugino Shizuri stood in the way, clenching her teeth. A shard several centimeters across had lodged itself in her shoulder.

This was the borderline between life and death. If the truth came out, it was all over. That was why Kinuhata had put on an act, even if it meant losing more than a liter of blood.

She was of course deceiving her teammate.

But Mugino Shizuri’s heart turned out to be…unexpectedly sturdy?

“Bring it, Information Broker!! I don’t know your name, but you will pay for underestimating Item. Did you think the Mugino Shizuri would let you get away with doing this to one of my teammates right before my eyes? You’ll be nothing but charcoal once I’m done with you!!!”

Takitsubo fidgeted nervously with her usual lack of expression.

Frenda Seivelun appeared aware how dangerous the situation was. She was frantically trying to work out a course correction from behind cover.

“Wait… In the end, why are you getting all hot-blooded right now when all our lives are on the line!? Don’t you know what Item’s leader is supposed to do!? Hurry up and tell us get out of here, Leader Mugino!!”

“This is my decision to make and I will never betray anyone. I won’t leave Kinuhata hear, turn tail, and run!! It isn’t a matter of pride anymore. All the tools I need to save my teammate’s life are within arm’s reach. If I have to let these blasts tear the flesh from my bones, so be it. I’ve got plenty of excess flesh to offer. So I will get my hands on that transfusion kit!!”

“…”

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner could not shoot down all of the drones even with its scattershot. She could also use her power to defend, but that wasn’t its primary use and it was far from perfect.

More explosions erupted.

She wasn’t critically wounded yet, but she was gradually being worn down.

Academy City’s #4 was.

The next head of the proud Mugino Family was.

All because Kinuhata Saiai had dragged her into this.

Mugino would have had more options here if she were alone. Meltdowner could pierce through any obstacle. She could have escaped outside the former training ground and then sniped Norsitro through the thick wall.

But she couldn’t do that.

Because she couldn’t leave injured and bleeding Kinuhata’s side.

Because she would prefer to accept some disadvantage than abandon a teammate.

Because she wanted the life-saving transfusion kit no matter what.

As fearsome as she was, Mugino Shizuri wasn’t lying. She wasn’t deceiving anyone. She wasn’t betraying anyone. Yet she was being worn down for the sake of a dirty liar.

While roaring that this was better than abandoning her dying teammate and escaping on her own.

“You’re…kidding.”

Kinuhata Saiai was not Mugino Shizuri, so she hadn’t heard what the old butler Mujinayama said.

But he had said that the best way to prevent betrayal was to prepare for it in advance.

And he had said that suspecting your own people was a form of betrayal in and of itself.

Because.

If the person you suspected was not in fact a traitor and was instead a reliable ally who trusted you from the bottom of their heart…then your own suspicion of them would have branded you as a traitor.

Bull’s eye.

“No…”

She had decided to deceive.

There was no way around the fact she only had the one life. So she had decided survival even at the cost of betrayal was the right choice.

But she couldn’t do it anymore.

Something was burned through inside Kinuhata Saiai.

“Are you kidding me!? I super can’t stand it anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!!”

Part 10

Someone was crying.

They were bawling loudly like a small child.

It was the siren of doom.

Lies? Acting? Deception?

She was past caring about any of that.

Frenda and Takitsubo were watching Kinuhata Saiai from a short distance away.

This was past the point of not knowing how to approach an unmanageable child. Theirs were not the expression a parent would give to their child. The look in their eyes was one of abandonment – of “sigh, now you’ve done it”. They also kept an invisible distance from her so they could stay safely out of the way of what was coming. They chose to trust only the sixth sense they had developed as villains.

The world seemed to rapidly pull away from Kinuhata in all directions.

The weeping girl was left all alone.

If was over for her once Mugino Shizuri discovered the truth. She had known that from the start. But Kinuhata Saiai couldn’t stand it any longer.

“I…”

Her words caught in her throat.

She was aware how self-destructive this was.

Some part of her brain was screaming for her to stop.

But it was too late.

It was game over whether she stopped here or spat out the rest of her words. Mugino Shizuri would never forgive a traitor. Once she was certain of her suspicions, they would not go away on their own.

But that was fine.

She would feel better this way.

She wanted to get it all out before someone could stop her and before she passed out from blood loss.

It would pain her more for this to end unresolved. That she couldn’t bear.

“I lied to you!! I couldn’t abandon that ordinary person who was being forced by the blackmailers to rob the bank, so I saved her knowing she was a criminal who had attacked you! Everything’s gone wrong since… But that’s no excuse. I made my choice and I’ve been lying to you super ever since!!”

Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie gave her an icy look.

Unsurprising really.

The last thing she would want after working so hard to gather up information on a scandal was for the target to self-destructively go public with it. The treasure held by the brown girl in the neon green bondage outfit was now worthless scrap. Of course she wasn’t happy about it.

“It was all my fault!! So that’s enough, Mugino! I don’t need a transfusion kit! Just get out of here. You super don’t need to get hurt here!!!”

There.

She’d said it. She had come clean.

So Kinuhata Saiai managed a somehow twisted smile even as the tears spilled from her eyes.

…If only she’d done this in the first place.

She still didn’t think it had been wrong to act on behalf of the ordinary person being threatened into committing robbery by the blackmailers.

But what about the rest?

Self-preservation, self-preservation, self-preservation, self-preservation! Kinuhata Saiai had been ugly, dirty, and rotten. How could she possibly excuse her actions there?

Had saving the girl being forced to rob a bank really and truly been the same thing as lying to her teammate to save her own skin?

Saving someone was no excuse for betrayal.

If she really had done the right thing, she didn’t need anything else. Instead of worrying about her own life, she should have accepted an honorable death.

All of this was the result of failing to do that.

She had been weak, wretched, and yet greedy. Mugino Shizuri had been injured in her attempt to protect that traitor. She had shed her own blood. And it wasn’t going to end there. At this rate, Mugino, Takitsubo, and Frenda would all die. Item would be finished.

And it would all be Kinuhata Saiai’s fault.

An enemy and a traitor from within were two very different things.

Kinuhata Saiai had been taught an important lesson.

She now knew she had fallen to a position more miserable than death. She was like an insect flipped on its back and unable to right itself.

Even when she had been raised in the back of an unofficial lab, wasting her life away unknown to the world, she had at least still had a human soul.

Even when she had been taken in by Item and been asked to help with their dirty jobs, she had had her soul as a villain.

Kinuhata could tell she was having trouble enunciating. Was it her tongue or her brain? One or the other wasn’t working right after losing so much blood. She didn’t care which. This was far better than having the fear and pain rule her thoughts, preventing her from doing what had to be done.

“I’ll super handle the rest.”

When had her soul been reduced to that of an insect?

She knew the answer.

From the moment she chose to give up on being human.

“I know this is just more selfishness on my part, but I super want to take responsibility for my own actions. You don’t have to bother with any of this, so hurry up and go!!”

And.

Academy City’s #4 monster…listened to it.

It entered her ears.

It soaked into her brain.

Mugino Shizuri now knew what had happened. She had certainty. And she did not forgive traitors. Because she had been raised by the Mugino Family as a born gangster.

To reiterate yet again, Mugino Shizuri did not forgive traitors.

So.

What was the definition of a traitor?

What had Mujinayama said, after his long years of service to the Mugino Family and everything he had seen there?

“Heh. Shut the hell up.”

And.

There was no beam of light.

Even though Kinuhata was ready for it.

Mugino Shizuri placed her palm on the sobbing girl’s head.

Ignoring her own bleeding.

“If you can say all that and you can risk your life to come clean regardless of the consequences, then you’re no traitor.”

Mugino Shizuri’s bloody face bore a small smile.

She was the kind of person who could smile here.

The world had pulled away from Kinuhata in all directions, but she wasn’t alone. Someone had approached her and rubbed her head.

“You’re Item. I will never forgive a traitor, but I always protect my own.”

Kinuhata Saiai couldn’t get any words out.

A moment later, a drone dropped down like lightning and triggered an explosion.

Part 11

Reality was heartless.

No matter what emotions had just been exchanged between Mugino Shizuri and Kinuhata Saiai, the silver-haired girl only had to input a simple command on her phone to send 250 thousand drones rushing in to attack. Each of those unmanned weapons was loaded with an explosive and the swarm made a merciless physical attack.

There was an explosion.

But it happened far off in the empty blue sky. Within the dragon of closely-packed drones.

More explosions followed. The chain reaction continued on and on.

The drones attempting to blow up Mugino and Kinuhata broke apart well before reaching them.

“Wha-?”

Norsitro Chatellenie was speechless.

Apparently this was something not even the Information Broker understood.

…Like any aircraft, drones were at risk of breaking apart when pushed too hard. When attempting maneuvers beyond their limits, the combined force of the air resistance and shockwaves would rattle the main wings and cause the aircraft to shake apart. Within Earth’s gravity, you could never forget that it was unnatural for anything to leave the surface and fly.

But what had caused this?

The 250 thousand drones were electronically controlled by the parallel processing of 250 thousand CPUs and fully guided by Norsitro’s smartphone. She couldn’t see any reason for them to break apart on their own!

“A maximum of 1.75 million drones? With 250 thousand operated at once? Your swarm control system can break through even if a fair number are shot down by anti-air weapons?”

This came in a casual, singsong voice. And a wicked one.

Mugino Shizuri spoke even while stained red by her own blood.

“But all you’ve done is gather an ass-ton of the same craft, which means they all have the same weakness. I just have to find a single vulnerability and I win. And I had plenty of time to gather information while they were pummeling me. Your trump card was laughably easy to defeat.”

“Oh, is that so? And what exactly are you going to do? Fry all their CPUs with an anti-ship EMP bomb? Or maybe pull an anti-air microwave cannon out of your ass? Fantastical super weapons are great for winning theoretical arguments, but they can’t protect your very real life. Do you have an attack method that can help you in the real world!?”’ shouted Norsitro in her glittering neon green bondage outfit. “You won’t run away? You always protect your own? …Absurd. Why would you make that kind of performative claim in front of me? Did you not look into the legend of the Information Broker? Yes, yes. You have my full attention now. And I won’t rest until all of you are dead!!”

But bloody Mugino gave a snort of laughter.

(Well, she does attack with lightning. I suppose they would be designed to withstand an electric surge.)

That Norsitro would give an actual response to that kind of speculation showed how naive Norsitro was.

When the enemy gave the answer themselves, she had only two options: scoff at the answer for being way off, or frantically try to throw them off because they made a lucky guess.

But if she hadn’t said anything at all, doubt would remain. Whether it was right or wrong, staying quiet had likely been Norsitro’s best option. But she couldn’t help herself. Even though this was like playing concentration and giving up your turn by flipping over cards for your opponent.

“Kh. I have the power to change the weather. The drones can fly through rain or hail without issue!!”

“Sure. For unnatural weather you designed yourself, right?’

Mugino didn’t even glance over behind cover.

Standing out in the open, she pointed her index finger straight up into the blue sky.

“You adjust the drones’ maneuvering based on the weather. There’s an optimal speed for sunny weather, an optimal angle for rain, and so on. When you know it’s coming, you can use your own program there. But with truly unexpected gusts of winds blowing between the buildings, the drones will tilt on their side. And during a sudden downpour, the apparent viscosity of the air changes and the main wings will rattle until they break.”

That was where Mugino had to strike to win.

Meaning…

“It comes down to the air’s viscosity. Or the apparent viscosity anyway.”

She gave the answer.

Saying it here wouldn’t change the result. She had only said it to assert dominance over her opponent in an act of villainous cruelty.

“If I burn the air with Meltdowner, it will reduce the humidity, which dries out the air. But if I instead blast a water tank, the water inside will pour out, greatly increasing the apparent air resistance. It’s simple once you know the trick, but that is enough for the 250 thousand and 1.75 million drones to tear themselves apart. Pretty neat, right?”

“Kh… You mean…that’s what you did?”

It might seem obvious, but that kind of obvious thing could be the most dangerous among all the unusual things found in the supersonic world. Quite a few of Academy City’s prototype fighter craft had ordinary air tear off their main wings because they were unable to withstand their own vibrations.

“The last thing you want is for someone else to alter the weather. That’s why you control it yourself. No matter how unnatural it might look, you needed to alter the environment for all those drones! Even if it meant using some strange power!!”

The maximum of 1.75 million was a certainly a threat, but using the exact same craft for all of them had been a mistake.

Securing multiple different models would have been a challenge when manufacturing, operation, and maintenance were taken into account. The simple financial cost and effort of operation would have been several times greater. But the choice had come back to bite her in combat. The world’s armies would not use a single standard craft just because it was the latest and greatest. Just like Academy City used the Two Wings and Six Wings simultaneously.

A single vulnerability would affect them all.

Throw them off there and the entire swarm would be suddenly destroyed.

The explosions continued. Mugino wasn’t aiming Meltdowner in that direction, but the drones couldn’t approach the former training ground where their targets awaited. They all broke apart on their own and their explosives detonated.

Mugino Shizuri sneered.

She might fight for Academy City or the greater world beyond its walls, but she was neither good nor righteous.

This was the smile of a villain who knew the taste of blood.

“Now, that takes care of those annoying drones buzzing around. Which only leaves your power to deal with.”

Part 12

Mugino Shizuri and Norsitro Chatellenie.

Regardless of how many other people were around, this was their battle.

Whoever won would win it all. Whoever lost would lose it all.

“Don’t expect a signal. I’m not flipping a coin or anything.”

“Did you not consider that I might kill you while you said that, fool?”

They both took action immediately.

A thick beam burst from Mugino’s palm.

The neon green bondage girl smiled.

She was still alive and well.

Several of the fake training ground structures had been burned and melted, but that was all.

(Meltdowner missed its mark?)

“No, did she bend it with a current rivaling a bolt of lightning!?”

There was another beam of light.

Something powerful pierced through Mugino Shizuri from head to toe.

A high-voltage current.

In fact, it was a lightning bolt of more than a hundred million volts.

“Kah…ah…”

Mugino’s breath caught, but she managed to stay on her feet, probably because her Meltdowner power controlled electrons. She had touched a torn high-voltage line outside the city without issue yet a shock at the District 3 bus terminal had briefly stopped her heart, suggesting her psychological state influenced the effectiveness of that ability far too much to be a reliable means of defense.

“Mugino, that isn’t an esper power.”

And Takitsubo Rikou made a judgment from behind cover.

This was the natural result of repeatedly using the same trump card in front of that search expert.

“She is controlling 250 thousand drones at once. Each one is the size of a small paper airplane, but you can think of that like fanning the air with a fan 250 thousand times that size. The movements of that swarm can cause a gust of wind in a single direction, a swirling tornado, or even rapidly reduce the air pressure, allowing her to change the weather itself. She can even cause hail and lightning that way.”

“Ha ha!!”

Not at all bothered and even laughing, Norsitro Chatellenie immediately responded.

“Didn’t I tell you!? Oh, sorry. Your leader wasn’t here when I explained that, was she? Anyway, I said keeping them in top condition isn’t easy!! The Superb Starling weather control swarm claims to be a strategic weapon superior to nuclear warheads, so it had damn well better be able to handle this!!!”

Meaning…

“You…”

Academy City’s #4 Level 5, Meltdowner.

Mugino Shizuri, leader of Item and born gangster of the Mugino Family, had been cornered this far by…

“You’re a Level 0?”

“Funny, isn’t it?”

She was laughing.

Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie was.

Was that sneer on a face more pained than a lost child’s directed at herself?

“The villain who stands at the summit of Academy City’s evil, devours the city’s ordinary people, and has extended her reach into the world beyond the city…is no more than a Level 0. And I’ve fought back against this entire world because I hate being called that!! Yes, it’s true. I wanted to prove to everyone who’s ever laughed at me that I am not powerless and there is so much I can do!!!”

…She had been certain.

Mugino Shizuri had been absolutely certain that large-scale weather control was Norsitro’s esper power.

So she had thought this would end up as a battle between elites.

But it wasn’t.

This was a lot messier.

“There was a major…incident.”

The enemy was a true Level 0. yet she had challenged Item’s Level 5 and two Level 4s head on and driven them to the brink of death.

“Someone had to die and we all discussed who it should be. Everyone’s eyes gathered on me. Not one of them defended me. …That’s when I made up my mind. I decided I would survive even if it meant killing them all. I decided I would be the one looking down on every last one those shits who tell their pretty lies so they can pretend they’re good people!!”

Was that the trauma that led to her surrounding herself with a rescue squad that provided her with the power to survive rather than the power to kill?

She had been labeled a Level 0.

She had been abandoned by the adults’ systems and the children’s rules.

She had been declared unwanted.

But still she clenched her teeth and reached out her hand in that rotten quagmire.

She wanted power.

She wanted to be strong.

The drone swarm could not approach Mugino. She used the viscosity of the air to bring them down before they could.

But that did not rid the 250 thousand drones of their ability to act like a giant fan to stir up the air, manipulate the air pressure, and alter the weather. Using that did not require directly approaching their target.

This was a harmful technology, but Mugino was willing to recognize the girl’s ability to convert her desire for improvement into actual power.

However.

That was only if she didn’t arrogantly brag about her unprecedented achievement and hadn’t become a monster who endlessly devoured ordinary people’s lives.

(Power corrupts, huh?)

“I can’t respect a villain who reduces herself to a disposable rocket only meant to elevate the things she’s created. What have you become in your constant fear of being killed?”

“?”

A battle between villains begins before the fighting actually starts.

Whichever one was daunted and taken in by the other would fail.

So those who lived in the shadows paid close attention to how they lived their lives even as they turned their back to the sun. They didn’t think twice about breaking ordinary laws and regulations, but they followed their own ironclad rules or Family solidarity and they despised lies, deception, and betrayal in their midst.

And once the 1.75 million drones and their weather control were stripped away, the win condition here was as simple as can be.

She was the Information Broker.

Mugino couldn’t let the bondage girl’s weapon get to her and she had to view her for who she really was.

…The lightning was powerful, but it wasn’t enough to take the life of Academy City’s #4. The rain and hail were powerful enough to engulf Academy City if used systematically, but they couldn’t immobilize Mugino right away.

And no matter how much the winds and tornadoes might bluster, they couldn’t alter Meldowner’s electron beams the way they could a lead bullet or rocket.

Mugino Shizuri grinned.

“So would your one and only effective card be…the lightning? But that’s for defense, not attack. It’s true a current of more than a hundred million volts might be able to interfere with and bend my Meltdowner.”

“…Wait…”

“That’s right. If you’re so smart, you should have realized this ages ago. …If you only have the one effective card, coming up with a countermeasure is easy.”

Mugino didn’t have time for games.

Kinuhata Saiai must have gone the extra mile in trying to deceive Mugino because it didn’t look like she had used fake blood. That meant her bleeding was real. In that case, Mugino’s goal was to acquire and use a transfusion kit. Norsitro Chatellenie was no more than a point on the way.

So this wouldn’t be a skirmish.

If she was going to kill her, one major attack would do the trick.

Item’s leader announced her intentions.

To make sure it wasn’t too late.

To save the life of her teammate.

These parting words were not just for show.

“You’re – dead – meat.”

Epilogue: Is It Solved?

It was an overcast day, dimming the sun a bit.

However, it wasn’t enough for rain.

A certain apartment building in District 7 would have looked like any other if not for the giant military transport helicopter stopped on its flat roof.

The large craft with a coaxial rotor on the front and back was in fact an extremely high-end medical helicopter. Although it might be better to call it a mobile black market hospital.

Since it could provide surgery but not carry hospitalized patients, its hospital rooms were distributed among cheap hotels and weekly-rented apartments.

Kinuhata Saiai lay in a room on the seventh floor of this particular apartment.

She had been moved from the helicopter, which doubled as an operating room and an ICU, to the “general ward”, so her condition must have been improving.

“You lost some flesh, but none of your major organs or blood vessels were harmed. …If you did that on purpose, you have talent at faking serious injury. You would make a decent scammer.”

“In Academy City where dashcams are super common?”

“I never said anything about going after cars. These days, people will get insurance for their roller skates and scooters to protect themselves.”

Standing by her bed was a picture perfect sexy doctor.

That was probably a form of self-promotion.

She was apparently a black market doctor who Mugino Shizuri and the rest of Item relied on…so it was possible she had customized her own face and figure. After all, the miniskirt battle nurses guarding the place with full-auto shotguns were apparently drug soldiers pumped full of military pharmaceuticals.

“Once I remove the stitches three days from now, you’ll be good as new. On my pride as a doctor, I promise you it won’t leave a scar. I’m giving you a week’s worth of antibiotics, but every last human being alive starts feeling sick around when the drugs run out. Don’t let it worry you.”

“Is there super any reason to load me up with antibiotics?”

“The most basic and most troublesome part of medicine is disinfection and sterilization. Or are you one of those people who doesn’t trust anything a doctor tells you?”

“That depends on the type of doctor. Seems to me a black market doctor would want to threaten her patient with baseless lies to super make as much money as possible.”

“Probably so,” The sexy doctor smiled a little. “Any other changes?”

“My body feels warm.”

“Part of the remedy.”

Kinuhata wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean.

But apparently there was a reason for it.

“Now, the lethal limit is generally calculated based on your weight, but it is also influenced by the rate of blood flow. Ultimately, what matters is keeping your blood pressure stable. That’s really what saved you. The shard that pierced your side caught the clothing around it and shoved it inside the wound, which meant you lost less blood than you otherwise would have.”

“Is that super so?”

“Do you feel dizzy or have a headache? Giving blood transfusions takes practice. I can’t believe a complete amateur would sloppily fill you with blood right there after only taking a look at the blood type label. And forcing so much blood in you during an emergency is especially bad. When the amount of blood increases too rapidly, your body can’t keep up and you come down with symptoms similar to hypertension. That will go away in a few days.”

The sexy doctor suddenly stopped talking there.

And after a pause, she made a suggestion.

“When you return to Item, you’ll wind up in more life-or-death battles, won’t you? I hate to save a life only to have it lost soon thereafter. Black market doctors aren’t exactly known for their ethics, so I could rewrite some documents to extend your stay here. You would of course have to pay to use the bed that long.”

Taking a break was a valid option.

And with a medical expert recommending it, maybe she should take her up on the offer.

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

But that was Kinuhata’s response from the bed.

With an expression she likely would never have shown to the rest of Item.

Kinuhata Saiai smiled like a child her age was meant to.

“I want to get back to them as soon as I can. If things there are going to be that dangerous, they’ll super need their shield!”

“Hello, hello! I’ve read through your report and…the ability to communicate unchecked data with the outside world? This one could have had truly deadly consequences, huh!? Norsitro Chatellenie was it? It’s a good thing she wasn’t the kind of Information Broker to sell tech indiscriminately. Oh, and the vulnerability mentioned in your report has already been patched, so trying to abuse the fact checking that way will be immediately detected and you will be assassinated for it. So be careful, okay!?”

The Voice on the Phone was cheerful even now.

Although she was an expert at controlling people remotely without revealing her true thoughts, so the smile on the other side of the connection may have actually been stiff.

Only three of the girls were in the District 5 tourist hotel.

The blood transfusion had saved Kinuhata’s life, but that didn’t mean she could be up and about right away. She was currently hospitalized with the usual black market doctor so she could recover.

“Phew.”

Frenda Seivelun wiped the sweat from her brow.

Cardboard boxes, packing tape, scissors, and such were strewn about.

She had wanted some old newspapers and it turned out a large hotel had her covered there. Which made sense since each room was given a newspaper each day.

If asked why they couldn’t let the delinquents of the support group handle this, they would say it was to preserve their privacy as girls…but the real reason was they couldn’t trust those low-level thugs to handle their dangerous possessions with sufficient care. Especially the personal possessions of the Academy City Bomber.

“Where are we headed next?”

“Ask Mugino.”

They had just caused a major incident.

They had no way of knowing how many of the Dark Rescue Squad and the rest of the Information Broker’s people were left. Given the scope of the profits, she had to have had a decent-sized group. Staying in one place too long would be dangerous, so Frenda and Takitsubo were packing. Quickly changing hideouts was best at times like this. …Ideally, any fools who attacked the recently abandoned hideout could be traced back to the rest to wipe them all out. That would probably happen this time too.

Mugino wasn’t here and no one questioned it.

In fact, it would have seemed unnatural and creepy if the arrogant #4 had been actively helping prepare for the move.

“In the end, this was a really close one. We completely lost control at the end there.”

“It comes down to what will resonate best with a villain like Mugino.”

Nevertheless, they had cleanly resolved everything.

…Or had they?

Since her own life and future hung in the balance, Frenda Seivelun couldn’t leave this up to assumption and speculation. She wanted solid facts.

Yes.

“I think Kinuhata at least…has escaped any danger.”

“Right.”

“Um. But in the end, what about us?”

Mugino had personally forgiven Kinuhata Saiai after she cried and told the truth.

But some others had missed that chance.

Because they were too perfect a villain.

“In the end, Mugino might end up killing us.”

“Don’t worry.”

Frenda smiled in self-deprecation, but she hadn’t expected a response.

The quiet villain had given one.

As those girls took another step closer to death.

“I know how to handle Mugino better than anyone.”

Refusing to have anything to do with the packing, Mugino Shizuri was in the bedroom with only a single door separating her from the other two.

The incident was over.

It had been a close thing, but Kinuhata Saiai had returned to Item.

There shouldn’t have been any more to it.

And yet.

“…”

Mugino lay curled up and unmoving in the bed.

She didn’t even need to call him again. The conversation was already replaying in her head.

Mugino Shizuri recalled his words.

“How far must a betrayal go before you can truly call it a betrayal?”

Those were Mujinayama’s words.

But he hadn’t stopped there.

“This world isn’t a lost cause. Complete traitors are in fact rare. Even a police officer who goes undercover with the intention of dismantling the system of violence will soon find it hard and painful to betray the people they get to know there. …Most traitors move back and forth between sides. When a traitor leaves some small sign of their treachery, it means they still feel some guilt about their actions. They may not even notice it themselves, but it means a part of them doesn’t want to harm their allies, even if it means their own destruction.”

Those could be seen as kind words.

Cherry picking just that part, it could sound like a lovely lesson about offering forgiveness no matter what someone has done.

But it wasn’t.

Butler Mujinayama was the advisor who stood alongside and assisted the leader of an international gang with hundreds of thousands of soldiers around the world. He had to have seen more than the just and the beautiful.

“But people can adjust to anything,” he had stated.

He must have seen it time and again during his long years serving the Mugino Family. He must have seen trustworthy companions undergo a transformation. He may have even executed those former companions personally.

“Even if they feel powerful guilt at first, they will gradually adjust as time goes on. The guilt will fade. So there are traitors who have diluted their guilt to nearly nothing at all. You could say those are the most dangerous enemy for a system of violence like the Mugino Family that cannot go to the police. Enemies do not appear out of nowhere. But if you give them room, they will grow. Lady Shizuri, please be cautious. It is too late once they have grown. You must nip them in the bud before they can grow. You must correct your own people. This is the most necessary task in supporting a large and powerful Family that’s members support each other.”

“Shut up,” muttered Mugino Shizuri.

She spat out the words as if cursing someone who wasn’t here.

“I can hear every damn word you’re saying.”

Afterword

If you picked them up one at a time, welcome back. If you bought them all at once, welcome.

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

With the kanji in the “Item” part of the title reading “girls’ coexistence”, one of the major themes of the series has been the girls’ bonds with their teammates and you could say the threat of betrayal acts as the other side of that coin, but this one explored the idea of betrayal in a different way from Frenda in Volume 4. I tried not to make it seem too nasty, but what did you think? On the other hand, when several people gather and live together, wouldn’t it seem twisted in its own way if they didn’t have any complaints or secrets at all?

Also, a note for all of you confused by the Two Wings last time. The world of weaponry is a confusing mess of different numberings and nicknames, so you can’t take anything at face value. I just hope this helps you imagine what the focus and essence of the Item series is.

By the way, what to do with Halloween was a little tricky since this series takes place before Index OT1. I ended up deciding it didn’t matter when it caught on in Japan because I was focused on the blonde-haired blue-eyed Seivelun sisters.

As for the enemy boss Norsitro Chatellenie, she took that form because I was wondering what the most frightening weapon is as laser weapons, railguns, and such become more and more practical. The tech is a little more retro in this series since it takes places in the past, but this still seemed plenty realistic. Supposedly it could become a next-gen strategic weapon surpassing nukes, but is that really true? The version in the story wasn’t just a swarm. It also allowed weather control attacks by stirring up the air over a wide area to change the air pressure. …By focusing on the idea of small individual powers combining in great number, you could probably find other ways of playing with the swarm concept.

Weaponizing weather and natural disasters is an idea I’ve also used in my other series from time to time. Maybe I see that as a line that humans aren’t meant to cross. …The scary part is that I get the feeling we really could accomplish it if we put our minds to it.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Nilitsu-san and to my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. For the new outfits, all I can do is apologize! Thank you so much for sticking with me this long.

And I give my thanks to the readers. Who is the most frightening member of Item? After digging down into the other characters, maybe it isn’t Mugino Shizuri anymore? I’m curious about all of your rankings. Thank you so much for reading this far!!

It is time to close the pages for now while praying that the pages of the next book will be opened.

And I lay my pen down for now.

All the trial and error before multi-rotors took over is so weird and fascinating, don’t you think?

-Kamachi Kazuma

Ending

“How much did the higher ups know?”

What are you talking about?

“Yes, yes. I know it can be difficult to maintain that look that says everything went according to plan…but this one was a little much, wasn’t it?”

“Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie was an expert at monetizing threats and a villain with no interest in distributing technology. But that was just happenstance, wasn’t it? If an expert at distribution had known of that vulnerability, Academy City would have collapsed. So isn’t it odd to insist you knew about this but ignored it?”

“I do wonder sometimes if you higher ups are giving any of this any thought at all.”

…

“No, no. Your monopoly on the city’s tech remains intact and the world is at peace, so you can of course always say Norsitro’s hesitation was part of your plan.”

Then just go with that. It is the truth, after all.

“But I can’t help but wonder if you higher ups don’t have anything going on upstairs.”

“And if that’s true, then who is it that’s really maintaining the world’s power balance?”

Sorry.

I forgot to mention it, but this is the end of the road for you.

This was all rather unexpected. Yes, I do apologize for not having anything going on upstairs.

…Also, #6, this one is on you. If you hadn’t interfered, this never would have happened.

“Hm??? What in the world are you talking about, Board Chair- gah!?”

It was like a switch being thrown.

It was that sort of instant death.

Life was over for the person whose head was split open by a blunt object from behind and they likely had no idea what had even happened.

It happened late at night on the top floor of a skyscraper among the high-end offices of District 3.

A woman’s head lay on a luxurious desk with red pooled around it.

Someone stood directly behind her.

Stained red by blood and shoulders heaving with her heavy breaths was Hanano Choubi.

She had just reclaimed her position as the Voice on the Phone by killing the woman who had stolen the seat from her while she was away.

The murder weapon was a metal bat.

Academy City’s dark side was an insane world filled with all sorts of deadly tools – yes, including mini-nukes made from a super heavy element – but this particular tool was exceptionally common even there. Hanano Choubi gripped the blunt weapon again as if confirming the sensation in her hands.

“I am! The Voice on the Phone!”

A dull sound followed.

To reiterate, the woman had been killed instantly. So the twitching of the limbs with each new blow to the crushed head had nothing at all to do with life activity. The human body was operated by the brain, so a powerful stimulus there could control the body externally. This was a far too obvious example.

Hanano knew the target was already dead.

And that the true target of her hatred was not the woman who had been ordered to take this seat.

But that wasn’t enough to quell her anger.

“Me! Me!! Only me!!! …I won’t let anyone else have it. Only Hanano Choubi can hold this position. As long as that weight keeps me a part of this world, then I can continue to cling to my position as a confirmed survivor from here on as well!!”

Hanano Choubi shouted to someone who was not present.

Someone she suspected to be listening in somehow or other.

So you could call this a form of harassment directed at that monster who loathed killing.

“Goddamn you, #6!! I’ll show you… I will get back at you for making a fool of me. You call yourself the Dark Side’s Bane? Well, I’ll show you just how bad an idea it is to make an enemy of me. It’s always like this with youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!”

Destiny was not fixed.

Especially given how crucial observation was in the quantum theory that Academy City specialized in and researched.

Furthermore, quantum theory itself was not a toy just for espers.

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 GT Volume 13 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword GT Volume 14 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending GT Volume 15 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword [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 Item LN 5 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Item LN 6 Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Epilogue - Afterword - Ending Mikoto vs Misaki Illustrations - Prologue - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Epilogue Mikoto vs Misaki 2 Prologue - Depth 8 - Depth 7 - Depth 6 - Depth 5 - Depth 4 - Depth 3 - Depth 2 - Depth 1 - Epilogue - 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 A Certain Scientific Mental Out: The Queen’s Play A Certain Magical Index: Genesis Testament SS2 [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