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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter4

2023-12-21T13:50:58Z

JDMP: /* Part 3 */

==Chapter 4: At the Center – Duel_and_Struggle,CRC.==

===Part 1===

The hospital’s 1st floor hallway was a straight path to the ICU where Anna Sprengel slept.

“Heh heh.”

The red-clad silver young man’s shoulders shook with laughter.

He mocked the foolishness of Kamijou Touma whose shoulder was gushing blood where his arm should be.

“I wondered what trump card you would rely on in the end, but all you did was break the glass container? That one normally sleeps within his coffin, but he naturally awakens when he locates the disease plaguing this world and returns to his coffin once he is no longer needed. Producing the world-healing elixir is all well and good, but how long can you last like this? Given the rate of blood loss, I would guess 10 minutes at the mo-”

Kamijou Touma wasn’t listening.

A single step covered all the necessary distance. He softly sent the translucent dragon emerging from his right shoulder toward CRC.

It didn’t feel like punching with a fist or biting and tearing with great jaws.

It was probably a miniscule attack like a forehead flick.

A mass of compressed sound erupted a moment later.

That was all it took to launch Rosencreutz several dozen meters down the hospital hallway.

“Oh, ohh!”

This result shouldn’t have been possible.

Misaka Mikoto, the other #5 girl, Academy City’s next-gen weaponry, the Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal, the grimoire library, the Magic God, and even legendary magicians like Aleister and Kingsford had failed to achieve this.

This was the very first clean hit against him.

And it happened almost too easily.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”

He bounced repeatedly, producing the sounds of physical destruction, the screams of muscle and bone, and the wet hacking of bloody coughs.

But none of that explained CRC’s trembling.

He was looking down at his own left hand.

Still seated on the floor, the silver young man viewed his own hand pressed against the floor and he trembled.

“You made this old man…''touch the floor''?”

This was a first.

It hadn’t been allowed to happen even once before now.

He had always stood tall on the battlefield. His march across Academy City had continued unabated even during the satellite’s heavy metal bombing and the Hula Hoop’s largescale particle accelerator cannon. With that in mind, just how much power had this small result required?

''This far surpassed human limits.

''The boy had chosen to cross that line.

Because he had sworn he would save the greatest wicked woman who could only wait for death.

“…”

Kamijou Touma provided no response.

He did not speak up in triumph and he kept his head lowered, hiding his expression.

A change came over the boy’s own shadow at his feet.

''It flickered.

''Unnaturally, like a dying fluorescent light.

What had this power cost him?

It was like the boy, who supposedly had a physical body, was shifting into the realm of shapeless and weightless illusion.

“………………………………………………………………………”

He took another step.

That was enough for the world to distort and strain. The space around him definitely sank. If he had stepped with greater purpose, it might have triggered an inwards gravitational collapse in that space, creating an irreparable hole.

The wordless action conveyed a single purpose.

Kamijou Touma was stepping forward to approach CRC once more.

This wasn’t over.

He wouldn’t let it end with just the one attack.

He would tear CRC apart, chew him up, and fully eliminate him from the world. He would save the people he considered important, even if it meant staining his hand with blood.

He had made the decision.

“I see.”

Rosencreutz did not speak at length here.

When taken to their absolute limit, formulas became beautifully simple.

Just like E=mc<sup>2</sup>, CRC’s conclusion was a concise one.

Cracking sounds came from all across his body as he stood back up. He lifted his hips from the floor, placed a hand on the wall, and allowed himself all the unsightly actions it required.

“I admit it. You have convinced this old man: this world is a fascinating place☆ Eh heh heh heh! I truly did not think it had anything left to satisfy my playfulness and eliminate my frustrations. Ah hee hee hee!?”

His eyes were directed straight at the dragon boy.

Drowning in his own passions, the holy man finally viewed that single boy as an enemy.

Kamijou Touma and Christian Rosencreutz.

A clash between superhumans had begun.

===Part 2===

The air was strongly compressed.

There was no need to hold anything back.

Kamijou approached from straight ahead, so Christian Rosencreutz held out his palm.

That was an invisible attack capable of destroying anything.

That brutal spell was clearly magic, but not even Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker could have stopped it and it would have torn the arm off instead.

The compression of the air passed a certain point and it rumbled out like an explosion.

But Kamijou did not speak a word.

He instructed what lay beyond his nonexistent right arm and the invisible dragon moved slightly. That was enough to overturn all the assumptions.

The dragon’s maw – and its razor-sharp teeth – bit a black object, stopping it in its tracks.

The object was a bit larger than a golf ball.

“''A…projectile''?” muttered Aradia, her eyes widened in shock as she watched from the sidelines.

This was the identity of the extremely powerful magic that supposedly made defense impossible.

There was no mystery or miracle there. In fact, if a projectile was given a lethal amount of destructive force, it would naturally be moving too quickly to see with the naked eye. That unchangeable rule remained the same even when magic had influenced the logic. It was only a common parlor trick.

Kamijou did not bother with mockery. For that matter, he showed no human reaction at all. He only swung his arm dragon horizontally, tossing the annoyance of an object aside.

Why waste time on ordinary emotion when he could dedicate that time to devouring his prey?

That was the only thought behind his actions.

“Hee hee. So you can finally fight back and let me have some fun.”

Rosencreutz continued firing.

Annoyed and irritated by the identical attacks, Kamijou’s dragon released a deafening roar.

It was possible the boy couldn’t control it himself. The sloppily swung jaws deflected CRC’s projectiles to the side, sending them ricocheting toward hospital rooms with no connection to the fight.

The silver young man grinned.

As if to say he had guided things in that direction.

But the fearsome attacks vanished into thin air before contacting the wall.

“Oh?” breathed CRC in fascination.

He had sensed something worthy of his interest.

“You eliminated my attacks without permission? No, this is a simple matter of willpower. Any attack launched without a powerful intent to kill will be swallowed up and destroyed. And any attack that misses its mark swiftly loses all meaning.”

“…”

“After experiencing an improbably uniform amount of misfortune, you loathe lucky shots from your enemy. And this old man loathes all coincidental actions that go against my passions and playfulness. I see. Our clashing wills have distorted space on the macro level. But,” said Rosencreutz with a mocking grin. He held his palm out to the side, casually aiming at the wall there. “Kee hee hee, ee hee, hwa ha ha ha ha ha!! That leaves me plenty of room to play. ''As long as this old man directs his intent to kill toward those strangers, I can still hit them''!”

Space was immediately sliced through over a distance of more than 100m.

But not because CRC had sliced through the innocent hospital patient beyond that wall.

A moment before he could, Kamijou Touma jabbed his dragon jaws forward and had it exhale a violent beam of light. Then he swung the jaws straight up to slice CRC’s right arm off at the shoulder.

Rosencreutz showed no interest in his own right arm spinning through the air.

“''Mend''.”

As soon as he spoke that one word, the nearby rubble gathered around and formed something like the smooth arm of a mannequin to stop his bleeding. This was not a resurrection that returned him to normal. He was only mending by creating something new. After traveling the world, gathering all sorts of knowledge, and going around teaching people the secret art to create a human from scratch inside a still, this was a simple task for him. He didn’t even bother checking the movement of the arm that was lither and more beautiful than a real human arm. Instead, he raised his gaze straight up.

The ceiling had split.

But not because it had been sliced through.

Like custard or gelatin, the hospital’s walls and ceiling had separated themselves to the left and right to avoid Kamijou’s attack. Including the beds, the medical equipment, and the wiring in the walls. It all forgot its original texture, spread apart at the center like a slime, and then reconnected like nothing had happened.

It was like the building itself had a mind and a life of its own.

Christian Rosencreutz drew on his vast wisdom to instantly explain it.

This was not creation or destruction.

It was…

“''Did you command it''? The intimidation of the crowned dragon king can command all living things, but also all inanimate objects?”

Those words carried deeper meaning than it initially seemed. And not just the silly risk of CRC himself obeying the command if he got careless.

Stray shots, hostages, other’s lives?

With this ultimate power, Kamijou wouldn’t have to worry about any of that.

Which meant…

''There truly was no one in the world who could stop Kamijou Touma after this monstrous transformation!!

He attacked again. But this time, it wasn’t just a beam flying from the dragon’s jaws.

The dragon itself detached from his right shoulder and flew out.

“Hwa ha ha hah!!”

CRC laughed loud, swung his body upwards, and dodged by breaking through the ceiling.

He had reacted to the real threat rather than let it hit him and see what happened. And at this point, he had finally quit relying on magic. He had needed to move faster than he could put together a spell.

The battlefield spread beyond the one long hallway.

They moved to a rehabilitation room, a break room, an operating room, and finally a nurse station on one of the higher floors.

It all looked the same, so Kamijou couldn’t tell what floor he was on. But the boy taking a step beyond humanity did see a familiar face down the hallway.

It was Aogami Pierce.

He was a powerless high school boy. But he was standing protectively in front of a small girl in pajamas who was holding a picture book. His legs were shaking, but he hadn’t frozen in place. He had purposefully chosen to stand there.

Whether he was more interested in the young girl or her mother was unclear, though.

Right and wrong didn’t matter here. He wasn’t bound by that.

Seeing that his awful friend had meant what he said, the boy who had partially fallen into illusion briefly smiled like he always did in the classroom, but then he renewed his resolve. Kamijou Touma forced his gaze away and viewed his powerful foe instead.

CRC – Christian Rosencreutz.

He could not let that monster go free and focus on that boy and girl.

No matter what.

“Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Oh? Kee hee hee, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

They clashed head on.

Kamijou swung the silver young man to the side.

He kicked him away and then tossed him up into the floor above.

He didn’t stop there, of course. He had already begun his next action.

The air froze.

The giant maw gnashed its teeth intermittently, creating a disturbing sound not even a guillotine or bear trap could have mimicked.

“Kh.”

While clinging magnetically to the hospital’s outside wall and trying to pursue the fight up to the upper floors, Mikoto found her feet pinned to the outside of a window. Pinned by fear. Her instincts were running wild and weighing heavily on her reason.

“What…is this? A psychological form of paralysis?” gasped the blonde girl with her arms around the #3’s hips.

If they would ensure that even the next attack would hit no matter how long the leadup, then the intimidation of those gnashing fangs could be called a surefire attack.

But it didn’t work on the silver young man.

An unpleasant sweat wet his brow, but he was still smiling

He acted out of playfulness and a desire to blow off some steam, so this could not bind him. After all, not even the #5 power had worked on him when it was used by ''its mysterious owner''. CRC was a monster with the mentality needed to continue smiling in this situation.

And Kamijou didn’t care.

Something flew from the dragon maw like a whip. It was a long, chameleon-like tongue. CRC stepped back before it could ensnare him, but then he realized something.

“Hm?”

''He was gone.

''Kamijou Touma had disappeared in the brief moment CRC’s eyes were off the boy.

But he could sense him.

A great pressure was approaching from the front!!

“You are a poikilotherm – that is, you have the ability to blend into the surrounding environment. But did you really think that would work against this old man?”

CRC swung a single arm, not hesitating to strike a point of empty space.

A cross with several sharp rose vines tangled around appeared there. It was more than a meter tall and it was entirely made of heavy gold.

It didn’t matter. A disturbing sound of bending metal rang out.

Kamijou and the dragon maw appeared out of thin air. The fangs and the cross struck each other.

The result was a series of snapping sounds.

“Kh.”

Seeing the cross bending, CRC kicked a nearby stretcher into the shutting jaws. It could be hard to tell since they were made so light for greater portability, but the stretcher was made of sturdy stainless steel to ensure it didn’t drop a critical patient. It wasn’t going to break in a crocodile’s jaws or in a brown bear’s grasp.

But the jaws were not slowed.

They closed at the exact same speed, the row of fangs approaching Rosencreutz’s hand holding the cross.

That cross was not magic.

Nor was it an illusion, but the arm jaws still chewed it up and erased the intruding wreckage from the world.

Those jaws would destroy even unshakable reality.

This was a new power Kamijou Touma had acquired at the cost of his own destruction.

It was an attack that allowed no response.

And most likely, it was a tragic power gained when someone gave up on someone else.

“I see.”

Rosencreutz smiled while dripping with a sweat of both tension and a desire to fight.

That smile contained an unusual heat as he shouted.

“Tell me. Why go to such lengths to protect Anna Sprengel? Hee hee, how much longer do you have left? What did you discover by accepting your own assured destruction?”

Only now did human language leave Kamijou Touma’s lips.

In a situation which screamed that doing so was the abnormality here.

“I will…protect Anna.”

But these were definitely his words.

Because…

“I…wrong to…search out…reason…excuse to fight…”

That was the final humanity left inside the boy who had become a monster.

It was like a tiny stone rattling around inside him, but it was something he couldn’t afford to lose.

So he refused to lose it.

That ordinary boy would never again hang his head and overlook a magical atrocity.

“Interesting – kee hee – but not good enough!”

Rosencreutz held his empty palm out toward the boy’s face.

While their weapons were locked.

That attack had already been identified as a projectile. But in this moment, the invisible dragon could not move to stop the point-blank projectile attack.

With the unpleasant sound of the air being compressed, Kamijou Touma’s entire head was obliterated.

He didn’t even have time to blink.

Kamijou took another step forward like nothing had happened. His head had already regenerated. A dragon tail appeared out of thin air and twirled away as a substitute. That was likely a lizard’s tail that would take on any damage he took. But Kamijou knew without being told that it was a move he could only use once.

Now that he knew he had that option, he wished he had held onto it for longer.

His gaze shifted to the side. The action showed some lingering regret. It all felt like it was happening to someone else. Single use and not knowing the effect until you used it was a devastatingly bad combination.

And with his eyes still in that direction, he casually sent the Dragon Strike straight toward CRC.

“Tch.”

Rosencreutz immediately fell back.

He escaped beyond the reach of the snapping jaws, but Kamijou did not bat an eye.

The entire surface of the invisible dragon jaws ''erupted''. All its razor-sharp scales shot out. They rushed out to pummel Rosencreutz’s entire body like a point-blank shotgun blast.

“Ohhhhh!” shouted CRC just before a white steam explosively filled the space.

In the Rosicrucian cabal, clouds were an important symbol of covering up wisdom and truth to prevent the unworthy from viewing it. Inside that cloud, no attack could hit him even if made from 0cm away. The entire space could be filled with a dense scattershot, but it would be as useless as trying to attack a cat that may or may not be there because no one could observe it.

Kamijou swept the dragon horizontally to tear the thick cloud apart in an instant and then the color red sprayed out.

The cloud didn’t matter at all.

The dragon released its breath.

It looked like a sharp purple-shining blade, but was that actually the poison stored in an evil dragon’s body being released at extreme pressure?

The box was shredded, the cat was forced out to establish its existence, and then it was killed.

“Kee hee.”

CRC laughed and took immediate evasive action, but also ignored the deadly toxin traveling through his bloodstream.

That silver young man had many legends told of him, but he was an alchemist at heart. He used alchemy as a starting point for all of his miracles, from the artificial life within the crystal to the red elixir.

So…

“You would use a nonexistent toxin against this old man? All poisons and harmful substances can be converted into medicines and beneficial substances if handled properly. Just like radiation can induce the cancerization of cells, but it is also used to treat cancer. It would be rude to not present you with my own wisdom in return!!”

Rosencreutz produced a deck of cards in his hand.

He fanned them out and went on to rotate them in a full circle in violation of gravity.

“The secret spell of Rota can be flipped around to make Taro, thus it can be converted into the cards that indicate the 10 spheres and the 22 pathways. Awaken, 78 cards. You are the one and only proper entrance to the light pouring down from beyond the tree – that is, the Ain Soph Aur, Ain Soph, Ain!!”

A violent white light exploded from the emptiness at the center of the card circle.

A beam of light sharper than a razor scorched the air as it rushed toward Kamijou’s right arm. The all-destroying dragon maw was split in two. While he was dragged around by the chaotically thrashing dragon, even more blood gushed from the boy’s shoulder.

The toxic red splattered across the floor and walls.

Christian Rosencreutz scoffed at the colorful artwork.

“Hee hee hee hee hee! How much longer now? Feeling lightheaded? Can’t stop the cold sweat? Worried by your pulse pounding in your chest? Nothing you do can reach this old man!! Even if you wring out every last drop from the depths of your heart!!”

A moment later, beams of light rushed out from seemingly every direction.

“Wha-!?”

CRC realized the boy’s bloodstains had drawn out strange patterns.

The instant he gasped in realization of what those patterns meant, the ''magic circles'' glowed with a disturbing light.

The floor and walls bubbled redly. It wasn’t just the white beams. Crimson serpents that should have been controlled by a lamp emerged, as did the yellow Citrinitas sand that had engulfed Los Angeles.

They surrounded CRC and came at him all at once.

His right arm was already fake, so he sacrificed that while backing away from the deadly chaos, his eyes widening at witnessing what shouldn’t have been possible.

“A scientific esper like you has entered the realm of magic?”

That was no longer CRC’s exclusive territory. Kamijou had intruded on the legend of the rose and the cross.

But how could this be?

Christian Rosencreutz was no ordinary magician. His very existence had become a legend. He refused to accept that even a Rosicrucian expert could understand and immediately make use of the spells he used.

But the fact remained that the red blood splattered on the walls and floor crawled, glowed, and bubbled.

It all drew out secret texts and magic circles known only to CRC. Even though these were the most secret of spells that he had never even shared with the others at the House of the Holy Spirit where they had all shared so much knowledge like they were sharing a meal. Not even the grimoire library would have been able to find these spells if she searched for them.

Had Kamijou Touma already evolved into a monster who could access the world itself and automatically use the magic he found there?

Something occurred to Rosencreutz once he considered that possibility.

…Known ''only'' to CRC?

“I get it now. ''This is a Rorschach test.''”

He should have caught on quicker.

An esper like Kamijou was using magic but showing no side effects.

“The magic knowledge did not come from within this broken esper. He showed this old man indistinct bloodstains, which I interpreted as the secret texts and magic circles I knew, unwittingly drawing out their magic!”

But however it had been done, the magic known only to Rosencreutz had still bared its fangs against him. Knowing the logic behind it did not stop his mind from imagining those shapes when he saw the bloodstains.

Of course, there was risk to Kamijou as well. He had no way of guiding what Rosencreutz imagined when he saw the bloodstains. This was a double-edged sword that could just as easily capture Kamijou himself in a powerful magical blast.

“Trithemius!!” shouted CRC, intricately moving his fingers.

Immediately, the magic light approaching him froze in place and stopped moving. He had made use of the encryption method that Westcott had coincidentally discovered. Rosencreutz had applied a random encryption to the bloodstains which had become secret texts and magic circles, eternally locking them so they could never be used. Much like ransomware encrypting a hard drive.

Rosencreutz felt a sizzling sensation at his temple.

This wasn’t like before. This emotion was anger.

The silver young man’s internal state had shifted up a gear.

“You dare force this old man to use magic out of something other than passion or playfulness? You continue to prove yourself to be my greatest nemesis!!!”

So what?

Kamijou ignored that and took action.

Something grew from the base of the great jaws that had replaced his right arm. It resembled a giant cape, but it was actually a sinister bat wing. The single wing gathered the air and then flapped.

The air became a solid mass and then became an extraordinary projectile that flew through the hospital.

At the same time, all the windows frosted over, the air electrified, and thick bolts of lightning rushed toward Rosencreutz from every direction. Was this what would happen to someone if they were thrown inside a large, swollen cumulonimbus cloud?

“You have not just created wind. The air pressure obeys your will, allowing you to control the weather!?”

This was well within divine territory, making it a legit miracle.

It could be blessed rain, or it could be electric divine punishment.

And CRC could also control clouds. He brought two fingers to his mouth and blew between them. One cloud struck the other, the weather conditions were forcibly altered, and the lightning changed course.

Kamijou Touma was already there.

He had rapidly covered the space between them, arriving right in front of Rosencreutz.

“Kh.”

The silver young man split the floor below him and broke through every floor below that, ending up in the hospital’s basement.

He wasn’t afraid of a ''normal'' punch.

He only realized after the fact that this had been a downwards strike from directly above.

But the hospital itself hadn’t been damaged. All of the floors in the way had parted like gelatin all on their own. After dragon-tamer Kamijou jumped down after him, the holes silently closed back up on their own too.

CRC held his palm out toward a thick metal door.

“The red elixir can conquer all deadly disease and even manipulate the lifespan!”

With a series of solid clanking sounds, the door, a cart, a scanning device larger than a fridge, and various other things gathered together and took the shape of a giant doll. It didn’t matter that they were all inorganic items. A liquid nitrogen tank must have burst because a thick white frost covered it all.

But Kamijou took action before it could actually do anything. In fact, Kamijou had punched Rosencreutz down here because he wanted something down here: the medical waste incinerator.

That special electric furnace could reach temperatures as high as 3500 degrees Celsius.

“…”

The wall right next to Kamijou audibly broke.

The following crunching sounds did not come from the invisible dragon maw.

''Kamijou Touma was chewing it in his own mouth.

And the boy raised his right arm. The front-facing dragon jaws opened as wide as possible. This was something new. Something massive and brutal filled the depths of that mouth with a dangerous light.

He didn’t hesitate to unleash it.

Magnetron Dragon Breath.

All the dust and moisture in the air burned as a fearsome white torrent tore away at Christian Rosencreutz.

Another taboo was revealed and that monster was backed even further into a corner.

===Part 3===

Light was compressed, sound was released in all directions, and yet no third party was affected.

Not one.

The girls had their hands full simply keeping up with the constantly moving battlefield. Misaka Mikoto moved freely along the hospital’s outer wall with her magnetism and Shokuhou Misaki held onto Mikoto’s hips, but both of them could only watch the intense fighting play out. That had to be the same for Aradia and the Bologna Succubus who were probably outside flying in the sky. No one could intervene in this direct clash between superhumans. Attempting to would cause it all to fall apart. Just like any stimulus to calmly simmering water could cause an explosive boil. No, that wasn’t it. That was only an excuse for their own inaction. Their real reasons were nothing so noble.

(It was me.)

Mikoto clenched her teeth at the thought.

She was staring pale-faced at where the boy’s right arm should have been.

(I pulled the final trigger!)

''She was simply afraid to do anything more.

She felt a deep aversion, like she were facing an unknown curse. But this wasn’t a gloomy curse born of an individual’s grudge or hatred. She was overpowered by the same sense of wrongness people had toward viewing or touching something holy and inviolable.

“What am I supposed to do about this?” she muttered distractedly.

This may have been the same feeling Level 0 Kamijou Touma had felt when it was Anti-Skill, Judgment, the Level 5s, and the Transcendents doing the fighting.

Their roles had reversed.

Now that boy alone had complete control of the battlefield.

Only he could face this enemy.

Titles had lost all meaning.

And the situation was still underway. This was no time to be stuck at a standstill. Kamijou was not a fount of unlimited possibility. Nor did he have a hidden power or special ability.

His shadow was flickering unsteadily. This power was bought at the cost of his own destruction.

Which meant there had to be a time limit.

===Part 4===

Kamijou and Rosencreutz clashed head on and the boy broke through a wall, flying across the hallway leading to the elevator. He was knocked up the elevator shaft and rolled along the floor before coming to a stop.

He found himself in a large cafeteria.

He felt an unpleasant sensation below him.

He could barely see it without straining his eyes, but the culprit was yellow sand.

The color of defeat had permeated the area.

Even though a hospital needed to be as clean and sterile as possible.

“…”

Kamijou Touma silently stood up and then wobbled to the side.

As if he were struggling to support the weight of the massive jaws.

Blood was still gushing from the shoulder where his arm had been torn away. He was not going to last long like this. In just a few more minutes, he would collapse from blood loss and he would not be getting back up again.

He stared at CRC. At that man driven by playfulness and curiosity who was now smirking with sweat soaking his face.

“Oh.”

So.

Kamijou didn’t care what happened to himself. His own destruction had been part of the plan from the beginning.

He had to find some way of ending this before he ran out of time.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Guessing a major attack was coming, CRC grabbed something out of thin air.

Whatever it was, it glowed red.

“The ruby’s shine points to the pure red of the rose. That female symbol is a pair to the cross and can produce anything and everything. So mass-produce monsters of death and destruction here and now!!”

A tremor ran through the building.

And not just one. More and more 2m silver orbs known as Pneuma-less Shells appeared, until they had filled the space.

The giant silver bubbles all opened at once. Not even Rosencreutz knew what would emerge. Still holding the mother device – the symbol of the red rose – CRC only laughed.

These things absorbed mystical power like a shaman.

They mechanically decoded it.

And they released it into the world.

“Stone tools – the oldest form of deadly bludgeoning. Wooden sticks – the oldest form of deadly whipping. Uranium – the oldest form of radiation poisoning. The oldest form of drowning. The oldest form of deadly gunshot. The oldest form of deadly burning. The oldest form of vigilante killing. The oldest form of hanging. The oldest form of decapitation, of skewering, of deadly vibration, of crushing, of electrocution, of poisoning, of vehicular homicide, of karoshi, of mincemeat death, of explosive death, of death from being buried alive!!!”

They split open.

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

And he released a brutal purple breath from the dragon.

Mutual death was fine by him.

“Gahhhhhhh!?”

There were legends of that sort.

For example, Norse mythology told of a great serpent that had grown until it could surround the entire world. During the final battle of Ragnarok, that dragon even managed to defeat the #2 god at the cost of its own life.

“Jormungand from…Norse mythology? Did you use the weight that not even Thor could lift to forcibly crush your own wound and stanch the bleeding?”

Kamijou didn’t understand any of that.

And it didn’t matter if he did or not.

There was precedent. In exchange for losing a possibly deadly amount of blood, this dragon that emerged from his right hand had robbed all power from a girl after she became a lightning god.

“Kh.”

The right arm – the invisible dragon – gained further control over the boy.

The shadow at his feet flickered unsteadily. It looked ready to flicker out permanently at any moment.

But an iron will of “that’s fine with me” could be seen within the boy.

If he could protect Anna Sprengel and the people who had helped try and save her, he was willing to move beyond the boundaries of humanity here.

So when Kamijou Touma raised his head, the light in his eyes did not waver one iota.

“~ ~ ~!”

Tears formed in Rosencreutz’s eyes.

He had not succumbed to fear.

CRC took an objective view of his own crisis and was moved to tears like he was watching a movie.

“Ha ha.”

And that cheap and irresponsible emotion was what allowed that passion-driven wicked holy man to draw on his greatest power.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha!! Incredible, simply incredible☆ This old man has actually being driven into a corner? Death has drawn so close? Hee hee. This is where it all begins. Once this old man pulls off a miraculous comeback and escapes alive, I will truly drown in my tearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs!!!”

That was like a trigger.

No matter how twisted and rotten he was, his playful side could resist the temptation of achieving mutual destruction with his nemesis.

And once he shifted fully toward survival, only one option remained.

Namely…

“''Run away''!!!”

He didn’t hesitate.

He broke a still-intact window and jumped out through it.

As much power as Kamijou now possessed, he had lost a lot of blood from his severed arm. There was no need to actually fight him. By moving far away, CRC could wait until Kamijou ran out of time and collapsed.

Kamijou would die on his own as things were and, if he were to try to use first aid to recover, CRC only had to slice off the boy’s head or tear out his heart.

Rosencreutz never would have allowed this before. Not because he was too proud. His playfulness and desire to blow off steam simply wouldn’t have accepted it.

But his objective had already changed.

Pride was just one form of enjoyment. Now that he had changed his objective from “victory” to “survival” and he longed for the pleasure of achieving that, he knew fleeing was the best option.

“Hee ha ha!! We will meet again after the barrier of time has crushed you and stolen everything from you!!” he shouted.

The very next moment, something exploded.

Rosencreutz was forced back inside the hospital.

It wasn’t a mysterious barrier or a never-before-seen ultimate attack spell.

It was no more than a 45cm piece of plastic.

An isosceles triangle flew just outside the window. It was a Snakehead drone and it wasn’t alone. A large group of them flew together like a flock of starlings or bats. The writhing mass of machines looked like a black serpent flying through the sky.

These were by no means elite crafts. All they did was locate their target, ignite their solid fuel, tackle their target at high speed, and detonate their internal explosives.

But they had still stopped Rosencreutz’s escape.

These were only mass-produced weapons, but CRC was only human. If he didn’t respond in some way, his body would be obliterated and he would lose his life. This wasn’t a decisive blow, but it still forced him to respond, limiting his options.

A voice spoke from their small speakers.

“Don’t try to carry the fate of this city on your own, you monstrous freak.”

This wasn’t about catching up or standing on the same field.

A group of disposable pawns was enough.

“You’re still human and one of Academy City residents I’m responsible for as Board Chairman. Don’t you dare forget that!!”

More and more drones ignited.

Each blast was no more powerful than a shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket and they didn’t do any real damage to CRC. But this was never meant to defeat that man. He had to throw out his pride as the #1. If these seemingly useless attacks could keep Rosencreutz still long enough for Kamijou Touma to deliver his own attack, that was more than enough of a win.

===Part 5===

It all began there.

Without that one act, they probably never would have had another opportunity.

Shokuhou Misaki bit her lip, made a decision, and aimed her TV remote.

“Don’t underestimate the power of a girl in love.”

She didn’t have to catch up.

But she still decided to make herself a part of this battle.

“Category 909: Preserve Consciousness. I will support you as much as it takes☆ So I’ll never forgive you if you relinquish your mind ability over something as silly as blood loss!!”

Kamijou Touma had been wobbling unsteadily side to side, but now he stood straight and solid.

This may not have had much of an effect on the boy when he had his right hand, but things had changed.

The Bologna Succubus joined in too.

“Oops, you beat me to it. But I’ll just add my rad Cold Mistress on top of that. The pleasures of death and resignation will reach you as the most excruciating pain, so don’t let your guard down, kid!!”

“Again she’s stealing my bit.”

“I have no idea what you mean♪”

Something had clearly shifted.

It was all turning against Christian Rosencreutz.

Maybe none of them could defeat him. They couldn’t carry such a major role. But stopping his cowardly flight was another matter. As long as it would lead to the ending that boy had shortened his own lifespan to achieve.

''They still had options.

''And that realization ignited the hearts of everyone there.

''They gathered all their power here to make sure his spirit would not be broken!!

“Tch!!”

Rosencreutz clicked his tongue in that antlion pit of a situation.

If he stropped struggling and was swept toward the center, those uniquely deadly jaws awaited him.

“What’s this, CRC?”

Ashamed of herself for relying on this, Witch Goddess Aradia danced as if sliding along the floor. Her bare feet mixed the ointment needed to prepare her Triple Reload.

“You seem awfully angry for someone who planned to slaughter us Transcendents to stave off boredom. Is that because the world you find before you is anything but boring? Yes, this is a colorful world of powerful stimuli where anything is possible – life, death, victory, and defeat.”

“!?”

“In the end, you are the kind of holy man who can only talk big when he has an overwhelming advantage. Someone like that can never understand that boy’s depths,” whispered Good, Old Mary. That Transcendent’s resurrection spell would mean she had seen all the many ways people met their deaths. “In truth, he is not all that powerful. In fact, he lost his life several times on the way here. But each of those deaths was the end result of living his life to its fullest – not once did he pull his punches when it came to living. He was constantly struggling to win, but when he did lose, he would pick up the pieces and continue forward anyway. He could not be more different from you, who grew bored with his strength but still clung shamefully to your current status.”

A quiet metal clink sounded.

Misaka Mikoto had flicked an arcade coin into the air.

When it landed back on her thumbnail, she took aim.

And she roared.

“I’m shooting a Railgun. Everyone, clear the line of fire!!!”

The air was compressed.

This normally would have been no threat to CRC. But in this one moment, the silver young man definitely frowned. He was annoyed. Which meant this was effective.

Altogether, they couldn’t have bought more than a minute of time.

But that was enough. Without a word, Kamijou Touma approached once more.

Half-dragging the giant dragon maw with him.

And…

===Part 6===

In the ICU, little Anna Sprengel was lying in a bed and surrounded by cold, hard machinery. Her expression looked peaceful at first, but it would have burdened a medical expert with great anxiety. She was not being given any kind of anesthesia, so the lack of response to the pain was not a good sign.

The color red flowed through several clear tubes.

There were a lot more of those tubes than normal.

“How is the dialysis going?” asked the frog-faced doctor with uncharacteristic tension in his voice.

“The process itself is going smoothly.”

Anna’s hair was unnaturally damaged. Blood did not flow through the hairs themselves, but they still received oxygen and nutrients to stay healthy.

That meant something was wrong with the patient’s blood.

“The processing of the blood before it is returned to her body is working too. Her blood type is being temporarily altered.”

The technician and a nurse were busily working even now.

Providing someone with the wrong blood type would put them in critical condition. That was undeniable. But it was also true that some people’s blood type had changed after a transplant for the bone marrow that created the blood.

So if all of the blood was changed and not just a portion of it, there was a chance of survival.

“This so-called ‘curse’ carries out its fatal attack after identifying an individual by their blood.”

The frog-faced doctor was a science-side physician.

But even if he couldn’t explain it with his own knowledge, he was not the kind of person to tell a suffering and dying patient that their pain couldn’t be real because none of the medical texts described anything like it.

He would save everyone suffering from disease.

Even if the disease had not yet been written down in any medical texts.

“So if the blood type flowing through her veins changes, this ‘curse’ should lose sight of its target and cease to function. I just hope that ends this.”

The word “curse” gave it an archaic and exaggerated impression, but he only had to think of it like a form of pollen allergy that reacted to an individual’s face or name.

(I do hope this “curse” can’t last forever without a target.)

Bacteria harmed people in order to survive and toxins harmed people because they took the place of a necessary substance. So if they could not function correctly, they would eventually be broken down, ejected from the body, and naturally disappear. They were neither good nor evil. It was no more than a struggle for survival.

“At this rate,” muttered the frog-faced doctor.

That was when ''a dull tremor shook the building.

''And the overhead lights flickered.

While this wasn’t a complete blackout, it was highly unusual. The hospital always had multiple power sources to ensure the survival of its critical patients. So instead of a problem with the power generation facility itself, this had to be something wrong with the wiring in the wall or ceiling.

Something had changed.

Critically changed.

===Part 7===

Kamijou Touma slowly collapsed forward.

No one could stop it.

He had lost too much blood.

His time limit had always been 10 minutes at the longest.

Not even Shokuhou Misaki and the Bologna Succubus’s psychological support could get him around the limits of his physical body.

The only trump card capable of defeating Rosencreutz had broken.

He fell to the floor.

The dragon vanished into thin air.

“Ha ha.”

Laughter echoed out.

Of course, it came from none other than Christian Rosencreutz.

“Now your defeat is assured,” said the silver young man, looking down to the floor. Calmly. “There never was an answer. You never could have found a way of defeating this old man. But this result is still a doom born of your own choices. ''You sought strength as a human, but you still grasped at inhuman power once you were desperate.'' Everyone watching this must have thought the same thing: ‘Oh, Kamijou Touma has deviated from his usual ways.’ And that deviation is what brought this result. You made a mistake and you were never going to find real power in that mistake. None at all.”

Wicked violence had won out in the end.

And.

''Death swept out.

The Bologna Succubus was blasted away like an artillery shell and Witch Goddess Aradia was embedded in a wall. Misaka Mikoto’s microwave radar wasn’t enough to detect what caused her to spin through the air and slam into the floor. Shokuhou Misaki pressed a TV remote against her own temple, but something impacted the back of her head before she could boost her eye movement. This wasn’t like someone being knocked out in a movie or drama. Something unseen clearly broke and split inside her head.

Accelerator could only watch while remotely controlling the Snakehead drone swarm.

Their time was up and defeat led to this.

“Kee hee, ee hee. Hee ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

Death.

Killing.

And red.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! …Whew.”

Christian Rosencreutz once more appeared from the background. No, he had finally come to a stop after moving so fast he had become no more than flowing lines.

His only remaining enemy was Good, Old Mary.

Had he intentionally left her until last, or was it only a coincidence? It could also be that she had partially defended against his attack.

“''Now, joker. Who will you resurrect with that single-use trump card''?”

“…”

“Do not expect this old man to sit idly by and watch. You will only be able to resurrect one of them at the cost of your own life. …And, Good, Old Mary, I seriously doubt you can defeat this old man on your own. Your only value is in your resurrection. So who will you entrust your dreams with? Who will you choose to turn this all around?”

Would it be Misaka Mikoto or Shokuhou Misaki?

Or would it be Aradia or the Bologna Succubus?

Each of them possessed tremendous power. Not one of them was an ordinary human. With the Ace, the Queen, and so many others with varied talents available, who would Good, Old Mary choose?

“Take your time and think about it.”

He laughed.

He scoffed.

Because the answer was obvious from the start.

“Hee ha ha!! But there is no real answer! No matter who you bring back to life, they cannot defeat this old man. If human death were absolute, you could have given up. But because you possess that resurrection trump card, you are now trapped in my prison, kitchen alchemist. Will you agonize over it for eternity, or will the pressure be too much to bear so you make a careless choice only for this old man to tear you both to shreds!? Watch as your own actions reveal just whose side you have taken and who you have made your enemy. Kee ha ha ha ha ha. Regret your own choices as you search in vain for an answer!!!”

In response, the final remaining Transcendent breathed a soft sigh.

And Good, Old Mary spoke.

“''No one''.”

“?”

“''I will not bother resurrecting anyone at this point. You are the one who has run out of time. A second before, you might have managed it. But you lost sight of what truly matters here, you continued to ignore the life you should have been focused on taking, and you carelessly crossed the final crossroads. It is too late to put things back the way they were. No matter how much you try.''”

He tilted his head.

CRC expressed pure confusion.

But the silver young man should have shuddered in fear at that simple truth. He was drawing a blank. He could not come up with anything that fit the situation presented to him. But if whatever it was could slip his mind, how much of a threat could it really be?

He still didn’t understand, so Good, Old Mary pointed elsewhere.

The answer was there.

Aleister Crowley.

The magician CRC had defeated and proceeded to ignore had stood back up.

He was badly injured.

It was incredible he was still alive.

If he had feigned death, he might have had a greater chance at survival.

But he had instead clenched his teeth and stood up. Who out there had inspired him to do that? Why could that human challenge CRC over and over with the golden retriever by his side?

''Who did that human really, truly aspire to emulate?

“I don’t care…how many times you fail.”

Words spilled from his cracked lips.

The person he had entrusted this fight to had already collapsed.

And as a result, 99% of the people who had trusted that boy enough to gather here were now dead.

That was a defeat.

Kamijou Touma had failed to meet their expectations.

But despite the red and black stains covering his body, that human’s spirit was not broken.

Because…

“I will not lose hope in you, no matter how many times you lose or fall. I swear it. Thinking back, it was rare that you found an easy victory from beginning to end. But you always made sure to collect someone’s life before it was lost. That was no illusion. So I will believe in you. …You expect me to accept that a little thing like defeat is enough for you to give up? No matter how many times you fall to your knees, I know for a fact you will stand back up again.”

“Young one?”

“So consume me if need be. Great Demon Coronzon! Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass!! You monsters were always too much for a constant failure like me to handle. But just this once, support me. Help me buy the time we need. Give me the power to uphold my promise!!”

“You think he will get back up? Based on nothing? That loser is soaking in his own bloody vomit and you would still place all your hopes in him? Good, Old Mary could perhaps resurrect at least one person here if she were willing to sacrifice herself to my attack, but you won’t even do that!?”

“That is not what it means to believe in someone,” stated Good, Old Mary. She directly cut down that unbeatable adversary’s words. “You do not believe in someone because it is logical or because the odds are favorable. Human beings believe in and pray to the people they truly want to believe in. You were once a target of that sort of belief. If you have forgotten this, then you really are ''unworthy''. Unfortunately, the savior that mama and the rest of the Transcendents prayed to was not at all what we hoped for.”

So Good, Old Mary had chosen to believe in that boy instead.

Truly believe.

''If she sacrificed herself to resurrect one person here, it ended there. Once she died, her resurrection could never be used again. But if she was patient, survived, and believed that this deadly battle would be overcome without choosing the easy option of self-sacrifice, she could use her resurrection on each and every one of them. Only then was the possibility of saving everyone available.

That was what it meant to believe in someone.

Such belief was never spoken of in terms of “at least”.

Not everything came down to superhuman actions. There were options that became available if you wished for them hard enough.

No one was discussing logic or odds. The thread of possibility was so very thin, but Good, Old Mary chose to believe in the future she most wanted to believe in. Because she knew the foolish compromise of forcing herself to believe in something she didn’t want to believe in would never lead to a gentle and happy world.

“And no matter how absurd it might seem, there are times when our selfish expectations and beliefs are answered. There are people who will crawl through the mud and do whatever it takes to make that happen, no matter how poor their chances. And sometimes they will ultimately reach what they were struggling for.”

“…”

“People value such things as ''miracles''. CRC, I am certain you were once capable of that. You might have done so even in the modern world. But while you let your passions and playfulness guide you, you passed the final crossroads and reached a point from which you can never return.”

In the very corner of his vision, Christian Rosencreutz saw something rise up.

Whatever it was, it was stained red and black. It was someone who should not have still been alive.

The answer was obvious.

This was what the living and the dead had all believed in.

Kamijou.

Kamijou Touma.

“Impossible…” blankly muttered Christian Rosencreutz, suddenly trembling. “You never had a chance to use your resurrection. This old man would never have missed it.”

“True. But mama did not use it on anyone. Not even him.”

“Then this can’t be happening! A normal human had his arm severed and was left to bleed out for 10 minutes. Do you have any idea how much blood he would have lost in that time!? The answer is in liters! And you expect me to believe he overcame that because of some nonsense about believing in him!?”

“Should you really be spouting nonsense at the moment, CRC? Need I remind you that you are the corpse the Bridge Builders Cabal once believed in?” solemnly stated Good, Old Mary. “He answered our call. Unlike you, he did not run from the power of belief. The rules have changed. You completely missed the crossroads you couldn’t afford to cross and you walked right on through. The legend so many people believed in and prayed to is long gone. You are no more than bait now. Bait used to show off a new legend that has accepted the power of belief and is working to create a better future. You allowed yourself to be reduced to this, CRC.”

Kamijou made a horizontal swing of his nonexistent right arm.

The invisible dragon burst out.

It emerged once more.

That was the answer.

Kamijou Touma and Aleister Crowley stood side by side, both bloody and battered. They didn’t need to exchange any words. This team up should have been impossible, but it was possible within the legend of this moment.

There was no cue.

Aleister simply gave a thoughtful look.

A moment later, they both raced forward.

Straight toward their greatest enemy – Christian Rosencreutz.

“Ohhh!!” “Ohhh!!”

In response, CRC gulped and calmly worked out the answer in his head.

“The scientific angel Kazakiri Hyouka and the artificial demon Qliphah Puzzle 545.”

And the person behind those two.

New Board Chairman Accelerator.

“That particle accelerator cannon that gathered all the city’s power was not aimed at this old man.”

Using the Hula Hoop particle accelerator to launch a deadly attack within the city was all well and good, but what happened at the other end? They couldn’t have it pierce through the outer wall on the opposite side of the city and then burn down Shinjuku and Yokohama beyond. This group was too soft to accept that level of sacrifice. So what had they done?

His miniature model was useful for running searches, but there was one thing he had to watch out for.

It only provided the information he actively worked to search for.

Which meant he could miss something.

Especially when it came from a blind spot he hadn’t considered.

“You were holding two nonhumans in reserve, but you knew they could not defeat this old man if you simply sent them after me. So you found a way to inject them with a massive amount of energy without me noticing. ''Angels and demons are effectively collections of energy, so this boosted their raw strength and energized them''?”

They had sided with Kamijou Touma.

Realizing they couldn’t defeat CRC even in their boosted forms, had the scientific angel and magical demon instead opted to assist Kamijou?

As the leader at the top, the question for Accelerator wasn’t who achieved the victory. As long as he could eliminate the threat of Rosencreutz and bring peace back to the city, nothing else mattered.

It wasn’t an issue of logic or odds.

People believed in the person they wanted to believe in.

So while he wasn’t physically present, the #1 had not hesitated to focus on that particular trump card.

“Did you use the absence of his right hand to sneak them into his body? So that their invisible hands could squeeze his stopped heart and start it beating once more!?”

Thus, it wasn’t just two people approaching Rosencreutz.

Far more people had believed in that boy. They had entrusted him with their lives, their futures, and the fates of Academy City and the world.

“''Rosencreutz. It doesn’t matter how hopeless a reality you are.''”

“''Yes, and it doesn’t matter how much of this world you destroy.''”

Kamijou Touma would not run away.

He carried all those things on his back as he poured all his strength into the invisible dragon.

“''If you insist we can’t save anyone here''…”

“''Yes, and if you insist the good and the wicked cannot be equally saved''…”

The hits landed simultaneously.

“''Then we will destroy that illusion!!!''”

The God Purifying Demon Destroyer and the Conqueror of the Battle of Blythe Road.

Two inhuman fists flew and mercilessly launched Christian Rosencreutz beyond District 7’s borders.

===Part 8===

When the little wicked woman opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was. She saw a white ceiling, detected a chemical scent in the air, and noticed a great quantity of medical equipment surrounding her. The hard plastic mask over her lower face irritated her. But she was hesitant to move. She didn’t think she even could move right away and, given the tugging sensation from beneath her skin, she could guess she had several needles piercing her blood vessels and had tubes and electric cords attached all across her body.

Nevertheless, she was alive.

Anna Sprengel was alive.

“Where…am I?”

Peering down at her was a doctor with a froggy face.

He gave her a gentle smile.

This doctor had lived up to the belief a certain boy had placed in him.

Heaven Canceler spoke in the same way he always did.

“You’re going to be fine. It’s all over now.”

Some who saw this might have praised it as a miracle.

The commonplace miracle of life.

===Between the Lines 4===

“''Ugh, is this for real, mistress''?”

“''Yes. As much as I would prefer not to believe it, it appears so.''”

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume9 Chapter3

2023-12-21T12:00:40Z

JDMP:

==Chapter 3: Journey – Cut_a_Road_to_Allover_the_Goal.==

===Part 1===

Technically speaking, this was Yomikawa Aiho’s apartment.

But she was currently busy with work, so Yoshikawa Kikyou was looking after the small girl instead. Last Order, who looked to be about 10, was sorting something in her room.

“Cute.”

That was her judgment of a crane game doll.

“Not cute.”

That rejection was passed on a flat, ruler-shaped magnet.

But she still had plenty more to sort. The cat-shaped potholder and the Christmas tree floor lamp would be judged too. Some might have judged it all as junk.

Yoshikawa held a hand to her forehead.

“Can’t you just throw it all out? Listen, mere objects don’t actually have souls. If you hug each and every thing and refuse to throw it away, your room will be full in no time.”

“But this one is so cute! And so is this one! says Misaka as Misaka hugs them.”

Last Order shouted loud and hugged an (empty) water dispenser bottle the size of a daruma doll. She had a very wide range of what she considered cute and they all brought back memories that kept her from throwing them out. Yoshikawa sighed and wondered if it would be easier to just find a cheap storage unit for her.

That was when she heard a smooth artificial voice.

It came from outside the apartment’s front door. It was polite but quite loud.

“Martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Ordinary citizens are asked to remain indoors unless you have an urgent need. Also, this building is not an authorized shelter. Please check your maps and move to the nearest disaster shelter as soon as possible.”

That had to be a drum-shaped cleaning robot and its instructions seemed contradictory.

But Last Order remained seated on the floor and made no move to get up. She didn’t even look in that direction.

“Not cute, says Misaka as Misaka presents a cruel truth.”

Apparently not all round things met her definition of cute.

Then something poked its head out from around the corner of the hallway inside the apartment.

It was a bipedal tanuki.

But instead of the mystical creature found in old folklore, this appeared to be a dance robot’s metal frame placed inside a stuffed animal.

This came as a shock to Last Order.

Yoshikawa vaguely recalled seeing something like this having fun on TV.

“That tanuki is…cute!!”

===Part 2===

From red to black.

The sun set and night fell.

The already chilly winter air had transformed into a wind that seemed to slash at Kamijou and the others’ cheeks. To be blunt, he wanted some way of protecting his ears.

District 23 was a unique district full of airfields and rocket launch sites. To keep the various aircraft safe, the district was usually surrounded by a tall fence and strictly guarded, but it was deserted now.

There was no earsplitting noise. Had the passenger planes been grounded due to the martial law, or for some other reason?

Kamijou could scarcely believe it.

“Did they really set their second defense line here? They thought Christian Rosencreutz would choose to pass through such a dangerous district?”

“That’s what they’re saying on the Anti-Skill radio channel. Do you think that Rosencreutz guy could rewrite those encrypted transmissions?” asked Mikoto while monitoring those transmissions.

But not even she was doing that directly through her head. She was using a radio she had picked up.

It was possible CRC wouldn’t change his route because security was strict here or laxer over there. If he took the shortest route to the District 7 hospital, he would end up crossing through Districts 23 and 18. In the worst case, it was even possible he would actively choose to cross a minefield and step on every mine along the way. Because he enjoyed the loud noises.

“Look over there. There’s light,” said the honey blonde girl.

“Sh! That’s Anti-Skill’s second defense line.”

There were a lot of tanks and armored vehicles there. Kamijou didn’t know much about military stuff, but even he recognized one vehicle type. The mobile combat vehicles resembling 8-wheel armored trucks with a tank gun on top were Predator Octopuses. Just the one had made things so much easier when fleeing with Anna, so seeing a whole line of them here sent a chill down his spine.

In addition to the vehicle headlights, Anti-Skill had gathered up the kind of big outdoor lightning used at construction sites. A maze of barricades had been set up with sandbags piled up in places to construct countless encampments of various sizes. Then there were the heavy machinegun and automatic grenade launcher emplacements set up by driving spikes into the asphalt using the power of pneumatics. Runways were supposed to be delicate areas where a single stray screw or nail could lead to disaster, so gathering all of this was quite something.

No, that had it backwards.

If you ignored the potential financial losses, the wide-open runway may have been the perfect spot for Anti-Skill to use their next-gen weaponry. It at least greatly reduced the risk of a student dorm being hit by a stray shot.

But was that their real reason?

If they were using the possibility of stray shots as an excuse for their helplessness at the first defense line, it meant they still hadn’t accurately judged the threat Rosencreutz presented.

“Oh? Misaka-san?”

“Wait a second. Onee-sama, what are you doing here!?”

“Ugh.” Mikoto uncharacteristically flinched.

She apparently knew some of the Judgment members working here. Kamijou recognized the girl with twintails. He knew her name was Shirai Kuroko. But the older girl in glasses was entirely unknown to him. Something about the super-serious glasses girl with black hair told him she would kill him if he cracked a joke here. She scared him. Her strict aura reminded him a lot of Fukiyose when she was in a bad mood. W-was she always like this? Didn’t it wear her out?

“Onee-sama, District 23 is off limits. What are you doing here?”

“Um, Kuroko? Hear me out before you chew me out. See, I am the #3 Level 5, so I thought I could lend a hand now that Academy City is in trouble.”

“Absolutely not! You don’t have the authority to just decide that! Wandering around an off-limits area is enough to have you taken into custody!! And when have I ever ‘chewed you out’!? Care to explain why you chose that phrasing in particular!?”

“Sigh, and there you go (sob).”

Meanwhile, Kamijou’s eyes were not drawn to the Predator Octopuses so like the one he had recently entrusted his life to. He saw a much more disturbing weapon.

“What…is that?”

It looked like a 70m steel snake, or like an enlarged version of the luggage carrier carts often used at airports. It was made up of 10 armored cars with ground-flattening metal wheels that might as well have been road rollers. They were linked in a long line by giant metal ball joints. Each one looked to be around 7m long, 3m wide, and 2m tall. That meant they were wide and flat, which made it look like a snake lying down on the ground.

Each car was armed with gun turrets on the sides, but these were very different from a tank or warship’s weapons. They looked more like antiair weapons. A self-destruct drone launcher and a Gatling gun rotated as a single set.

“You mean the XHsACV-15 Anaconda?”

Shirai Kuroko sounded more confused than exasperated.

Because…

“The X at the start means they’re sending prototypes out to the field.”

“It is an all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Two-car armored vehicles that can bend in the middle are already made in Finland and Singapore. You could view this as a more extreme version of that concept.”

The glasses Judgment girl held a hand to the temple of her glasses and seemed delighted to provide the explanation.

A prototype.

That would explain the green jungle camouflage that only made more conspicuous here.

That said, what was this city hoping to accomplish building that weird thing?

“Unlike a normal tank or armored truck, I doubt it’s supposed to fight while driving around.” Mikoto analyzed it with a sigh. “Is it more of a mobile barricade that can rush in when there’s a riot and use itself as a thick wall to protect one side of a school from the rioters? See how its turrets are on the sides? That means it’s designed to fight with its side to the enemy, not its front.”

“R-right.”

“But putting them on both sides doubles the cost, so no sensible designer would arrange them like that. A top-mounted turret with 360-degree rotation would be lighter and cheaper. The only reason to do it this way is if the weapons double as special armor to protect itself. So if a shell or missile hits it, it triggers an outward explosion to reduce the force of the enemy projectile trying to punch through the armor. And that’s a lot cheaper with a drone launcher than a big gun. It looks like the actual radar is split between the front and the rear. Unless you accurately shot between the weapons with something like my Railgun, the shot will be diverted at the cost of one of the modular, and thus replaceable, unmanned turrets.”

“Anything is fine as long as we have something defending us,” said the honey blonde girl.

She had a point.

After all, this was District 23. The flat runway gave a clear view out to the horizon in all directions, meaning there was nowhere to hide. They didn’t want CRC firing magic projectiles here. Having those five or ten units surrounding them to create a rough encampment would mean a lot.

Kamijou then listened in the two Judgment girls:

“It’s plenty long, but at only 2m tall, rioters can simply climb over it. But if they added rolls of barbed wire, I’d be afraid of injuring them. Well, those flaws are what make prototypes so cute.”

“Is that so? If they’re going to the trouble of using a computer for the complex calculations needed to sync the engine RPMs, I don’t see why they would bother with a giant snake that can’t even separate. Procuring 10 maneuverable armored vehicles would seem more convenient to me.”

“They must still be working out the kinks to discover its true charm as a product. Besides, don’t you love the sound of the phrase ‘mysterious prototype weapon’? Hee hee.”

“Not really. I don’t understand you biker girls who get all worked up whenever you see a mech that doesn’t even cover you up.”

That conversation hinted at a lot of effort going on behind the scenes, but the thick wall still felt unshakable to Kamijou.

But then another thought occurred to him.

(Can this traditional weaponry really stop Rosencreutz?)

It was a vague, meaningless question.

His thoughts never reached the part where he figured out what else to do.

Because he was interrupted by something floating down from the night sky.

It was colored a hot pink.

Since this was the second time, Kamijou felt more relief than surprise.

“You’re alive, Bologna Succubus!”

“Natch.”

The blonde demon smiled as she spread her large batlike wings. While Kamijou’s honest reaction made her feel a touch bashful.

This time, she managed to land on the runway without running into anyone’s face with her crotch.

What had happened to Aradia and Good, Old Mary? The latter in particular had been knocked out by an attack from Christian Rosencreutz last Kamijou knew.

“Having a Transcendent with you should expand your strategic options. My Cold Mistress spell will probably only work on him once. It swaps out a human’s pleasure with pain no matter how physically tough they are, so it should work on someone ''who only acts out of passion and playfulness''. Still, it won’t work once he comes up with a countermeasure, so when to make use of that limited opportunity is the real key.”

And…

“A-a succubus?”

“Oui. You got a problem with that, mademoiselle middle schooler who still has a lot of growing up to do?”

Someone was trembling a short distance away.

The honey blonde girl ''whose name Kamijou didn’t know'' seemed to take issue with something about this.

Kamijou just wished those two with such nice bodies would avoid glaring at each other from so close together their big boobs were pushed together. Where was a high school boy supposed to look!?

“A sexy young woman with long blonde hair, an amazing figure, and a mysterious sparkle ability in the eyes who specializes in nonphysical attacks? A-am I a joke to her? She just copied everything about me! And you’re telling me she’s gotten to know him behind my back!? That’s as aggressive a move as building a big-name convenience store right next to a privately run shop!!”

“You missed ‘talks weird’ on that list of similarities,” said Mikoto.

“Talks weird?” “Talks weird?”

The blondes joined forces(?) to both glare at Mikoto.

“Anyway, who do you think you are? A young doll like you needs to wait at least a decade before she can call herself ‘sexy’. And historically and traditionally, a succubus is the orthodox choice for sexy, not a middle schooler. Seriously though, I really do recommend you wait ten years so you can truly fulfill that high school boy’s dream of a dorm manager lady.”

“Why am I getting advice from an exhibitionist pervert who walks around outside in her underwear!?”

It sounded like the Bologna Succubus had won the squishy battle.

This must have been quite a shock because the mystery honey blonde girl simply stood in place with tears in her eyes. …And had Kamijou ever told that demon about his dorm manager dream? Kamijou couldn’t remember in enough detail to be sure. He had legitimately died and passed out a few times during his December 31 in Shibuya, so had he mentioned it in his sleep at some point? He wasn’t sure how she had gotten the information, but he really wished she wouldn’t spread it around to other people. Because it was embarrassing!!!

And for some reason, Mikoto looked glum.

She was hanging her head with a look of belated realization.

“(Eh? Do I not even have the honor of participating in that battle? Because of the gap in chest size?)”

“?”

Kamijou got the feeling anything he said would make her want to die, so he opted to leave her be.

Just then, a pale-faced Anti-Skill officer began showing around her tablet without knowing who to ask for further instructions.

“W-we have footage from the drone… He’s coming!! He’s heading straight here! Wh-wh-what do we do!?”

“We need to set all our complaints aside. Everyone, to your posts! You don’t want to let him cross this defense line without putting up a fight, do you!?”

The busty glasses Judgment girl clapped her hands and provided instructions. She was so good at it the adults of Anti-Skill were taken aback and simply obeyed. Anti-Skill was generally made up of the muscular gym teachers and guidance counselors, so how did that girl have the upper hand?

He had only been spotted by drone, but if they knew he was close enough to judge that he was headed this way, he couldn’t be that far away.

Christian Rosencreutz was coming.

Kamijou recalled how extraordinary Alice Anotherbible had been.

Nothing was going to just “work out for the best” here.

''If he lost this time, he really would die. As would the other people here. He wouldn’t be able to speak with any of them again.

The battle at the second defense line would soon begin.

===Part 3===

Mut Thebes stood alone in District 18.

The place was completely dark thanks to the martial law.

(This iron sand hand warmer is nice. Nothing can beat the classics.)

That pointy-haired boy had given her the item before they parted.

So now the chilly girl warmed herself with that modern convenience.

Anti-Skill referred to this as the third defense line, but the District 7 hospital where Anna Sprengel slept wasn’t far from here. For that boy, this had to be the last line.

Mut Thebes was a special Transcendent who could absorb people’s and objects’ shadows using her own white shadow and then use them as she saw fit. The next-gen weapons belonged to the science side, but once she absorbed them, she could use them as part of her magic.

And she had discovered a fascinating weapon here.

The 41cm Trebuchet linear artillery.

The cannon replaced the power of explosives with electromagnets, but the shells it launched in a large arc like a long throw in baseball would reach the ozone layer before accurately striking a target 20 thousand meters away. In addition to targeting a single point and piercing deep underground, it could be switched to a secondary mode that used the great air friction to intentionally destroy the metal shell in the air above the target, blasting it into plasma that could obliterate an aircraft carrier fleet in the ocean, assuming they were packed in close enough. The result could be thought of as an artificial Tunguska event.

With the main weapon, the spare shells, the targeting unit, the antiair weaponry set up nearby to defend it, and everything else, it took up an entire schoolyard.

One of the Anti-Skill officers working in the schoolyard noticed her and yelled at her.

“You there! Martial law is in effect. Get back to your dorm immediately!”

“?”

“Wh-why do you look so confused?”

She had a shootout with them just yesterday, but had they not distributed an accurate photo of her? That was the real source of her confusion, but she knew correcting him would only make things worse, so she kept quiet.

The schoolyard artillery looked like it had been set up in a hurry and a lot of Anti-Skill officers were moving all around it, but it didn’t appear to be ready to fire yet. If Rosencreutz wasn’t delayed at the second defense line, he would probably arrive here at the third before they were ready putting it together.

But that changed if Mut Thebes absorbed it.

(Although it will take me some time to absorb such a large shadow.)

She only needed contact the long shadow formed by the bright outdoor lights, so she didn’t even need to cross the fence surrounding the schoolyard.

She waited on the side of the road and thought in silence.

It would take some time to absorb it into her white shadow, but she had nothing to fear once that was done. Because she didn’t actually need to operate the weapon as it was designed to be used. In a recent battle, she had even shined lights on a warship from multiple angles and absorbed each of its shadows to create a giant monster out of them and march across Academy City.

“Hm. Which would mean…”

Mut Thebes nodded silently to herself.

With this, she could fortify the third defense line while also using the long-range artillery to participate in the battle being fought at the second defense line.

“Interesting.”

===Part 4===

Christian Rosencreutz strolled leisurely through District 12.

There were no people or cars here. That made it a strange alternate world.

“Oops.”

He stopped his foot in midair.

Something was pouring all its strength into running across the cold ground just below his shoe.

CRC’s eyes crinkled in a smile at the rat crossing the crosswalk on the deserted street.

Thanks to the martial law, the train station’s ticket gates were all closed. The convenience store and other shops were also deserted. But that wasn’t the small children he saw were interested in.

They were gathered around the capsule toy machines lined up in front of the train station convenience store.

“What are you kids doing?”

“Wah!?”

The way they jumped made it clear the children knew they weren’t supposed to sneak out of their dorms during the martial law. And it was nighttime.

“H-he’s a grownup.”

“But he doesn’t look like Anti-Skill.”

“If this old guy is out here, he’s breaking the rules as much as we are. So it’s fine.”

Fascinating. He hadn’t called himself “this old man” to them, so did they simply consider anyone to be “old” if they had a beard?

He stroked his silver beard.

Based on his observations, these capsule toy machines had you put coins inside to test your luck on what toy you would receive.

(I see. But why do people flock to these systems that give you no guarantee you will get what you want?)

Perhaps because they were morons.

Tears welled up in Rosencreutz’s eyes as he recalled the many forms of human foolishness he had witnessed in his far-from-short history.

He was quick to tears.

The children didn’t seem to care.

“I’m doing it! I’m getting a super rare one today!”

“But is there even a super rare Gekota color plane in here? I can’t tell looking in from the side.”

“I have heard rumors there isn’t a winner inside.”

Large tears spilled from CRC’s eyes.

He was quick to tears!!

“Is this a despicable machine designed to scam young children out of the limited allowance they worked so hard to save up? No, this old man must know the true odds!! How does it really work!? Urah!!”

A loud crash rang out.

The capsule toy machine itself had shattered.

Christian Rosencreutz lined the round capsules up on the hard tile floor.

“One, two, three, four, five…there it is. So there really is a Gekota color plane inside! Hah hah hah. Good, it wasn’t a-”

He paused midsentence.

The small children were nowhere to be found. Every last one.

They must have run away.

He scratched his head and sighed, stroking his silver beard.

If he wanted to, he could have quickly located them and attacked them, but…

“No reason to chase them down, I suppose.”

With that arbitrary decision, he abandoned the search.

He held the super rare Gekota color plane between two fingers.

He knew which route to take now.

“Yes.”

It had always been the shortest route anyway.

He turned toward District 23, which specialized in aerospace.

He casually chose that destination because now he wanted to see a real one.

He did not find a life-size Gekota color plane there.

He did find several bright lights shining out from the darkness. Were they headlights and roadwork lights?

Those Anti-Skill people must have built a second defense line. And as part of that, they must have removed all the passenger planes and tanker trucks packed full of highly flammable fuel.

Christian Rosencreutz squeezed the small toy in his hand and muttered to himself.

“You are in my way.”

===Part 5===

An Anti-Skill officer leaned out from behind cover and shouted with special binoculars in hand.

“Visual confirmation of top-priority target!!”

Thanks to the martial law, the runway was not properly lit. That allowed Anti-Skill and Judgment to take action before Kamijou got a clear view of the figure in question.

A battle broke out at the second defense line.

“Begin!!”

Frist, they launched mortars from the ground. To Kamijou, they seemed like bigger versions of the fireworks available at convenience stores and discount stores. And they were used in much the same way. The projectiles were launched into the sky above, but instead of falling back to the ground, they decelerated above the target’s head and scattered light even brighter than a car’s headlights. These were parachute-equipped flares. Anti-Skill wasn’t showering the enemy with explosives right away – they were first ensuring a clear view.

This allowed Kamijou Touma to see the small figure more than 500m away.

It was Christian Rosencreutz.

That confirmation froze his spine and legs with fear. This was someone who made him wish the veil of darkness had not been swept away.

And the initial flares had a secondary purpose.

Anti-Skill and Judgment were meant to preserve order in the city, so they had a process to follow.

“Warning shot achieved.”

Yes, no matter what the type of projectile, ''they would fire the first shot above the enemy instead of directly at him.

And since the target continued walking and did not put his hands up…

“The suspect is not surrendering! Repeat, the suspect is not surrendering! Conditions for use of force have been met! Open fire!!!”

The heavy machineguns and automatic grenade launchers began to fire, held in place by the metal stakes driven into the asphalt. Needless to say, Anti-Skill was holding nothing back. They fired in the enemy’s general direction while adjusting their aim to hold him in place before taking careful aim with their tank guns and mortars that could not fire quite so rapidly. If this wasn’t Academy City where they were trained to handle espers, they might have known this was the most efficient method, but they would have been hesitant to use it against a human.

Kamijou himself ''felt somehow relieved.

Because he knew Christian Rosencreutz could take this kind of attack.

Although that thinking may have meant he had begun to accept how strong the man was.

With such a dense barrage underway, Kamijou couldn’t rush in with fist clenched. His Imagine Breaker could not block fragments of everyday(?) bullets and shells, so a careless approach would only get him blown away by friendly fire.

Kamijou wasn’t the only one irritated by having to stand around.

“Argh, 500m? I can see him, but I can’t reach him. My Railgun would burn away in the air before it got there!!”

And.

Kamijou heard chuckling laughter coming from among the explosions and shockwaves.

CRC was mocking them.

While on the receiving end of such a concentrated attack.

More sandbags were piled up to reinforce their defenses. This robbed the tanks of their mobility and their guns creaked as if intimidated. Kamijou understood not wanting to die, but now the tanks were no more than 120mm gun emplacements.

Christian Rosencreutz’s face showed only scorn.

“Do you really think that can defeat this old man?”

“They’re risking their lives because they do, halfwit.”

A blonde demon interrupted.

Something else happened at the same time.

The Bologna Succubus’s spell was called Cold Mistress.

It did not produce any bright lights or loud sounds. It apparently replaced the target’s pleasure signals with excruciating pain.

But what did this attack mean for Christian Rosencreutz ''who was only motivated by passion and playfulness?

A tank gun scored a direct hit.

Even CRC’s body had to be made of protein and calcium. He couldn’t stop shells because his body was unusually tough – he activated spells to repel them.

So.

What if he was stopped from activating those defense spells, even for a split second?

The explosive boom erupted a moment later and a cloud of gray dust swelled out.

But Anti-Skill was not foolish enough to celebrate quite yet.

“Not yet!!” shouted an adult holding special binoculars that used electronics to expand their functionality “He’s still in one piece and standing on his own two feet!!”

(Damn monster.)

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

He could only pray CRC had survived but had taken damage. The tank guns and grenade launchers fired again and again, not waiting for the dust to clear. This showed Anti-Skill’s fear that he would attack the instant they stopped firing.

“Kyahhhhh!!”

The honey blonde girl shrieked. Something other than deafening gunshots and sparks had grazed her at high speed. Probably a stray shot or a ricochet.

But Kamijou couldn’t do the obvious thing and duck down behind cover.

He was too worried.

The inability to see what was happening was wearing at his patience,.

He was intensely anxious that all of this was ultimately meaningless.

Ordinarily, they would have the upper hand here, but he was finding it harder and harder to trust that kind of judgment. Christian Rosencreutz was too much of a monster.

They were on the attack, yet they were the ones running out of options. Unable to bear this any longer, Kamijou shouted out loud.

“Is it still not over? Still!?”

“Damn, the target is walking. His shoulders are shaking… Is he laughing? He’s headed here! The dust is clearing! Wahhh!?”

The Anti-Skill officer sweatily peering through the binoculars screamed like he was having a nightmare.

With the “snap!!” of breaking metal, the heavy machinegun providing a dense barrage was suddenly destroyed and stopped moving.

It all happened in an instant.

Rosencreutz rushed in. Once he was inside the defense formation surrounded by the sandbag walls and barricades, their bullet-and-shell-based strategy would cease to function.

But Rosencreutz may have questioned what he found.

He had eliminated their optimal strategy and begun the hunt, but despite the terror on their faces, Anti-Skill and Judgment had not frozen up in fear.

“Everyone down!!” shouted a tough-looking Anti-Skill officer with something in his hand.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what he meant.

So he was slow to react.

The group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles all exploded ''from within''.

Kamijou hadn’t been anywhere near them, but his feet were still lifted from the runway.

And he was knocked backwards.

“Boy…………………!!”

The Bologna Succubus’s voice was too distorted to understand. It was so bad he couldn’t even judge how close she was.

But what had happened to CRC who had moved deep within the group of tanks and mobile combat vehicles?

The 8-wheel Predator Octopus and the rest of the military vehicles were designed to be operated remotely as ground drones. After the first defense line was destroyed so badly, no one thought CRC could be repelled with ordinary firepower. Which led to this strategy: triggering the self-destruct only after he had easily broken through the defense line and entered the defense formation.

They probably hadn’t used your average explosive either.

“Ah…gah?”

Kamijou’s retinas were scorched by a flash of light as white as welding.

Most likely, they had made use of a special reaction using aluminum and iron powder. At more than 3000 degrees, the blast could literally melt steel and it had hit the man at point-blank range.

Shirai Kuroko shouted over the boom while lying down on the runway, protecting her head.

“Did they really have to go this far!?”

“Seems that way. The suspect is still standing. He didn’t even duck!!”

The busty glasses Judgment girl must have had Clairvoyance or a similar power because she was directing her wide eyes toward the dust cloud.

“You’re…kidding.”

Mikoto had also frozen stiff. She may have detected something with her radar produced by reflecting weak microwaves off of things.

But Kamijou didn’t have time to see the truth for himself.

He heard a deafening tearing sound.

The XHsACV-15 Anaconda, the snakelike chain of armored vehicles, had started to move. It looked like the three units were going to run over Rosencreutz, but instead they formed the three sides of an equilateral triangle and came to a rapid stop.

First, they trapped him.

That 70m giant surrounded the same area as a schoolyard.

But it was not just a thick wall. The mobility to deploy as the situation demanded was the Anaconda’s greatest strength.

Down on the ground, an Anti-Skill officer shouted into a radio.

“Fire!!”

The guns on the sides of each unit opened fire on the interior of the giant triangle. Self-destruct drones were launched sharply out and 20mm Gatling guns sprayed bullets. The noise alone was terrifying. The barrage was so dense an ordinary human would have been turned into a bloody mist and splattered across the ground in less than a second.

But only an ordinary human.

And it didn’t end there.

Something fell from heaven to earth like a bolt of lightning. 120mm shells and 20mm Gatling guns were combined to create a manmade divine punishment of lead and powder.

Kamijou had seen this before.

A large transport plane had been converted into a mobile aerial gun platform called a gunship.

It flew in a large circle overhead, raining down a massive number of bullets.

An Anti-Skill officer shouted while crawling slowly along the ground.

“So the HsAC-03 Spotlight got here. 200m around the target point is a fragment warning zone! Fall back! Everyone fall back!”

“A 200m radius? That’s bigger than your average school or stadium. Which means it covers all of us here!” protested the honey blonde girl.

Several explosions erupted in quick succession.

The Anaconda’s wall was meaningless if the metal fragments and pieces of asphalt flew up in the air and poured down on their heads. This might as well have been a volcanic eruption on the surface.

Even with the martial law, they couldn’t have carried out a bombing this large in the more urban part of the city. This all-out firepower was only possible here in District 23 with its vast expanse of runways and not a school or dorm to be found.

Again, it didn’t end there.

Even higher up than the gunship ruling the skies, a star twinkled.

Or so it seemed just before a cylinder of ultra-heavy tungsten alloy dropped straight down from outside the atmosphere. It was 10m long and 80cm in diameter. It had been launched from Academy City’s giant satellite. The heavy metal pillar just barely missed the gunship circling overhead, nearly stalling out the 50m craft with the mass of air it brought with it, and dropped straight toward Christian Rosencreutz.

Sound was compressed.

Even light was trapped, unable to escape, before everything burst outward from a single point.

An artificial comet had struck. If the blast had been unmanaged and free to spread, it might have obliterated District 23 itself. Instead, the special grooves and angular points on the pillar’s side and the angle of its tip gathered the kinetic energy together, sending it piercing straight down into the ground. It easily dug up the experimental nuclear shelter spread out below the asphalt runway.

“!?”

While the vectors were concentrated to an extent, it wasn’t perfect.

The force that did escape was enough to twist and flip the 70m Anaconda all-terrain armored combat vehicle. Kamijou was nearly crushed by it, but it could easily have been worse. Without that wall there, the thick shockwave would have hit him directly and converted him into a clump of meat.

After gathering scrap metal into a giant shield, Mikoto muttered in a somewhat dazed way.

“Could they have dropped that on my head any time they wanted…?”

Rolling on the ground, Kamijou didn’t even have time for questions like that.

His aching head felt like it was going to split open.

But instead of a blow from the outside, it felt more like the pressure inside his skull had risen.

Just watching made him feel like his eardrums were going to burst.

In a subconscious urge to find anything at all to rely on, he ended up grabbing onto the Bologna Succubus who happened to be nearby. He looked a lot like a small child clinging to his mother in fear after a nearby lightning strike.

What did it matter if they weren’t special?

So what if they were all individuals and had no legends to their name?

These people had gathered for no other reason than to protect Academy City and they had demonstrated enough power to bring Kamijou to the ground just from watching.

The strange sticky sensation coming from his right ear scared him, but he managed a trembling voice.

“What happened…to Rosencreutz? After all this, he’s got to at least be limping, right?”

“''No,''” said an icily certain voice. It belonged to the Bologna Succubus as she held the boy close. “Remove your rose-tinted glasses and you’ll see. He can still move.”

His breath caught.

Was Christian Rosencreutz really this powerful? He was entirely unscathed after an attack so ferocious it literally altered the terrain? Then what could a measly right fist do?

Just then, a distorted voice came from an emergency speaker directly installed in the runway rather than a metal pole so it would be out of the way of takeoffs and landings.

Kamijou recognized the voice.

“Outta the way, third-rates. That was only the opening act meant to keep the bastard still for a second.”

===Part 6===

It had originally been a piece of research infrastructure built directly below the wall surrounding Academy City’s perimeter.

The giant facility used a massive amount of magnetism to trap a stream of electrons and protons, send them out at nearly the speed of light, and collide different particles to create a variety of phenomena, including the creation of brand new elements that do not exist in the natural world.

The Hula Hoop.

The world’s largest particle accelerator had just unleashed and launched a tremendously powerful electron beam.

It cut a straight line from District 3 in the north to District 10 in the south.

This was New Board Chairman Accelerator’s true trump card that he had been setting up ever since the Bridge Builders Cabal had suddenly constructed a consulate in District 12 and strutted around the city like they owned the place.

The intended target had been Alice Anotherbible.

This superweapon had been adjusted to kill her in a single shot if that became necessary, but now it had struck Christian Rosencreutz. This one shot was all it had. The circular particle accelerator’s forcibly-linked container-sized capacitors and transformers blew up one after another as the giant devices were fried by the massive energy they had gathered, but the deadly spear still accurately bisected Academy City north to south.

The light swept away the night and all the moisture in the air was vaporized. The heat melted the asphalt pavement back into a liquid and the remaining small abandoned jets exploded one after another. The twisted and flipped Anaconda half vaporized while it was burned apart.

And none of that had been directly hit.

Christian Rosencreutz had been, so how much damage had he taken?

Kamijou choked on the stench of melted asphalt. It took him a while to realize he was curled up on the ground. He must have thought a thick lightning bolt had struck nearby and reflexively moved to protect himself. Similar to a stun grenade blast.

So much preparation had gone into this single attack.

New Board Director Accelerator had remotely operated the city’s cleaning and security robots to search for anyone still in the predicted line of fire. If he found anyone, he had of course guided them to safety. His plans had hit a brief snag when Last Order hadn’t obeyed the robot, but he had solved that by drawing her attention with a tanuki pet robot.

So in this one moment, he had created a singular opportunity when all that energy could cut across Academy City without causing any human damage.

The #1 wasn’t soft enough to let a chance like that go to waste.

The already world-class Hula Hoop was pushed past its power limits to accelerate the electrons to more than 99.99% the speed of light, where they tore through the scenery and rushed toward Rosencreutz.

In a perfectly straight line, the asphalt runway was boiled orange.

Even the elements making up the air must have been rewritten because the beam’s wake was electrified and sparking.

“Ugh,” groaned the honey blonde girl. “I do not want to breathe that in. That air cannot be good for your health ability.”

Kamijou had bigger concerns.

A direct hit barely seemed necessary when just carelessly looking at that could blind you.

At this level, it felt like a scientifically-created form of the occult.

“Damn…it,” said Kamijou, somehow managing to get some air in his lungs and sweating in the midwinter night. “Did that…finally get him?”

The answer did not come from Anti-Skill, Judgment, Mikoto, or the Bologna Succubus.

But he did hear a voice.

“''You mean this old man''?”

Kamijou’s vision fell into darkness.

He regretted asking the question.

===Part 7===

“We were too late,” whispered Witch Goddess Aradia, watching from outside the range of the blinding beam.

“How are they?” asked a breathless voice.

That was Good, Old Mary. As the only person who could, albeit imperfectly, defend against Christian Rosencreutz’s attacks, a battlefield without her may have looked to her like an extra-large helping of suicide.

Her own sacrifice was of secondary importance.

She was a Transcendent who, more than anything, hated ordinary people being harmed by special miracles.

“Joining them blindly would only eliminate what little chance we have left.”

“I know that.” Good, Old Mary forcibly steadied her breathing and continued. “But holding cards in reserve is pointless if the people guarding the second defense line are slaughtered in the meantime. Mama doesn’t even need to use her sacrificial defense. My very presence on the battlefield will force Rosencreutz to be cautious, thus restricting his actions.”

Running away apparently wasn’t even an option as far as she was concerned.

Not that Aradia was one to talk there.

They got to work.

===Part 8===

The result was in.

All that effort had amounted to nothing.

Shirai Kuroko and the glasses girl from Judgment were speechless.

They had destroyed the barricades themselves.

Flat District 23 was the only place in Academy City where the horizon was visible. There was nowhere to hide and thoughtless running would only expose their backs to this nemesis. In real war, retreating from a disadvantageous position was the most difficult thing.

“Oh?”

Christian Rosencreutz made a quiet noise.

Past his outstretched palm, his spell failed to hit Kamijou’s head and tore harmlessly into the air next to it.

Kamijou Touma had not moved. Then why had CRC missed?

He sounded amused.

“Did you rotate the ground itself? The same way an illusionist causes large objects to disappear.”

“You have unexpectedly worldly tastes, Rosencreutz.”

Since she had set this up, she knew she couldn’t remain hidden.

The witch goddess slowly walked over and positioned herself to guard Kamijou Touma.

“Did you think a witch who lives with nature can’t manipulate asphalt? Nonsense. We can manipulate soil and minerals as easily as trees and flowers. Process and harm them as much as you like, a single touch of a witch’s finger is enough for them to respond.”

A 100m circle of the melted asphalt underfoot had rotated.

Just like a grand illusion where an idling passenger plane vanished before an audience’s eyes.

Rosencreutz’s shoulders shook with laughter.

“Did you think this secret talent of yours would continue to serve you?”

“Of course not. It only had to work once,” spat Aradia. “The point wasn’t for your deadly attack to miss Kamijou Touma. ''You didn’t bother checking what the attack did hit, did you''?”

Christian Rosencreutz briefly paused.

It took him less than three seconds to realize something.

“''I see.''”

He looked up.

A tremor ran through the ground like a kaiju stomping across the city.

The towering monster looked like a stadium-sized container supported by a trio of pylon-sized legs.

That was the Tribikos.

Good, Old Mary’s experimental tool was said to contain an entire universe inside and thus carried the possibility of producing anything. That ultimate container could produce nonexistent forms of death and destruction as simple playthings.

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz mimed loosely holding something like a brandy glass.

But his hand remained empty.

“The paternal cross and the maternal flower are a little too convenient, so people have a tendency to rely too much on the red secret art and cease to work at coming up with their own plans.”

His corpse had remained unchanged for 120 years. He had created a perfect miniature world where he could reach any answer by recreating the past, present, and future. That sage among sages had produced the secret art that could heal the entire world.

''Which meant he was exceedingly similar to this experimental tool that had mastered the art of kitchen alchemy.'' The only real difference was that Good, Old Mary kept the miracle sealed inside like it was Pandora’s box while CRC let it out in his strong desire to interfere with the larger world. Alternatively, this would mean Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos was so powerful that she feared what would happen if the red secret art were released from it.

“One rule applies to the entire world,” whispered Good, Old Mary. “''When one person attacks, another takes revenge.'' This rule applies even to that which slumbers in the secret territories. Be destroyed by the divine punishment triggered by your own decision as per the law of action and reaction, CRC.”

===Part 9===

A sticky sound enveloped the world.

What…was it?

Cracks raced across the stadium-like Tribikos and it shattered just before filthy gray bubbles burst from within. But these bubbles did not have the cleansing feel of detergent or soap. These were small, hideous bubbles, reminiscent of human torment and death. They engulfed Rosencreutz like a deluge.

The bubbles lost force and momentum before vanishing altogether.

Were they suppose to be the foam coming from the mouth of someone who had drunk poison, or were they supposed to be fire extinguisher foam?

No one wanted to see what happened if even one of those popping bubbles touched them. What this all meant was a mystery, but doing that had to be as suicidal as a slug fascinated by salt.

“Eeeeek!”

The honey blonde girl paled.

It was written plain on her face that being swallowed up by those bubbles was the very last thing she wanted to do.

And…

“We need to run away,” was Good, Old Mary’s immediate decision.

She was not shortsighted enough to determine her strategy based on a momentary advantage.

“It is miracle enough to have bought 600 seconds against CRC. If you do not escape through the sea I have parted, none of you will survive.”

“Hey, if you could do all this…?” said Kamijou, still in a daze.

“CRC’s world model is more accurate than mine, which creates a discrepancy between the two. I caught him off guard here, but he will break through as soon as he manages to calm down and respond. Then we will be caught by an even greater calamity.”

Something like a sandstorm obstructed the view.

The sand was yellow.

That was the color of defeat. Was time already up? Was the second defense line and District 23 about to be buried in Citrinitas just like District 12 had been? The Transcendents working together could only stop one of Rosencreutz’s attacks, but not repel him?

(If we run from here, are we supposed to go to the third defense line? And if District 18 falls, we’ll be back in District 7, where that hospital is. We can only fall back one more time!!)

Kamijou’s thoughts were interrupted by a voice coming from the mountain of bubbles even more horrific than the foam spilling from the corner of a human mouth.

Something flashed.

“More of the same? You bore me.”

This was not aimed at Kamijou or the others in front of him.

The massive deadly force flew over their heads like a long throw in baseball.

They felt a tremor below their feet.

“No…way,” muttered Kamijou.

Something had exploded in the distance and that had shaken the asphalt here.

The third defense line, where Mut Thebes waited, had been destroyed in the blink of an eye.

But the immediate threat wasn’t gone either.

“Kh!!”

Misaka Mikoto immediately placed an arcade coin on her thumbnail.

She had to already know the truth.

This was CRC.

''Even a direct hit at thrice the speed of sound wouldn’t kill him. Which was why she didn’t hesitate to ready this attack.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!!”

She screamed to shake free of her own fear.

An explosive boom compressed the air.

Mikoto didn’t bother viewing the result.

“Go now!! Hurry!! Waste this chance and we really can’t get away!!”

The younger girl grabbed Kamijou’s hand and pulled him away.

What was happening over there?

The third defense line in District 18…was gone.

They weren’t even allowed a final chance.

From here, it was a straight shot to District 7. If they couldn’t find some other plan, Rosencreutz would reach the hospital!!

===Part 10===

And so.

No one could stop Christian Rosencreutz’s march across the city.

===Part 11===

The footsteps could not have sounded more normal.

The glass automatic doors were not meant to keep out intruders.

They opened with ridiculous ease.

The machine did not discriminate. It welcomed Christian Rosencreutz inside with no thought to the severity of the situation.

“Now, where did they put the Transcendent who was sent here? Was her name Anna Sprengel?” he said offhand.

Was that the extent of his thoughts about her? Despite being the inheritor of the Rosicrucian cabal he had started, she was not special to him. She was no more than one of the many Transcendents – another life to kill in the game he had defined.

“Hello, you there.”

CRC called out to a nurse.

Even though he could have read the residual thoughts easily enough if he wanted to.

He was clearly enjoying this.

“Is ICU the right term? Regardless, Anna Sprengel, or possibly an unidentified Girl A, should have arrived here. Where should I go to find her?”

“E-eek!”

The young male nurse fell onto his rear, pressed his back against the hallway door, and desperately shook his head in refusal, so he had to be a consummate medical professional.

Christian Rosencreutz viewed him in amusement.

And he slowly held out his palm.

“Heh heh. Believe me, you want as little to do with this old man as possible. Irritate me too much, ''and I might just take an interest in you''.”

“Enough,” said a new voice.

Something sat on the edge of one of the sofas lined up in the waiting room positioned in front of the hospital pharmacy. The translucent figure took a sip of the shiruko can he held in both hands.

That mysterious being had been called a Holy Guardian Angel and an extraterrestrial.

As well as a Secret Chief.

He was known as Aiwass.

“That man has done nothing wrong. If you have business related to the modern Western magic that spans the Rose and the Golden, then stay focused on that, CRC.”

“I truly do not envy you Secret Chiefs. That priestess’s lungs and heart are no longer functioning, but do those machines really prevent you from calling her dead? If she were fully killed, your contract would be null and void and you would be free once more.”

A strange cracking sound came from empty space.

Almost like hard plastic breaking.

“''Is that supposed to be a joke''?”

“The fate of the world exists to fulfill our playfulness and curiosity. A boring world where the jokers cannot joke would only sink into darkness.”

“You claim to have despaired of the world and now choose destruction purely to satisfy your passions without forcing the blame onto anyone else, CRC, but you are surprisingly unobservant. Fortunately, that gives us some hope.”

“?”

“As the Secret Chief who guards the First Temple, it is true only one official priestess can contact me, but that does not mean ''she is the only one with a personal interest in me''.”

A solid footstep sounded.

This was the sound of someone who, unlike Aiwass, had a physical body.

Christian Rosencreutz turned around and smiled.

“Oh?”

He showed great interest. Like he had just found a shred of amusement still remaining in this dreary world.

He saw a beige habit and blonde hair cut to shoulder length.

He saw a magician who had clung to the world of the living after his own death by hijacking a great demon’s body.

Human Aleister Crowley blocked his path.

===Part 12===

Shortly before the clash, the frog-faced doctor noted a mood of mounting tension.

(I take it this person isn’t the type to spare a hospital or a school.)

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

He was a doctor.

And the patient lying before him was on the verge of death – in fact, her breathing and pulse would cease without the help of the life support devices. Every last form of modern examination had failed to determine the cause and none of his thick medical texts or the disease research database had turned up a previous example, but he wasn’t sensible enough to give up because of that.

Without a doubt, throwing in the towel was the frog-faced doctor’s least favorite phrase. If someone felt it was acceptable for a medical expert to abandon their patient’s possibilities based on their own emotions or mood, he thought they had no business working in the medical field.

“Now, then.”

None of his test devices could identify the cause.

So he decided to focus on the records of those failures.

“I assume the blood sample tests found nothing?”

“Y-yes. All 5.”

The young technician glanced over at the test tubes sealed with different colors of rubber cap. Finding nothing was not a cause for celebration here. They had a patient on the verge of death. It was like running a malware scan and receiving zero detections despite the computer very obviously behaving strangely.

(Something is clearly wrong, but nothing turns up in the numbers.)

They hadn’t found anything in the blood sealed in the test tubes. Then what was happening inside that small girl(?) and how far had it progressed?

But something else caught his interest as well.

“Hm?”

With a patient in critical condition, there wasn’t time to wipe them down with ethanol to disinfect them. In some cases, they were transferred directly in from the emergency arrivals treatment room where the ambulance dropped them off. That meant an ICU could not be kept as sterile as an operating room. Instead, drum-shaped cleaning robots frequently moved through, keeping the space as clean as possible.

The frog-faced doctor held out a hand to stop one, opened the lid, and checked inside.

He found a long, strawberry blonde hair.

He touched it to find it unusually stiff. Its surface was badly damaged for having recently fallen out, almost like it had been left on the floor for years.

“…”

Nutrients and oxygen were supplied to the hair and the nails.

But as can be seen from the lack of bleeding when cutting your hair, the capillaries were connected to the roots and didn’t continue on through the rest of the hair.

He knew what to focus on now.

He wasn’t one to stop here just because he couldn’t prove anything scientifically.

“Wh-what do we do?”

“Prepare her for dialysis,” calmly instructed the frog-faced doctor.

Bacteria and toxins harmed people through a wide variety of methods. But one common method was to have a nature very similar to a component necessary for human life. For example, carbon monoxide. Its similar structure to oxygen allowed it to bond with the red blood cells, keeping out the oxygen that was meant to be carried through the bloodstream. And because humans needed oxygen, they would eventually collapse.

The cause was invisible and it was similar to a normal bodily function.

The connotations of the word “curse” had distracted them.

The culprit was a lot closer to home. You can think of it like a form of fatal pollen allergy that shows symptoms in response to “something thought of as occult” like a face, a name, hair, or nails.

Then how could it be prevented?

What could they block with a mask? Was there a preventative or a cure? Use whatever terminology you like.

By swapping out the words in his head, his thoughts began to race. No matter how strange it seemed, someone’s life was at risk. So how could he, as a doctor, stop working?

“History tells of someone who ate deadly potassium cyanide but didn’t die.”

“?”

“Rasputin. There are many dubious legends about the man, but the official records say he ate cakes laced with cyanide without dying. A normal person would have a 100% chance of death when it reacted with their gastric acid, so some theorize he survived because his gastric acid was extremely weak.”

That was one example of escaping certain death.

Even when the result appeared to be a miracle or nightmare, the method of cheating death could sometimes be explained scientifically.

What did it matter if this illness could not be scientifically explained?

All he had to do was remove the conditions causing it and science could handle that.

In other words…

“This illness appears to identify an individual based on their blood and attack their bodily tissue. So ''if we artificially replace all of her blood and temporarily change her blood type'', this ‘curse’ disease will lose its target. We will remove its ability to identify her. Got that?”

Many different devices were hurried into the ICU. The frog-faced doctor temporarily stepped out of the ICU to give them space.

He sighed.

Someone was standing there: Aleister Crowley.

They were old friends, so the frog-faced doctor didn’t bother turning around in surprise. He didn’t know how or why that human was here. He simply accepted that that human could do things he couldn’t explain.

With a golden retriever by his side, Aleister asked a simple question.

Everything was packed into so few words.

“What are you going to do?”

“As long as the patient wants to live, I will lend them every skill and resource available to me.”

“How did you ask Anna Sprengel if she wants to live? You can’t converse with her just by reading the pulses of her brain waves.”

“True. But someone risked his life to leave her in my care and bowed to me. I haven’t heard from her herself and it is possible she doesn’t even have the strength left to want anything. But I know that boy will draw it out of her. Maybe she has no more reason to want to live, but I know he will give her a new one. Not a bad possibility to bet on, don’t you think?”

The frog-faced doctor knew Christian Rosencreutz was on his way here. But no matter how many of this city’s secrets he knew, he was still just a doctor. Unlike the monsters of the former dark side, he did not have the power to fight and protect his sanctuary here.

So.

“Are you interested in lending a hand?”

“…”

“You’re just dying to finally use your full strength for someone other than yourself, aren’t you?”

They did not hold a lengthy or grand conversation This was not a sketchy politician’s speech or a TV informercial pressuring you to call by saying the deal only lasted for half an hour after it aired. These two understood each other well enough that theatrical gestures and the like would only get in the way.

Aleister spoke quietly, his head still lowered.

It was possible his question had not actually been directed at the frog-faced doctor in front of him.

“I created this city, but it is no longer mine. Why should I pour all my efforts into Academy City at this point?”

He received a single response.

The frog-faced doctor’s answer was a simple one.

As old friends, he knew exactly what words would stab him deepest.

“How about because it would make ''him'' happy?”

===Part 13===

And so.

Two magicians stood face to face.

After failing to work up the courage to fight or even to run away, the human was finally crossing the start line.

And once he made up his mind, the rest happened quick.

History proved how effective he was at taking action.

“Aleister.”

“Stay back. And don’t let anything that happens here surprise you.”

That was the extent of the human and golden retriever’s conversation.

Space itself vibrated.

Christian Rosencreutz looked to the space around him instead of at Aleister.

Everything looked the same.

“Did you shift the phase?” asked CRC, amused.

“Is that so surprising? Even Mathers and his lot played with the phases. They would use astral projection to spy on other phases or extract power from those other phases and give them temporary mass. …It all created so many unnecessary sparks and innocent people had to pay the price.”

This was already another world.

The golden retriever standing by his side was eternally cut off from him.

Now two magicians this powerful could directly clash without any fear of the hospital collapsing or the working doctors and immobilized patients coming to harm.

“I am the fool who attempted to suppress the creation of sparks by creating a new mythology as ''cushioning'' between the many phases. Unfortunately, it didn’t work because the Christian church wanted to protect their monopoly on the concept of god and sent their billions of followers against me. But since the theory itself was sound, I can at least spirit someone away.”

The stage had been set.

Aleister and Rosencreutz both took a step forward.

Space was compressed and light was distorted.

Christian Rosencreutz held an old lamp made of glass. It contained a collection of energy said to be ''an inextinguishable light''. Releasing only the smallest amount from the glass case transformed the gentle glow into a crimson serpent consuming all the oxygen in the air.

Aleister responded with two simple words.

“''Great demon.''”

“Kee hee hee! Ee hee hee hee hee, hee ha ha ha ha ha hah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

The red was twisted and bent.

It crashed into an invisible wall in front of Aleister and melted the concrete wall to the side.

The human did not bat an eye.

The initial clue had come from Kingsford. He knew how to control it.

“Do not rely on your past legends, CRC. Your true colors are showing.”

Rosencreutz sighed and tossed the eternal lamp over his shoulder like a child with a toy he had lost interest in.

Batlike wings flapped behind Aleister’s back and a deadly gale blew through the world.

It swept through every nook and cranny and everything it touched grew black and rotten.

The wind itself was colorless. The floor, walls, and ceiling gradually blackened, peeled away, and pursued Rosencreutz.

At some point, a flask of powder had appeared in CRC’s hand. No, it wasn’t clear if it truly was there. His mimicry of holding it may have been so perfect it created the illusion. Either way, the silver young man popped off the lid with his thumb and scattered the red powder. The legendary Rosicrucian cabal had not been pursuing anything as trivial as eternal life.

“Revolution.”

The world at large really did change.

The black color vanished. The air grew clean and full of negative ions, like deep in the forest. Control of this world repeatedly changed hands, like a tennis rally.

It was a casual thing.

A simple thing.

If this were in the outside world, the entire city would have rotted apart and then been buried in verdant trees.

“I see. You are not fighting on your own – you are boosting yourself by borrowing the power of another. Is that the source of the false confidence allowing you to speak so arrogantly to this old man?”

“''Holy Guardian Angel.''”

“And you have more than one helper. …But don’t you feel ashamed? This does not mean you have conquered anything. You have only hid behind the backs of those stronger than you while you fling rocks at me from safety.”

“What, you didn’t know?”

“?”

“Fine by me. Because that is what gives this conflict meaning.”

After a short pause, Christian Rosencreutz moved his eyes.

To view his own fingertip.

The pointer finger’s nail had split and it was bleeding.

“You claim to only need yourself, but you worked with your seven disciples to build the House of the Holy Spirit and you were placed in that special grave. So in the end, you were a magician who had to pay attention to symbols and colors with their origins in the land.”

Aleister didn’t hesitate to explain this.

Because it wasn’t worth hiding.

“So all I had to do was transport you to another world. You don’t have the land’s support anymore, CRC. You might as well be trying to use your phone’s GPS map on Mars. The rules change outside of the world you’re used to.”

“Hm.”

Christian Rosencreutz nodded. He honestly accepted his opponent’s claim.

But he didn’t stop there.

“But removing some of my functions does nothing at all to boost your strength, does it?”

Something exploded.

Rosencreutz had not moved a step. He only held his palm out. That was enough for something to go wrong inside Aleister’s chest. A rusty flavor rose up his throat, he couldn’t stop himself from coughing up red, and the female feet below the beige habit lifted from the floor.

It happened too fast for human senses and even for great demon and Holy Guardian Angel senses to follow. Aleister bounced several times down the hospital waiting room, knocking over the sofas and making a racket of destructive noises.

CRC looked at the back of his hand and his nail.

“Do you know what I did to you?”

This was not a cheap trick.

The very foundation was different.

Christian Rosencreutz blew boredly on his fingertip.

“Masters of the Rose never use a spell or magic circle as is. They extract whatever form of the mystical they require from the symbols hidden in the scene around them. The Rod of Asclepius, the cross, the Hippocratic Oath – hospitals are a treasure trove of miraculous symbols and elements.”

“I doubt…that’s what you really did.”

‘Heh heh. Because true experts do not talk at length? Why should I follow the rules set forth by that dead girl – Kingsford?”

The air was permeated by a flammability even more frightening than a dust explosion.

But nothing more happened. Aleister lacked the strength to fight back even when someone else was being ridiculed.

Something in the air changed.

The shifted phase had returned to normal. Christian Rosencreutz stood in an ordinary hospital waiting room – in an ordinary space where the swing of an arm would destroy a pillar or wall and kill someone.

Aleister was soaked with blood. He had been thrown across the waiting room, where he crashed through the sofas, rolled along the floor, and ended up seated with his back against a column.

“You fool! Just because you admire Kingsford’s way of life is no reason to let yourself meet the same end as her!”

Hearing Kihara Noukan’s voice told Aleister that his phase shift had been reverted. The human once known as the world’s wickedest man smiled weakly, unable to even get up.

CRC did not bother looking in his direction.

“Is that all the magicians of this era can do?”

But Aleister’s face showed no sign of panic or frustration.

Still collapsed among several broken sofas, the human smiled thinly and spoke.

“Did you forget why you’re here, CRC?”

“?”

After Kingsford, he was the second to place that look on CRC’s face.

Which meant those words were not for his own benefit.

He was leaving everything in the hands of the next challenger.

He had admired that expert and her way of life.

If he really did remind Kihara Noukan of her here, then he was honored.

“You want to kill time? You’re going to slaughter all of the Transcendents as punishment for reviving you into such a boring world?”

So he gave a snort of laughter.

Bloody Aleister’s eyes displayed obvious mockery.

Viewing anything greater than himself with skepticism had always been that human’s most defining trait. Even if it got him branded an eccentric and ostracized by the majority of the world.

And while people called him a lord of devils, he had discovered a truth no one else could understand.

In other words…

“I don’t know if you’re giving a plausible excuse to hide your true intentions or if you’re trying not to think about it yourself, but you’re afraid of the parents who brought you into this world, aren’t you? The Bridge Builders Cabal used a special method to revive you, so it’s entirely possible they could ''rearrange the ceremony’s process and symbols'' to instantly kill you again. You feared having your newfound freedom taken away, so you chose to attack your parents the instant you were reborn. You moved quick so you could catch those Transcendents off guard.”

Magical astral projection existed as a single spell with two processes: one that separated the mind from the body and another that returned the mind to the body. So by rearranging the separation process, one could achieve the return process. Necromancy and doll-based curses worked much the same. Very little magic only worked in one direction. It was much the same as an explosives technician placing as much emphasis on knowing how to cause explosions as on how to safely prevent them.

In an extreme example, the Anglican Church had created a grimoire library as a countermeasure against any and all magicians.

“The means of defeating you already existed. It was there from the beginning.”

“…”

“But you didn’t want to be bound once more, so you started by eliminating that. You wanted to avoid being a world-saving bike courier who had to listen to everything the Transcendents said and save a great multitude of strangers at their behest.”

His surprise attack on Alice Anotherbible, the greatest threat, had successfully killed her and the Bridge Builders Cabal had broken apart without her to hold it together. Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, or any of the others could never gather all of those Transcendents in one place again.

Exactly as CRC had hoped.

Peel away the theatric gestures and meaningless words and that was all he was.

Aleister could state it with such confidence because he always made sure to question the gods and charismatic leaders that the people of the world heaped so much unconditional praise on.

“I was never here to prove myself. My own survival isn’t even part of my win condition. You set the rules yourself, remember? Simply put, ''this is a battle over whether or not we can protect Anna Sprengel''.”

“You mean…?”

The human was calmly approaching the territory of a true expert.

He had approached the very entrance of the stairway available only to magicians that led to being a powerful individual while also respecting others and pouring all your efforts into helping someone else.

The great goddess of wisdom had left this task with him.

So the bloody human smiled and made his point.

“I win as long as the illusion slayer boy arrives in time.”

===Part 14===

And.

Kamijou Touma was frozen with fear.

He had just taken the first step into the front entrance of the frog-faced doctor’s hospital.

He found himself in an alternate world of red and black.

He had seen it all before. Everything around him was destroyed, someone he knew lay in a pool of blood, and only Christian Rosencreutz stood tall and unconcerned.

“He expects a lot out of you.”

“…”

“So what will you do? After all your losses, surely you do not think you can win this all on your own. Will you seek the help of your Transcendent companions? Will you stand back and play at being their commander to wear this old man down? Heh heh. This old man has no problem with that. None at all. My goal is to kill all of the Transcendents anyway. If you will send them to the front line – kee hee hee – I will gratefully accept the gift.”

“Don’t listen,” said Aradia, holding out a slender arm to stop Kamijou. “CRC would never say anything that benefits us.”

Kamijou didn’t even have time to glance over at her.

But he could sense the powerful aura of “don’t rise to the bait” radiating from her.

Mut Thebes was out of the fight, possibly dead.

Aradia, the Bologna Succubus, and Good, Old Mary were the only Transcendents here now. If they didn’t make full use of everything they had, there was no winning this. In a way, Imagine Breaker was an even rarer trait than the Transcendents, so they couldn’t afford to have it taken out here.

“Kee hee hee. Ee hee, kee hee hee hee hee.”

He approached.

Christian Rosencreutz approached them from head on.

His fingers stroked through his silver beard.

“What, done already? No new options? No trump cards? No hopes that you will discover a power beyond all your known limits when backed into a corner while guarding someone behind you?”

This was not the action of someone fighting on the same level. It was a simple slaughter with a clear line drawn between predator and prey.

In those extreme circumstances, everything Kamijou had seen flashed before his eyes.

Was there no clue there?

Had he left any stone unturned?

He knew it was no use, but his instinct to never give up kept the gears of his mind fruitlessly turning.

*Alice Anotherbible and Anna Kingsford were dead.

*Anti-Skill and Judgment had accomplished nothing.

*The unmanned tanks with self-destruct drones and the mobile combat vehicles hadn’t stood a chance.

*The massive gunship hadn’t done any real damage.

*Index’s knowledge as a grimoire library and Othinus’s tactics as a Magic God weren’t enough to keep up.

*Academy City’s #3 Railgun and #5 Mental Out hadn’t worked either.

*The tungsten alloy bombing from satellite orbit and the particle accelerator cannon using the Hula Hoop hadn’t stopped him.

*The Transcendents’ biggest attacks, like the Bologna Succubus’s Cold Mistress and Good, Old Mary’s Tribikos, had failed to eliminate him.

*So had Aleister.

Even though it was just this one man.

Even though the monster named Christian Rosencreutz was only marching across the city on his own.

Run away, regroup, try again.

That was the most Kamijou’s group had managed. They had lost all three defense lines and now the battle had moved inside the hospital in District 7. There was no more room to fall back. They were right next to the ICU where Anna Sprengel was clinging to life thanks to all the medical equipment. If the silver young man set foot inside there, it was all over.

But.

Even so.

The boy realized something while viewing this nightmarish result.

Had he really, truly given this his all?

It was true this was on a larger scale than normal.

If he clenched his right fist and rushed onto the storm of bullets and bombs on the battlefield, he wouldn’t be any help and might even get shot in the back by friendly fire. Wielding the power to destroy illusions would do no good here.

However…

(What can I do?)

He pondered that.

Driven to the very edge, Kamijou Touma truly thought about it this time.

Could he really accept this?

Could he step out of CRC’s way and give up on Anna Sprengel because he couldn’t win this? They weren’t doing it because he had bowed his head or because they were only defending themselves. Anna was a villain, but those people had still stood back up because they could believe in her future. Was he going to stand here and watch them be slaughtered because he was out of cards and couldn’t stop CRC?

Kamijou sensed something deep in his chest.

It was his pulse.

He couldn’t do that.

Like hell he could.

So he had to lay the unfair methods out on the table too. He had to look to the options he wasn’t supposed to use. If he hadn’t done that, then he hadn’t really given this his all. He had only been watching. He hadn’t reached out his hand, so he didn’t know what cards were left in his deck. That wasn’t good enough. Kamijou, the one who had wanted to fight all alone for Anna, had strayed the furthest from that goal. He couldn’t let it end that way. No matter what.

(That’s right.)

He had to struggle.

Struggle harder!!

(''There is one more thing.'')

He wanted to save Anna Sprengel. He wanted to prevent innocent people from being killed along with her. The only way of making those things happen was to defeat Christian Rosencreutz here. He knew that. He didn’t see any errors in those premises. But what exactly could he do? What had he himself done up to this point?

He had the power to destroy any and all illusions.

But that was all his power could do.

He could do nothing against a harsh reality. Could he really accept that?

Wasn’t he still holding one option in reserve?

“…”

Kamijou Touma knew that this world was really and truly cruel and that people would die if a bad situation was left unfixed. Alice Anotherbible’s merciless death was proof enough of that.

So many people would die if things continued like this.

Aogami Pierce, who knew nothing of what was happening.

The frog-faced doctor who was working to save the unconscious wicked woman.

Human Aleister who had fought with all his might for nothing in return.

And.

Anna Sprengel who could no longer move her own lungs and heart.

''So.

“Misaka.”

Kamijou grabbed his phone and spoke into it.

Witch Goddess Aradia looked up in sudden realization.

“Stop, Kamijou Touma! You mustn’t do that!!”

“Fire on this GPS signal. Fire through the window to the left of the 1st floor’s front entrance. Do that and we can defeat Rosencreutz!!”

He got exactly what he wanted.

Outside the hospital’s walls, Misaka Mikoto likely had no idea what was going on in there.

But Aradia saw it all.

She saw the beam, heard the boom, felt the shockwave.

It blasted straight through the wall and it struck its intended target.

Everything played out as Kamijou had wanted.

The color red splattered out.

Kamijou Touma’s right arm was torn off at the shoulder and flew through the air.

Christian Rosencreutz raised his palm and turned his gaze toward the arm to obliterate it. A little thing like Imagine Breaker could never fully defend against his attack. In fact, its presence had limited Kamijou’s options.

So.

Kamijou clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

And he used his own willpower to force them back open.

At the same time, something shot from his right shoulder with a dull thud. The translucent mass was very obviously something other than blood. After grasping the concept of up and down, it audibly took shape. It became a great maw lined with ferocious fangs.

“Fine.”

In other words, a dragon.

Kamijou heard a voice from somewhere. It came from inside his own head.

''Another boy spoke clearly.

“I was just about fed up with him myself. No more holding back. If you didn’t do it, I was about to come out on my own!!!”

The boy spoke softly, the whites of his eyes dyed red from burst capillaries.

He sounded like he was casting a curse on someone.

“''I only needed that right hand gone.''”

===Part 15===

He had summoned it himself.

Just once in his life, he chose to cheat.

In that instant, the ordinary high school boy ceased to be a mere Level 0.

===Between the Lines 3===

Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.

“Mistress, can’t we stop for lunch? It’s well past noon… And how do you plan a trip to Germany without including a chance to eat a Hamburg or a Frankfurt!?”

“What do you think we are here to do? And are you planning to tear up a map and eat it? Here, Lilith, your bottle.”

Dion Fortune complained about her empty stomach, but Mina Mathers only gave her an icy look while soothing the baby in the baby carrier.

The black cat witch was here to track down Anna Sprengel’s footprints, but she had known the answer before the investigation even began.

“If you look to the accepted knowledge in modern Western magic, the answer is obvious. Miss Sprengel was a nonexistent magician. At the time of the Golden cabal’s founding, Westcott wanted to give the new cabal greater history and legitimacy, so he invented the fictional magician so he could create the legend of receiving permission from a secret cabal. It was all a one-man show put on through the medium of letters.”

“And when they searched Europe in the usual way, they never could find the First Temple, right?”

“Felkin and others wanted to see the Secret Chiefs so bad they threw money around to wander all across Europe before finally traveling as far as New Zealand.”

“Why do men love endless adventures so much? Not that I like the idea of giving up before even attempting a search and concluding the legendary First Temple doesn’t physically exist and only existed in the hearts of everyone involved in the Golden cabal.”

“It’s just like how it’s far easier to write off paranormal phenomena as neurological or psychological illusions than to try to prove them as something physical. Just goes to show that people have always fallen back on the same excuses when presented with a challenging problem. But at the time, most members thought there was no point in searching out the physical address when they could simply astral project themselves to another phase and receive messages from the Secret Chiefs and their priestess there. Just like thinking remote work is good enough as long as you’re connected with your coworkers by a fiber optic network. All the while, they had no idea who that vague, faceless shadow really was.”

That was their starting point.

And with that in mind…

“Useless student. In that case, ''what is this''?”

“That’s a really good question, mistress.”

There was no building there.

Only stone blocks lined up on the ground in an L-shape. It was a portion of a building’s foundation. The supposedly nonexistent Licht Liebe Leben Temple had left behind physical evidence, just like any historical ruins.

“Mistress, what does this mean? I just want to drink a local beer already. One of those first-rate dark beers the Germans pride themselves in and are legendary for being cheaper than water.”

“We are not here to drink. Aren’t you supposed to be investigating at the British people’s expense?”

“Ehh? Why should you care about British finances?”

“Because Mina Mathers was originally a magician in London, my foolish student.”

The First Temple really did exist.

Or some remnant of it did.

What purpose was hidden behind this contradiction?

“Ugh. The Anna Sprengel in the secret letters was basically ''Westcott talking with his own sockpuppet, right?'' We aren’t going to discover that coroner was parading around Germany in women’s clothing, are we?”

“I honestly think that would be the funniest possible explanation, but I doubt it.”

Mina Mathers crouched down for a closer inspection of the L-shaped foundation.

Testing the carbon isotopes in the materials would provide their accurate age.

Just because they looked old didn’t mean they couldn’t be quite new.

And there were things that only showed up in a very detailed deception.

“Most likely, there was a magician called Anna who specialized in Rosicrucian magic. Anna isn’t exactly a rare name, after all.”

“Bweh? But if she was using a fake name, surely she could have come up with something better than Anna.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Dion Fortune? Or should I say-”

“Cough, cough! How about we stay on topic, mistress? There’s no reason to bring that up!!”

“Violet Firth. It seems like a perfectly cute name to me.”

“Why would you go ahead and say my real name when I made it so obvious I didn’t want you too!?”

The girl who normally went by her super cool screenname was blushing, tearful, and upset. She must not have liked her name for some reason.

But ultimately, this may not have been a rare occurrence in the world of magicians where powerful individuals determined their own value.

If you worried too much what others would think of you and tried to correct yourself to their liking, you would never excel as a magician.

(If you want to go there, my husband was basically unemployed and claimed to be Scottish nobility. He got so obsessed with it he named his own bloodline and invented all sorts of other details to go along with it. He was living proof that if you have the passion, you can continue your teenage cringe well into adulthood.)

“Sigh…”

“Mistress, that was a heavy sigh. Is something wrong?”

“Oh, I was just thinking how tiring it is to be the only sensible person around.”

“Mercilessly delivering kitty claw attacks the instant you lose your temper is your idea of ‘sensible’?”

“I do not punch and I do not use the kitchen knives. That puts me well on the side of sensible.”

“I notice you didn’t mention palette knives. You’re always swinging those metal weapons around.”

“What makes you think you can criticize your own teacher, my hopeless student? Some gentle punishment is in order to swiftly correct such an unfortunately mistaken soror.”

“You’re proving my point! How is this ‘gentle’!? Ow, owww!?”

Mina Mathers immediately began some corporal punishment by shoving a metal spatula against Dion Fortune’s navel and rubbing it over her clothes, but the concept of a healthy educational environment was still a work in progress from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

“Hee hee. This is only a wife finally reaching the end of her patience and making an adorable scratching attack with only her wrist. Meow, meow☆”

“Stop trying to pass your violence off as adorable! I was the primary victim and my back looked like a tiger had clawed it! Big cats are not the same as housecats! Your student nearly died!!”

The (according to the teacher) nonsensible student’s testimony was thrown out.

Before scraping off a sample, Mina Mathers made an accurate sketch rather than snapping a photo with her phone. All while she soothed Lilith in the baby carrier.

“But if we don’t know what Anna this Anna is, that means she is not a major magician. And not many people would have listened to what a no-name magician said. Even if this mystery Anna had proper Rosicrucian knowledge, she wouldn’t have had a way to pass it on.”

“That would explain why everyone looked down on her, decided to do things their own way, took shortcuts, and skipped pages in the thick grimoires.”

What happened afterwards went without saying.

What would happen if someone got bored after the first few pages of reading a flight manual more than 8cm thick, shut the book, and climbed into the cockpit? It didn’t take much thought to imagine the tragedy that would unfold.

The Rosicrucian cabal was also known as the unseen university.

All that knowledge was lined up in the way calculated to best foster learning, so you could not just cherry pick which parts interested you. But the hobbyists had grabbed only the most impactful and exciting terms and started using the magic without knowing what the incantations and symbols would actually do. They didn’t want to study, but they did want a degree and an academic history. The desire was understandable, but granting it would not make anyone happy. In some cases, it could even put lives at risk.

She must have despaired.

Both at the ignorant masses who refused to learn things in the proper order and at herself for being too unimportant to guide them properly.

The accuracy of her knowledge was not the issue.

No one trusted in her enough to think what she was saying was accurate.

So they looked down on her, so they failed spectacularly, so they suffered meaningless deaths and mental destruction. Again and again. When none of it would have happened if they had just listened.

And….

“She wanted a name for herself. The problem wasn’t her foolish students. Her own lack of fame had ultimately led to all the deaths and destroyed minds. If she were only someone important, she thought she could correctly guide the students who arrived in search of wisdom.”

“…”

“At the same time in England, Westcott wanted a fictional legend behind the creation of the Golden cabal, so he began his faked exchange of letters. It must have come as a shock to him when he sent a letter to an arbitrary address to help create his fictional persona and then received a real reply from someone claiming to be Anna Sprengel.”

“Yeah, that’d scare you.”

“To say the least. His face would also have been burning with embarrassment.”

In modern times, it would be like the ideal wife he had imagined in his head, or the girl he had created on the character creation screen, suddenly coming to life.

Had he felt fear, or joy? Westcott had not discussed the truth of the letters with anyone until the day he died. Not even with the other Golden magicians.

“Was it automatic writing or sleepwalking? Had another Golden magician peeked at his letter and responded as a joke? Or had the ceremonial act of writing fictional letters so many times ''created'' Miss Sprengel in distant Germany? As a magician and a coroner, he must have come up with several possible explanations.”

“Yeah, it was smart of him not to go to the church to confess or go running to a mental hospital.”

“Confessing involvement in magic to an Anglican priest would never end well and you can guess the quality of 19th century mental healthcare. He was one of the few sensible members of the eccentric Golden cabal. He cared about keeping up appearances. If he had confided with anyone, the talk of magic cabals and writing letters to himself would have made them think the man had never left his teenage fantasies behind.”

That explained why the foundation of the First Temple remained in Nuremberg.

Miss Sprengel was a role Anna had borrowed to put real weight behind her name.

Traveling all the way to Nuremberg and fabricating these ruins would have been a simple enough task to that end. She had created a surprise for any Golden magician who might travel all the way from England to southern Germany to check.

Dion Fortune sounded disgusted by it all.

“So you’re suggesting Anna read through Westcott’s letters and then altered a part of Nuremberg just to match his fictional story? That seems like a lot.”

“She must have wanted to be thorough. Westcott, Mathers, and the others believed in and respected this Miss Sprengel who appeared out of nowhere, but for Anna, the rise of the world’s largest cabal in London ''was no more than advertisement for her'' as a magician said to have played a role in its founding. The end of the 19th century was before World War One, so the center of the world at the time was the UK, not America. London would have been the best possible location for that kind of advertisement.”

However, this puzzle had proved too difficult and the Golden magicians who traveled Europe to meet the Secret Chiefs and their priestess never did find the trick set up in Nuremberg.

“Miss Sprengel was a complete lie,” whispered Mina Mathers. No matter what they found, that remained unchanged. “Even if she was named Anna, she was no more than a half-baked magician who could never hope to defeat Kingsford. But it is true she worried over her problems and poured her heart and soul into preserving and expanding the Rosicrucian cabal. And ultimately, that led to the creation of the Golden cabal in distant England. Most likely, Kingsford recognized Miss Sprengel as a true magician who had accomplished something she could not. No matter how it might have happened.”

Anna Kingsford was real.

Anna Sprengel was also real.

With those two facts established, Black Cat Witch Mina Mathers muttered under her breath.

“Then who exactly is the Christian Rosencreutz both of those legendary women believed in and dedicated themselves to?”

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter1

2023-09-01T11:22:39Z

JDMP:

==Chapter 1: Level5_vs._Little_Honey_Queen==

===Part 1===

In today’s 3rd match, Kaihei Girls vs. Tonami, Tonami Technical High School managed a 1-2 come-from-behind win.

But is the Breaking Ball Princess showing signs of exhaustion?

This year’s total shaved ice sales have already surpassed those of last year.

Have the marketers plotted to create a new trend, or is it the effect of global warming?

Typhoon 11 has formed in the Pacific.

There is a concern it will maintain its size and strength when it makes landfall at eastern Tokyo and continues on to Academy City.

“Uh, oh.”

It was 5 PM on August 4. In her pink tracks suit and shorts, Takitsubo Rikou glanced over at the train’s constantly-changing LCD news display.

The view out the window was dark.

Were the thick, dark clouds just more August weather? Not that along ago, she had been watching the nostalgic sunset. This wouldn’t be the typhoon mentioned in the news, but the typhoon could have messed with the weather by pushing a front in from the ocean. The wind turbines were spinning faster than usual.

She had finished shopping for the day. Everything she thought they would need for their new home was contained in the paper bags she held, but she hoped it didn’t start raining before her walk from the train station to their apartment. She ran a mental simulation of how far the underground mall would take her before she had to emerge into the rain, but then another issue occurred to her.

(Did we leave any windows open?)

That was easy to forget when living on an upper floor. They often just left them open when they went out. She couldn’t remember one way or the other. She glanced over at Mugino Shizuri who was fidgeting with the leather handhold strap.

“It looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Hm?”

Takitsubo didn’t get a real response from the girl who had gone out of her way to take her favorite songs from a modern subscription service and re-record them on a cassette tape because she enjoyed the noisier sound. Mugino had one earphone out, but she didn’t seem all that interested in Takitsubo’s warning.

They had gone to the trouble of getting a new (and decently expensive) hideout in District 3, yet they were running the risk of having the living room floor discolored by rain just because they left a window open.

Mugino pulled her phone from her pocket and waved it to draw Takitsubo’s attention.

She showed Takitsubo the small screen, which had opened some kind of app.

“The windows, right? Not a problem. We live in the IoT age where everything’s internet connected.”

“And?”

The track suit girl blinked in confusion, so Mugino explained further.

“The apartment’s metal shutters can be operated from your phone. It’s going to rain? You’re worried about your laundry? Non, non. There’s nothing to worry about. If you feel a raindrop while you’re out…”

A small diagonal line ran along the train window.

Apparently it really was raining.

“You just need to tap this button on your phone and…voila! Now the metal shutter is covering the entire balcony. You gotta love modern conveniences. Ah ha ha!”

===Part 2===

“…”

Item had split up to do their shopping and Frenda Seivelun had finished her part and returned to their luxury apartment sooner than the others. What she found there made her form a small triangle with her mouth. But her issue wasn’t sweating in her own home because she had returned first and needed to switch on the air conditioning.

Her eyes met someone else’s.

His body was pinned to the concrete balcony railing like someone about to be guillotined and his head had rotated a full 180 degrees. Much like a clock’s hand.

His upside-down eyes met Frenda’s without blinking.

Frenda sighed.

With her skin showing through her thin, sweaty clothing, she switched on the air conditioning with the remote, pulled out her phone, and called someone.

“Um, Mugino? There’s some weird dead guy with his neck caught in the balcony’s metal shutter. And thanks to the summer heat, he’s already starting to smell pretty funky. In the end, is he a friend of yours?”

===Part 3===

“Hey, Kinuhata. These are special high-grip gloves and is that a lockpicking tool?”

“I see. So the corpse who paid us an unwanted visit was a burglar. District 3 does have a super lot of big corporate buildings, so climbing skills would be valuable in that trade.”

Takitsubo and Kinuhata’s conversation made Mugino scowl.

“Seriously? We’re on the 50th floor. I know people don’t always close their windows on higher floors, but surely there’s a better use for the patience and endurance it would take to climb this high.”

“You super can’t expect criminals to go straight. It doesn’t matter how far a pervert peeping tom hones his skills – he’ll never be a clever spy. They’re just super not the type to do that.”

“Mugino. It might have been faster for him to climb down from the roof than up from the ground.”

Even that would take a lot of effort.

Letting the corpse (whose neck had been broken by his own weight) fall to the ground would be a neighborhood nuisance, so the four of them pulled him over the railing onto the balcony. There was a roof over that, so the rain wouldn’t blow in.

“In the end, we can’t just leave him here. If the heat wasn’t bad enough, everything is damp from the rain. Mugino, when can the corpse disposer get here? Should we stick a portable air conditioner next to him for the time being?”

“I already made the call, so they should be by soon.”

“Hm.”

That meant they were running behind schedule.

Frenda didn’t give much of a response despite asking the question and a burning metal smell came from her. For her, this may have been like doing a jigsaw puzzle or crossword puzzle to kill time. She was looking through a large magnifying glass held in place by a stand while she used a soldering iron on some kind of computer chip.

After receiving a face full of the lead scent produced by Frenda’s feminine hobby, Kinuhata made sure to keep her distance.

“Super what are you making, Frenda-san? Another deadly alarm clock?”

“An antimatter bomb. In the end, I think it’s more powerful than the sun.”

“…”

Kinuhata formed a small triangle with her mouth and Frenda looked up at her.

“It’s just a chip and a detonator. In the end, this can’t blow up on its own.”

The intercom rang and Kinuhata answered it through the screen, but their visitor was not a delinquent from their support organization. A gentle young woman with ankle-length black hair stood in front of the door. Her curvy body seemed barely contained by a knit dress with various holes that Kinuhata couldn’t remember the name of.

The woman in the lewd knit dress (as Kinuhata decided to call it) smiled with a hand elegantly placed on her cheek.

“Hello. I am Hanatsuyu Kuchikusa the Converter. I believe you called for me.”

“Kinuhata, I called her here out of my own pocket, so open the door and let her in. This is going to be our hideout, so this isn’t like cleaning up a corpse from the side of the road. The usual delinquents said they couldn’t completely get rid of the smell, so I had to hire a higher grade of worker for this one. I don’t want any trace left of this guy.”

Mugino made it sound as casual as letting in a mover to transport their furniture.

“Hm, hm♪ Now, I need to work hard if I’m going to support my family. Hee hee. Look, I have my cute twins as my phone’s wallpaper. I’m training them in the family business.”

“In the end, are you serious? They’re no older than my sister. Sure, I’m spending money I made on criminal jobs to buy clothes for her, but this is different.”

“The two of them are learning all the necessary skills in a sterile lab right now. They still have a long way to go before I can let them take on actual jobs, though. They just don’t have the necessary skills. Or really, they’re far too destructive, so they need to learn better control or how to apply the brakes.”

While bragging about her daughters in about the most disturbing way imaginable, the gentle mama crossed the living room and out onto the balcony. Kinuhata gave her a curious look.

“(That knit dress really accentuates her curves. Would that super work as an easy way to give yourself a touch of adult sex appeal?)”

Meanwhile, Takitsubo noticed something while staring blankly at the woman.

“That gas mask on the side of her head.”

“What about it?”

“I’ve seen it before. On that DJ at the library used for the Colosseum.”

“Oh, dear. You know about my secret hobby? Academy City is such a small place. Hee hee. How embarrassing.”

Mugino jerked her chin toward the burglar with the broken neck.

“How are you going to clean that up?”

“Well, I generally use necrophages,” said the gentle mama like she might when explaining how she makes the dashi for her miso soup. “The term converter refers to the entire category of plants and animals that eat dead carcasses and of bacteria that create organic material out of inorganic material without using photosynthesis. There are enough different types to fill an entire encyclopedia, but whether they are bugs, molds, or plants, the most powerful method is to lay their eggs in the dead host to eat it from within. Hee hee. You can never go wrong with that method. Because for them, the host’s carcass is their home and they will consume all of its resources from end to end, leaving nothing at all behind. So you can sit back, relax, and leave this to the tiny experts. My, my. They will fully destroy the genetic material and not leave a single scent particle behind☆”

“Ew, what a world we live in. Is a mother supporting her kids afraid of nothing?”

“Oh? Did I say anything about being their mama? As a girl yourself, would you have chosen this skimpy knit dress? ''There are certain parasites and specific endocrine disruptors that can remove a human’s male reproductive abilities and make them female.''”

“…”

“Just kidding☆ Whether I am those girls’ papa or mama and whether I supplied the sperm or the egg will remain a secret. Because that kind of mystery is great for increasing your perceived value.”

Item didn’t particularly care one way or the other, but it did sound just like the dark side to turn science on that level into a toy.

Meanwhile, a change was showing itself.

Apparently it was true you couldn’t understand just how impressive an expert’s skills really were. All they could see was the woman spraying a few colorful liquids from something like perfume bottles. She was probably spreading bug eggs or plant seeds. The 170cm collection of flesh and bone, which had a broken neck and was starting to stink, vanished without a trace – including the clothing and equipment. The process was even faster than watching ice melt. The balcony had to be crawling with something microscopic but even more dangerous than army ants. And even though the man’s equipment disappeared, the balcony and living room floor remained intact.

It was a scene that made one wonder what a human even was.

“There, all done. Nothing biologically or physically remains, but it can help on the emotional side if you wash the balcony off with water. That won’t scientifically change anything, though.”

“Is this super safe to leave as is? Isn’t the floor crawling with whatever tiny things ate that guy?”

“Hmm? I’m not sure what you’re so afraid of, but I killed all the human-eating larvae with a mold that’s harmless to humans. But those adorable little babies only eat dead humans, so it wouldn’t matter either way,” casually explained the expert. Apparently a pro’s job wasn’t done until they had returned their monster to its cage. “My, my. Are you about to cook yakiniku? If you’re worried about the smell of the room, please call me again. Bye. …Hello, girls? I’ve finished my job, so what would like for dinner? Hee hee. How about filling our bellies with meat at the churrasco place by the station?”

She remained smiling to the end.

Kinuhata seemed a little dazed as she watched the departing parent of small twins.

“She’s already talking about food. Do people in her business super not need time to switch gears?”

“In the end, humans can eat their lunch in the school bathroom if necessary.”

Mugino raised her arms and stretched her back.

“There, that pain-in-the-ass accident is dealt with, so let’s get to dinner! I’m starving.”

“Looks like one of us super doesn’t care either.”

But going without dinner over something like this would be a problem for a growing girl. Their trouble was finally over and their guest had left. They couldn’t relax in their outdoor clothes, so the four of them started by entering their rooms and changing into their pajamas.

Once they had regathered in the living room, Takitsubo blankly tilted her head and spoke first.

“Frenda, aren’t you on dinner duty today? I know we ran into some trouble, but shouldn’t you have started preparing the food by now? If you need to prepare in a hurry, I can help.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Worry not because this is all going according to plan.”

“?”

“In the end, what’s the standard food choice when one of those famous Asian typhoons is on its way? We could be stuck with nothing but canned food for a while, so I thought we had to do something special tonight. Tah dah! We can use our outdoor gear and a yakiniku set for what I call the Great Veramping Operation!!”

Frenda’s excitement didn’t have much of an effect on Kinuhata and Takitsubo.

Kinuhata tilted her head.

“Super what is veramping?”

“It means to camp on the balcony, Kinuhata. I think Frenda was looking at some solo camping content on social media or a video site.”

In other words, she just wanted to do it herself.

At least it was better than having Frenda say she had bought nothing but preserved foods to prepare for the typhoon, which, knowing Frenda, would inevitably turn out to be a hellish experience with nothing but canned mackerel to eat.

Hanatsuyu Mama had given it away earlier, but that specialist must have identified the thin-sliced yakiniku meat from the smell of the blood, the fat, and so on.

The four of them carried the sofa, table, and cushions out onto the large balcony.

It was still raining outside, but the balcony had a roof and it didn’t look like the rain was going to blow in on them. And as much as they complained, Academy City residents generally didn’t believe in ghosts and such.

“In the end, this lantern will really set the mood, don’t you think? Oh, now it feels like we’re camping!”

“But that’s a super bright LED light?”

After securing a seat, Takitsubo’s gaze wandered through empty space before landing on negligee-wearing Mugino.

“Are we allowed to use the balcony this way?”

“We’re not using fire, so I don’t see why not. And if it is a problem, we can slap the concierge with a stack of cash and have them change the rules for us. It’s not like apartment rules are actual laws or regulations.”

Mugino seemed more interested in the hot plate that kitty pajamas Frenda had for them to use.

“Won’t electric be too weak? A gas-powered grill seems like it would cook the meat more thoroughly.”

“Don’t worry. Now allow me to introduce the stars of the show: check out this glorious wagyu.”

“Hold on, Frenda. What did you take that out of?”

“A silver cooler, what else? This is how you make it really feel like camping! Plus, who wants to keep walking back and forth between the balcony and the kitchen? We’re not leaving the balcony until we’ve finished eating!! In the end, what do you want to start with? The Yonezawa, the Hida, or should we go straight to the Matsusaka!? So many choices☆”

“Isn’t this all cheap cloned beef super created in Academy City’s farm buildings? Admittedly, you super couldn’t find a difference from the real deal even with an electron microscope.”

“Don’t they call it genetic preservation, Kinuhata?” asked Takitsubo. “Reminds me of the hot spring bath additivities they make in factories.”

“Oh, shut up. We all know you two are going to eat more than anyone. And look, I used an outdoor technique they showed in the camping videos. Frozen meat can double as an ice pack!”

This led to a problem.

In her thin baggy pajama top and shorts, Kinuhata formed a small triangle with her mouth.

“How long are going to super cook that meat? When are we going to get to eat something!?”

“It’s taking 20 minutes to cook a single piece of meat. I think this is more defrosting than cooking, though.”

The girl who even wore a track suit when she slept was unfazed by the trouble.

Mugino didn’t even try to hide her irritation as she growled a response.

“That technique of yours is meant for when you’re driving half a day out into the mountains or to the beach, not when you’re at home. What were you thinking putting frozen meat on this weak electric hotplate, you dumbass outdoors novice?”

Frenda was left sulking in a corner of the balcony after the verbal assault from all sides, but fortunately, only the meat had been frozen. That boosted the popularity of the yakisoba, stir-fried vegetables, and other less exciting options that were usually only seen as side dishes.

“Mugino, they must chop up the vegetables super small when your family stir fries them.”

“No one’s going to eat the carrots and bell peppers if you cook them individually, so they go with the meat and carbs. And the meat we left near the hotplate should be back to room temperature by now, right? Pass it here. I don’t want any bad cooks ruining it by flipping it over again and again.”

Mugino complained while using the cooking chopsticks to place meat and vegetables on everyone’s small plates. The large hotplate’s surface couldn’t be easily replaced, so they divided it into four areas with each area used for a cooking meat with a different seasoning, such as tare or salt. Sirloin, kalbi, and other types of meat needed to be flipped over at different times, so it took a lot of finesse. Mugino was probably doing it so the others didn’t piss her off by doing it wrong, but the end result was little different from being a caring big sister. But it was best not to ask the queen why she could do this but couldn’t seem to do any of the ordinary housework.

Takitsubo blinked twice and broke her silence.

“Frenda, where’s the tare?”

“In the end, I bought a few different yakiniku ones,” hesitantly replied Frenda with her lips pouted.

This was another place where individual tastes played a role. Mugino and Takitsubo went for the spicy tare. Kinuhata didn’t hesitate to reach for the mild bottle. And Mugino preferred to squeeze a lemon onto hers as well.

As for Frenda…

“Heh heh♪ Tare on meat? It must be amateur hour in here. In the end, the informed adult chooses salt☆”

“…” “…” “…”

“Hey! Why are you all being so harsh with me today? I set this all up, remember!?”

Frenda was shouting tearfully at this point, but it was written plainly on the other three’s faces that they didn’t consider salt a specific enough flavor to even discuss. It was like saying your favorite dessert was “anything with sugar in it”. She could have at least narrowed it down some by saying matcha salt or truffle salt.

But the cooler that had caused so much trouble had some more delightful surprises inside.

“Oh, it’s super full of drinks. Ice cold carbonated water, fermented milk soda, and even iced coffee.”

“You can’t grill on a hot day without some cold drinks. These might be even more important than the food. Kinuhata, pass me a cider. The French one with the ad about how it got five stars.”

Kinuhata complied with her skin faintly showing through her thin summer pajamas.

“Whew, grilling gets you super sweaty, huh? I’m all sticky. But at least this is isn’t as hot as a gas grill.”

“We’ll all be taking a bath afterwards, won’t we? So what’s the problem?” replied Takitsubo, her cold drink bottle pressed against her forehead.

They were all grabbing their choice of drink when Mugino’s phone rang.

She immediately regretted not switching it off.

“What is it, Voice on the Phone?”

“What’s that sizzling sound I hear? ''It’s always like this with you.''”

“It’s called veramping. Whatever that means. The point is, we’re having a yakiniku party tonight.”

“You stupid kids and your summer break that lasts several weeks! I wish I could take weeks off to do nothing but drink beer, but I can’t!! Goddammit, I know you teens look down on us adults, but I’ll have you know we’re the ones out here working our asses off to support the world you live in!!”

It was nearly 7 PM. The view out from the balcony had transformed from dark to full-on night, but was that workaholic still not released from her duties for the day? Maybe that was how it worked for the average salaryman, but the dark side consumed people’s lives to hold the world’s mysteries in its hands. Would someone in a relatively high position there really be satisfied with an average life?

“Frenda-san, super what are you drinking?”

“In the end, it’s called a virtual drink.”

Instead of a drink bottle, Frenda held out some kind of ''machine'' she had created. It looked like a plastic cylinder with a thick straw attached. It looked a lot like the small water bottles sold at a chain café, but the multiple dials on the bottom gave it a more mechanical appearance. It almost looked like an astronomical telescope.

“Your sense of flavor is influenced by more than just your tongue, so this kit uses a combination of multiple aromas to create a virtual flavor. With one of these, you can enjoy over a hundred different varieties of cold Starzucks lattes. The company realized how dangerous this could be to their bottom line and pulled their sponsorship, but volunteers are still uploading new flavor recipes online.”

“But you’re super not drinking anything?”

“This thick straw uses a pump to suck at your tongue and that resistance tricks your senses into thinking you’re drinking something. A normal-size seasonal iced café mocha with extra whipped cream has 700 Calories. You might as well be eating miso butter corn ramen at a cheap stand on the side of the road! So wouldn’t you like the chance to enjoy the exact same flavor as much as you want for 0 Calories?”

“Here,” said Frenda, holding out the bottle and Kinuhata took the end of the thick straw in her mouth while giving it a skeptical look usually reserved for sketchy informercial products.

“Hm? Oh, wow. My mouth really feels super chilly!!”

“In the end, it apparently has a mini air conditioner inside to cool the air. Smell, touch, temperature – it combines multiple senses to make you sense the flavor. But while it works great with the iced drinks, trying hot drinks through the straw just feels wrong.”

While the other three girls excitedly shared that drink(?), negligee-wearing Mugino focused on her phone.

She switched to speakerphone so they could all here.

“So what do you want?”

“Oh, god. That drinking sound. I need to crack open a beer. Anyway, you’re bleeding cash building your new home, right? I have a new job ready, so is Item willing to accept it?”

The Voice on the Phone was their unseen agent who acted as their go-between for jobs.

As peaceful as the city looked, there was apparently a grotesque case lurking in the darkness.

“Pwah, that’s what I needed to forget about the sweltering heat,” said the Voice on the Phone. “So are you familiar with Honey Queen? Probably not. It’s always like that with you.”

“?”

“Fries…frozen fries…there it is. 5 minutes in the microwave. She’s an online marriage scammer who’s been causing a lot of trouble recently. She finds people through a variety of platforms, but she mainly works through the free voice app called Scype. And she doesn’t just target stupid men’s e-money. She sends her messages far and wide to gather up all sorts of things, including research documents full of corporate secrets and even access keys to secret areas. It’s hard to say how valuable any data on esper development could be, but an automatic calculation by the spreadsheet macro released by Academy City’s official industrial espionage countermeasure group estimates the total losses at more than 250 billion yen. Esper development is a profitable business at the higher levels. Ohhh, this new black pepper flavor is so good! My friend, I just knew you’d go great with beer the instant I saw you in that convenience store that one night!!”

“That doesn’t sound like a job for Item. What, is there some middle-aged man who wants us to execute the beautiful scammer who cruelly deceives her clients over the internet?”

“Hic, don’t be like that. I knew you were in a tight spot, so I brought this job to you first and foremost. But if you don’t want to do it, I can pass it off to something else.”

“Now tell us the real reason.”

“I said she’s gotten research documents full of corporate secrets and access keys to secret areas, right?”

Mugino wasn’t the only one who sounded irritated.

The Voice on the Phone continued.

“To be blunt, one of her victims was someone who works for the Meltdowner research lab.”

“Ugh,” groaned Mugino.

That did indeed make it her business.

Meltdowner was her power, but she had not awoken the power within herself using a mysterious personal training ritual. Her power was considered useful, so a massive amount of research funding and personnel were invested into expanding and evolving her power. In a way, she was like a racecar.

For one thing, Academy City only had seven Level 5s.

Even if some research data had leaked, she doubted anyone could copy Meltdowner right away, but it still wasn’t a pleasant thought.

More than that, if word got out security was lax, who knows who would take aim at the lab. And if the adults’ research stalled, it would slow her own development as an esper.

Whatever the case, she couldn’t have anyone taking her lightly. That was like not cleaning up the honey splattered in front of your house. Even if each individual enemy was like an ant to her, she would be worn down eventually if there were enough of them. Plus, going to the effort of eliminating them for nothing in return sounded truly awful. That wasn’t how a professional worked.

If someone did drop some honey in front of your house, you had to wash it away as soon as possible.

Leaving this sort of trouble with someone else was a bad idea because they wouldn’t understand how crucial it was. And if a more relaxed agent worked on it, it could take forever before the problem was resolved.

“So will you take the job?” asked the Voice on the Phone.

“We will.”

“Good, good. You’re awfully obedient today. If only it was always like this with you. If Honey Queen realizes you’re after her, she will see you as an enemy and attack. Now that you’ve officially accepted a job from me, you’ll have to cancel your fun and games. I’ll be enjoying a smoke and a beer in the adult’s hideout, but you need to prepare for battle. And I mean immediately.”

Immediately, when we’re were in the middle of a meal? You must be joking. It isn’t like the enemy is going to attack right away.

Mugino never got those words out.

Something traveled through and dropped out of the PVC gutter pipe above the balcony. It was about the size of a baseball. It had a wheel on either side and a single camera lens. On the inside, it was more than 80% TNT and RDX.

Simply put, it was a mobile bomb that could be detonated at any time by remote control.

“That’s a bo-!”

===Part 4===

''Booooom!

The room and its balcony were blown away so violently it was obvious even from outside.

===Part 5===

No one who would be killed by a simple anti-personnel bomb would last long working in the dark side.

The instant it detonated, all four girls jumped over the concrete railing.

They all produced popping sounds that were a lot like a car’s airbag activating.

They had deployed the jetpacks Frenda had made.

They had successfully escaped, still in their pajamas.

The hot summer rain soaked their hair and clothing. Takitsubo seemed bothered by her wet track suit sticking to her.

“Oh, I forgot my Body Crystal.”

“Ehh? In the end, you can’t do that, Takitsubo. A girl’s gotta keep her special weapons hidden on her person at all times. Want a few pointers from the Academy City Bomber?”

“Could 200 grams really blow up such a large room? I think it only triggered Frenda’s bombs, which did most of the damage.”

“Oops.”

“Is it punishment time?”

“Ahhhh!?”

Frenda screamed as they accurately flew through the rain.

“These jetpacks have really come in handy, Frenda.”

“You can’t be serious, Mugino. In the end, they discovered our new hideout before we even had time to get it fully furnished. If they did their homework that well, they must know about our scuffle with Mutual Acquaintance yesterday. Which means they’ll have a plan for these homemade gadgets. And there it is, right on schedule: short-range SAMs!!”

Several trails of smoke blasted off from different building rooftops at the same moment. They were likely autonomous surface-to-air missile units. Trying to escape high into the sky would only get them shot down in the open air with nowhere to hide, so the four girls had no choice but to dive down into the valley between the buildings. At high speed.

“Vwahhhhhhhh!? M-my super home theater!! And I had only just started putting it together!!”

Film buff Kinuhata let out a scream of legitimate distress, but her actions remained precise. By flying below a roadside tree with large branches, the surface-to-air missiles pursuing them hit those branches and exploded.

The instant they landed, Mugino heard an odd sound.

From behind her.

“Mugino, your back is on fire.”

“You can’t muster any more urgency than that!? Argh, I can’t get this damn thing off!”

“Oh, no. The jet engine’s fuel injection control valve is busted!” shouted Frenda. “Umm, that thing is full of jet fuel, so if you don’t get the harness off, it’ll explode and set you ablaze!”

“Go to hell!!!”

Mugino reached a hand behind her and used Meltdowner to forcibly blast the jetpack (and the fuel explosion) away from her.

“Are you telling me we were running around the battlefield with giant bombs strapped to our backs? I’m never wearing one of those things again!!”

“Ehh? In the end, even a 100V household power supply can explode.”

They had been lured this way by an unseen enemy.

They always had their support organization waiting nearby in a big 4-wheel-drive truck, so it rushed to them after hearing the commotion. They all climbed aboard, but Mugino couldn’t shake the leaden feeling in her gut.

She shouted at the driver with her skin showing through her rain-soaked negligee.

“Go! Hurry!!”

The tires loudly tore at the asphalt.

Headlights pierced them from behind. Multiple vehicles’ worth. The enemy must have predicted this as well, so Item’s usual methods weren’t going to break free of the rails laid out by the enemy.

A bad feeling settled stickily over Mugino’s mind.

This wasn’t just any enemy.

She sensed someone who had put together a carefully-crafted plan like it was a jigsaw puzzle.

“Takitsubo.”

“I still don’t sense anything. Either they have an enemy that can search us out like I can, or they have an expert at psychologically guiding people.”

(I don’t know how it would happen, but it’s best to assume a direct attack would get us killed. Any nearby intersection leading to a major road is bound to have an ambush set up. So if we try the opposite plan…)

“Turn left into that construction site!! Hurry!!”

The 4-wheel-drive truck roared over a large pile of dirt that was wet with rain. The pursuing cars were racing coupes that sat low to the ground, so they couldn’t handle the dirt pile and abandoned the pursuit.

Item had to set aside a direct attack for now.

They were villains who lived on the dark side. They knew all too well they were never going to get by if they only chose the safe-looking routes. That would mean only ever eliminating the risk of failure and flattening out all the bumps in the course of their life, but it wouldn’t be doing anything to build toward success. If they really wanted to claim the top spot, they had to do something no one else would even consider and claim every opportunity that presented itself.

But leaving the safe path and taking the rougher way would not eliminate their pursuers. The sports cars were one thing, but a pickup truck with thick offroad tires was still after them.

Item had no need to hold back once they were inside an empty construction site.

“Today’s my lucky day. Because I can fire my Meltdowner without worrying about any ''demerits''.”

“Mugino is so nice to worry about her stray shots hitting someone.”

Their 4-wheel-drive truck broke through a chain link fence and raced through a forest of steel beams. Despite the rain, Mugino stuck her upper body out from the sunroof, held her palm out behind them, and released a brutal beam of light.

The building under construction broke apart, the jungle gym of steel beams collapsing and pouring down toward the ground. The pursuing offroad truck swerved a few times to avoid them, but one of the steel beams pierced right through its hood, pinning it to the ground. It exploded shortly thereafter.

Kinuhata, her skin showing through her soaked pajamas in places, was drying Takitsubo’s hair with a towel when Takitsubo raised her voice uncharacteristically loud.

“Mugino!!”

“?”

Mugino ducked down through the sunroof just in time for a simple crane arm to pass by directly overhead. If she had taken the time to grin back at the result of her attack, it would have decapitated her.

(Did they predict that attack? Then they must know about this escape route too!!)

They couldn’t escape the enemy’s grasp.

Every time they thought they had slipped away, they found new trouble awaiting them.

“Wait, wait, wait!! Stop!! In the end, hit the brakes! Yikes!”

Kitty pajamas Frenda banged her palm on the back of the driver’s headrest, but it was too late.

No, it was worse than that.

Track suit girl Takitsubo’s emotionless eyes wandered aimlessly.

“I’m not picking up a signal. ''The driver must be unconscious.'' Is something affecting his brain?”

“!!!???”

If the driver had passed out, he couldn’t apply the brakes. The 4-wheel-drive truck crashed into a pile of cement bags. The entire pile was blown away like a wall of sandbags.

Their vision grew too muddy to see.

They heard the loud sound of breaking glass and bending metal.

Mugino groaned and blinked, discovering their crushed truck was flipped upside-down. She heard the quiet sound of the broken windshield’s grainy pieces falling to the ground. She wanted to believe the gasoline scent was only the placebo effect. She was pretty sure this truck ran on diesel fuel.

“Damn, I’m through spending money on our rides. If they’re going to get destroyed sooner or later anyway, we need to view our vehicles as disposable tools .”

“C-can you all super move?”

“Don’t worry about me. You can count me out of the fight. In the end, I just want to lie here and sulk.”

“Mugino, something’s wrong with the driver. I spoke to him and slapped his cheek, but he isn’t waking up. He didn’t cry out in pain before passing out, so I don’t think he had a stroke or aneurysm while driving.”

Mugino groaned quietly in her negligee before kicking the bent door to force it open.

(How largescale is their plan? How far out did they predict our actions?)

Probably to the very end.

She shoved aside the unpleasant sensation of the lukewarm summer rain until she didn’t even notice it anymore.

And as Item slowly crawled out from the truck, they heard soft footsteps.

Approaching footsteps.

===Part 6===

She bore a small but wicked smile.

She looked to be around 10 at the most.

She had brown skin and overly done-up blonde hair. She wore a neon yellow bikini top and a pleated miniskirt held up by suspenders. The outfit was something like a skimpier version of a cheerleader. The water-resistant bikini top repelled the lukewarm raindrops, giving it a wet sheen. And instead of a string holding the top together in the center, it was forcibly held together by wrapping a wire around and around, similar to how large envelopes used to be kept closed. That wire could snap from metal fatigue at any moment.

She held a phone in a case designed to look like bunny ears and a famous chocolate-covered snack stick wiggled where she held it in the corner of her mouth. A box of the snacks was held between the side of her hip and the short skirt. The girl looked like the encyclopedia image of a gyaru except shrunk down to miniature form.

But that wasn’t why Frenda’s eyes bugged out after she and Takitsubo dragged the unconscious driver out of the truck.

“You’re kidding, right? She can’t be any older than 10. In the end, aren’t we supposed to be dealing with a ''marriage scammer'' making a fortune online!?”

“Lame. It’s not like I have to show my face when to let them have some cute conversations using the voice chat provided by a free VoIP app. I usually pretended to be…25, I think it was. Then again, maybe I’d have had an easier time luring in those stupid men if I’d let them see what I really look like. Hwa ha ha☆”

“…”

Mugino Shizuri silently narrowed her eyes, ignoring the way her thin negligee clung to her skin in the rain.

She had been wondering about something.

Supposedly, Meltdowner researchers had been targeted to steal their research data, but that didn’t sit right with her. The damage wasn’t limited to them, but anyone with a Mugino connection performed top secret Level 5 research which was more strictly guarded than the research in other labs. There was no public list of the people who worked in her lab. So how had this external marriage scammer targeted them so accurately?

Now she had her answer.

The culprit was someone with inside information.

“''It was the head researcher''.”

“''Hello, my failure☆ Ugh, lame. You could at least bow when you meet the person who gave you your powers, you know?''”

Mugino Shizuri did not hesitate to hold her palm straight out.

The little brown gyaru grinned without making any move to defend herself.

“Sure, sure. I’m all for really going at it to get as much experience as I can☆ Oh, and I’m talking about levelling up in RPGs here. But if the EXP grind is too obviously only there to waste my time, I’ll just use some cheat codes without a second thought. Hwa ha ha. Anyway, I’m down for a cool battle. They do say hardship at a young age builds character, right?”

Meltdowner was one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s and the head researcher who created her would know better than anyone how terrifying Mugino was.

Or was that knowledge the source of her confidence?

Did she know Mugino so well that she didn’t find the high-speed particle-wave cannon worth fearing?

“I-In the end, what do you mean she’s the head researcher?”

“Her name’s Ainame Caroline. She ran that lab until half a year ago. But while she was customizing a few other espers, ''she played around a little too much'' and got fired.”

“That’s not my point. In the end, she’s only a 10-year-old girl!”

Ainame Caroline didn’t respond.

Instead, her small body suddenly disappeared.

And a moment later…

“!!!???”

Sparks flew with a loud slicing sound. The club-like grenade Frenda had reflexively held up was sliced clean through and a red cut slashed across her cheek.

After passing by, the 10-year-old brown gyaru twirled her phone in the lukewarm rain.

“Sample acquired☆ Oh, lame. A Level 0? What a waste of time.”

(In the end, are the bunny ears of that phone case actually razor blades!?)

This girl couldn’t be dismissed as “only” a 10-year-old.

She was a true monster of the dark side, just like Item.

What kind of tech did that razor blade use to slice through a club? And the case itself appeared to be military-grade blast resistant. It could deliver a deep, sharp slash, but it could probably also kill from blunt trauma if she hit someone in the head with the corner.

Ainame Caroline laughed a little before speaking.

“Have you really not heard about skipping grades before? You crack me up. Hee ha ha. Not that you’d ever need to know that with your inferior Level 0 brain. When you look at the researchers creating something as crazy as a Level 5, I’d be surprised if you found anyone who climbed the grades one at a time.”

Even so…

What had that girl done to move so quickly not even these dark side pros could track her?

“…”

“Oh, and let’s not forget that all Level 5 research is somewhat connected. And I’m not just talking about the obvious example of Railgun and Meltdowner both being electric powers.”

Ainame Caroline was still smiling when she turned back around to face Mugino Shizuri.

“Did you really think the only Level 5 I had access to was a failure like you? That’d be so boring. I’m talking about Academy City’s #6. ''I was involved in researching that brat''. And as the creator of that power, I can borrow a few of its tricks.”

A sound like a large piece of cloth flapping in the wind came from overhead.

The color red flipped fluttered down.

At first, it looked like a red China dress.

But it wasn’t. The newcomer wore a uniform vest without a shirt below and a long skirt with a bold slit up the side, so the overall silhouette resembled the dress.

Her long black hair was done up in two buns and a braid.

The tall high school girl hid her lower face behind a large white pollen mask and she moved to a position that let her guard little Ainame Caroline.

No.

But…

(In the end, ''where did she jump in from''?)

Mugino Shizuri had destroyed the jungle gym of steel beams to get rid of the offroad truck pursuing them. There wasn’t anything high enough to jump down from in any direction.

Or were they supposed to believe she had flown through the air like a long throw in baseball?

How far would her body have to be modified to allow for that?

Or had she used an esper power?

Ainame Caroline reacted to her sudden rescue by pouting her lips in disappointment and munching on her chocolate snack stick

“Tachiuo-chan. Could you not show up when I didn’t ask for you?”

“But I was worried, Lady Carol.”

Muffled by the mask, her voice sounded like hard-to-make-out noise.

It also looked like she was going to suffocate with the mask so soaked with rain, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“And you need to ''stop telling them so much'' about the #6 and other stuff. Especially when they didn’t even ask.”

With a soft grunt of effort, the tall high school girl pulled a nearby steel beam out of the ground. More than that, she wrapped some nearby anti-bird spikes around the end. The end result looked a lot like a Chinese Lang Ya Bang, but it had to weigh more than 200kg. The original weapon would never weigh that much. She might as well be swinging around a weightlifting barbell.

But Ainame Caroline still gave her a cold look and brushed up her rain-wet blonde bangs.

“Lame. Talking tough won’t change that you’re a murder virgin. And if you’re so worried about data security, do better yourself. In a way, unreleased research results are more important than the researcher’s own life. Releasing those results at the coolest possible time is part of the researcher’s strategy, so they can’t have one of their own people letting it out early.”

“A-and, Lady Carol, your skirt is about to fall off.”

“Whoops.”

Just before one of the suspender snaps popped open from the little brown girl’s extreme motion, she managed to hold the soaked miniskirt in place with a hand. If the skirt needed the suspenders to stay up, then it had be a lot bigger around than she was. It seemed about right to hold the snack box against the side of her hip.

Mugino’s eyebrows twitched while the absorbed rain weighed down her negligee.

The 10-year-old head researcher smiled.

“Curious? About my researcher results, I mean. Not my underwear.”

“Not really.”

“Wow, lame! That obvious attempt to play it cool cracks me up!! Obviously a failure like you would be curious. Tachiuo Mary here is a success I can recommend to people with pride. If only I hadn’t been kicked out of that lab for going a little too far with my human experimentation. See, now I need to take back what’s mine to make the finishing touches to her body.”

Was that why this 10-year-old had used the anonymity of the internet to run marriage scams?

She was the head researcher who didn’t hesitate to call Mugino Shizuri – one of the seven Level 5s – a failure.

She was the monster who gotten herself fired by being too much even for a secret dark side lab.

And this Tachiuo Mary was her new creation.

It wasn’t known what exactly made this new girl rate higher than Mugino, but Mugino herself was willing to accept it as true.

She knew this Ainame Caroline was who she said she was. And she insisted that Tachiuo Mary was superior to Mugino.

Bluffing about that would be too risky.

“Uh, oh. In the end, we’re in serious trouble here!!”

“Don’t we just have to super beat up this new girl before those ‘finishing touches’ are done?”

Kinuhata and Frenda stepped forward before Mugino did. Tachiuo Mary was still incomplete, so if they teamed up on her and attacked from multiple angles at once, they might have a chance against her. In a way, that was the most direct tactic here.

But had they learned nothing from how they had ended up in this situation to begin with?

“Lame,” sighed the little brown gyaru.

Ainame Caroline simply raised her empty hand and snapped her fingers.

That really was all she did.

The flipped-over support organization 4-wheel-drive truck exploded.

The lukewarm summer rain was blown away.

Takitsubo reflexively tackled Frenda (who was highly flammable thanks to all her explosives) to the ground and Kinuhata guarded herself with Offense Armor but was still launched more than 3m straight up.

As for Mugino…

“You’re kidding…right?” said a dazed Frenda down on the ground.

She saw Mugino lying face down and unmoving on the ground now ruled by flame and smoke. That proud girl didn’t utter a single complaint as the mud soaked her hair and body.

She was unconscious.

A new chocolate snack stick wiggled in Ainame Caroline’s mouth as she laughed.

“Wow, lame. You really do put power over all else, don’t you? Your attack power leaves no room for complaint, but Meltdowner is so boring because that’s ''all'' it is. That wasn’t even an industrial explosive or a plastic explosive – it was a diesel fuel explosion. Sure, you can maybe keep the blast away with brute force, but did you forget to account for the rapid loss of oxygen from the flames? And you wonder why I call you a failure.”

Impossible.

That was Frenda and Kinuhata’s first thought after seeing the result.

They couldn’t accept that Mugino Shizuri of all people could be toyed with so easily.

And it still wasn’t over.

Was there no end to the threat presented by this Ainame Caroline?

“Oh, before I forget. You’re all focused on Tachiuo-chan here. Hee ha ha. But remember the cool attack that ''took out the brain'' of your driver? That wasn’t her – it was my power.”

“…”

“Did you think I wasn’t an esper just cause I’m a researcher? Lame. I’m a ''super cool researcher who can develop her own power however she likes''. Do you have the beginnings of a clue how much of a threat I am now? Ah ha ha. It cracks me up how slow your brains are☆”

“…………………………………………………………………………………”

Frenda couldn’t move.

She was soaked with rain and couldn’t even get up.

What could a Level 0 like her do against a monster like this?

How could she win even when working with a Level 4?

For one, she had just watched this enemy overturn the very foundation of Academy City’s level system by one-shotting a Level 5.

Plus, Takitsubo gave a warning while lying on top of her and holding her tight.

Ignoring a warning from Takitsubo’s formless sixth sense was guaranteed to end badly. Her past experience had taught her that all too well.

There was only one option left.

Frenda Seivelun instantly changed tack, pulling a stun grenade and smoke grenade from her kitty pajamas.

“Run away!!”

That was all they could do.

During the explosive flash of light and the thick wall of smoke, Frenda and Takitsubo took off running while covering for each other. Kinuhata hoisted unconscious Mugino onto her shoulders. Takitsubo’s hands wandered through empty space, but Frenda tugged on one hard. They didn’t have the luxury to collect the support organization delinquent who had been knocked out by a mystery attack. Frenda bit her lip at the decision, but they could not stay here any longer. Plus, a powerless Level 0 would only get herself crushed if she tried to drag along a boy who stood more than two heads taller than her. She could not be a hero here.

They were utterly defeated.

A thoroughly exasperated voice pursued Item’s fleeing backs.

The 10-year-old brown girl named Ainame Caroline had only one thing to say to them.

“''Lame''.”

===Part 7===

“Hey, you made it.”

“Eh? You already started? You should’ve waited for everyone to get here.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m the one who discovered this place. ''It’s always like this with you''.”

“And why are you wearing a short-sleeve sailor uniform!? Do you not realize how childish that looks!?”

“I got tired of the sexy cleavage teacher look. And it’s cosplay either way.”

Everyone sat wherever they wanted with no concern for rank. The one who carelessly wiped his face with the wet towel was ruthlessly mocked by the rest.

“So why yakiniku all of a sudden?”

“I should’ve realized the truth from the moment my body was craving grease and black pepper. It’s always like this with me. Beer and frozen fries just weren’t enough. Hic.”

“How much did you drink before getting here!? You’re already smashed!”

“Cough, cough, hack!”

“You’ve been smoking too!?”

“This yakiniku place has even more ventilation than is strictly necessary, so who cares if I smoke? Anyway, grab a seat, everyone, and order whatever you like. The grill’s looking awful lonely.”

“(I notice she’s pushing us to order without saying a word about treating us.)”

“(Be careful. There’s a decent chance that drunk doesn’t even have her wallet with her.)”

They all ordered soft drinks after going all the way to a yakiniku restaurant, but not because they were paragons of good behavior. They simply had an excellent argument for not drinking seated right in front of them.

“By the way, everyone’s talking about your project.”

“Hweh?”

“Although I’m not sure if being so noticeable is a good thing on the dark side.”

The short-sleeved sailor uniform woman was too drunk to give the grill proper attention, so the later arrivals had to move the offal, which they hadn’t even ordered, onto plates before it burned.

“It’s called Item, right? I hear they’re really taking off. And word is some other small elite teams are being created thanks to their success.”

“Teams of four?”

“Seems that way.”

“It’s always like this with them. Is that really a good idea? Item is still in its test phase and I haven’t even proven the safety or cost-effectiveness of the entire concept.”

“Ha ha. I know exactly what the higher ups would say: it isn’t your job to worry about that.”

“Hmph.”

The others had finally gotten settled in and started ordering their meat and vegetables

But the first arrival at the table winked and arrived at her own conclusion.

(They’ve started a few teams of their own, I’ll bet.)

===Between the Lines 2===

Different hotels had different names for a room fancier even than the suites, but this one called it the Princess Suite.

“Hm, the big beads are so bright they’re kind of boring. How about I tie your hair back with a scrunchie and then add in an unusual loop for some extra impact? That’ll make you real cute.”

“…”

Tachiuo Mary looked displeased while she let the 10-year-old brown gyaru mess with her hair. She was decent looking, but her thoroughly gloomy personality meant the gyaru look didn’t suit her at all. She was so gloomy she preferred to hide her face behind her mask even inside the private space of the hotel room.

Ainame Caroline looked puzzled while using the older girl as her toy.

“What’s that look for? You got a problem with this?”

“I-I was just wondering why you were doing this.”

“You’re too plain.”

“You already tore up and modified my uniform… Wh-what am I supposed to do when the break ends?”

“Go to school like that. Everyone’ll love it and it’ll do wonders for your social life. I mean, what are you thinking going through your schoolgirl days without even putting on any makeup? Lame. It’s August – summer break – you’re supposed to be living it up.”

When she realized Ainame Caroline wasn’t being sarcastic or teasing and really did mean all this, the tall loner fixed her modified hairdo and grumbled under her breath.

“I-it’s not like it matters…”

“?”

“This is meaningless. I don’t have any friends and no one pays me any attention in class. Whenever we have to split into groups, I’m always the last one chosen. In fact, they all play rock-paper-scissors to see who gets stuck with me.”

“The boys are just too intimidated by those miracle tits to approach you.”

“Gh!?”

It was written plain on her face that didn’t make her feel any better.

But the little brown gyaru continued regardless.

“And the girls are just jealous of those miracle tits. …The correct play is to laugh in their face. But you loners take it all at face value and miss out on so much in life. You’re like a cute little sister to me, so stand straight and push that chest out with confidence. Flaunt those miracle tits no one – not even you – asked for!”

Tachiuo Mary groaned, unsure what to say.

She was also blushing a bit, probably from all the talk about her chest.

Not that the genius girl cared one iota.

“Anyway, Tachiuo-chan, can you strip down and lie on the bed for me? Face down this time. I want to get today’s maintenance over with.”

“O-okay.”

“…You don’t have to take off that cute underwear.”

“Y-you could have specified how much I needed to take off, Lady Carol!!”

Tall Tachiuo Mary quickly held her plain unhooked bra in place with her arms and nervously lay down on the bed.

“Hm. You still won’t take off that mask? That’s the one boring thing about you.”

“Ugh… Once I put it on, I get used to it and find it hard to take it off. Besides, it’s not like anyone wants to see my face.”

“Hwa ha ha. You do know lying on a hotel bed in your underwear with only your face hidden makes this look extremely naughty, right?☆”

“Why are you being so mean today!?”

Ainame Caroline laughed some more and approached the audio equipment in the corner of the room. Instead of a device that accessed a modern music subscription service, this was a record player.

“M-Mozart?”

“Oh? You recognize it? Ah ha ha. And I thought most kids only knew Mozart as the guy they scribble on in their textbooks and make up ghost stories about his portrait in the music room.”

It wasn’t uncommon to play music in an operating room. Was this supposed to help her relax in the same way?

That was Tachiuo Mary’s theory, but…

“Hm? Tachiuo-chan, is this classical music enough to put you to sleep?”

“Eh? Oh.”

“Ha ha ha. This song’s tempo was designed for young men and woman to ballroom dance to. So you could call it ''dance music''. Composers like Mozart and Beethoven only wrote these really cool songs and then had an orchestra play them, so were they something like the modern Vocaloid producers? Learning about the origin of the songs and the culture at the time goes a long way toward letting you view them in a different light.”

Researcher Ainame Caroline snapped the suspenders holding up her miniskirt and pulled a baton-shaped handheld scanner from her bag.

She passed it directly above the back of the high school girl lying face down on the bed, slowly moving a blue light source that looked a like a fluorescent light. It almost looked like a girl getting the untanned portion of her skin touched up at a tanning salon.

The little researcher glanced over at the wirelessly-connected flat screen monitor.

“Good, good. #1-150 are normal. #380 was causing trouble, but it’s in acceptable bounds now. I can let natural healing handle this one. Since I don’t need to rely on drugs or the corset, I’d call this a success.”

What was she talking about? Bones.

Humans had around 206 bones. #380 might not seem to fit there, but it was no mistake.

The process was called metaplasia.

The differentiation between different bodily tissues was surprisingly fuzzy. For example, the boundary between the stomach and the intestine could be altered by disease. The tissue was replaced by a different type on the cellular level. In the same way, it wasn’t unusual for muscle fibers exposed to constant, powerful vibrations to turn to bone. As seen in the bones of horse riders, new bones could be created.

Where did Tachiuo Mary get her superhuman strength or the ability to jump farther than any normal human?

The answer was plain and simple: her body’s movement system had been newly designed to give her greater use of her body by using a grand total of 503 bones and a unique arrangement of muscles. Measuring her strength required a barbel measured in tons.

But that simple strength wasn’t all. Her creator had demonstrated her skill by giving the girl smooth and beautiful bodylines as well.

“I-is everything alright? With the plan, I mean?”

“Of course.”

She had actually been sweating on the inside when Tachiuo Mary showed up without being asked, but saying so would probably make that loner faint. The truth was she had only just barely managed to stay in control of when she announced her results.

But that still meant Researcher Ainame Caroline remained in control.

“The trick to scamming people is to isolate them and shut off their access to information. That can mean telling them you’ll secretly let them, and only them, know about a great deal on an apartment or private equity. Or it can mean threatening to embarrass them by letting everyone know they fell for an obvious scam.”

“Y-your point?”

“You know exactly what I want to hear, don’t you?☆ My point is we don’t need to settle this all at once. As long as we stir up the hornet’s nest, they’ll be too agitated to think straight. Ha ha ha. And once the tunnel vision sets in, they’ll be so easy to control it cracks me up☆”

Superhuman strength?

The loner with zero self-confidence had far more than that.

Her creator had said as much, so it had to be true.

''She was worth far more than Mugino Shizuri.

“There, all done. You can get dressed now.”

“Lady Carol, what should we do for dinner?”

“Hm? I already ordered something cute.”

Ainame Caroline looked puzzled and Tachiuo Mary glared at her while sitting up in the bed (in only her underwear and mask).

The 10-year-old brown gyaru pulled some room service from a boxy receptable that prevented her from ever having to directly interact with the hotel staff. That may have been a feature exclusive to rooms this nice. She placed candy apples, cotton candy, shaved ice, and a variety of other sweets on the table. She also prepared a collection of colorful supplements she supplied herself to provide the nutrients the food lacked.

“Um.”

“What? I have all the necessary nutrients right here. I won’t get too much or too little of anything. Theoretically speaking, this is a healthier diet than the food given to a monk training at a Buddhist temple.”

“But, Lady Carol, you promised to stop relying so much on drug store supplements. If you ingest too much of a nutrient at once, your body can’t absorb it all and it can put a strain on your kidneys and liver.”

“Oh, shut up. I’ll eat plenty of vegetables with all this watermelon. And they’re from the same Cucurbitaceae family as squash, so don’t tell me that doesn’t count as a vegetable. Hee hee. Watermelons really are the best melons☆”

“…”

“What? A balanced diet is what matters, so if I make the right selection of these chemically-designed supplements, the end result is exactly the same. What’s your obsession with it having to be vegetables that grew in the dirt? Some nonsensical belief that eating tons of vegetables will give you 100 years of healthy living? I mean, they ate nothing but grains and vegetables in the olden days when the human lifespan was 50 years. How’s that for a Q.E. D.?☆”

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

Tachiuo Mary got off the bed and crossed the large room in only her underwear and mask.

This was only a hotel room, but it did have a kitchen past the trendy bar counter. However, the nervous loner was not reaching for a kitchen knife to impulsively stab the other girl like a scene from a thriller on TV.

“Eh? Wait, what is that you’re placing on the cutting board? Cucumbers, carrots, and – no, not a radish.”

“I will cook you some vegetables in olive oil. If it doesn’t feel like a salad, even a vegetable hater with an extreme sweet tooth can eat them, don’t you think?”

“Wait, wait, if you know I hate them, why would you force me to eat them!? You could at least say something! Don’t just do it in silence! Ugh, why are the pieces so big? If you must force me to eat vegetables, you need to chop them up a lot smaller and mix them into fried rice or a hamburger steak! No, no, I can’t do it! Can’t you see how pale my face is!? You need to stop! Don’t shove them in my mouth! Agh, they’re too hot- mgh, mgh, mghhhh!?”

Ainame Caroline struggled as the super strong girl of her own creation forcibly shoved the food into her mouth.

“Great job eating it all, Lady Carol. Now, where’s your ‘thank you’?”

“Urp. Th-thank you…and all the farmers…who grew it.”

It was like wanko soba. If she didn’t say it now and end this immediately, she knew from experience she would be attacked by an endless supply of extra helpings. She slumped limply onto Tachiuo Mary’s lap pillow on the floor and let her gaze wander aimlessly for a while.

And eventually…

“Bleh. Anyway, your regular maintenance is complete, so it’s time we left this room.”

“Eh? Right now? But it’s the middle of the night. Won’t we have a hard time finding another hotel to check into?”

“Lame. Didn’t I tell you at the start that we have to move onto the next phase once Item is aware of us? So we need to move to a different hideout.”

They were in a luxury resort hotel made to look like a fairy tale castle. It was located in District 6, where the entire district functioned as an amusement park.

But that important information didn’t mean a thing anymore.

However…

“I see. Then we need to get everything ready to go. I can take the vegetables that didn’t end up in the oil and make a smoothie out of them. We can’t let them go to waste.”

“Eh?”

“Soy milk, yogurt, and honey should work. Hee hee. If it’s mild enough, you can drink it with me, right, Lady Carol?☆”

“Urp. No, no, no, no. Stop that! Don’t pin me down like this! The vegetable part doesn’t even matter here! If you hold my head like you’re about to resuscitate me and pour a smoothie down my throat, it’s going to get in my windpipe and- bwahhhhhhhhhhh!?”

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Prologue

2023-09-01T10:46:26Z

JDMP: Minor Typo

This is the hard-to-believe story of a very real scam that occurred in Academy City.

But not all conflicts involve killing.

==Prologue: The Girls Resolve Their Job Like a Puzzle==

“And that moron threw out the bloody rubber gloves he’d used for the killing. In the end, he just doesn’t get it. Can’t he use even an ounce of brainpower to imagine what’s going to happen? Your fingerprints are all over the inside of those gloves! Those gloves are thin, so you could at least soak them in alcohol and burn them!!”

“What movie are you super bashing now?”

“Kinuhata, ''this actually happened.''”

It was August 3, 10:30 AM, in Academy City, located in western Tokyo and home to 2.3 million people.

A loud spraying sound echoed across the city full of skyscrapers.

“Ah ha ha ha!! You’d better speed it up! The big, bad wolf is coming for you!!!”

Mugino Shizuri cackled while several beams of lights flashed out.

A helicopter exploded, scattering wreckage and marring the midsummer sky with flames. There were some screams as well, but in this case, being killed by the explosion was a mercy. After all, even the three-bladed wind turbines were a long way down from here. Anyone not dead yet would be forced to live the entire drop to the ground.

Below the shining summer sun and blue sky, Takitsubo Rikou spoke quietly while ''flying in that same airspace 50m up from the ground.

“Mugino is getting high off her battle addiction. Someone should probably move in and stop her.”

“Not it.” “Not it.”

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai replied at the exact same moment.

“Mugino is in a good mood given that our plan to disguise ourselves as arms dealers failed and our target got away.”

“In the end, when she screws up, she enjoys working even harder to try again. Which, in our leader’s case, is a very dangerous thing.”

Takitsubo turned her head to check the shoulder straps of the spherical object she wore on her back. Basically, it was a homemade jetpack that provided buoyancy with a giant advertising balloon made of bulletproof material and provided speed with multiple axial jet engines the size of coffee cans.

When blasting the four narrow jets of fire, the overall silhouette made it look like she was wearing the world’s first round satellite as a backpack. Although it was oriented backwards compared to a real satellite.

When inflated, it had a diameter of about a meter, but when deflated and folded, it was portable enough to fit in a school bag. And even at that size, it could produce speeds of 500km/h, so a civilian helicopter could not escape.

“By the way, Frenda, I didn’t realize you made things like this. I thought you only made bombs,” said Takitsubo.

“Ballistic ones are tricky, but the combustion for cruise ones isn’t that difficult. In the end, if you direct the flames and gasses produced by explosives, you have yourself an engine. Admittedly, it wasn’t that long ago all I had a was an execution firework that was only good for putting on a victim’s back and launching them into the stratosphere. The computer chip craft kits they sell at large bookstores these days can be dangerous in the wrong hands. They’re a little expensive compared to searching the junk shops for parts, but they’re a treasure trove of usable cutting-edge parts! You could probably design yourself a cheap WLAN-controlled tablet with those. Thanks to that, I was able to use a simple AI program for all the nitpicky little calculations needed for adjusting the jets.”

“This is fun.”

“She asked and then she didn’t listen to a word I said, did she? Well, as long as she likes it.”

“It’s so weird feeling liberated from your own body’s weight.”

“…That wasn’t a super-uncalled-for dig at us for our chest sizes, was it?”

Piloting their jetpacks was a lot more relaxed than with an airplane, but a life-or-death battle was still underway.

Their target was on the run. They pursued a total of three small egg-shaped helicopters that seemed like symbols of fame and fortune. One of them was falling apart in midair after being hit by a fearsome beam of light. Two remained, but even if they were packed full, that was less than 10 enemies in all.

The view was so overwhelming it was easy to forget that this had been caused by nothing more than distorting one’s “perception” in the quantum physics sense.

Takitsubo blinked twice and expressionlessly focused on her small mic.

“Mugino, the civilians will see this if we leave the Particle Belt. Finish this before that happens.”

“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha! It’s me! The big! Bad! Wolf!! …The particle what?”

“In the end, all the building windows reflect the sunlight like mirrors and that combines with the faint smoke particles coming from the automatic factories to create an irregular reflection effect. Basically, if we’re in that belt of distorted light, our identities will be obscured even if someone on the ground films us with their phone.”

This was a characteristic of the Academy City summer that had been discovered when researching complaints that the large blimp displays looked weirdly distorted on especially hot days.

And the enemy wasn’t just going to let these girls defeat them. The helicopter’s side door opened and a 12.7mm heavy machinegun emerged. A fearsome array of giant bullets shot out, but Mugino kicked off a building wall to rapidly accelerate. The bullets shattered several tempered glass windows, but she jumped from the wall before they could catch up and she worked to mess with the enemy’s aim.

“Wow, that’s super awful. That’s a civilian building they’re turning to Swiss cheese!”

“Kinuhata. That buildings is the HQ of a seafood izakaya chain that killed someone by mislabeling their ingredients and managed to weasel out of being prosecuted for it. The dark side won’t dock us points for this – if anything, they might give us a bonus.”

That said, their demon queen likely didn’t care as long as she got to enjoy a fun fight and some delightful killing.

What was their objective here again?

The battle was so one-sided Kinuhata Saiai found herself staring into the middle distance despite being in a battle.

“The enemy is called Mutual Acquaintance, right?”

“In the end, that’s right. Mutual Acquaintance is an odd-jobs service for the entertainment industry. Whether you’re a famous reporter who shoved your mistress off your apartment balcony when you were a little too drunk one night or you’re a beautiful actress who accidentally killed a company president with a glass ashtray when you were only trying to stop him from sexually harassing you, you call these guys to clean up the mess before the online news and the tabloids get wind of what’s going on and your career is in ruins. I believe they work out of a stunt agency, which gives them access to TV stations. They started out as specialists in getting a lookalike to confess to the crime in place of their client, but as their skills improved, they evolved into taking on all sorts jobs they could safely complete without anyone getting arrested.”

Of course, “safely” here was only in the selfish sense that criminals used.

How many innocent people had their lives ruined to protect the smiles of entertainers with skeletons in their closet? After all, you didn’t earn “multiple personal helicopters” money without taking on a ton of highly unethical work. And since Item had been called in, inconvenient witnesses disappearing or dying in unlikely accidents was only the beginning of that group’s work. They specialized in getting a victim loaded up on alcohol in the wee hours of the morning and then shoving them head-first into an exposed transformer.

“God, I was wondering how they managed it when idols and actors are so super well-guarded that even the dark side has a hard time getting close to them. But a stunt agency? Yeah, there’s no defending against it when part of your own industry is super corrupt.”

“Kinuhata, did you want an autograph because you’re a film buff?”

Kinuhata wasn’t sure what she had said that would give Takitsubo that idea, but she hated how the girl would sometimes see right through to the real reason she was complaining.

Something blotted out the sun overhead.

It was Mugino Shizuri. After descending behind them, their leader’s staticky voice reached their earphones.

“Hey, I’m not doing all the work when we all get the same share of the pay. So get your asses out there and do some work before I Meltdowner you.”

“You’re the one who super charged in on your own.”

“In the end, our demon queen is just feeling lonely.”

“Mugino is so nice to make sure we all get our turn in the spotlight.”

Since their enemies were airborne, the fleeing helicopters had no choice but to dangerously weave between the buildings. Their own main rotor would get in the way of the heavy machinegun in the side door, so they couldn’t fire up at too steep an angle. And once their movement was restricted, they had as good as lost.

“Okay, how about we super get started?”

“I would like it if you ended this before lonely Mugino shoots down the moon.”

With that call of support from Takitsubo Rikou (who was in charge of targeting support since she could read people’s AIM Diffusion Fields but didn’t have much to do when they were up against non-esper adults), Kinuhata and Frenda turned at a sharp angle to pursue the helicopters. Frenda was armed with bombs and rockets, but Kinuhata only had her own body. She didn’t even cover her own face as she charged toward the side of a rapidly fleeing helicopter.

And she tore right through the aluminum wall.

Now she was breathing the same air as the tuxedo-wearing soldiers who were busy trying to swap out the overheated gun barrel. Their eyes met for just a moment. She saw their looks of desperation as they did everything they could to cling to life.

Then the helicopter exploded.

Her power was Level 4 Offense Armor, which let her surround herself with a thick gas barrier, so an exploding grenade or car wasn’t enough to kill her.

However…

“Oops.”

“You idiot! You protected yourself, but in the end, your jetpack was entirely exposed!!”

A hole must have been blown in the giant balloon portion because Kinuhata began an unsteady fall. Frenda clicked her tongue, abandoned pursuit of the final enemy helicopter, and rapidly descended to collect her teammate.

Kinuhata must have thought Offense Armor would defend her from the impact after the fall because she didn’t seem concerned.

“I’m beginning to think these homemade gadgets are super dangerous.”

“In the end, I call this user error!! Follow the directions and it works just fine!!”

Frenda managed to catch Kinuhata and they gently landed in District 19.

Frenda held Kinuhata in her arms and collapsed onto pavement that felt like a frying pan, where she stared into the distance for a while. Her eyes followed the slow rotation of the wind turbine that seemed to be staring back down at her.

They were in an old-fashioned district that was “intentionally left in the past” and seemed like the perfect place for steam and vacuum tubes. The Mugino-Takitsubo duo must have done something because the final helicopter fell a short distance away, trailing black smoke.

They both heard a staticky voice in their ears.

“Mugino failed to kill the target.”

“Ugh.”

“She was so irritated by the soldiers running around that she knocked one down, climbed on top of him, pinned him down with both hands, and fired her Mugino Cannon from her mouth. Unfortunately, that gave our real target time to escape.”

Frenda and Kinuhata were very glad they hadn’t been present for that, but they didn’t dare say so.

“Mugino is not happy and blames you two for crashing and failing to set up a perimeter. She says you’ll need to be punished if you let our target escape, so consider yourselves warned.”

“Ehhh!? In the end, that means she’s going to tie up our ***** with ****, cover our **** with grated yams, drag us out onto the high-level balcony where there’s no escape, and spend all day ****ing us like that! It itches more than it hurts, but it’s still hell on Earth!!”

“Yikes, girls are super ruthless with each other, huh?”

Frenda and Kinuhata scrambled to their feet and got back to work.

On the ground, their jetpacks were only a hindrance. They folded them up as small as they would go and put them in their pockets.

Kinuhata wiped the sweat that only now started to form on her brow.

“Whew, the heat is so bad on the ground. Is this what they call a super heat island?”

“It’s almost noon in August. It’s not going to be as cool as it was flying around up in the sky where there’s actually a chilly breeze.”

Frenda managed that with a smile, but only because she was wearing a white summer dress inside a thin poncho. The sweat soaking it from within allowed a risqué amount of her bright skin to show through.

After sharing a can of antiperspirant spray that they weren’t sure would help much at this point, the two of them took a look around and found themselves in an electronics district with dark smoke rising from it. High-tech Academy City had several areas called electronics districts, but this was the ''non''-cutting edge one. Metal storage containers were stacked up between rundown multi-tenant buildings and they had all been converted into mysterious little shops that sold capacitors, resisters, transistors, and other electronic components of dubious origin separated out into small baskets or boxes.

“Wow.”

For some reason, Kinuhata Saiai’s eyes lit up as she viewed the labyrinth of junk. Her gaze was drawn to a certain glass component that came in a variety of sizes: vacuum tubes.

“What?” Frenda looked skeptical. “In the end, are you the type to mess with electronics with a soldering iron in hand?”

“If I ever need to do that, I’ll super ask you to teach me how, Miss Bomber. But since we did just get a new hideout, I was wondering what to do about the audio equipment for our home theater system. If I want to super do it right, a vacuum tube amp would be the way to go, wouldn’t it?”

Frenda instinctually sensed that Kinuhata would never shut up if she asked any questions here. For one thing, no one had said a word about building a home theater system, but this film buff was already fantasizing about one.

“Are the legends super true that this place doesn’t have a single convenience store or restaurant?”

“They are. It’s an old-fashioned electronics district, so in the end, the best you’ll find are some vending machines at the back of an alley. And those will only be selling scary things like canned oden. But as long as they have canned mackerel, I don’t care.”

So said the freak who could stake out a target for three days straight as long as she had sufficient cans of mackerel.

But nerds searching out pixel-art side-scrolling retro games in an age of VR and 3D were not the only ones here. Band members with brightly dyed hair were looking for old amps and synthesizers and an Einstein-ish college-professor-looking man was spending the day searching for some kind of materials. Was he building a giant robot back home?

And Frenda herself hurried behind a container’s open door after spotting something.

“Hm? Did you super find Mutual Acquaintance?”

“What is ''my sister'' doing here?”

Frenda had tears in her eyes and was behaving so timidly it was hard to believe this was the same professional who loved using bombs to toy with her prey before killing them.

Kinuhata gave her a curious look before turning her gaze back to the crowd. A short distance away, she saw a blonde girl pouting her lips in a baggy T-shirt dress tightened with a belt around the hips, red leggings, and a distinctive beret. This was a rare case where tiny Kinuhata was the older one.

“Ehh? But I’m already tired. In the first place, why are we even here?”

“You said you wanted to play the first entry in the Mariho Bros. series on original hardware, remember? For your summer break research project! I had an old console in storage, but its video output goes through the TV’s antenna line, so it won’t work with modern digital TVs.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. In the first place, turning the TV to channel 2 to play games is part of Japanese culture!”

A small boy and girl – age 10 at the most – were holding some kind of serious discussion based on their expressions. Frenda noted (in an attempt to ignore her current predicament) that culture had evolved a lot if video games were being used for school homework. Both sisters were blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigners, so maybe the teacher was only allowing it as a way for the girl to learn about Japanese culture.

“In the first place, did you know this? Heh heh. People don’t just say he’s a plumber – it’s official lore.”

“I introduced you to the series, so I already know all of that.”

Kinuhata Saiai tilted her head.

“Who’s the boy with her? A boyfriend your sister snagged by super hitting him with chocolate on Valentine’s day?”

“That’s Kanou Shinka. A friend of mine.”

“How wide is your social circle? Anyway, see those men limping within 15m of those two? Those are definitely Mutual Acquaintance members who survived the crash. Hide here much longer and those two will be super dragged into the fight!!”

Frenda Seivelun clicked her tongue.

Then she pulled a cylindrical object from within her short skirt, pulled the pin with her mouth, and rolled it along the ground.

The color white exploded.

The light was a million candelas and the sound 200 decibels.

She had used a stun grenade.

A professional would of course have countermeasures ready, but that wasn’t an issue this time. Frenda’s goal was to blind and deafen the civilians. The stacked container shops meant fixed surveillance cameras were useless here and there were no drum-shaped security robots around.

So in this case, ''there were no witnesses even with hundreds of people here.

Frenda Seivelun ducked low, took a breath, and took off running. On her way past the small boy, she whispered in his ear.

Even though he could never hear her with his eyes and ears incapacitated.

“(In the end, thanks for looking after my sister since I can’t☆)”

Being ''too perfect'' could be a problem in its own right.

If she had failed here, those two young children would have learned the truth, which might very well have changed her future.

Frenda continued onward and shoved an explosive into the face of the flustered man in front of her. She swept his feet out from under him, stared down at the small explosive inside his mouth, and triggered the wireless detonator.

Another man panicked and pulled a gun after seeing his companion’s head blown off, but then he saw the bizarre sight of his own arm bending 180 degrees outwards. Kinuhata had boosted her arm strength with Offense Armor to bend and break the man’s bones and joints before forcing him to shoot himself in the head with his own gun.

That left only one.

He swung a 30cm oblong metal box like a butterfly knife and transformed into a semiauto shotgun. That wasn’t a gun designed for taking careful aim. If he fired that wildly, he could easily hit Frenda’s sister.

A voice reached their earphones.

“Kinuhata, take one step back. Frenda, duck.”

It didn’t even take a full second.

A beam thinner than dried pasta shot through from right to left. It ultimately skewered the man’s sternum, vaporizing everything from his chest on up.

That was Level 5 Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner.

The deadly attack had weaved through all the gaps in the crowded and labyrinthine electronics district.

Takitsubo Rikou had probably provided targeting support.

“In the end, this sucks!!”

“Hm? Your sister is safe, so shouldn’t you count yourself super lucky?”

“Lucky!? She’s only 7! Kids aren’t even supposed to use VR goggles at that age. Her body is still forming, but I had to hit her delicate eyes with a million candelas! Goddammit! In the end, I’m an awful sister. And even Kanou-kun is only around 10!!”

“(I’m not much older myself, so why are you super not worried about me?)”

“Shitty people like us who kill for the dark side don’t count.”

Frenda continued to complain while grabbing a nearby tarp.

“Newbie, you help too. In the end, you can stick your hand in a shopping bag in place of rubber gloves. We have three corpses here. This electronics district is full of all sorts of junk and they sell everything from giant speakers to unspeakable life-sized electronic dolls covered in silicone, so if we wrap them up in tarps and cart them around, no one will know anything’s wrong!!”

“Eh? I thought we super let the support organization clean up the corpses?”

“Don’t give me that look. And you don’t even need a shopping bag when you can wrap yourself with your power, right? A magnesium stun grenade fully neutralizes people’s senses for only 5 or 6 seconds. The lingering afterimage and ringing in the ears differs from person to person, but it should last about 180 seconds. Half of that’s already passed. If we don’t hide and remove these bodies before then, my 7-year-old sister sill see this gory mess!!”

“That was the last one.” Takitsubo’s calm voice spoke in their ears. “And Mugino said to collect someone at the crash site.”

“?”

“Hatsuhane Sarari. The rookie idol that Mutual Acquaintance supposedly abducted. The one this whole job is about.”

This special district had no convenience stores or restaurants, but it did have parking lots. Mugino Shizuri selected one of the electronics district’s parking garages as their rendezvous point. However, more than half the height of the building had been later filled by the stacked container shops.

“Why did you bring the bodies with you?” asked Mugino, visibly puzzled.

“We had no choice. My big sister senses demanded it.”

Family-loving Frenda Seivelun mumbled a response.

Seeing this new trouble to deal with, the delinquents of the support organization hurriedly donned raincoats and rubber gloves to avoid leaving any evidence behind. That could not be fun in the heat of midday August.

“And you helped, Kinuhata?” asked Takitsubo, expressionlessly tilting her head.

“What else could I do? I’m the new one, so I couldn’t leave her behind when she was tearfully trying to do it all on her super own.”

“Hee hee. You were trying to be useful to Item.”

“Why do you look so super happy about that!?”

Meanwhile…

“U-um, thank you…very much.”

A girl of around 15 nervously spoke up.

She was the aforementioned rookie idol, Hatsuhane Sarari.

She wore a short-sleeve blouse with a brightly-colored vest and frilly miniskirt. It was all very cute but felt out of place in the real world. The coloration was designed to be seen under stage lighting. It wasn’t something you would wear out and about.

“Those people kidnapped me. I think they were from that bad odd-jobs service that will cover up scandals. Anyway, I can’t thank you enough. Eh heh heh. I don’t know what they wanted with me, but who knows what would have happened to me if you hadn’t saved me.”

Mugino Shizuri didn’t bother responding.

Meltdowner roasted something with a thick sizzling sound.

“…Eh?”

Surprise formed on the cute idol’s face.

Hatsuhane Sarari didn’t even blink as she looked down to see a melon-sized hole in her gut. She had just lost more than 5kg in an instant diet.

“Mutual Acquaintance weren’t who we were hired to kill. We only took them out first since they had numbers and weapons and would likely get in our way. You could say they were no more than ''a bonus target we weren’t forbidden from killing while we were at it''.”

Boredom was written on Mugino’s face.

She wasn’t naïve enough to be ''fooled by'' that angelic smile.

“Our real target was you, ''the klepto idol''. I don’t know if you get off on the thrill or what, but you crossed a line when you stole the handmade cupcakes being sold to support medical research for curing whatever incurable disease it was. Your real mistake was hiring someone on the dark side to take out the fellow member who saw you stealing them, though. Not a good look for an idol who’s supposed to give people dreams,” sneered Mugino. “The voice on the phone – that’s our go-between – spoke with one of your fans, who said he couldn’t believe you were a habitual criminal or that you would put out a hit on another idol when the consequences caught up to you. He said he regrets ever supporting you. And we’re talking a big fan who spent the price of a foreign car buying a ridiculous number of copies of your music and videos in order to get a ticket to shake your hand or get your signature. Betraying the people willing to throw away their own lives to support you probably isn’t the best move. …Still, I almost feel sorry for you. If you hadn’t gone to a dark side group like Mutual Acquaintance, we’d never have shown up.”

“Uh, agh, urgh, whk…”

“So like I’ve said several times now: ''the big, bad wolf is coming for you''.” Mugino grinned. “Of course, we don’t care what happens as long as we’re paid and we get to slaughter some shitty criminal who thought it was a good idea to get involved in the dark side. Gotta say, ''it wasn’t easy getting such a cautious wicked idol to trust us enough to meet us somewhere dark and deserted''!”

As soon as she waved her hand dismissively, the criminal’s eyes rolled back in her head, bloody tears flowed out, and her body collapsed straight down.

This was too malicious to call “going undercover”.

It was a scam or deception technique used to take human lives. The act was much more calculated and well-put-together than the rookie idol’s adlibbed lies when she realized she couldn’t let Item know she was working with Mutual Acquaintance.

“Sigh, in the end, my shoulders are stiff,” complained Frenda, massaging her slender shoulder with a hand.

“I’m no good at this. Can’t we go right up to who we’re supposed to kill and super punch them to death?”

The leader girl shouted to the delinquents around them.

“Okay, we’re heading home now. I know dealing with someone in the entertainment industry can be a pain, but dispose of that corpse, okay?”

Mugino Shizuri didn’t even glance at the crumpled body.

The other girls left with her, discussing indirect lighting and home theater plans for their new hideout.

They were Item.

They were the strongest of the elite four-person teams and – believe it or not – they worked in secret to ''preserve order'' within Academy City.

“Ah!!” shouted Frenda, remembering something much too late. “In the end, I forgot to retrieve the used container for my stun grenade.”

“You did what? Do I need to punish you?”

A young boy ended up collecting her forgotten item, not knowing what it was.

It was possible this small mistake changed something down the line.

===Between the Lines 1===

Memo, memo.

Their natural appearances aren’t enough information. To know what they look like from behind and to track down their sphere of activity, I need to study how they dress and know how they think☆

Mugino Shizuri.

Fluffy chestnut hair, brown eyes, big boobs. Wears a White Season sleeveless blouse, a Sheep & Sheep limited-edition knit cardigan, and a Royal Secret reversible skirt. She seems confident at first glance, but her tendency to hide her legs with stockings gives away how self-conscious she is. lol, so lame. She goes out of her way to wear 180-denier stockings in this god-awful summer heat and black ones at that, just because she wants to look a little thinner. lmao

Level 5. Meltdowner.

She can fire electrons as neither a particle nor a wave to create massive destructive power. She’s about as strong as it gets, but on the other hand, that’s all she can do. An esper is still an esper. She isn’t Miyamoto Musashi, so you just have to make sure you don’t worry over it too much and psyche yourself out before you fight her.

Takitsubo Rikou.

Black hair cut straight at the shoulders, black eyes, possibly hidden big boobs? Wears a Robe of Feathers fitness track suit (pink) and some brand of shorts? She seems to wear that year round. Is she really walking around town in that? Those shorts might even be her school’s gym clothes. But for some reason, her sneakers are Victoria’s limited White Noise edition. Only 100 pairs were ever made! Don’t just walk around in those! There are shoe freaks who finally snagged a pair on an internet auction and then were too afraid to ever wear them so they ended up donating them to a museum!!

Level 4. AIM Stalker.

Her power lets her record and track someone else’s AIM Diffusion Field and she can make her power go berserk using a medicine(?) called Body Crystal. She’s in charge of targeting Meltdowner. Watch out for her. This plain girl who you can forget is even there on the front line is honestly scarier than that simple overpowered girl.

Frenda Seivelun.

Fluffy blonde hair, blue eyes, flat chest. Wears an Angel Halo type-53 beret, a Girl Breeze summer sailor dress, and a Muraki Dressmakers light model UV-blocking poncho. Oh, and I think Sugar Body type-A black thigh highs. Based on her outfit, she seems accustomed to showing off her body. You could even say she’s calculated out how her actions and poses will look to others. She’s confident in herself. And maybe it comes from being a foreigner, but she wears nothing but Japanese brands despite having tons of money.

Level 0.

Specializes in bombs and seems to know martial arts. Her role appears to be setting traps for the enemy to trigger when they’re fleeing from Meltdowner. She probably says the battle begins before the fighting starts. Her attacks take a lot of time to set up, so it’s best not to give her any free time.

Kinuhata Saiai.

A chestnut bob, brown eyes, and a super flat chest (lol). Wears a hoodie dress and a shoulderless top. She makes sure to wear arm sleeves and leggings, so despite how rough it all looks, she might not like showing off much skin? And every single thing she wears is Queen Knights. She might just really like the brand, but I wonder if she threw together the outfit in a hurry, even if it is all so expensive.

Level 4. Offense Armor.

She can control the nitrogen in the air to protect herself. She tends to work as Takitsubo Rikou’s bodyguard. Even an idiot could tell that Takitsubo is the cornerstone of Item. Crushing them has to start there. If she’s alone with her bodyguard, it would be best to set up a situation where we can split them apart.

Based on all this, I can guess they did most of their shopping in District 15, but they’ve recently moved their activity and shopping base to District 3.

Make sure to memorize their names, what they look like, their powers, and their behavior patterns before the mission begins.

Simply put, ''these are our targets''.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter4

2023-05-31T03:49:23Z

JDMP: /* Part 5 */

==Chapter 4: Decide For Yourself Which Girl to Save – Battle_of_HsB-AD-CVA01.==

===Part 1===

With the siren stopped, the battlefield was silent.

Aradia’s bare feet traced sharply across the floor of the broken walkway.

Collapsed and unmoving, Anna Sprengel glowed with a pale light.

Mut Thebes, having become a massive bird, tilted her head.

“A barrier? No, a witch ointment. That can help you fly or transform you by rearranging the structure of your body.”

“It’s nothing that fancy. Only a mild protection. I can’t remove the Shrink Drink itself, but I can slow its spread.”

“But this anti-explosive suntan lotion disappears if you die, doesn’t it?”

“Do I really have to answer that?”

“Only one way to find out.”

An explosive boom rumbled out.

Mut Thebes horizontally swung her massive right wing, which was actually a pair of 300m aircraft cruisers.

The white torrent smashed up the entire top half of the giant cinema complex and scattered the pieces into the air.

Kamijou Touma was tossed into the air as well.

Aradia grabbed him by the back collar while straddling a mic stand used when the director or cast made a public statement at an advance screening or opening night.

A witch did not necessarily need to use a broom to fly in the night sky.

What mattered was the ointment rubbed onto the tool.

“Whoa!?”

“Grab onto me, not the mic stand. I like to think we’re safe as long as you don’t touch the shadow, but if your right hand does affect it, we fall. Also, Mut Thebes isn’t the only threat!!”

The witch goddess then took a more cautious tone.

“Why isn’t she using the Shrink Drink? Oh, she might want to avoid friendly fire.”

Aradia turned a sharp glare elsewhere.

Someone else was soaring through the night sky on a long mic stand of her own.

''It was the other Aradia.

Even her choice of tool when short on time was the same.

The identical silver-haired woman held her palm out with an alluring whisper on her lips.

“''The Apostle Peter forbids Simon Magus’s demonic flight''!!”

“You can tell it’s her first day. She needs more training. How do you call yourself the goddess of witches and then use that!?”

Kamijou and Aradia plummeted. Flying was easy for magicians, but the counter spell was also easy, making it hard in practice. They were forced to land atop one of the aircraft cruisers Mut Thebes was swinging around.

“Where’s Anna!?”

“How are you concerned about someone other than yourself right now? I covered her with a protective ointment, so she’ll be fine! As long as you don’t touch her with your right hand, she could be buried in a pile of concrete without so much as a scratch!!”

Mut Thebes again swung the two ships of her right wing together like she was shooing away a fly.

Aradia was tossed into the empty air. She knew her flight would be canceled by the counter spell, so she guided Kamijou to different footing a lot like descending in a parachute.

They were behind Mut Thebes this time.

They were on the bow of the aircraft cruiser – also at least 300m long – that acted as the giant bird’s body or tailfeathers.

The other Aradia landed her bare feet atop a trio of ship’s guns towering overhead like a mountain. She laughed and looked down at them with the moon behind her. Even the cheap ventilation fan cover mesh was the same. Even though there was no need to match the emergency fixes if that was an official costume.

“Don’t worry. I will protect your hope. I will ensure the good witch child need not wander in the dark.”

Next to Kamijou, Aradia twirled the long mic stand like a baton and rested it on her shoulder as she looked up at her target. The two Aradias’ gazes clashed head on.

And they both spoke at once.

“''I will kill her.''”

“''I will kill her.''”

Aradia jumped up from the deck to the guns in a single bound and the identical Transcendents began their battle.

However, Kamijou was in no position to simply watch on.

He needed to settle things with Transcendent Mut Thebes.

(If this whole thing is a bird, then this is the body or tail. Mut Thebes is at the center, so I need to move from the bow to the stern of this ship!!)

Mut Thebes of course responded.

The nearest trio of guns slowly turned.

Those giant ship’s guns had a diameter of 35cm.

“Yikes!”

Multiple blasts erupted simultaneously.

The deck kicked up below him so hard he thought he would flip over onto his back. He was shaken so hard his vision broke apart and he didn’t even have it in him to thrust his right hand out toward the source of the sound.

But unexpectedly, it didn’t hit him.

Kamijou held the side of his head with a hand and wobbled on his feet while he moved to the narrow side deck. And he continued onward.

“Ow.”

(I guess I should have expected that. Aircraft cruisers aren’t designed to shoot themselves. As long as I’m on the deck, this ship’s guns can’t hit me.)

But only this ship’s.

He heard something scraping along metal rails and looked up to see movement from the ships forming the great bird’s left wing. An angular white shadow was launched into the sky from the flight deck created by removing the stern weaponry.

That was an HsF/A-49 Sharp Frame, a stealth craft designed for aircraft carriers.

Although it looked weird colored entirely white.

“How much did she absorb, dammit!?”

Mut Thebes could increase her forces whenever her shadow touched another shadow, so even the aircraft cruisers were expendable to her. She had no problem with using the plane to obliterate this ship with its autocannons and aerial bombs.

And Kamijou was dead if even one shot hit him.

If he failed to defeat Mut Thebes and then reach Alice Anotherbible, there was no way left to save Anna Sprengel from the Shrink Drink.

The stealth craft circled sharply through the night sky and finally took aim.

(Can I stop that with Imagine Breaker!?)

Kamijou held up his right hand and clenched his teeth as he ran. If that thing sprayed 6000 bullets a minute from its Gatling gun, he would be killed before he could even use Imagine Breaker.

His throat went dry when he saw the stealth craft’s belly open up to reveal the weapons within. Apparently it was going to launch an air-to-surface missile or an aerial bomb. If the explosive contained napalm or white phosphorus, then “bad” didn’t even begin to describe it.

But Kamijou belatedly realized something.

The aircraft cruisers and the stealth craft were shadows absorbed my Mut Thebes’s magic.

So he was thinking about this wrong.

''The stealth craft and its bullets or bombs weren’t the only thing his right hand could destroy. He could also destroy the very aircraft cruiser he was running on.

“!?”

He didn’t even aim for a door – he directly punched the wall of thick armor. With a dull crash, a 2m cube was torn away. Was it divided into blocks like that? Kamijou lost his balance, so he tumbled right on inside the ship.

Shortly thereafter, the outside world was engulfed in explosive flames and shockwaves.

More than his ears ringing, he felt a pain akin to an electrical tingling across all of his skin. There had been multiple explosions out there. Like someone had tossed in a bundle of giant-sized firecrackers.

“Was that a cluster bomb!?”

“I don’t know how to use it, but I assume if I simply drop it on you, you will die before you can complain.”

Mut Thebes’s emotionless voice played from the ship’s internal speakers.

Kamijou didn’t know what kind of equipment the ship had, but apparently she was tracking his location and could hear his voice.

Still, he figured he should be safe as long he remained in the indoor passageways. Whether or not the Transcendent knew where he was, the ship couldn’t shoot itself, the walls were plenty thick, and the stealth craft was too big to fit through the door. Even if he did come across a locked door or bulkhead, it was all made of magic and he could break through with Imagine Breaker.

That meant this was a sturdy and safe tunnel for him.

“What a pain,” said Mut Thebes.

“I wouldn’t be so calm if I were you! I’ve found a safe zone, so now it’s time to turn the tables on you!!”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

Kamijou heard a sound like an electric razor.

He looked to the side to see something skillfully turn a corner in the passageway, slip through an open door, and slowly approach him at a height of about a meter.

The white shadow was only about 45cm.

Overall, it resembled the sharp isosceles triangle of a delta wing, but it had a round hole in the center and it used coaxial rotors to move vertically or hover in place like a helicopter.

What was it?

Was it another piece of the aircraft cruiser’s equipment, making it another weapon Mut Thebes had acquired by absorbing its shadow!?

“Eh?”

He was caught off guard when the lightweight solid fuel ignited and the self-destruct drone shot toward him like a missile.

===Part 2===

The muffled explosion was audible even on the bow deck.

Witch Goddess Aradia’s long silver hair and large wimple blew in the frigid wind, but she sighed softly.

(Well, I like to think that isn’t enough to kill him when he has Imagine Breaker. No matter what it looks like or how she uses it, ''everything here is magic, including the weapons and explosions.'')

She also found this a strange thought.

To think the day would come she was acting based on trust in Kamijou Touma’s abilities.

She glanced down at her ankle and smiled a little.

“Now, I need to focus on my own job.”

She looked back up.

The two of them stood directly above the bow’s trio of main guns.

The moon shined down on the two identical witch goddess. Their long silver hair and ankle-length wimples blew in the frigid wind and they breathed identical white breaths as they smiled thinly.

There was no signal.

The two Aradias took action simultaneously.

They moved their mic stand brooms to their left hands.

One swung her right hand horizontally and the other did the same.

Their voices overlapped in disturbing synchronicity.

“I will bring peace to this city by defeating my enemy. Which makes this a good deed.”

“I will bring peace to this city by defeating my enemy. Which makes this a good deed.”

They sealed a cutting edge in their nails and took a step forward.

Their slicing fingers intersected for their first attack.

They jumped from gun to gun. When one threw an open-hand slap, the other struck that wrist to send it off course. They both twisted around while aiming a palm at the other.

Witch Goddess Aradia’s magic was based on the Triple Reload.

They didn’t need to defeat their opponent in one strike.

As long as they gave meaning to their attack, each consecutive one would grow more powerful in a snowball effect. It was an endless triple increase. There was no upper limit. As the chain continued, they would reach the point where they could fight the entire magic side and win.

A shockwave exploded out.

The aircraft cruiser’s gun barrel bent.

Fists flew, stainless steel mic stands roared, and roundhouse kicks tore through the air.

The rubbing of their feet squeaked like during a basketball game. The shadows at their feet grew more apparent. Both Aradias rubbed down the metal clasps of their decorations, sprinkling medicinal herbs at their feet, and used their bare feet to mix in sebum to create their witch ointment.

Their witchcraft mostly relied on that ointment.

Their shadows writhed in a disturbing fashion as the two witches shared a Sabbat dance.

The giant guns exploded below them, so one witch goddess gently landed her bare feet on the side deck another level down.

The other woman also landed with a smile.

“Oh? You aren’t leaving the human realm?”

“Kh.”

She clenched her teeth but couldn’t fully suppress the breath of slight exhaustion.

The other Aradia’s smile grew.

“Hee hee. That’s right. Using the Secret Chief’s power is a broken spell that lets us fight the entire magic side on our own. But it is not enough to come out on top when fighting another Aradia.”

Immediately after, the two blurred into motion.

They clashed.

Aradia and Aradia ran along the side deck, tore into the ship’s armor, and scattered sparks as they crashed into each other a few times. Their fingers sharply intersected, their feet ran, and they either swung their mic stand around in a hand or straddled it to fly in the night sky. They drew out large, twisted arcs and turned those into unorthodox loop-the-loops while their lights collided over and over before the two witches dropped straight toward the aircraft cruiser’s deck once more.

(If I only knew where the unseen rail is.)

Even as they fought fiercely enough to melt and distort the side deck’s armor, the witch goddess kept her thoughts cool and calm.

(Triple upon triple upon triple upon triple. My Triple Reload increases my power threefold with each new good deed, which is like creating a single rail. If I can predict hers, I can block her and keep her dominos from continuing to fall.)

Even in a battle between Aradias, how they used their spells could create a difference in strength. If one continued to grow her power with Triple Reload and the other had that process stopped early, the resultant difference could be used to end the battle.

Aradia knew she could predict that rail.

After all, her opponent was another Aradia.

She could easily tell what in this environment could be converted into a good deed.

But if she tried to take advantage of her opponent’s weakness that way, her opponent would do the same to her.

Stopping the falling dominos was meaningless if it was mutual. Then the shadows at their feet would lose everything they had built up and both of them would have to start over from scratch.

Whether she tried it or hesitated, it wasn’t enough to end the battle.

And…

“Tch!!”

She clicked her tongue and they exchanged a few more attacks.

The air vibrated and even the ship’s thick armor creaked concerningly.

Maybe it was for the best that they were on an aircraft cruiser cut off from the Academy City streets.

Even without the giant gun barrels breaking and flying away, wielding this kind of power would have done untold damage to the city.

“Oh, no. Are we stuck in a permanent stalemate?”

“Maybe so, if our power really is equal.”

They continued to clash like beams with a cutting edge, but that couldn’t go on forever.

One of them came to a stop and the other stopped on the deck in kind.

The Aradia fighting for the boy in trouble tried to surreptitiously catch her breath.

Her attempt failed.

“Huff, puff.”

“What’s wrong? Worn out already? I guess you are ''the old Aradia.'' Feel free to say you only lost because you were still worn out from your previous battles.”

“Do you really expect that to happen?”

“No, I doubt it will be that easy. But if this continues, we really will be pushing ourselves to the limits of our identical specs. And that gives me a small opportunity. One you lack.”

“Won’t you be in trouble if you’re wrong and we defeat each other?”

“Not really.”

That was all she had to say.

(Mut Thebes must have given her a lot of information on me.)

If both Aradias were defeated here, did she assume it wouldn’t affect their ceremony because another performer would fill the role? Had she added the ventilation fan cover mesh to her official costume to ensure their specs were truly equal, thus not giving the “old Aradia” even the slightest chance? And as long as their savior arrived, the witches she wanted to protect would be saved.

That wasn’t good enough for this Aradia.

She smiled a little upon discovering that feeling inside her.

If their specs were completely identical, they were stuck in a permanent stalemate. That meant she needed something ''other than'' her Aradia identity. With that something extra on the scales, she could achieve victory.

(I already gave him hope as a goddess, so I can’t let myself be defeated now.)

Would that feeling give her something that let her overcome her physical exhaustion?

''It would.

A heavy breath appeared white in the winter chill.

Aradia’s shoulders heaved on the side deck as she glance to the side.

“Hoping to ask him for support?”

The other noticed and smiled thinly.

The other magician taking the Aradia name shrugged with her mic stand broom still in hand.

“Seems to me that would only complicate matters. We look and act the same and we use the same spells. Can he look at the two Aradias here and tell which one is on his side?”

“Oh? Do you really think he can’t?”

“?”

Then.

A certain woman focused on one point of the Aradia standing in front of her. She noticed the difference between them.

''The other one had a single loop of duct tape around her right ankle.

“Ah.”

“''Our appearance and specs might be identical, but the things we’ve experienced and the memories we’ve made make a difference''.”

Kamijou Touma rushed in from the side, his fist crashing into the enemy Aradia’s cheek.

Not even the triple goddess beyond human territory mattered.

No secret move was enough to block that boy’s right fist.

(I only wrapped this duct tape around my ankle at the gas station. Mut Thebes must not have seen me between then and our arrival at the cinema complex.)

“Also.”

The witch goddess wagged her finger down at the other Aradia who had been knocked out by the blow to the head. She winked and whispered.

“The goddess of all witches isn’t all that physically strong. A solid hit from Kamijou Touma’s fist is enough to knock her out. …I know that firsthand from Shibuya on the 31st.”

===Part 3===

Defeating the enemy Aradia wasn’t enough to end this.

An earsplittingly shrill sound exploded out.

A formation of four HsF/A-49 stealth craft passed by overhead. The aerial bombs that separated off in midair accurately dropped toward Kamijou and Aradia, but Aradia extended her left hand into the air just before they hit. One after another, several explosions burst in the frigid night sky.

“I will hold back her aerial forces. You go deal with Mut Thebes herself!!”

“Thanks!!” shouted Kamijou, running to the side deck. Aradia did not join him, instead mounting her mic stand broom and taking off toward the bridge roof.

More explosions burst like fireworks overhead while Kamijou ran until his surroundings changed.

The floor below his feet was flat.

He had arrived on the flight deck equipped with an electromagnetic catapult that launched planes using the same principle as a linear motor. That meant he was at the stern.

(Sure, you can use this to take off, but how are you supposed to land again!? Stupid Academy City and its stupid, stupid weapons!! Are they VTOL? Or do they use floats to land in the water and then the front of the ship swallows them like a landing ship!?)

He heard a dull tremor.

Mut Thebes had apparently separated the 10 aircraft cruisers attached to her back like a giant bird. The massive white shadows remained standing like shed skins as she slowly turned toward him.

And she stepped onto the flight deck.

The newly flat surface made it look like the entire environment was prostrating before Mut Thebes as its master, ensuring it would never end up looking down at her.

Kamijou Touma and the Transcendent faced each other directly below the moon.

Mut Thebes slowly tilted her head and spoke plainly. Her expression was no different from when she had asked him to pass the French dressing back at the consulate.

“Should I shout the name of my special attack?”

“I’d much prefer you said nothing and let me defeat you.”

“Leaving human territory. Risk 4: Life and death, pure and impure, quiet and noisy, holy and evil, correct and incorrect – releasing the dual seal. Swiftly activate, Dead Phoenix.”

“So much for my preference, goddammit!!!”

Kamijou clenched his right fist and Transcendent Mut Thebes swept her hand horizontally at the same moment.

Something white moved.

An object with a nearly 3m diameter emerged from her shoulder. It looked like an enlarged version of a circular saw for cutting lumber, but it was actually a giant 8-bladed propeller.

“!?”

It rotated rapidly at a diagonal angle from her shoulder. If it so much as grazed Kamijou, he would be torn to pieces. He hurriedly held out his right hand to negate it, but something wasn’t right.

It was so large that mere contact would mean instant death for a human-sized target like Kamijou, but one look at the massive bird wings from before was enough to know that a warship’s propeller should have been more than 10m across.

(''She changed its size''? Could she always do that, or is that what the inhuman Dead Phoenix mode does!?)

And Mut Thebes was already expressionlessly summoning another weapon.

A white object covered her back like a giant armored snail shell. It was in fact…

“A boiler.”

“Wha-?”

Roaring flames flew straight toward him. He negated them with his right hand, but the dark smoke obscured his vision. She made her next move while he was still choking. She swept her arm to the side and something like a white beam of light shot out.

“Water jet auxiliary power.”

(Water.)

The dark smoke was sliced through along a diagonal line.

There was no time.

The blade of ultra-pressurized water extended without end. After all, this was a propulsion device meant to push a warship weighing more than 100 thousand tons. A hit would easily slice apart a human torso. Kamijou ducked low to the ground to just barely avoid the horizontal sweeping attack, but the aircraft cruiser’s bridge was sliced off at the base, causing it to collapse.

Mut Thebes tilted her head and readily threw away the weapon boasting so much destructive power.

And next…

“Grounding plate.”

“What the hell!?”

“The base of the ground line. However, a ship can’t bury the plate in the ground like normal, right? Instead, the massive amount of excess electricity produced within the ship is sent out into the seawater.”

“Not my point. What’s with all these crazy things!?”

“You mean this?”

The brown girl brought her palms close together in front of her chest and thick lines of electricity crackled between them. If what she said was true, that had to be even more powerful than a train’s high voltage line.

“As I have already explained, I absorb the weapon’s shadow, not the weapon itself. I have no real reason to use them for their intended purpose.”

“So you can just do whatever you want!?”

“More or less,” she plainly agreed. “And another thing. Remember the boiler?”

“?”

“I was opening the maintenance hatch of a running diesel engine to forcibly extract the flames, but that isn’t all that emerged. What do you think happens to a human who breathes in ''invisible oxygen-deficient air'' created when combustion steals all the oxygen away?”

“…Gah!?”

Suddenly, Kamijou’s right knee nearly dropped to the deck.

Mut Thebes’s expression was unchanged.

“You do not need a special poison gas to kill someone. The air contains around 21% oxygen. Simply reducing that by half creates deadly air guaranteed to make a human pass out.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!”

“Or so it said in the engine room manual. Extracting the knowledge from the shadow wasn’t easy, just so you know.”

Using the items in such unusual ways may have been a privilege gained by leaving the human territory, but how far would she grow if she were to absorb the shadow of, for example, an original grimoire or Index?

And Kamijou couldn’t spend any time on that thought.

He could tell he wouldn’t remain conscious for long. Similar to motion sickness, he didn’t seem able to fight it despite being aware of it.

He wanted to end this quick so he could at least pave the way to saving Anna before he passed out. He could have Aradia, the caring big sister, carry him to Alice. He had seen enough of that goddess of the cold but gentle moonlight to trust her that much.

So he didn’t need to worry about himself.

He would focus on that life they could all save together.

“Gahhh!!” he shouted, breaking through his mental limiters like a hammer throw athlete.

He clenched his right fist tight and took a powerful step forward.

Mut Thebes only tilted her head.

She did not use the electrocution weapon she had called a grounding plate.

With a deep rumble, gravity suddenly released its grip on Kamijou. A push from below had launched his feet from the flight deck. His footing – that is, the aircraft cruiser – had moved.

The brown girl sighed softly.

“My control is not limited to the weapons attached to me.”

“Gwah!?” groaned Kamijou when, a moment later, he was slammed back down into the deck.

At least his right hand hadn’t touched the floor, causing him to plummet further.

But.

He couldn’t reach her.

Gathering all of his resolve wasn’t enough for his fist to reach that Transcendent.

He was out of breath and unable to get up, but when he looked up at her, he saw the girl raising both hands overhead with the moon behind her. Thick electricity crackled between her palms.

Mut Thebes did not hesitate.

“The ship’s fluid dynamic power generator produces 45,000kW of alternating current power at a frequency of 60Hz. That easily surpasses the power of a nuclear aircraft carrier and is enough to cause the human body to explode.”

“You think you can kill me with ''electricity''? Sorry, but I’ve built up a resistance to high voltage currents.”

“There is no such thing.”

An extra-powerful discharge burst out.

Kamijou Touma tried to raise his right hand, but he was trembling too badly to move.

The light filled his vision.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

His pure white vision did not return to normal. But that he could sense the passage of time meant he was still conscious?

“What…happened?”

He tried to speak and found his voice was terribly hoarse.

Still collapsed, he blinked hard several times before his vision somewhat returned. The deck was scorched brutally black right next to him. And Mut Thebes stood a short distance away. But she hadn’t had any reason to move away in that situation?

No, that wasn’t true.

The aircraft cruiser itself was tilted diagonally. The girl was leaning her back against a wall to prop herself up.

“What…”

She was moving her head side to side to see what had happened.

“…the hell?”

===Part 4===

Aradia tore through the night sky on her mic stand, bringing down one stealth craft after another.

Her magic was based on tripling. So the more she brought down, the greater her power. Once she got the ball rolling, she had nothing to fear. She weaved in an S-shape to dodge the shots from the 35cm ship guns firing from the giant bird wings spread out overhead. When antiair missiles were vertically launched from the deck, she let them follow her for a bit before she spiraled around one of the five legs until they had all crashed into that “wall”.

The antiair laser units could shoot down cruise or ballistic missiles with greater than 99.9% accuracy, but not even they could catch the witch goddess flitting this way and that in the sky.

She slipped through the deadly net pouring down like rain.

“I had heard laser weapons aren’t visible, so are those weird green lines the equivalent of tracer rounds?”

(The giant bird is made up of 10 ships and each one is loaded with 30 or 40 planes. That means they could carry nearly 400 in all. And since I’ve taken out- hm? How many was it?)

Aradia flew straight up again on her mic stand and smacked her forehead.

Apparently she had earned too good a high score.

The ship guns roared and an ordinarily impossible scattershot approached her like a wall.

The projectiles were all Shrink Drink spears.

In a way, this was the most fearsome attack for a Transcendent.

(With the second Aradia defeated, I guess Mut Thebes doesn’t have to worry about friendly fire anymore.)

“Tch!!”

Aradia sharply changed course to slip through a gap.

(How am I still in the air? I’m pretty sure warships and aircraft carriers need a crew in the hundreds or thousands. And there are ten of them here. Are there too many weapons for Mut Thebes to control them all? She also must be too focused on Kamijou Touma to eliminate my flight ointment.)

The ordinary firepower wasn’t a threat.

She needed to be on the lookout for something else instead.

“Oops.”

She twisted around and flew in a spiral to let a slowly-approaching 45cm self-destruct drone pass her before detonating. Fortunately, their rotors were too loud for them to sneak up on her, but she still had to be careful because they moved differently from artillery or a missile.

Aradia’s top priority was drawing the fire of the aircraft cruiser and its aircraft since Kamijou Touma couldn’t dodge or defend against them on his own. That way he could focus on his own fight. So she could accomplish her goal just by flying around.

But if possible, she also wanted to do damage to Mut Thebes.

This wasn’t even about wanting to repay him for saving her before.

That boy was already her target of salvation.

The Bridge Builders Cabal may no longer recognize her legitimacy, but that goddess had to save him.

The witch goddess flew her stainless steel mic stand in a large circle around the giant bird like a drone getting video footage. She focused on one point of that massive bird comprised of several aircraft cruisers.

It technically wasn’t a weapon.

“Hm,” she muttered quietly.

She was said to be the goddess of the night and the moon and her lips contained the bewitching shine to match.

“I bet I can use ''that anchor''.”

She took aim and sharply descended.

Her target was the metal latch holding a chain thicker than her arm.

===Part 5===

An unnatural tremor ran through the ship.

If Kamijou wasn’t careful, he would have slid to the side even as he lay collapsed on the flight deck. In this case, it looked like Mut Thebes had a harder time keeping her balance while standing up.

Yes, the giant bird created from several aircraft cruisers was clearly shifting out of place. It tilted diagonally and didn’t fix itself. One of the five legs extending down like a long skirt must have been squashed like an aluminum can.

This was no coincidence.

Good fortune had no love for Kamijou Touma.

“''Aradia''?” asked Mut Thebes, looking somewhat confused.

This couldn’t possibly be good fortune, so the boy had to ask which goddess had chosen to protect him.

“She must have lowered the anchor. But how did that cause so much damage? The anchor is a standard piece of the ship’s equipment and it isn’t even a weapon. It isn’t enough to bend and break a military ship.”

“Don’t be so sure. I don’t know what exactly Aradia did, but if that really was the anchor, it is possible for that to destroy the ship. There are standards concerning the water depth and the chain length and there are apparently detailed rules about using two anchors at once and how to lower them. Forcibly lower the anchor in the wrong way and the power of the waves tugging on the ship can bend or even break its hull.”

“They teach these things in Academy City?”

He decided it was best not to mention he knew this from an old B movie he had seen on TV recently. Even if it only came once in your life, not every day of your first high school winter break was guaranteed to be exciting.

“And let’s not forget what you said about reaching the cinema complex.”

“?”

“''You walked here.''”

Kamijou slowly gathered enough strength to sand back up.

His head was still woozy from breathing in the oxygen-deficient air, but he could still fight.

He could pass out a little later.

“You also said it took some time to absorb multiple 300m aircraft cruisers, but that means you would have needed to rush here to make up for the lost time. You would normally run and jump in those circumstances.”

“…”

“But you didn’t do that.”

No.

Was there a reason she couldn’t do it?

“Ships are made to float in the ocean, not walk on land. Even if you can pull it off slowly, forcing it to a run would bend the hull and concentrate enough weight to crush it. I’m betting you gave it five legs because you wanted to distribute the weight. And even then, you had to walk slowly and carefully!!”

Aradia had done it on purpose. By lowering the heavy anchors one after another, each part of the giant bird had been forcibly twisted in different directions. She had broken a weapon larger than the average building by using the enemy’s weight and momentum against them like a form of martial arts self-defense.

“Tch.”

This may have been a first.

Mut Thebes clicked her tongue. And her focus shifted from Kamijou to Aradia, who was flying around in the sky.

She didn’t even need to use the Shrink Drink designed to kill Transcendents.

Flying with magic was easy, but shooting her down with the counter spell was just as easy.

Kamijou couldn’t let that happen.

“Ohhhh!!’

“?”

In the precise moment her focus shifted, Kamijou Touma shot to his feet and used all his strength to push himself forward while crouched low. He threw a full-power tackle toward Mut Thebes’s slender hips.

He struck.

Gravity briefly vanished and then they both crashed down onto the flight deck.

Afterwards, a powerful vertical tremor hit them. Had Aradia dropped another anchor to the ground, tugging unnaturally at the great bird?

The shaking and tilting sent Kamijou and Mut Thebes rolling along the flight deck while tangled together. They picked up speed. They rolled on and on and belatedly realized the tilting of the deck was getting worse.

There was no stopping it now.

They grabbed at each other while sliding down the steep downward slope of the flight deck. Kamijou couldn’t stop their momentum, but by pressing the soles of his shoes against the deck and creating resistance, he could guide their slide to the sides. They would be badly injured if they hit a wall at this speed, so he desperately directed them toward the starboard side deck, slammed Mut Thebes against the base of the destroyed deck to dislodge her grip on him, and slid another few hundred meters down. They both slid all the way down to the asphalt far below.

“Gh.”

They had reached the ground.

A short distance away, the girl silently rose to her feet.

The massive bird seemed to cover the sky overhead.

A dull, heavy scraping and groaning of metal came from above. The bird could no longer keep its balance, so its upper body pressed against the remaining bottom half of the cinema complex and it stopped as if leaning against the building for support.

Most likely, that massive bird was no longer usable.

But the aircraft cruisers were not Transcendent Mut Thebes’s only weapons. She took a quick look around at the bottom of the skirt-like five legs and her eyes stopped on an armored vehicle flipped over on the road. No, it only looked like one. A high pressure water weapon was crushed between the vehicle and the road.

That meant the vehicle was an anti-NBC decontamination vehicle.

Or was Mut Thebes focused on the revolving grenade launcher fallen next to it? If it was meant to distribute gas, it likely contained tear gas or emetic gas. Artillery only fired upon a single point, but these invisible chemicals would spread to cover an entire area. Was she going to use that to take out Kamijou? It was true gas was a more effective anti-personnel weapon than bullets.

And she had already had some success with the damage caused by the oxygen-deficient air.

She licked her lips and held out her palm.

“The vulture devours the flames enveloping it and devours the dead flesh. All is reborn anew. In other words, the Dead Phoenix.”

“!?”

There was a powerful flash of light.

But it didn’t come from Mut Thebes. A nearby streetlight was blown away by a tank gun at close range. The gun was attached to an 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle – a Predator Octopus. Only one person could have used the smart glasses to control that military vehicle which should have been abandoned in the underground parking garage.

And the shadows stretching across the road were influenced by the number and position of light sources.

So.

Blowing away the streetlight and spreading explosive flames in an unexpected direction caused the vehicle’s shadow to stretch in the opposite direction, as if fleeing from Mut Thebes. Same for the grenade launcher next to it. Now she couldn’t absorb the surrounding shadows and create her white versions.

Now an ordinary fist could reach her.

“What!?” groaned the brown girl.

This wasn’t over yet.

Kamijou clenched his teeth and his right fist.

And he thought of the person who had fought alongside him.

(Anna…Sprengel.)

===Part 6===

The small girl was crawling on the floor.

That position was impossible to imagine from her usual vicious pride.

She was more than 50m from the ground.

The half-destroyed cinema complex didn’t have any real floors left. Only some slight remnants of the floor still existed around the thick pillars and by the walls. Anna was crawling along that narrow space, meaning she had nowhere to go and no way to go back.

“Kh.”

Maybe she couldn’t defeat Alice Anotherbible’s power. The amount of power ''alone'' was extraordinary.

Maybe she couldn’t escape the Shrink Drink.

Maybe she was doomed to die.

Without ever finding the king she sought.

“But…”

She refused to give up without at least trying first.

Those two had done nothing wrong. They had not ignored her explanations and they had not impatiently skipped through the text. They hadn’t made any of those mistakes.

Anna was sick of watching people digging their own graves.

She was frustrated with this world where no one would follow her instructions.

But.

If someone who had followed her instructions and hadn’t done anything wrong were to fall, something even deeper than the core of her being would break.

(I…)

She was not a praiseworthy person.

She was a wicked woman through and through.

If Kingsford did everything the right way, then Miss Sprengel did everything the underhanded way.

This Anna had not lived a life she could be proud of.

But even so.

(I wanted to teach people. I wanted to be someone’s teacher.)

“I thought as much.”

She heard a voice.

Probably Aiwass’s.

“Finally decided to be honest with yourself? You did not want a king because you wanted someone to bind your wicked ways. You wanted to give this would-be king a proper education, didn’t you? And this time, you would keep trying no matter how many times you failed. Because you believed doing that would make the present world a better place, at least a little bit.”

Anna did not reply.

She wasn’t in a position where she could explain every little thing anyway.

The goal of the Rosicrucian magic cabal was to use mystical magical knowledge to eliminate the world’s sickness and restore it to a healthy state, just like a person took medicine to heal their illness.

She had simply been too powerful a medicine to take as is.

The world’s sickness had definitely existed.

In that case…

(I can’t die yet.)

Miss Sprengel caught something with her trembling hand’s fingertip: her smart glasses.

(I can’t die now that I know what I truly want!!)

It took all her strength just to place them on her face coated with gray dust. She clenched her teeth and focused like never before.

“Those innocent ones…sought out my teachings.”

It was fortunate the walls and floor had crumbled away and she was stranded partway up the building.

This gave her an excellent view of the world.

She could see the city that she knew would soon be destroyed but she still wanted to remain beautiful.

She wasn’t going to remain conscious for long.

She could tell.

Her vision was flickering in and out, but she managed to raise her voice just before it went dark for good.

“So keep your hands off of theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!”

She could see two people far below.

As well as an 8-wheel Predator Octopus.

===Part 7===

Kamijou Touma walked on wobbling legs.

He was at his limit thanks to the shockwaves pummeling his body and the oxygen-deficient air reaching his blood.

But he still managed to clench his right fist tight.

He thought about Aradia, goddess of witches, the moon, and the night. He thought about Miss Sprengel who had played a role in founding the Golden cabal. He thought about those two who weren’t physically with him, but were fighting alongside him all the same. The labels of human and Transcendent – of regular and irregular – didn’t matter here. Their desire to help each other intersected and laid out a powerful web of support.

Kamijou Touma was the same. He had no grand purpose, but he wouldn’t concede to anyone when it came to the strength of his feelings. If he didn’t win here, those two were in trouble. He would have to helplessly watch as they were killed for the grand plan of the great Transcendents.

''He couldn’t let that happen.

''He refused.

So a completely ordinary high school boy gritted his teeth and clenched his right fist tight.

Just like those two, he would force this to work.

Stronger. Stronger! Stronger!!

“It doesn’t matter how many weapons you have. That power is only an illusion.”

“Kh.”

“True strength comes from your friends, Mut Thebes!!!”

He caught the Transcendent’s cheekbone right when she finally turned his way.

Kamijou Touma swung his right fist with his full weight behind it.

<noinclude>
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter3

2023-05-29T11:31:10Z

JDMP: /* Part 3 */

{{Incomplete|parts=5|tparts=7}}
==Chapter 3: Relying on R&C Occultics – Secret_DB.==

===Part 1===

''Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

The siren was deafening.

The Six Wings attack helicopters were approaching.

Aradia was straddling the gun barrel and the 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle had been interpreted as an unidentified flying object violating restricted airspace.

Anna Sprengel had made a mess of Academy City, so they had plenty of reasons to want to kill her.

“Can’t you destroy that stupid tech with the weapons!?” asked Aradia.

“All I have is this flat console monitor, but it doesn’t say what controls what! And Anna still isn’t responding!!” shouted back Kamijou, holding the dead-eyed little wicked woman along with her chair back.

And that wasn’t the only threat.

A giant shape passed by unexpectedly close overhead.

On the flat monitor, Aradia looked up.

“What now? Come to think of it, there has to be real one of that AWACS thing flying around for Mut Thebes to use its white shadow.”

“No! That’s a…transport plane!!”

Kamijou didn’t know the details. He only shouted the text displayed over the footage on the command seat’s monitor.

The craft’s large, wide shape resembled a whale and the cargo door at the rear sat open. It was in flight, but roofless unmanned military 4-wheel-drive vehicles slid out into the air as if on rails.

The mobile combat vehicle’s armor did nothing to protect Aradia while she was outside making the 20ton vehicle fly. If one of those landed on her, she would be squashed between the two vehicles!

“Aradia!!”

“I…know!!”

The inertial force shifted to the side as the flying mobile combat vehicle curved in an S-shape to avoid the falling metal. After a vehicle missed its target, it fell a bit further before deploying a trio of parachutes that blossomed like flowers. The transport plane continued pursuing them from overhead, dropping air cargo containers like dice. Maybe they were full of fuel and maybe ammo, but they weren’t guided air-to-air weapons and they couldn’t reach their target.

For a brief moment, everything was still, like the eye of the storm. The interior lights returned to the ordinary LED lighting.

But it wouldn’t last.

Something slowly arrived at an even greater altitude than the transport plane.

“Another large shape?” said Aradia. “C’mon, your sketchy tech can’t bring us down if it wasn’t designed for air combat.”

“No, this is something different. What, I’m not sure, but it’s bad news!!”

At first glance, its shape looked similar to the transport plane.

But it was not the same.

A portion of the fuselage slid open and a Gatling gun, a grenade launcher, and a tank gun emerged.

A strange term appeared on the console monitor: gunship.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what to make of the English term, but then the interior lights turned red again.

That was a lock-on warning. Did that mean this attack would be guided!?

“Evasive action! You can’t let this hit us!!!”

“Don’t boss me around when you’re just sitting inside yelling! I’ll obey this particular instruction, though!!” shouted back Aradia, forcing the mobile combat vehicle to swerve side to side.

A storm of destruction rained down on them. In addition to the bombing, the Gatling gun opened fire. It was like a searchlight made of lead and explosives. Each speck was a piece of lead larger than a thumb and they attacked at a rate of between 6000 and 8000 per minute. Aradia swung the Predator Octopus around to avoid the line of fire sweeping side to side from overhead. She slipped them right underneath one of the Six Wings still in pursuit.

The line of gunfire contacted the unmanned attack helicopter.

The fearsome Six Wings was torn to pieces and exploded in mere moments.

But they had survived.

Unfortunately, their umbrella made of composite armor and an aluminum and stainless steel frame had been shredded.

“Make sure you don’t bite your tongue!!” warned Aradia.

“Yikes!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth hard while pulling in Anna who still sat limply in the command seat.

The screen showed Aradia running her hands along the gun barrel she was straddling. As soon as she took a forward-leaning pose like she was riding a motorcycle, the ground rapidly approached.

The explosion of the attack helicopter must have briefly blinded the gunship overhead.

They quickly passed the 4-wheel-drive vehicles still floating down on their parachutes. When the pursuing Gatling gun fire pierced one of the containers, tracer rounds scattered in every direction with the force of a firecracker. An ammo case must have been ignited. The way the container’s contents continued to go off while it floated down on its parachute was terrifying. It was like a disco ball of death.

Aradia made quick evasive action to the sides while nervously shouting to Kamijou.

A major road was quickly growing to life size.

“Here goes. 3, 2, 1!”

They fell.

The 20ton Predator Octopus had flown from the giant District 6 amusement park, passed right over District 5, and now set its thick tires down on a District 7 road.

Instead of crashing straight down, they landed diagonally as if sliding down onto the road.

The screech of the tearing and burning rubber sounded like a broken whistle.

Kamijou could feel the tires and ground below them for what felt like the first time in forever.

“We’re falling!!”

“Don’t worry. You have a witch’s guidance – and the goddess of all witches at that. I won’t screw up this landing.”

The Gatling gun fire pouring down from the sky easily chewed up the hard asphalt and drew out an S-shape like an approaching serpent.

If the landing killed their ordinary momentum, the gunfire would catch up. Aradia twisted her hips atop the barrel to push the Predator Octopus toward a side road. Technically, it wasn’t really a road. It looked more like a large common utility duct…or maybe a disaster shelter.

The metal sign indicating the sloped entrance burst like a balloon, but it ended there. The downpour of lead could not reach them underground.

“Incredible,” gasped Kamijou.

“What is? You had better not be complimenting those hunks of metal over me.”

Aradia twisted around on the barrel to glare back toward him.

Magic was convenient, but they would still be too conspicuous if they paraded down a major road with a lovely young woman straddling the thick gun barrel. She had chosen to do it herself, but it looked more like some kind of punishment.

The siren was still going.

The enemy remained on alert.

The slope provided a small view outside.

The Six Wings continued circling overhead for a bit, but they eventually flew off elsewhere. Had they decided they were no use with this terrain? An urban area filled with buildings of various sizes reduced radar accuracy in the first place and they must have had an even harder time scanning an underground space.

(But how long will it take for Anti-Skill to collect the vehicles and containers they sent parachuting down? We can’t stay here forever!)

The disturbing siren finally ended.

The actual threat remained, but Kamijou still breathed a reflexive sigh of relief.

Aradia reopened the hatch and climbed back in.

“So has Anna recovered? We need her back by the time we reach District 15 so she can explain the cabal’s secret for us. Is she still trembling in nightmare mode?”

“She’s better than before…I think.”

Anna’s head was lolling to the side in the command seat, but when Kamijou waved his hand in front of her face, her eyes did follow it. She hadn’t fully recovered from the shock, but she did seem conscious.

Kamijou put on his best “helping a lost child” smile.

“Everything is going to be alright, Anna. That weird Kingsford person is gone now.”

“Eep!?”

“You probably shouldn’t say that name out loud,” sighed Aradia.

Anna was behaving like a small child after a nightmare.

“It’ll be alright! She was certainly a scary lady, but she hasn’t caught up to us here. We got away.”

“She’s gone? That monster is really gone?”

“Absolutely.”

“Sniff, uh. Wahhhh…”

Anna Sprengel clutched Kamijou’s jacket with her small hands and rubbed her forehead against him. It was actually quite disturbing coming from her.

Given her past behavior, that is.

Kamijou stared into the distance.

“Hold on. Could we nip a lot of problems in the bud by saying ‘Kingsford is coming to get you’ whenever she misbehaves?”

“Yeep!?”

“Bh!? She’s not here!! She really isn’t! You’ll always be our choice for the #1 Anna!!!”

“Don’t you dare cause a relapse. Even if I do understand the desire to get even with her,” complained Aradia (while missing the mark a bit on his intentions).

Climbing a mountain was slow-going, but falling back down happened in an instant.

Consoling crybaby Anna felt like stacking up rocks at Sai-no-Kawara.

“Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?” asked Aradia, sounding somehow exasperated.

“Because I have. I mean, all Transcendents – not just Alice – are basically selfish brats who never pay any attention to their surroundings, so getting along with them is a real pain in the- ow!? U-um, Aradia-san? Present company excluded, of course.”

All in all, it took longer than expected.

The passage of time was hard to notice in the windowless vehicle, but it had to be well past midday by now.

That said, Aradia’s flight had broken all the rules. Academy City hadn’t expected it at all, so they had made a significant shortcut.

The pursuers had to be confused and it would take time for them to piece together the information and track down Kamijou’s group, so they had to make what progress they could in that time.

And finally…

“Sniff.”

Anna of all people was sniffling.

But she still glared past her tears to view the command seat’s console monitor.

She hadn’t fully recovered, but she had raised her head and was facing forward again.

“Let’s keep going. As much distance as we gained, we’re still in the same city. If we spend too long here, Kingsford will catch up again.”

“Thank goodness. Anna’s back to normal.”

“I was not crying!! I was never anything but ‘normal’!!”

The 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle slowly resumed driving and emerged on the surface.

There was no sign of the adults who had gone to collect the roofless 4-wheel-drive vehicles.

Had they gone elsewhere afterwards, or were they having more trouble than expected separating the parachutes? Kamijou could imagine the vehicles being immobilized because their own equipment got all tangled up in the tires and steering wheel.

The streets weren’t quite deserted. The group wearing their school uniforms during the break were likely Judgment members sent out on patrol or assigned to keep critical areas organized. The distinctive armbands confirmed it. But Kamijou also saw the occasional boys and girls wearing casual clothing. They were aiming their phones at the city from elevated locations, so they may have been getting footage of the empty streets to go viral on social media. Maybe they wanted to transmit to the world that they had violated the rules, but Kamijou could only pray their accounts weren’t banned for it.

“Aren’t those adults part of that Anti-Skill group?” asked Aradia while playing with the periscope-like device meant for Kamijou’s seat.

“What about it?”

“They keep looking at us. Let’s hope our license plate doesn’t tell them we weren’t assigned to this area.”

That was a worrying theory, but not one they could verify.

Even if they were rousing some suspicions, no one was making a radio call and sending in a tank or attack helicopter, so it was best to continue obeying the traffic laws and leave before those suspicions grew to certainty.

District 7 bordered District 15. District 7 was longer north-to-south, so it would be fastest to travel to the southwest end of the district.

Which brought them to…

“I recognize that out-of-place European architecture. Is that the School Garden?” wondered Kamijou while watching the monitor.

That said, all he could see was an extremely tall wall and metal fence. But even the outer wall looked fancy in that exclusive territory of girl’s schools.

He stared at that European style.

Since he fled the consulate without a word of warning, he couldn’t help but worry about Misaka Mikoto when he saw anything associated with Tokiwadai. But if he pulled out his old folk’s smartphone and gave her a call, he would have to worry about her using Academy City’s #3 Level 5 power to track him down.

That probably wouldn’t end well for Misaka Mikoto herself.

Meanwhile…

“Fool, how long is Academy City’s winter break?”

“Huh? I think it depends on the school, but…generally until the 8th or the 10th maybe? Oh, but I have no clue when it comes to the universities. Then again, winter break can’t be that different can it? Unlike summer break.”

“Then is that some kind of club activity?”

He finally noticed thanks to Anna’s warning.

A few girls were standing in front of one of the gates. They all wore Tokiwadai uniforms and coats.

“Uh, oh,” groaned Kamijou.

Was that Shirai Kuroko of Judgment and a few of the Sisters? That was an unusual combination, but apparently the new year meant new rules.

Also, they were all looking this way.

Aradia tilted her head while viewing the monitor.

“Can’t we just ignore them and leave?”

“You must be joking! Underestimating Japan’s middle school girls is a bad idea. Shirai there is a teleporter. We couldn’t escape her driving full speed in a sports car. In the worst case, she could even teleport right inside the vehicle with us!!”

This was so frustrating.

He knew Shirai Kuroko and the Sisters weren’t bad people, but he couldn’t ask them for help.

The overly broad category of “Academy City” was such a nuisance.

The external microphone picked up their voices.

“Isn’t that an Anti-Skill vehicle?” asked a Sister.

“So what if it is? This street is still off limits to large vehicles due to its weight limit. We should warn them all the same,” replied Shirai

One Sister wore a heart necklace, so she was likely #10032.

“Hm.” Misaka Sister stared expressionlessly into the distance. “Involving ourselves in those grownup problems is inefficient. Misaka is more interested in the dashi vending machine she saw earlier, says Misaka as she pours all her efforts into distracting you.”

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!? You have been tasked with preserving order, so you can’t just leave your post!!”

“Oh, shut up. Perhaps a hug will silence you, says Misaka as she attempts a stronger approach.”

“You must be joking. Onee-sama is my one and only goddess, so- ohhhhh, I’m being smothered in hugs by girls with Onee-sama’s face! My brain is glitching out!?”

Kamijou saw the Misaka Sister bow his way while they left.

(Did she know this was me?)

He had no way of confirming that.

After passing by the School Garden, they kept driving the Predator Octopus. The attack from Mut Thebes that morning felt like it had only just happened, but it was already late evening.

They passed below a blue road sign crossing the wide main road like a pedestrian bridge.

The scenery soon changed.

Looking up showed rows of high-tech high-rise buildings. Looking at the ground level showed trendy accessory shops that looked straight out of a fashion magazine. The signs seemed to reject ordinary customers by saying they had no space for products that were simply meant to sell. Kamijou had never had much reason to visit this district during his time living in the city.

This district contained the cutting edge of fashion, but it was currently deserted.

Maybe the people who frequented this district were so accustomed to breaking the rules to stand out that they knew how much you could get away with before getting in real trouble.

“We’ve finally arrived, fool,” said Anna Sprengel, tapping her finger on the command seat’s console monitor. “This is District 15.”

===Part 2===

The sun had fully set.

It was already dark out.

And the mobile combat vehicle had come to a complete stop.

“Another standstill?”

“Not to worry, fool. No one has found us this time. This is District 15, the most well-known shopping district in the city, so Academy City is being more careful defending it.”

Anna Sprengel kicked her little feet below the command seat while observing things outside through the screen.

She appeared to have recovered some from her previous panic.

“Also, this doesn’t look like your average security. It’s probably a patrol by unmanned ground vehicles. After using their map app to follow their preprogrammed course, they should move elsewhere.”

They were in a back road just off of the main road where the military vehicles were holding a parade.

The Predator Octopus had been installed with a drone, so they were using that now. Kamijou was kind of impressed. Safety was a wonderful thing. The way they had a top-down view of things outside while hiding behind cover reminded him of a video game minimap. This way they didn’t have to worry about emerging nervously from around a corner, running into Anti-Skill, and having that eerie siren start up again. There was of course a risk of Anti-Skill spying on them from above in the same way and the control signal could always be traced back to its source.

Also, Kamijou was alone with Anna right now.

Aradia had left the vehicle again. The witch goddess loved the forests and nature, so she found it stifling to go without fresh air for too long. When Kamijou rotated the rooftop camera – the periscope? – he saw the scantily-clad woman stretching on the pavement.

Kamijou wished she would stay inside because he feared someone would happen to see her while she was out there.

With her back to the camera, Aradia raised her arms overhead and stretched upwards and then smoothly bent her upper body from side to side.

She was also saying something.

“Ah, eh, ee, uh, eh, oh, ah, oh.”

Was that voice training? Maybe that was necessary for reciting incantations.

She was probably aware of the camera, but had she realized the microphone would pick up her voice too? She was so weirdly unguarded that Kamijou felt like he was peeping on her bathing even though she wasn’t doing anything indecent.

“On second thought, this is pretty indecent. Twisting her hips and arching her back while dressed like that in public qualifies if you ask me. Curse that flexible banana woman.”

“What are you watching, fool?”

Little Anna got after him. And she sounded miffed instead of her usual exasperation, so the boy felt ice down his spine. He quickly moved away from the periscope.

(Aradia’s the one who went out there dressed like that! I didn’t do anything wrong!!)

The silence in the vehicle suddenly felt extremely awkward.

“Man, you can’t see anything out there. See, I was trying to keep an eye on things outside, but it’s completely dark out thanks to the martial law, so there’s nothing to even see. Talk about a waste of ti-”

“To interrupt your suspiciously fast explanation there, were you aware this vehicle includes a crew recorder? It automatically activates upon detecting a voice, so everything said inside here is logged.”

“Please keep this a secret! I’ll do anything, Anna!! If Aradia hears what I said, she’ll kick me right through the gut, killing me instantly!! And I know she can do it!!!”

“Then hand over what you’re hiding.”

Little Anna smiled her wicked woman grin while holding out her little palm.

“When we were stocking up at the discount store, you bought some junk food you kept hidden from that nature witch, didn’t you? The extremely processed kind. That store had the customer bag their own purchases, so anything you didn’t want Aradia knowing about you could easily slip out of the bag and – for example – hide it in the pockets of your new jacket.”

“Ugh.”

“The high school mind is little more than an explosion of hunger and lust, so it isn’t hard to predict. When you have extra money, you would never stick to just meals. I can see right through you, so if you want my silence, you had better fill my mouth with junk food. Trick or treat☆”

Kamijou gave in and emptied his new jacket’s pockets. Anna licked her lips and began making her selection.

She had made fun of him for it, but apparently she too would die without the occasional junk food.

“What is this? It’s so thin and crispy. Is it a ham cutlet?”

“Trying it is faster than attempting to logically work out what it must be. But as surprising as it might seem, that is in fact fried fish. Never underestimate the quality of Japanese snacks, Anna.”

“Heh heh. I see. This is excellent. Hee hee. A wonderfully cheap and depraved flavor.”

Anna could be awfully honest at times like this. She grabbed the junk food bag in both hands and began nibbling at the cutlet-like food that emerged from one end.

With mystery gummies made with 0% fruit juice and ultra-sweet sugar-free chocolate, everything here would have caused nature-loving Aradia to evolve from kind older sister to furious mother.

Kamijou began munching on a round snack called Mr. Cabbage, which didn’t look like it had cabbage in it at all.

“Anna. What’s your plan after this is over?”

“After it’s over?”

She sounded puzzled, like she hadn’t even considered that possibility.

And eventually…

“Search for a king.”

“You mean to rule over you?”

“Of course, fool,” quietly confirmed Anna Sprengel.

One snack wasn’t enough for her, so she grabbed a large spiral lollipop.

“A king who will bind my wicked nature. I don’t know if someone like that exists, but if they do, I can make a compromise with this world. As you can plainly see, I bring only ruin and destruction when I am left free.”

“If you know that…”

“If I could quit on my own, I wouldn’t be searching for a king to force me.”

She laughed and narrowed her eyes in amusement.

Kamijou could sense something was wrong here.

“I am sick of reigning supreme.”

The wicked woman pulled her legs up into the command seat to take up less space.

When she spoke, it seemed directed at herself more than Kamijou.

“I am sick and tired of trying to teach people things. I keep explaining it for them and I even write it down in letters anyone can understand, but no one ever even bothers to try and achieve the correct answer. They want to know the secret art of miracles so badly, but they want it faster and simpler and they end up skipping steps and taking shortcuts. I have shown them step by step how to take the safe and certain path, but they omit the fundamentals and ultimately fail in devastating ways.”

Anna Sprengel was enshrouded in mystery.

What exactly was the Rosicrucian magic cabal? How could she be the original owner of Aiwass when Aleister was supposed to be his master? And why was she so terrified of that mystery woman named Anna Kingsford?

Of course, Kamijou knew he wouldn’t receive an answer if he asked her here.

She would undoubtedly rebuke him for taking the easy route.

So he instead touched on a core point he already knew about.

“I hope you find your king.”

“Yes.”

While curled up in her seat, she rested her chin on her knees and narrowed her eyes in a smile.

“I do hope they are out there somewhere, fool.”

===Part 3===

“Now, I 💭 it is ⏱️ to get moving,” whispered Anna Kingsford.

Miss Sprengel, Mut Thebes, and Kamijou Touma. When she had asked who to target and pursue with her divination, her injured student had given the following answer.

“It is ⏱️ time to find ''the one we must defeat''.”

===Part 4===

After confirming with the drone that the patrolling vehicles on the main street had left, Kamijou called Aradia back into the mobile combat vehicle.

“Huh? Why are you so warm, Aradia?”

“You should try getting some exercise too. The heater isn’t enough to warm the core of your body.”

They drove slowly through the shopping district night, obeying the traffic laws within the wild military vehicle.

“Wait, wait, wait. Everything’s dark. And we’re on District 15’s main street. This is supposed to be a terrifyingly bright and shining land of fashion. District 15 should be a poison zone for me. I should be taking damage each step I take.”

“This is nothing compared to true martial law, fool. Japan really is a peaceful country. The higher ups have declared martial law, but they still have the traffic lights running for the people sneaking out into the city. And they haven’t shut down communications like TV, radio, phones, and internet.”

“If they shut all that down, it would cause a panic.”

“Yes, fool, but declaring martial law is supposed to mean you are prepared to handle the consequences like that.”

They drove slowly through the dark and silent city.

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Aradia was again stretching her cheeks while staring into Kamijou’s old folk’s smartphone. She even pushed up on the corners of her mouth with her fingers to form a smile. Kamijou felt as awkward as seeing a schoolgirl set up her phone by the train window and start dancing when she thought the car had emptied out.

A staticky voice came from the console monitor Anna was messing with.

“Delta here. Do you read me?”

“Whisky. The encryption is working perfectly. It does introduce lag to the conversation, though.”

Kamijou tilted his head.

“What are you doing? Accessing the Anti-Skill radio?”

“This is amateur radio. Some students questioned the safety of smartphones since everything passes through a large server somewhere, so they appear to have set up a radio forum. This isn’t much safer, though,” said Anna as they drove by a 10m-tall mobile interception antenna tower.

They may have used an outdated term like “forum” because they were trying to distance themselves from cutting-edge smartphones.

“Tango here. Take a look through your telescopes. Something huge is blocking the moon.”

“Charlie. That’s not standard orbit. Are they doing something on the space station?”

Maybe that was accurate and maybe not, but the thought of something happening in space was pretty scary. Kamijou decided it was best to end this before an even more dangerous trigger could be pulled. They were already inside District 15. He wanted to avoid being hit by a major attack at this point.

“This is the place,” said Anna.

That phrase carried a lot of weight.

The Predator Octopus had arrived at a certain location.

A large shape loomed overhead.

The mass of concrete weighed tens of thousands of tons.

But…

“''This'' is?” asked Kamijou after sticking his head out of the hatch.

He had been imagining something like a secret military base, but he instead found something completely ordinary, even if he didn’t recognize it.

It was…

“Um, this is a cinema complex?”

“Yes, it’s a collection of movie theaters. An unusually large collection, but still.”

The skyscraper was so tall that panning the screen up with the camera wasn’t enough to see the top and it was entirely filled with movie theaters. This was such a popular place that it was rumored the results here determined which movie was considered the year’s most popular. It was also famous for having the director and cast make an appearance on opening night.

Little Anna Sprengel sighed at the other two.

“Why would I hide my secret in a blatantly suspicious fortress? A sturdy safe would only draw attention. To win on the intelligence front, you need an inconspicuous location that will blend into the background.”

Was that how it worked?

Kamijou remained nervous and Anna laughed wickedly.

“In Academy City, most movies are not played by shining light through film. With an adequate optical network, you don’t even need to distribute physical media to each movie theater. Heh heh. It’s sad really. Hee hee. Video aside, the analog audio is superior to a digital signal, but the people traveling all the way to the theater can’t even tell the diff-”

“Huh, that’s fascinating. And it’s a lot more convincing coming from a wicked woman who was once turned into a human film canister.”

Little Anna’s shoulders jumped.

Aradia had rudely interrupted her, but she forgot all about being angry.

She really did behave better when someone mentioned Kingsford. You could probably get her to eat her vegetables by telling her Kingsford could come to get her if she didn’t.

District 15 was Academy City’s largest shopping district, so it was short on land. Similar to an area with tons of convenience stores but no parking lots. So the cinema complex apparently had its staff parking built underground.

“Won’t someone question a military vehicle entering here?”

“Not to worry, fool. This was only meant to bring us to the magic database. It doesn’t matter much now that we’ve arrived.”

Apparently Kamijou’s worries were unnecessary.

They entered the staff parking without permission, but no guard got after them. The place was deserted. The parking garage’s fluorescent lights weren’t even on.

Kamijou doubted they were just closed for the holiday. The martial law had to be the cause. The confusion of that declaration was obvious from how the lights and air conditioning were deactivated, but the shutters remained open.

“Let’s go, fool and rural witch. …I-I said let’s go!”

Anna Sprengel grabbed the smart glasses that let her operate the mobile combat vehicle from outside, but she seemed somehow nervous as she exited. But wasn’t this where she had hid her secret?

“Uhh.”

She clung to Kamijou’s left side.

Was arrogant Anna Sprengel really trembling as she stared into the darkness ahead? Almost like a child afraid to walk outside at night.

“Anna?”

“Shut up! You saw Kingsford, fool. Anything goes with her – in a bad way. The thought of her smiling face emerging from the shadows is just- ugh.”

Telling her she was overreacting wouldn’t help.

This reaction was based in fear, but that woman had inspired this much fear in Anna. She had to be extraordinary. It was best to assume she wouldn’t enter through the door like a normal person.

And…

“…”

Kamijou felt a soft weight on his other side.

Witch Goddess Aradia had taken his right arm.

Tears formed in the corners of Anna’s eyes.

“Hey! Leave the fool’s right hand free so he can use it at a moment’s notice, you lewd seductive banana woman!! What if Kingsford appears without warning!?”

“Shut up, you lonely crybaby wicked woman,” Aradia replied quietly but sharply.

Kamijou felt a strange pressure of a sort only a higher being could understand.

“Wait, the elevators still work with the power shut down?”

“My, my. D-don’t let that surprise you, fool. This is far easier than hijacking an online military weapon. Hee hee hee. I can close someone in and send it plummeting to the ground from outside.”

(Maybe because she was doing her best to distract herself from her fear of Kingsford,) Anna Sprengel’s voice was unusually unstable and hyper. Kamijou also had a feeling he needed to give her a talking to later on. Although if he used the Special Kingsford Attack too often, he feared it would lose its effectiveness.

Meanwhile, Aradia sounded thoughtful in her own way.

“The theater…the stage.”

“?”

The giant cinema complex had countless movie theaters stacked on top of each other, but Anna wasn’t taking them to any of those. She opened a plain metal door and stepped into a behind-the-scenes control room.

Kamijou had seen something similar on TV.

Specifically, he saw an audio console lined with more a hundred sliders, just like at a TV station or a recording studio. Monitors showing what was being played in each theater were lined up like in a security room and several industrial computers larger than refrigerators were lined up along the wall.

“This is the central theater control room. I’m sure you know they don’t hand-crank a projector nowadays, but if you extended the fiber optic cable to your home, you could watch it from there.”

“So this is the place?”

“Correct, fool. This equipment is used to download the movie file from a central server located elsewhere and then play it on the appropriate screens. But they can’t afford for the line to be busy, so they have more than 5 large capacity lines running in parallel to ensure they won’t experience even 0.2 seconds of lag. Which makes this a treasure trove of unused space the theater staff isn’t even aware of.”

Maybe magicians just liked to explain things because Anna talked on and on as she walked further in. She sat in a chair much too large for her and started up the equipment like she knew what she was doing.

As usual, Aradia’s dislike of Academy City had her over by the wall where she could keep her distance from the monitors. She apparently wasn’t aware that “wall” was actually the large computers. Was she trying to master the careless older sister class?

“More strange tech? Can you really reveal the world’s secrets with this?”

“Oh? Isn’t all magic much the same?”

Surprisingly, the equipment looked like an ordinary computer as it booted up.

But before that boot up was complete, Anna pressed a key combination Kamijou didn’t recognize and a different screen popped up. It was only white text on a red background. This was either an industrial mode or a special mode the computer’s actual owners weren’t aware of. Anna selected a few options written in English and directly typed in what appeared to be a command to search through the data she had hidden in the unseen space of that vast storage device.

The screen became a lot more understandable then.

It was the R&C Occultics homepage that Kamijou had seen on his old folk’s smartphone. Maybe this was an older version, but she had apparently kept a full backup.

The little wicked woman typed a language other than Japanese and English into the search box. She had probably switched modes in some way, but Kamijou was surprised to see she could use the keyboard to type characters that looked like the ancient writing from an other world fantasy.

(Then again, maybe Japanese keyboards look just as strange to everyone else in the world. They let you type hiragana, katakana, kanji, numbers, the alphabet, symbols, and even emoticons with the one device.)

The screen arrived at a certain entry in the magic database.

“Here we go. This is it, fool. Reviewing the material leads to the same result.”

Anna was speaking under her breath, so she probably wasn’t really trying to explain anything to Kamijou or Aradia.

Her eyes followed the text on the coldly glowing screen and she spoke her knowledge aloud in order to compare the past with the present.

“The Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal. H. T. Trismegistus is most likely from BCE times. Good, Old Mary is from around the 3rd century at the latest. Yet the spells they receive from their Secret Chiefs display hints of Magick.”

The R&C Occultics magic database came from all the secret knowledge and techniques Anna Sprengel had typed up herself.

She was only relying on her own reference material because she wanted solid confirmation outside of her own head. This was similar to reading back through her mountain of notes in chronological order to organize her thesis.

This meant something had that wicked woman so concerned that she needed to check each and every little thing to put her mind at ease.

“Fool. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that the Transcendents exist to protect others. Just like Aradia there.”

“…”

Aradia didn’t respond to the mention and remained by the wall with her arms crossed.

Anna shrugged.

“But they each want to protect a different group. It could be persecuted witches, the falsely accused, anyone not in the privileged class, or the people unseen among the masses who are satisfied with their current lives. There might be some overlap, but never a perfect match. If any one of them tries to protect someone, they will bring harm to the people another Transcendent is attempting to protect. So none of the Transcendents is allowed to act on their own.”

The Bologna Succubus had already explained this to Kamijou.

That was why the Transcendents had gathered and started talking things out. They had wanted to create a world where all of them could save their targets of salvation without interfering with each other. It was like an extremely complex puzzle, so they had talked on and on in search of an answer.

Alice Anotherbible was independent and capricious, so she threatened to ruin all of that.

Alice was still young(?), so she likely hadn’t decided on her conditions for salvation yet. So she might wield extreme violence on a whim, or she might save the innocent on a whim.

Did they save people based on a list of rules?

Or did they save people on a whim?

Kamijou still couldn’t decide which was more ordinary and human.

“''So they decided to create a certain person.''”

“?”

This deviated from what Kamijou knew.

It gave him a discordant feeling like the record needle had just skipped to a different song.

What kind of corroborative evidence did Anna have of this? She slowly scrolled down the screen and viewed the many formulas displayed there to reinforce her knowledge.

“They concluded they could never reach the answer on their own. No matter how hard they tried to solve the complex puzzle, someone would inevitably bring harm to someone else’s salvation target. ''But if they could create someone capable of solving that problem, they concluded they could save the entire world.''”

“What…are you talking about?” asked Kamijou, astonished.

They were dumping the problem on someone else?

Something was wrong with the world and the people they cared for would die if they didn’t start fixing the problem immediately. They understood that perfectly, but they ultimately let go of the world’s lifeline and handed it off to someone else entirely?

But when he thought about it, the very idea of there being Transcendent people tasked with saving the world was based on the assumption that there were ''special geniuses'' who were superior to everyone else. Unlike the Magic Gods, the Transcendents did not expect to be worshipped. Was it H. T. Trismegistus who had said that? That meant they didn’t seek the understanding or sympathy of those below them. The decision of the majority was final and they didn’t bother to explain to the 7 or 8 billion people how they were being saved.

Take that reasoning further and the Transcendents themselves formed a pyramid hierarchy with a special being at the very top.

They believed they could save the entire world if they created that one person.

“Think back, fool. I said they displayed hints of Magick, didn’t I? That is the Crowley brand of magic.”

“You mean ''that'' Crowley?”

Kamijou was of course very familiar with the name.

Anna sighed.

“Correct. Aleister theorized that what you could call a soul enters a baby’s body three months after conception and he released a spell based on that theory. His theory implies ''there is no soul there until the 90th day of pregnancy, so he thought you could guide whatever soul you wanted into the body during that time.'' That would allow you to give a physical body to a superhuman beast or spirit and then ''manage'' it as your own child.”

Kamijou had known Aleister had a bad reputation as a magician, but had he really gone that far?

“Specifically, you impregnate a woman using a special method, place her in the center of the ceremonial ground, and arrange the appropriate magical symbols around her. Cursed gems, a special magic sword – things like that. Then you use purification and barrier spells to thoroughly clean away all forces that would have an unnecessary influence on the process. An empty place like a desert is convenient there. That way the child in the woman’s uterus receives only the necessary forces, so the magician has complete control over the creation and growth of the body and they can create exactly the child they want.”

“Wait…you’re dressing it up in a lot of magic terminology, but how is that any different from taking a delicate pregnant woman and pumping her full of nasty chemicals based on some human recipe you created!?”

“Did I ever say it was different, fool? Keep in mind that Aleister Crowley was known as the wickedest man in the world and the 20th century’s greatest villain because his magic research included the use of young boys and drugs in his ceremonial grounds. That magician ignored the moral issues in pursuit of what he wanted, so do you really expect him to make an exception because someone is pregnant or not even born yet?”

“…”

“By violating that taboo, you can acquire a beast or spirit beyond human understanding. ''Of course he would do it.'' This is the human who created a temple known as Academy City in the Far East, developed esper powers by using drugs and electrodes on children as young as 1st grade, and created more than 20 thousand human clones only to have them killed.”

After all that, Anna Sprengel shrugged. She must have seen the look on Kamijou’s face.

“He completed the logic of the spell. That much is true. But, fool, you should already know how emotional Aleister could be about his family. The annoying thing about that human is how his outward actions don’t tell you everything about who he is.”

Kamijou recalled when Aleister had held the baby Lilith and wept in the UK. Or the reason he had begun the Battle of Blythe Road all on his own.

From a young age, he had been persecuted by those who claimed to be good and moral, so he had sought familial love more than anyone else. But at the same time, he had also carried out heartless experiments and research. He was an extremely complicated person.

Perhaps that was why he was so thoroughly hated by the majority of people who needed no excitement in their lives and, for better or for worse, sought a peaceful life. They had seen him as an unstable and incomprehensible detonator for the world.

“But…”

Why had she brought up Aleister Crowley’s spell here in the first place?

What did it have to do with the mysterious Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal?

Seeing how puzzled Kamijou was, Aradia spoke up.

“We chose a method that doesn’t use a pregnant woman.”

“''So''? You were still messing with the fertilized egg undergoing cleavage in the test tube. Even in the original Crowley version, the mother remained an ordinary human. Birthing a special child did not remake her into a holy mother who could cause miracles.”

The little wicked woman patted her own stomach while laying out her accusations.

And she winked.

“Crowley used the word karma in reference to the current or directionality of the force that binds the soul. And he said that karma could not be judged good or evil – high or low.”

“You mean…?”

Kamijou looked over at Aradia by the wall.

Anna laughed as she continued.

“The Transcendents were the people who could not find a perfect form of salvation even with their connections to the powerful Secret Chiefs. I said an empty desert would work best, but they attempted to grasp perfect righteousness by surrounding their sterile container with imperfect good. Whether we are talking about a Saint, a Magic God, or a Great Demon, any perfected form of good will not function as the karma needed to draw in a different sort of being. The Transcendents theorized their imperfection and incompleteness would allow them to function as the unique trigger capable of drawing in their savior like a magnet. Hee hee. You were willing to use anything, weren’t you?”

“…”

“But in the end, the sin is the same. They blotted out an existing life to bring an inhuman being to this physical world. That is merely another form of human sacrifice – an exchange ceremony used to obtain the mystical.”

What had the Bridge Builders Cabal wanted badly enough to do that?

Or rather, who exactly had they created?

There was only one candidate.

“''Alice-''”

“''It was not Alice Anotherbible,''” quietly interrupted Witch Goddess Aradia.

She was still leaning against the equipment by the wall and refused to look at Kamijou.

While Anna was an irregularity and a traitor, Aradia was a pure and genuine Transcendent. She had to know what their plan was.

Anna Sprengel had messed with Alice because she wanted to stop that plan. That was why Alice adored Kamijou as her “teacher” despite him never having met her before. But if Alice was the core of the Transcendents’ plan, Anna would have had other options.

She could have directly harmed Alice to remove her from the picture.

Or if killing her wasn’t an option, she could have embedded a poison-like spell in the girl’s body to immobilize her.

Someone as wicked as her was bound to know some tricks for defeating an opponent too powerful for a traditional attack to work.

Kamijou had always thought she seemed to prefer indirect methods.

Alice Anotherbible certainly stood out as unusual in the cabal, so she probably could have done considerable damage to the cabal’s plan if she opposed their decision regarding Kamijou.

But was that enough to say the plan’s destruction was a sure thing?

Anna had turned Kamijou into Alice’s controller(?). Now, Kamijou didn’t know if the Transcendents’ plan to save the world was good or bad, but what would Anna have done if they had explained their plan to him and he decided it wouldn’t be a problem and they should go through with it?

In other words…

Alice Anotherbible was an important part of this, ''but she was not the very center.

So who was?

Who was this monster capable of pushing aside Alice of all people?

“Fool, you already have the answer. The name has been right there in front of us all along.”

Anna’s next statement was brief but tense.

“''Which is why I want to stop their plan.''”

“?”

Anna did not give any further answer and instead worked at extracting the data from the audio console. However, that did not mean searching out a port and inserting a USB memory stick. She took out an aluminum-looking device resembling the heated tobacco products Kamijou had seen in convenience store ads and simply placed it atop the console. It apparently read and forcibly saved the faint magnetic field produced when a computer sent electronic signals back and forth. Which meant she didn’t have to consider passwords or security when copying it over.

Either the data she wanted didn’t require much space or that extraction device was incredibly efficient. After seeing the LED flash a few times, Anna picked the device back up.

“Would H. T. Trismegistus be the best one to contact? He is something of a manager. Either way, this lets us directly negotiate with that cabal of Transcendents. As long as we know the details of their ceremony, we only need to remove one of the many conditions needed for success and the rest of the plan will come crashing down. …Also, this isn’t the only bombshell I have on them.”

Anna toyed with the metal device, but made no attempt to explain further. She shut off the large computer screen since she no longer needed it.

But just before she did, Kamijou’s eyes happened on a certain piece of text.

Alongside the symbol of a special cross, he saw the name of the person the Transcendents had unanimously chosen to recognize.

Their savior was named…

…Ch…s………ut…

“''Chris''…?”

===Part 5===

Meanwhile, Transcendent Mut Thebes whispered to herself.

She was focused on some distinctive tire tracks left on the cold road.

''But she was observing them from a large distance.

“Found you.”

===Part 6===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter3

2023-05-29T09:48:12Z

JDMP: /* Part 3 */

{{Incomplete|parts=5|tparts=7}}
==Chapter 3: Relying on R&C Occultics – Secret_DB.==

===Part 1===

''Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

The siren was deafening.

The Six Wings attack helicopters were approaching.

Aradia was straddling the gun barrel and the 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle had been interpreted as an unidentified flying object violating restricted airspace.

Anna Sprengel had made a mess of Academy City, so they had plenty of reasons to want to kill her.

“Can’t you destroy that stupid tech with the weapons!?” asked Aradia.

“All I have is this flat console monitor, but it doesn’t say what controls what! And Anna still isn’t responding!!” shouted back Kamijou, holding the dead-eyed little wicked woman along with her chair back.

And that wasn’t the only threat.

A giant shape passed by unexpectedly close overhead.

On the flat monitor, Aradia looked up.

“What now? Come to think of it, there has to be real one of that AWACS thing flying around for Mut Thebes to use its white shadow.”

“No! That’s a…transport plane!!”

Kamijou didn’t know the details. He only shouted the text displayed over the footage on the command seat’s monitor.

The craft’s large, wide shape resembled a whale and the cargo door at the rear sat open. It was in flight, but roofless unmanned military 4-wheel-drive vehicles slid out into the air as if on rails.

The mobile combat vehicle’s armor did nothing to protect Aradia while she was outside making the 20ton vehicle fly. If one of those landed on her, she would be squashed between the two vehicles!

“Aradia!!”

“I…know!!”

The inertial force shifted to the side as the flying mobile combat vehicle curved in an S-shape to avoid the falling metal. After a vehicle missed its target, it fell a bit further before deploying a trio of parachutes that blossomed like flowers. The transport plane continued pursuing them from overhead, dropping air cargo containers like dice. Maybe they were full of fuel and maybe ammo, but they weren’t guided air-to-air weapons and they couldn’t reach their target.

For a brief moment, everything was still, like the eye of the storm. The interior lights returned to the ordinary LED lighting.

But it wouldn’t last.

Something slowly arrived at an even greater altitude than the transport plane.

“Another large shape?” said Aradia. “C’mon, your sketchy tech can’t bring us down if it wasn’t designed for air combat.”

“No, this is something different. What, I’m not sure, but it’s bad news!!”

At first glance, its shape looked similar to the transport plane.

But it was not the same.

A portion of the fuselage slid open and a Gatling gun, a grenade launcher, and a tank gun emerged.

A strange term appeared on the console monitor: gunship.

Kamijou wasn’t sure what to make of the English term, but then the interior lights turned red again.

That was a lock-on warning. Did that mean this attack would be guided!?

“Evasive action! You can’t let this hit us!!!”

“Don’t boss me around when you’re just sitting inside yelling! I’ll obey this particular instruction, though!!” shouted back Aradia, forcing the mobile combat vehicle to swerve side to side.

A storm of destruction rained down on them. In addition to the bombing, the Gatling gun opened fire. It was like a searchlight made of lead and explosives. Each speck was a piece of lead larger than a thumb and they attacked at a rate of between 6000 and 8000 per minute. Aradia swung the Predator Octopus around to avoid the line of fire sweeping side to side from overhead. She slipped them right underneath one of the Six Wings still in pursuit.

The line of gunfire contacted the unmanned attack helicopter.

The fearsome Six Wings was torn to pieces and exploded in mere moments.

But they had survived.

Unfortunately, their umbrella made of composite armor and an aluminum and stainless steel frame had been shredded.

“Make sure you don’t bite your tongue!!” warned Aradia.

“Yikes!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth hard while pulling in Anna who still sat limply in the command seat.

The screen showed Aradia running her hands along the gun barrel she was straddling. As soon as she took a forward-leaning pose like she was riding a motorcycle, the ground rapidly approached.

The explosion of the attack helicopter must have briefly blinded the gunship overhead.

They quickly passed the 4-wheel-drive vehicles still floating down on their parachutes. When the pursuing Gatling gun fire pierced one of the containers, tracer rounds scattered in every direction with the force of a firecracker. An ammo case must have been ignited. The way the container’s contents continued to go off while it floated down on its parachute was terrifying. It was like a disco ball of death.

Aradia made quick evasive action to the sides while nervously shouting to Kamijou.

A major road was quickly growing to life size.

“Here goes. 3, 2, 1!”

They fell.

The 20ton Predator Octopus had flown from the giant District 6 amusement park, passed right over District 5, and now set its thick tires down on a District 7 road.

Instead of crashing straight down, they landed diagonally as if sliding down onto the road.

The screech of the tearing and burning rubber sounded like a broken whistle.

Kamijou could feel the tires and ground below them for what felt like the first time in forever.

“We’re falling!!”

“Don’t worry. You have a witch’s guidance – and the goddess of all witches at that. I won’t screw up this landing.”

The Gatling gun fire pouring down from the sky easily chewed up the hard asphalt and drew out an S-shape like an approaching serpent.

If the landing killed their ordinary momentum, the gunfire would catch up. Aradia twisted her hips atop the barrel to push the Predator Octopus toward a side road. Technically, it wasn’t really a road. It looked more like a large common utility duct…or maybe a disaster shelter.

The metal sign indicating the sloped entrance burst like a balloon, but it ended there. The downpour of lead could not reach them underground.

“Incredible,” gasped Kamijou.

“What is? You had better not be complimenting those hunks of metal over me.”

Aradia twisted around on the barrel to glare back toward him.

Magic was convenient, but they would still be too conspicuous if they paraded down a major road with a lovely young woman straddling the thick gun barrel. She had chosen to do it herself, but it looked more like some kind of punishment.

The siren was still going.

The enemy remained on alert.

The slope provided a small view outside.

The Six Wings continued circling overhead for a bit, but they eventually flew off elsewhere. Had they decided they were no use with this terrain? An urban area filled with buildings of various sizes reduced radar accuracy in the first place and they must have had an even harder time scanning an underground space.

(But how long will it take for Anti-Skill to collect the vehicles and containers they sent parachuting down? We can’t stay here forever!)

The disturbing siren finally ended.

The actual threat remained, but Kamijou still breathed a reflexive sigh of relief.

Aradia reopened the hatch and climbed back in.

“So has Anna recovered? We need her back by the time we reach District 15 so she can explain the cabal’s secret for us. Is she still trembling in nightmare mode?”

“She’s better than before…I think.”

Anna’s head was lolling to the side in the command seat, but when Kamijou waved his hand in front of her face, her eyes did follow it. She hadn’t fully recovered from the shock, but she did seem conscious.

Kamijou put on his best “helping a lost child” smile.

“Everything is going to be alright, Anna. That weird Kingsford person is gone now.”

“Eep!?”

“You probably shouldn’t say that name out loud,” sighed Aradia.

Anna was behaving like a small child after a nightmare.

“It’ll be alright! She was certainly a scary lady, but she hasn’t caught up to us here. We got away.”

“She’s gone? That monster is really gone?”

“Absolutely.”

“Sniff, uh. Wahhhh…”

Anna Sprengel clutched Kamijou’s jacket with her small hands and rubbed her forehead against him. It was actually quite disturbing coming from her.

Given her past behavior, that is.

Kamijou stared into the distance.

“Hold on. Could we nip a lot of problems in the bud by saying ‘Kingsford is coming to get you’ whenever she misbehaves?”

“Yeep!?”

“Bh!? She’s not here!! She really isn’t! You’ll always be our choice for the #1 Anna!!!”

“Don’t you dare cause a relapse. Even if I do understand the desire to get even with her,” complained Aradia (while missing the mark a bit on his intentions).

Climbing a mountain was slow-going, but falling back down happened in an instant.

Consoling crybaby Anna felt like stacking up rocks at Sai-no-Kawara.

“Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?” asked Aradia, sounding somehow exasperated.

“Because I have. I mean, all Transcendents – not just Alice – are basically selfish brats who never pay any attention to their surroundings, so getting along with them is a real pain in the- ow!? U-um, Aradia-san? Present company excluded, of course.”

All in all, it took longer than expected.

The passage of time was hard to notice in the windowless vehicle, but it had to be well past midday by now.

That said, Aradia’s flight had broken all the rules. Academy City hadn’t expected it at all, so they had made a significant shortcut.

The pursuers had to be confused and it would take time for them to piece together the information and track down Kamijou’s group, so they had to make what progress they could in that time.

And finally…

“Sniff.”

Anna of all people was sniffling.

But she still glared past her tears to view the command seat’s console monitor.

She hadn’t fully recovered, but she had raised her head and was facing forward again.

“Let’s keep going. As much distance as we gained, we’re still in the same city. If we spend too long here, Kingsford will catch up again.”

“Thank goodness. Anna’s back to normal.”

“I was not crying!! I was never anything but ‘normal’!!”

The 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle slowly resumed driving and emerged on the surface.

There was no sign of the adults who had gone to collect the roofless 4-wheel-drive vehicles.

Had they gone elsewhere afterwards, or were they having more trouble than expected separating the parachutes? Kamijou could imagine the vehicles being immobilized because their own equipment got all tangled up in the tires and steering wheel.

The streets weren’t quite deserted. The group wearing their school uniforms during the break were likely Judgment members sent out on patrol or assigned to keep critical areas organized. The distinctive armbands confirmed it. But Kamijou also saw the occasional boys and girls wearing casual clothing. They were aiming their phones at the city from elevated locations, so they may have been getting footage of the empty streets to go viral on social media. Maybe they wanted to transmit to the world that they had violated the rules, but Kamijou could only pray their accounts weren’t banned for it.

“Aren’t those adults part of that Anti-Skill group?” asked Aradia while playing with the periscope-like device meant for Kamijou’s seat.

“What about it?”

“They keep looking at us. Let’s hope our license plate doesn’t tell them we weren’t assigned to this area.”

That was a worrying theory, but not one they could verify.

Even if they were rousing some suspicions, no one was making a radio call and sending in a tank or attack helicopter, so it was best to continue obeying the traffic laws and leave before those suspicions grew to certainty.

District 7 bordered District 15. District 7 was longer north-to-south, so it would be fastest to travel to the southwest end of the district.

Which brought them to…

“I recognize that out-of-place European architecture. Is that the School Garden?” wondered Kamijou while watching the monitor.

That said, all he could see was an extremely tall wall and metal fence. But even the outer wall looked fancy in that exclusive territory of girl’s schools.

He stared at that European style.

Since he fled the consulate without a word of warning, he couldn’t help but worry about Misaka Mikoto when he saw anything associated with Tokiwadai. But if he pulled out his old folk’s smartphone and gave her a call, he would have to worry about her using Academy City’s #3 Level 5 power to track him down.

That probably wouldn’t end well for Misaka Mikoto herself.

Meanwhile…

“Fool, how long is Academy City’s winter break?”

“Huh? I think it depends on the school, but…generally until the 8th or the 10th maybe? Oh, but I have no clue when it comes to the universities. Then again, winter break can’t be that different can it? Unlike summer break.”

“Then is that some kind of club activity?”

He finally noticed thanks to Anna’s warning.

A few girls were standing in front of one of the gates. They all wore Tokiwadai uniforms and coats.

“Uh, oh,” groaned Kamijou.

Was that Shirai Kuroko of Judgment and a few of the Sisters? That was an unusual combination, but apparently the new year meant new rules.

Also, they were all looking this way.

Aradia tilted her head while viewing the monitor.

“Can’t we just ignore them and leave?”

“You must be joking! Underestimating Japan’s middle school girls is a bad idea. Shirai there is a teleporter. We couldn’t escape her driving full speed in a sports car. In the worst case, she could even teleport right inside the vehicle with us!!”

This was so frustrating.

He knew Shirai Kuroko and the Sisters weren’t bad people, but he couldn’t ask them for help.

The overly broad category of “Academy City” was such a nuisance.

The external microphone picked up their voices.

“Isn’t that an Anti-Skill vehicle?” asked a Sister.

“So what if it is? This street is still off limits to large vehicles due to its weight limit. We should warn them all the same,” replied Shirai

One Sister wore a heart necklace, so she was likely #10032.

“Hm.” Misaka Sister stared expressionlessly into the distance. “Involving ourselves in those grownup problems is inefficient. Misaka is more interested in the dashi vending machine she saw earlier, says Misaka as she pours all her efforts into distracting you.”

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!? You have been tasked with preserving order, so you can’t just leave your post!!”

“Oh, shut up. Perhaps a hug will silence you, says Misaka as she attempts a stronger approach.”

“You must be joking. Onee-sama is my one and only goddess, so- ohhhhh, I’m being smothered in hugs by girls with Onee-sama’s face! My brain is glitching out!?”

Kamijou saw the Misaka Sister bow his way while they left.

(Did she know this was me?)

He had no way of confirming that.

After passing by the School Garden, they kept driving the Predator Octopus. The attack from Mut Thebes that morning felt like it had only just happened, but it was already late evening.

They passed below a blue road sign crossing the wide main road like a pedestrian bridge.

The scenery soon changed.

Looking up showed rows of high-tech high-rise buildings. Looking at the ground level showed trendy accessory shops that looked straight out of a fashion magazine. The signs seemed to reject ordinary customers by saying they had no space for products that were simply meant to sell. Kamijou had never had much reason to visit this district during his time living in the city.

This district contained the cutting edge of fashion, but it was currently deserted.

Maybe the people who frequented this district were so accustomed to breaking the rules to stand out that they knew how much you could get away with before getting in real trouble.

“We’ve finally arrived, fool,” said Anna Sprengel, tapping her finger on the command seat’s console monitor. “This is District 15.”

===Part 2===

The sun had fully set.

It was already dark out.

And the mobile combat vehicle had come to a complete stop.

“Another standstill?”

“Not to worry, fool. No one has found us this time. This is District 15, the most well-known shopping district in the city, so Academy City is being more careful defending it.”

Anna Sprengel kicked her little feet below the command seat while observing things outside through the screen.

She appeared to have recovered some from her previous panic.

“Also, this doesn’t look like your average security. It’s probably a patrol by unmanned ground vehicles. After using their map app to follow their preprogrammed course, they should move elsewhere.”

They were in a back road just off of the main road where the military vehicles were holding a parade.

The Predator Octopus had been installed with a drone, so they were using that now. Kamijou was kind of impressed. Safety was a wonderful thing. The way they had a top-down view of things outside while hiding behind cover reminded him of a video game minimap. This way they didn’t have to worry about emerging nervously from around a corner, running into Anti-Skill, and having that eerie siren start up again. There was of course a risk of Anti-Skill spying on them from above in the same way and the control signal could always be traced back to its source.

Also, Kamijou was alone with Anna right now.

Aradia had left the vehicle again. The witch goddess loved the forests and nature, so she found it stifling to go without fresh air for too long. When Kamijou rotated the rooftop camera – the periscope? – he saw the scantily-clad woman stretching on the pavement.

Kamijou wished she would stay inside because he feared someone would happen to see her while she was out there.

With her back to the camera, Aradia raised her arms overhead and stretched upwards and then smoothly bent her upper body from side to side.

She was also saying something.

“Ah, eh, ee, uh, eh, oh, ah, oh.”

Was that voice training? Maybe that was necessary for reciting incantations.

She was probably aware of the camera, but had she realized the microphone would pick up her voice too? She was so weirdly unguarded that Kamijou felt like he was peeping on her bathing even though she wasn’t doing anything indecent.

“On second thought, this is pretty indecent. Twisting her hips and arching her back while dressed like that in public qualifies if you ask me. Curse that flexible banana woman.”

“What are you watching, fool?”

Little Anna got after him. And she sounded miffed instead of her usual exasperation, so the boy felt ice down his spine. He quickly moved away from the periscope.

(Aradia’s the one who went out there dressed like that! I didn’t do anything wrong!!)

The silence in the vehicle suddenly felt extremely awkward.

“Man, you can’t see anything out there. See, I was trying to keep an eye on things outside, but it’s completely dark out thanks to the martial law, so there’s nothing to even see. Talk about a waste of ti-”

“To interrupt your suspiciously fast explanation there, were you aware this vehicle includes a crew recorder? It automatically activates upon detecting a voice, so everything said inside here is logged.”

“Please keep this a secret! I’ll do anything, Anna!! If Aradia hears what I said, she’ll kick me right through the gut, killing me instantly!! And I know she can do it!!!”

“Then hand over what you’re hiding.”

Little Anna smiled her wicked woman grin while holding out her little palm.

“When we were stocking up at the discount store, you bought some junk food you kept hidden from that nature witch, didn’t you? The extremely processed kind. That store had the customer bag their own purchases, so anything you didn’t want Aradia knowing about you could easily slip out of the bag and – for example – hide it in the pockets of your new jacket.”

“Ugh.”

“The high school mind is little more than an explosion of hunger and lust, so it isn’t hard to predict. When you have extra money, you would never stick to just meals. I can see right through you, so if you want my silence, you had better fill my mouth with junk food. Trick or treat☆”

Kamijou gave in and emptied his new jacket’s pockets. Anna licked her lips and began making her selection.

She had made fun of him for it, but apparently she too would die without the occasional junk food.

“What is this? It’s so thin and crispy. Is it a ham cutlet?”

“Trying it is faster than attempting to logically work out what it must be. But as surprising as it might seem, that is in fact fried fish. Never underestimate the quality of Japanese snacks, Anna.”

“Heh heh. I see. This is excellent. Hee hee. A wonderfully cheap and depraved flavor.”

Anna could be awfully honest at times like this. She grabbed the junk food bag in both hands and began nibbling at the cutlet-like food that emerged from one end.

With mystery gummies made with 0% fruit juice and ultra-sweet sugar-free chocolate, everything here would have caused nature-loving Aradia to evolve from kind older sister to furious mother.

Kamijou began munching on a round snack called Mr. Cabbage, which didn’t look like it had cabbage in it at all.

“Anna. What’s your plan after this is over?”

“After it’s over?”

She sounded puzzled, like she hadn’t even considered that possibility.

And eventually…

“Search for a king.”

“You mean to rule over you?”

“Of course, fool,” quietly confirmed Anna Sprengel.

One snack wasn’t enough for her, so she grabbed a large spiral lollipop.

“A king who will bind my wicked nature. I don’t know if someone like that exists, but if they do, I can make a compromise with this world. As you can plainly see, I bring only ruin and destruction when I am left free.”

“If you know that…”

“If I could quit on my own, I wouldn’t be searching for a king to force me.”

She laughed and narrowed her eyes in amusement.

Kamijou could sense something was wrong here.

“I am sick of reigning supreme.”

The wicked woman pulled her legs up into the command seat to take up less space.

When she spoke, it seemed directed at herself more than Kamijou.

“I am sick and tired of trying to teach people things. I keep explaining it for them and I even write it down in letters anyone can understand, but no one ever even bothers to try and achieve the correct answer. They want to know the secret art of miracles so badly, but they want it faster and simpler and they end up skipping steps and taking shortcuts. I have shown them step by step how to take the safe and certain path, but they omit the fundamentals and ultimately fail in devastating ways.”

Anna Sprengel was enshrouded in mystery.

What exactly was the Rosicrucian magic cabal? How could she be the original owner of Aiwass when Aleister was supposed to be his master? And why was she so terrified of that mystery woman named Anna Kingsford?

Of course, Kamijou knew he wouldn’t receive an answer if he asked her here.

She would undoubtedly rebuke him for taking the easy route.

So he instead touched on a core point he already knew about.

“I hope you find your king.”

“Yes.”

While curled up in her seat, she rested her chin on her knees and narrowed her eyes in a smile.

“I do hope they are out there somewhere, fool.”

===Part 3===

“Now, I 💭 it is ⏱️ to get moving,” whispered Anna Kingsford.

Miss Sprengel, Mut Thebes, and Kamijou Touma. When she had asked who to target and pursue with her divination, her injured student had given the following answer.

“It is time to find ''the one we must defeat''.”

===Part 4===

After confirming with the drone that the patrolling vehicles on the main street had left, Kamijou called Aradia back into the mobile combat vehicle.

“Huh? Why are you so warm, Aradia?”

“You should try getting some exercise too. The heater isn’t enough to warm the core of your body.”

They drove slowly through the shopping district night, obeying the traffic laws within the wild military vehicle.

“Wait, wait, wait. Everything’s dark. And we’re on District 15’s main street. This is supposed to be a terrifyingly bright and shining land of fashion. District 15 should be a poison zone for me. I should be taking damage each step I take.”

“This is nothing compared to true martial law, fool. Japan really is a peaceful country. The higher ups have declared martial law, but they still have the traffic lights running for the people sneaking out into the city. And they haven’t shut down communications like TV, radio, phones, and internet.”

“If they shut all that down, it would cause a panic.”

“Yes, fool, but declaring martial law is supposed to mean you are prepared to handle the consequences like that.”

They drove slowly through the dark and silent city.

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Aradia was again stretching her cheeks while staring into Kamijou’s old folk’s smartphone. She even pushed up on the corners of her mouth with her fingers to form a smile. Kamijou felt as awkward as seeing a schoolgirl set up her phone by the train window and start dancing when she thought the car had emptied out.

A staticky voice came from the console monitor Anna was messing with.

“Delta here. Do you read me?”

“Whisky. The encryption is working perfectly. It does introduce lag to the conversation, though.”

Kamijou tilted his head.

“What are you doing? Accessing the Anti-Skill radio?”

“This is amateur radio. Some students questioned the safety of smartphones since everything passes through a large server somewhere, so they appear to have set up a radio forum. This isn’t much safer, though,” said Anna as they drove by a 10m-tall mobile interception antenna tower.

They may have used an outdated term like “forum” because they were trying to distance themselves from cutting-edge smartphones.

“Tango here. Take a look through your telescopes. Something huge is blocking the moon.”

“Charlie. That’s not standard orbit. Are they doing something on the space station?”

Maybe that was accurate and maybe not, but the thought of something happening in space was pretty scary. Kamijou decided it was best to end this before an even more dangerous trigger could be pulled. They were already inside District 15. He wanted to avoid being hit by a major attack at this point.

“This is the place,” said Anna.

That phrase carried a lot of weight.

The Predator Octopus had arrived at a certain location.

A large shape loomed overhead.

The mass of concrete weighed tens of thousands of tons.

But…

“''This'' is?” asked Kamijou after sticking his head out of the hatch.

He had been imagining something like a secret military base, but he instead found something completely ordinary, even if he didn’t recognize it.

It was…

“Um, this is a cinema complex?”

“Yes, it’s a collection of movie theaters. An unusually large collection, but still.”

The skyscraper was so tall that panning the screen up with the camera wasn’t enough to see the top and it was entirely filled with movie theaters. This was such a popular place that it was rumored the results here determined which movie was considered the year’s most popular. It was also famous for having the director and cast make an appearance on opening night.

Little Anna Sprengel sighed at the other two.

“Why would I hide my secret in a blatantly suspicious fortress? A sturdy safe would only draw attention. To win on the intelligence front, you need an inconspicuous location that will blend into the background.”

Was that how it worked?

Kamijou remained nervous and Anna laughed wickedly.

“In Academy City, most movies are not played by shining light through film. With an adequate optical network, you don’t even need to distribute physical media to each movie theater. Heh heh. It’s sad really. Hee hee. Video aside, the analog audio is superior to a digital signal, but the people traveling all the way to the theater can’t even tell the diff-”

“Huh, that’s fascinating. And it’s a lot more convincing coming from a wicked woman who was once turned into a human film canister.”

Little Anna’s shoulders jumped.

Aradia had rudely interrupted her, but she forgot all about being angry.

She really did behave better when someone mentioned Kingsford. You could probably get her to eat her vegetables by telling her Kingsford could come to get her if she didn’t.

District 15 was Academy City’s largest shopping district, so it was short on land. Similar to an area with tons of convenience stores but no parking lots. So the cinema complex apparently had its staff parking built underground.

“Won’t someone question a military vehicle entering here?”

“Not to worry, fool. This was only meant to bring us to the magic database. It doesn’t matter much now that we’ve arrived.”

Apparently Kamijou’s worries were unnecessary.

They entered the staff parking without permission, but no guard got after them. The place was deserted. The parking garage’s fluorescent lights weren’t even on.

Kamijou doubted they were just closed for the holiday. The martial law had to be the cause. The confusion of that declaration was obvious from how the lights and air conditioning were deactivated, but the shutters remained open.

“Let’s go, fool and rural witch. …I-I said let’s go!”

Anna Sprengel grabbed the smart glasses that let her operate the mobile combat vehicle from outside, but she seemed somehow nervous as she exited. But wasn’t this where she had hid her secret?

“Uhh.”

She clung to Kamijou’s left side.

Was arrogant Anna Sprengel really trembling as she stared into the darkness ahead? Almost like a child afraid to walk outside at night.

“Anna?”

“Shut up! You saw Kingsford, fool. Anything goes with her – in a bad way. The thought of her smiling face emerging from the shadows is just- ugh.”

Telling her she was overreacting wouldn’t help.

This reaction was based in fear, but that woman had inspired this much fear in Anna. She had to be extraordinary. It was best to assume she wouldn’t enter through the door like a normal person.

And…

“…”

Kamijou felt a soft weight on his other side.

Witch Goddess Aradia had taken his right arm.

Tears formed in the corners of Anna’s eyes.

“Hey! Leave the fool’s right hand free so he can use it at a moment’s notice, you lewd seductive banana woman!! What if Kingsford appears without warning!?”

“Shut up, you lonely crybaby wicked woman,” Aradia replied quietly but sharply.

Kamijou felt a strange pressure of a sort only a higher being could understand.

“Wait, the elevators still work with the power shut down?”

“My, my. D-don’t let that surprise you, fool. This is far easier than hijacking an online military weapon. Hee hee hee. I can close someone in and send it plummeting to the ground from outside.”

(Maybe because she was doing her best to distract herself from her fear of Kingsford,) Anna Sprengel’s voice was unusually unstable and hyper. Kamijou also had a feeling he needed to give her a talking to later on. Although if he used the Special Kingsford Attack too often, he feared it would lose its effectiveness.

Meanwhile, Aradia sounded thoughtful in her own way.

“The theater…the stage.”

“?”

The giant cinema complex had countless movie theaters stacked on top of each other, but Anna wasn’t taking them to any of those. She opened a plain metal door and stepped into a behind-the-scenes control room.

Kamijou had seen something similar on TV.

Specifically, he saw an audio console lined with more a hundred sliders, just like at a TV station or a recording studio. Monitors showing what was being played in each theater were lined up like in a security room and several industrial computers larger than refrigerators were lined up along the wall.

“This is the central theater control room. I’m sure you know they don’t hand-crank a projector nowadays, but if you extended the fiber optic cable to your home, you could watch it from there.”

“So this is the place?”

“Correct, fool. This equipment is used to download the movie file from a central server located elsewhere and then play it on the appropriate screens. But they can’t afford for the line to be busy, so they have more than 5 large capacity lines running in parallel to ensure they won’t experience even 0.2 seconds of lag. Which makes this a treasure trove of unused space the theater staff isn’t even aware of.”

Maybe magicians just liked to explain things because Anna talked on and on as she walked further in. She sat in a chair much too large for her and started up the equipment like she knew what she was doing.

As usual, Aradia’s dislike of Academy City had her over by the wall where she could keep her distance from the monitors. She apparently wasn’t aware that “wall” was actually the large computers. Was she trying to master the careless older sister class?

“More strange tech? Can you really reveal the world’s secrets with this?”

“Oh? Isn’t all magic much the same?”

Surprisingly, the equipment looked like an ordinary computer as it booted up.

But before that boot up was complete, Anna pressed a key combination Kamijou didn’t recognize and a different screen popped up. It was only white text on a red background. This was either an industrial mode or a special mode the computer’s actual owners weren’t aware of. Anna selected a few options written in English and directly typed in what appeared to be a command to search through the data she had hidden in the unseen space of that vast storage device.

The screen became a lot more understandable then.

It was the R&C Occultics homepage that Kamijou had seen on his old folk’s smartphone. Maybe this was an older version, but she had apparently kept a full backup.

The little wicked woman typed a language other than Japanese and English into the search box. She had probably switched modes in some way, but Kamijou was surprised to see she could use the keyboard to type characters that looked like the ancient writing from an other world fantasy.

(Then again, maybe Japanese keyboards look just as strange to everyone else in the world. They let you type hiragana, katakana, kanji, numbers, the alphabet, symbols, and even emoticons with the one device.)

The screen arrived at a certain entry in the magic database.

“Here we go. This is it, fool. Reviewing the material leads to the same result.”

Anna was speaking under her breath, so she probably wasn’t really trying to explain anything to Kamijou or Aradia.

Her eyes followed the text on the coldly glowing screen and she spoke her knowledge aloud in order to compare the past with the present.

“The Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal. H. T. Trismegistus is most likely from BCE times. Good, Old Mary is from around the 3rd century at the latest. Yet the spells they receive from their Secret Chiefs display hints of Magick.”

The R&C Occultics magic database came from all the secret knowledge and techniques Anna Sprengel had typed up herself.

She was only relying on her own reference material because she wanted solid confirmation outside of her own head. This was similar to reading back through her mountain of notes in chronological order to organize her thesis.

This meant something had that wicked woman so concerned that she needed to check each and every little thing to put her mind at ease.

“Fool. The first thing you have to keep in mind is that the Transcendents exist to protect others. Just like Aradia there.”

“…”

Aradia didn’t respond to the mention and remained by the wall with her arms crossed.

Anna shrugged.

“But they each want to protect a different group. It could be persecuted witches, the falsely accused, anyone not in the privileged class, or the people unseen among the masses who are satisfied with their current lives. There might be some overlap, but never a perfect match. If any one of them tries to protect someone, they will bring harm to the people another Transcendent is attempting to protect. So none of the Transcendents is allowed to act on their own.”

The Bologna Succubus had already explained this to Kamijou.

That was why the Transcendents had gathered and started talking things out. They had wanted to create a world where all of them could save their targets of salvation without interfering with each other. It was like an extremely complex puzzle, so they had talked on and on in search of an answer.

Alice Anotherbible was independent and capricious, so she threatened to ruin all of that.

Alice was still young(?), so she likely hadn’t decided on her conditions for salvation yet. So she might wield extreme violence on a whim, or she might save the innocent on a whim.

Did they save people based on a list of rules?

Or did they save people on a whim?

Kamijou still couldn’t decide which was more ordinary and human.

“''So they decided to create a certain person.''”

“?”

This deviated from what Kamijou knew.

It gave him a discordant feeling like the record needle had just skipped to a different song.

What kind of corroborative evidence did Anna have of this? She slowly scrolled down the screen and viewed the many formulas displayed there to reinforce her knowledge.

“They concluded they could never reach the answer on their own. No matter how hard they tried to solve the complex puzzle, someone would inevitably bring harm to someone else’s salvation target. ''But if they could create someone capable of solving that problem, they concluded they could save the entire world.''”

“What…are you talking about?” asked Kamijou, astonished.

They were dumping the problem on someone else?

Something was wrong with the world and the people they cared for would die if they didn’t start fixing the problem immediately. They understood that perfectly, but they ultimately let go of the world’s lifeline and handed it off to someone else entirely?

But when he thought about it, the very idea of there being Transcendent people tasked with saving the world was based on the assumption that there were ''special geniuses'' who were superior to everyone else. Unlike the Magic Gods, the Transcendents did not expect to be worshipped. Was it H. T. Trismegistus who had said that? That meant they didn’t seek the understanding or sympathy of those below them. The decision of the majority was final and they didn’t bother to explain to the 7 or 8 billion people how they were being saved.

Take that reasoning further and the Transcendents themselves formed a pyramid hierarchy with a special being at the very top.

They believed they could save the entire world if they created that one person.

“Think back, fool. I said they displayed hints of Magick, didn’t I? That is the Crowley brand of magic.”

“You mean ''that'' Crowley?”

Kamijou was of course very familiar with the name.

Anna sighed.

“Correct. Aleister theorized that what you could call a soul enters a baby’s body three months after conception and he released a spell based on that theory. His theory implies ''there is no soul there until the 90th day of pregnancy, so he thought you could guide whatever soul you wanted into the body during that time.'' That would allow you to give a physical body to a superhuman beast or spirit and then ''manage'' it as your own child.”

Kamijou had known Aleister had a bad reputation as a magician, but had he really gone that far?

“Specifically, you impregnate a woman using a special method, place her in the center of the ceremonial ground, and arrange the appropriate magical symbols around her. Cursed gems, a special magic sword – things like that. Then you use purification and barrier spells to thoroughly clean away all forces that would have an unnecessary influence on the process. An empty place like a desert is convenient there. That way the child in the woman’s uterus receives only the necessary forces, so the magician has complete control over the creation and growth of the body and they can create exactly the child they want.”

“Wait…you’re dressing it up in a lot of magic terminology, but how is that any different from taking a delicate pregnant woman and pumping her full of nasty chemicals based on some human recipe you created!?”

“Did I ever say it was different, fool? Keep in mind that Aleister Crowley was known as the wickedest man in the world and the 20th century’s greatest villain because his magic research included the use of young boys and drugs in his ceremonial grounds. That magician ignored the moral issues in pursuit of what he wanted, so do you really expect him to make an exception because someone is pregnant or not even born yet?”

“…”

“By violating that taboo, you can acquire a beast or spirit beyond human understanding. ''Of course he would do it.'' This is the human who created a temple known as Academy City in the Far East, developed esper powers by using drugs and electrodes on children as young as 1st grade, and created more than 20 thousand human clones only to have them killed.”

After all that, Anna Sprengel shrugged. She must have seen the look on Kamijou’s face.

“He completed the logic of the spell. That much is true. But, fool, you should already know how emotional Aleister could be about his family. The annoying thing about that human is how his outward actions don’t tell you everything about who he is.”

Kamijou recalled when Aleister had held the baby Lilith and wept in the UK. Or the reason he had begun the Battle of Blythe Road all on his own.

From a young age, he had been persecuted by those who claimed to be good and moral, so he had sought familial love more than anyone else. But at the same time, he had also carried out heartless experiments and research. He was an extremely complicated person.

Perhaps that was why he was so thoroughly hated by the majority of people who needed no excitement in their lives and, for better or for worse, sought a peaceful life. They had seen him as an unstable and incomprehensible detonator for the world.

“But…”

Why had she brought up Aleister Crowley’s spell here in the first place?

What did it have to do with the mysterious Transcendents of the Bridge Builders Cabal?

Seeing how puzzled Kamijou was, Aradia spoke up.

“We chose a method that doesn’t use a pregnant woman.”

“''So''? You were still messing with the fertilized egg undergoing cleavage in the test tube. Even in the original Crowley version, the mother remained an ordinary human. Birthing a special child did not remake her into a holy mother who could cause miracles.”

The little wicked woman patted her own stomach while laying out her accusations.

And she winked.

“Crowley used the word karma in reference to the current or directionality of the force that binds the soul. And he said that karma could not be judged good or evil – high or low.”

“You mean…?”

Kamijou looked over at Aradia by the wall.

Anna laughed as she continued.

“The Transcendents were the people who could not find a perfect form of salvation even with their connections to the powerful Secret Chiefs. I said an empty desert would work best, but they attempted to grasp perfect righteousness by surrounding their sterile container with imperfect good. Whether we are talking about a Saint, a Magic God, or a Great Demon, any perfected form of good will not function as the karma needed to draw in a different sort of being. The Transcendents theorized their imperfection and incompleteness would allow them to function as the unique trigger capable of drawing in their savior like a magnet. Hee hee. You were willing to use anything, weren’t you?”

“…”

“But in the end, the sin is the same. They blotted out an existing life to bring an inhuman being to this physical world. That is merely another form of human sacrifice – an exchange ceremony used to obtain the mystical.”

What had the Bridge Builders Cabal wanted badly enough to do that?

Or rather, who exactly had they created?

There was only one candidate.

“''Alice-''”

“''It was not Alice Anotherbible,''” quietly interrupted Witch Goddess Aradia.

She was still leaning against the equipment by the wall and refused to look at Kamijou.

While Anna was an irregularity and a traitor, Aradia was a pure and genuine Transcendent. She had to know what their plan was.

Anna Sprengel had messed with Alice because she wanted to stop that plan. That was why Alice adored Kamijou as her “teacher” despite him never having met her before. But if Alice was the core of the Transcendents’ plan, Anna would have had other options.

She could have directly harmed Alice to remove her from the picture.

Or if killing her wasn’t an option, she could have embedded a poison-like spell in the girl’s body to immobilize her.

Someone as wicked as her was bound to know some tricks for defeating an opponent too powerful for a traditional attack to work.

Kamijou had always thought she seemed to prefer indirect methods.

Alice Anotherbible certainly stood out as unusual in the cabal, so she probably could have done considerable damage to the cabal’s plan if she opposed their decision regarding Kamijou.

But was that enough to say the plan’s destruction was a sure thing?

Anna had turned Kamijou into Alice’s controller(?). Now, Kamijou didn’t know if the Transcendents’ plan to save the world was good or bad, but what would Anna have done if they had explained their plan to him and he decided it wouldn’t be a problem and they should go through with it?

In other words…

Alice Anotherbible was an important part of this, ''but she was not the very center.

So who was?

Who was this monster capable of pushing aside Alice of all people?

“Fool, you already have the answer. The name has been right there in front of us all along.”

Anna’s next statement was brief but tense.

“''Which is why I want to stop their plan.''”

“?”

Anna did not give any further answer and instead worked at extracting the data from the audio console. However, that did not mean searching out a port and inserting a USB memory stick. She took out an aluminum-looking device resembling the heated tobacco products Kamijou had seen in convenience store ads and simply placed it atop the console. It apparently read and forcibly saved the faint magnetic field produced when a computer sent electronic signals back and forth. Which meant she didn’t have to consider passwords or security when copying it over.

Either the data she wanted didn’t require much space or that extraction device was incredibly efficient. After seeing the LED flash a few times, Anna picked the device back up.

“Would H. T. Trismegistus be the best one to contact? He is something of a manager. Either way, this lets us directly negotiate with that cabal of Transcendents. As long as we know the details of their ceremony, we only need to remove one of the many conditions needed for success and the rest of the plan will come crashing down. …Also, this isn’t the only bombshell I have on them.”

Anna toyed with the metal device, but made no attempt to explain further. She shut off the large computer screen since she no longer needed it.

But just before she did, Kamijou’s eyes happened on a certain piece of text.

Alongside the symbol of a special cross, he saw the name of the person the Transcendents had unanimously chosen to recognize.

Their savior was named…

…Ch…s………ut…

“''Chris''…?”

===Part 5===

Meanwhile, Transcendent Mut Thebes whispered to herself.

She was focused on some distinctive tire tracks left on the cold road.

''But she was observing them from a large distance.

“Found you.”

===Part 6===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter2

2023-05-21T10:20:26Z

JDMP: /* Part 4 */

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=9}}
==Chapter 2: Transcendent Mut Thebes – The_Death_Penalty_WH.==

===Part 1===

It was all right there in her head.

When you got down to it, the old R&C Occultics magic database was no more than a collection of notes jotted down by Anna Sprengel herself. So journeying to District 15 and searching the database would only turn up Anna’s own knowledge.

The lights were off inside the cold metal box and the little wicked woman didn’t look away from the screen as she whispered to someone.

“What do you want, Aiwass?”

“Nothing really. Just noting how uncharacteristically patient you’re being.”

“Come to see me because I haven’t stepped on you recently, fool?”

After that, little Anna laughed but otherwise ignored him.

So only the unknown being’s voice continued.

“You finally have your body back from Madame Horos, so you can perceive this world as you like and go wherever you desire within it. I assumed you would be rejoicing in your newfound freedom, so I found this odd.”

Miss Sprengel clenched and unclenched her little hand.

“In this body?”

“You don’t seem all that fixated on fully reclaiming your original power and form.”

“Hmph,” snorted Anna.

Bull’s eye.

That being was meant to deliver divine knowledge to humanity, after all.

She wanted something else.

Something not found inside her.

“I will start with the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

“Not with Anna Kingsford?”

“I am starting with what I know I can do.”

She knew the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plan and was in the unique position to stop it, so she could negotiate (or threaten) them.

Furthermore, Academy City needed her for the same reason.

So traveling to District 15 was her best option.

On the other hand…

“I currently ''have no countermeasure for Kingsford.'' Even with the full power of my Secret Chief.”

Aiwass was supposed to be her trump card, but he hadn’t been enough to defeat Kingsford. What would have happened if she confidently used him to escape her human film canister form? The thought sent a small chill down her spine.

However…

“Maybe I can’t do it, but maybe that cabal of Transcendents can. And unlike Kingsford, I can take control of them. Either by manipulating Alice or by using the Shrink Drink that contains a portion of her power. They’ve left me a lot of openings for such a powerful group.”

“I see. Just as wicked a plan as I would expect from you.”

‘I wish I could have sent Alice Anotherbible against that woman, but how would that have influenced my current partnership with Kamijou Touma? Still, there are other Transcendents with bizarre specialties. Perhaps one of them is such a poor match for Kingsford that she goes down easily to them. Like a necromancer or a machine killer. Giving up doesn’t improve my situation, so my best bet is to keep struggling no matter how ugly it gets.”

So she would start with what she knew she could do.

She most likely had her Bridge Builders Cabal countermeasure constructed in her mind.

But that was why she wanted absolute certainty.

That meant comparing the idea in her mind with the database she had created.

She felt some nagging doubt because of how extraordinary the cabal’s plan was.

Even seen through Miss Sprengel’s eyes.

“Do you think they can pull it off?” asked Aiwass.

“I don’t know. But it’s never a good idea to immediately reject something because it sounds crazy. That reflex isn’t about a lack of validation or credibility – it’s you trying to deny the worst case scenario. When there is a very real threat out there, what could be more foolish than letting your fear take hold and shutting yourself away for peace of mind?”

That was why she wanted more than her own thoughts and emotions – why she wanted to rely on the cold, hard data.

She wanted objective corroboration that her prediction was in fact correct. Even if it was so horrifying that even a wicked woman like her didn’t want to think about it.

To repeat, Anna most likely had the answer already.

Now she only needed the final confirmation.

Then she only had to download it onto a physical medium she could present to a third party.

“It’s times like this that I curse my lack of a perfect memory.”

“It seems to me that would bring its own problems.”

Whether a disk or nonvolatile memory, all physical media deteriorated and eventually grew unreadable as time passed, but if she kept the information in her own mind, the pressure of her own self-restricting questions would distort the answer. And unlike someone with a perfect memory, her memories provided no objective trust or proof.

She knew their plan.

She was familiar with all of their Achilles heels, so she could crush them at any time.

“But you can’t negotiate with the cabal’s Transcendents unless you can ''objectively'' prove it,” said Aiwass.

“Isn’t that your specialty? You are a messenger who provides oracles while pretending to be some secret divine messenger. It all began when you borrowed Rose’s mouth. That message was then written down in a form anyone could read. And it became known as the Book of the Law.”

“But that was all a new seed you had me plant because you were so disgusted by the Golden cabal’s rapid decline after the Battle of Blythe Road. But…”

“Yes, fool.” Miss Sprengel sighed. “Negotiation is not my primary goal here.”

“That plan must not be brought to fruition. In your mind, anyway. I am honestly mildly surprised you see any room for negotiation left.”

That was why she had installed a backdoor in that unseen organization so she could throw them into disarray and crush them from within. All she had to do was tell Alice Anotherbible the “personal legend” of Kamijou Touma and make sure the girl adored him like a character from a children’s book.

(So what am I doing now?)

“Keep in mind I can hear your thoughts, Miss Sprengel. Because I am your Secret Chief and you are my priestess.”

She kicked her little foot at that.

But Aiwass was right. If she were focused primarily on destroying the cabal’s extremely dangerous plan, negotiation would be meaningless. It would be much faster to slash their Achilles heels without warning.

Was she here to save the world? Nonsense.

She had only just reclaimed her physical freedom from one of the greatest frauds in the history of Modern Western Magic. The little wicked woman should have been living it up and greedily taking everything she wanted from the world around her. So her battle against the cabal and her drive to crush their plan could not be classified as good deeds.

So what did she hope to protect?

What did she want most?

“My king,” whispered Anna Sprengel.

===Part 2===

January 4. Early morning.

Kamijou Touma awoke to a light slap on his cheek.

He first thought the calico cat had play swatted him, but he quickly realized that couldn’t be it.

It was Aradia.

“Wake up.”

“Ugh.”

He opened his eyes to find they were at a gas station. There was no clerk there thanks to the martial law, so they had refueled and he had taken a nap on the bench by the vending machines. Aradia was crouching next to the wooden bench and teasing him, so her face was a lot closer than strictly necessary. Her silver hair spilled down and tickled his cheek.

But that aside…

“It’s already 5:30. Based on the work schedule posted in the office, a manager normally arrives at about this time. If the concept of martial law is enough to make the ordinary citizens nervous, the manager might drop by to make sure their workplace is safe.”

“Wah, wamh, ah, arh?”

“Are you trying to be cute?”

He was simply so sleepy his tongue wasn’t working right, but she coldly criticized him for it.

(It’s January 4 and I’m being told it’s “already” 5:30 in the morning? Has the world gone crazy?)

“Hurry up. Your mind will clear once you get up.”

“Mhh.”

If she said he had to get up, that’s what he would have to do.

But right as he did, Aradia stuck her lithe hand between his back and the bench.

The timing was unfortunate.

Kamijou’s lips contacted something: Aradia’s cheek, which had moved unexpectedly close.

At first, he thought he had to still be dreaming.

“Hm? H-huh!? Wait, did I really just do that!?”

The fog in his mind instantly cleared away.

He doubted she would be kind enough to let him off with a simple head chomp. This was the Great Aradia who had already killed him more than once on December 31.

And yet…

“Relax. That was clearly an accident.”

“?”

Confused, Kamijou froze with his arms crossed in front of his face.

Aradia was avoiding his gaze a bit, but that was all.

The lack of any repercussions scared him in a different way. Like he was building up an unseen debt somewhere.

“You still need to get up. We can’t stick around here forever.”

They were on the run.

He had chosen this path for himself, so he couldn’t complain now.

His head felt super heavy, but he somehow managed to get up on his own. Thanks to the wooden bench, he ached all over. He left the vending machine area which had a blind pulled down over it and was greeted by the biting cold. He saw a white haze outside.

“Why do you seem wide awake at this hour, Aradia? I don’t know what country you came from, but are you jetlagged?”

“Witches follow a strict schedule and receive the blessings of nature – I just haven’t been able to do so recently because you had me tied up. It shouldn’t surprise you to see me up before sunrise.”

Aradia threw the response at him like a slap.

Then the witch goddess winked.

“What? You look like you have several things to say.”

That wasn’t true at all, but if Aradia had read too deep into his expression and opened the door to questions, he couldn’t pass up the chance.

Because wait.

Did this mean he could have her clear up the mysteries surrounding the Transcendents and the Bridge Builders Cabal?

“Um, uh! I-if you insist!!”

“Calm down. I’m not going anywhere, so relax your shoulders and try that again, boy.”

“A-are you actually a red android?”

“You’re starting there!? I suppose it’s best to be careful, but still!!” shouted Aradia, bristling at his question.

But she no longer had that air of a cool witch lady. Didn’t she seem more open to anything, and even a bit indulgent?

“Um, then to cover a more immediate issue, what do you know about Mut Thebes? I could be killed without knowing that. But I understand if you don’t want to give up info on a fellow cabal member.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Not anymore anyway.” Aradia shrugged and sighed, the breath appearing white in the January morning. “Then I will start with the basics. Mut is a goddess found in Egyptian mythology.”

“Right.”

He was pretty sure H. T. Trismegistus had told him that at the consulate.

He wanted to know more than that.

“She is a war goddess who uses the vulture as her symbol. While the other gods promise happiness in a vaguely defined afterlife, she is a ‘physical goddess’ who actually fought on Earth and protected her people from their enemies. She is specifically said to have defended the ancient city of Thebes from an outside enemy.”

“Seriously? So she’s a god who specializes in war ''and nothing else''?”

“It was believed that was one of the many abilities of a protective mother,” Aradia subtly corrected. “Mut was special in that she was both a goddess and the wife of the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Technically, the queen and Mut were seen as one and the same. Of course, that would mean each pharaoh’s wife was Mut again, which would make her the pharaoh’s mother, wife, and daughter all at once.”

That sounded very confusing, but Kamijou decided it was silly to apply a modern conception of romance to Ancient Egypt which existed millennia ago.

“Also, some suspect that she was created later on because Amun, the top god, needed a wife. Of course, I’m Aradia, so I’m not one to talk there.”

“…?”

That was something that had bothered him for a while now.

Index had said the goddess Aradia was thought to have been invented by an Italian witch. Then what was this Aradia here?

What was the point of borrowing the name of someone who never even existed?

Had the witch actually been telling the truth, but the story had been so extraordinary that the man writing it down hadn’t recorded it properly?

“What’s wrong?” asked Aradia.

“Nothing…”

Why did he hesitate? She was willing to answer his questions. And even if she refused to answer, the fact that she had openly refused could act as a major hint.

Or was he afraid of receiving confirmation?

He felt like the temporary peace they had established would crumble before his eyes.

Anna walked in from outside and grinned as soon as she saw the witch.

“''Nice ankle.''”

“''I don’t want a word out of you.''”

“?” Kamijou tilted his head.

Come to think of it, why was she still doing that? Thanks to Kamijou’s hesitation, Aradia had switched modes. And given how prickly she was being now, he doubted she would answer even if he asked.

The fuel pumps were dangerous since they worked with gasoline. And they were located outside, so they would have been locked down separately to the office. But that hadn’t been much of an obstacle to Anna Sprengel’s technology.

The wicked woman gave a snort of laughter.

“In the end, single use passwords and two factor authentication are still patterns. Once you decode the pseudorandom number generator, it might as well not be locked at all. At least they seem aware that biometric data like fingerprint or eye scans are a lot less safe given how high quality cameras are these days.”

“I’m suddenly glad my dorm room uses an old-fashioned analog key.”

“Trying to set a new record for foolishness? That’s an even simpler combination of patterns. The best security system a fool like you can manage is being too poor to own anything worth stealing.”

Meanwhile…

Kamijou spotted an old-fashioned payphone nearby.

Even a high schooler like him knew using his phone was a bad idea while on the run, but since a payphone wouldn’t leave a record of who made the call, couldn’t he contact Index or Misaka Mikoto that way?

Little Anna glared up at him.

“Again, don’t even think about it, fool. Get us in trouble by trying it and I will kick your ass headfirst into a doghouse.”

“Alright, alright.”

It looked like he had to abandon that idea. She refused to explain why, but this must have been riskier than he thought. Anna had singlehandedly built up R&C Occultics as a global IT company, so he doubted he could outdo her when it came to computer knowledge. Academy City technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world, but Kamijou hadn’t designed that technology himself.

(I hope they’re okay. It’s so frustrating when they’re in the same city as me.)

He had to believe that the pursuers’ attention on him meant less focus on Index, Mikoto, and the others.

The mobile combat vehicle stood out thanks to its 8 wheels and swiveling tank gun, but they had shoved it inside the carwash on Anna’s suggestion. Apparently no one would notice it as long as it fit inside.

Little Anna unfolded a large paper map on the concrete ground. She and Aradia stared at the map through a magnifying glass they had found somewhere.

“Let’s see. Based on my scrying, it should look something like this.”

“Anyone’s spell would reveal the same thing. And it seems to be showing water-based danger on the horizon.”

They didn’t seem to be reading miniscule text or setting down small game pierces to simulate the enemy(?) formation. This sounded like occult divination. When Aradia slid the magnifying glass across the map, Kamijou noticed small flashes of light dancing inside the distorted lens.

“Don’t be shy. If you want to see the map, move in closer.”

Still crouching, Aradia scooted a bit aside.

Kamijou did as she suggested, but he still couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be seeing. He just didn’t want to be standing behind her because he felt guilty seeing her butt while she crouched like that.

The oblivious woman was still focused on the map.

“I’m using crystal divination. It’s a common enough technique in Wicca. You stare into the crystal and ''decode'' the information you want from the vision you see within. This is a variation on it. I bet you didn’t know the crystal doesn’t actually have to be a ball, did you?”

He was more interested in what she had discovered than the method she was using.

Aradia removed the magnifying glass from the map and raised it like an old-fashioned detective.

“Lend me your right hand.”

“?”

Kamijou held out his hand as asked and she touched the rim of the magnifying glass to it. It made a high-pitched cracking sound.

Aradia was apparently done with the magnifying glass now, so she spun it in her hand and brought her lips to the rim like it was a giant lollipop she was about to lick.

“Imagine Breaker makes this so much easier.”

“It does,” agreed Anna. “It lets you omit the entire process for exorcising the summoned power. And you don’t have to worry about the backlash if you screw up. The Golden cabal was a sorry excuse for a cabal that kept growing more bloated until it ruptured, but I can see why they had it stored deep within Blythe Road as a last resort.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure how to interpret this assessment. Should he view this like the young woman next door asking him to get a stubborn lid off of a bottle?”

…If so, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, fool. And we should keep the divination to a minimum. Academy City might not know much about magic, but Mut Thebes or Kingsford might notice and use it to track us down. Like suddenly noticing a presence in some abandoned ruins.”

Little Anna pouted her lips and swiftly folded up the map.

“We are in District 6 now, so we still need to cross Districts 5 and 7. So, fool, let’s continue on toward District 15.”

“I get that,” said Kamijou while climbing for the hatch on top of the gun.

The interior was still cramped and the seats even more so. There was a reason they had refused to spend the night inside there.

“But I still can’t believe we got an armored vehicle inside the amusement park district. I would have thought they had a solid gate at the entrance to make sure no one gets in without a ticket.”

“You really are a fool. This is a mobile combat vehicle.” Anna made sure to correct him every time. “If you refuse to learn, I’ll start shoving the vocabulary sticks up your asshole.”

“…”

What was a vocabulary stick?

Whatever the case, he got the feeling she would also get furious over the debate regarding whether corn was a grain or a vegetable.

“Also, fool. Amusement parks have industrial vehicle entrances located out of sight of the guests. How do you think they receive all the food and souvenirs they sell across the entire park? Or what about replacing the heavy metal rails and thick wires for upkeep of the thrill rides? You didn’t think it was all carried in by hand, did you?”

“That’s not what I meant. District 6 is one giant amusement park, right? It just feels like the end of the world to see a military vehicle intruding on this land of hopes and dreams.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Do not interrupt me again.”

“Most fairy tales are more like horror stories if you follow them back to their roots,” added Aradia.

Was that supposed to be helpful?

Also, the expert on witch stories spoke down from above the other two. The nature-loving mountain girl couldn’t stand being cooped up in that tin can all day, so she had her upper body sticking out of the hatch to enjoy the breeze. Which meant she had one leg on the ladder up to the hatch.

“Bwah, Aradia!? Have you no sense!? Don’t just show off that angle!!”

“?”

“If she isn’t aware, don’t bother her. And it’s her decision to do it or not. I know you are a hopeless fool, but you don’t have to tackle every single problem you come across with fists flying.”

A skirt-wearing girl version of a kasa-obake was staring down at them from above, but Anna Sprengel seemed a lot more interested in trying the mentaiko, corn, and mayo bread she had bought at a bread vending machine earlier. Even though they had stocked up inside the vehicle just yesterday. She was also enjoying a health drink that claimed to contain a trillion lactobacilli, which sounded to Kamijou like a battle manga with so much power level inflation nothing had any meaning anymore.

Generally, the other two let Anna operate the Predator Octopus.

Kamijou was still in high school, so he wouldn’t know how to operate a steering wheel. And this used a touchscreen, so it didn’t even have a steering wheel. Aradia was skeptical of technology, so she was out of the question too. That meant Anna was the one swiping her hand across the console monitor in front of the commander’s seat.

Kamijou Touma continued to pour all of his willpower into ignoring Aradia’s crotch that seemed unnecessarily conspicuous only a meter over his head. (Was this some kind of mental training!?)

“So is the plan for today the same as yesterday: look out for Mut Thebes while avoiding Anti-Skill’s checkpoints?”

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, fool. Do I need to shove enough things up your asshole you look like a restaurant’s chopstick holder?”

She may have been even more foulmouthed than that human.

Kamijou couldn’t help but sigh, but…

“I notice you failed to mention Aleister’s group who have been concerningly silent. Do you want to die?”

The mood clearly changed when she mentioned Aleister.

Surprisingly, the majority of the tension came from Anna herself.

“Unlike a fool like you, Anna Kingsford seeks certainty. She goes beyond never making a wasted move. If any of her moves fails to accomplish anything, she will change her point of view to transform it into a useful card in her deck,” whispered Anna.

That little wicked woman was revealing her own weakness to someone else.

Kamijou didn’t see that as regression. It was only one step, but she was making progress.

“Even if she does locate us through divination, she wouldn’t launch an attack on that alone. She will increase the certainty of her information by relying on multiple sources, work out the most meaningful move she can make, and then make that move.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, fool. We fought a highly conspicuous artillery battle to escape Mut Thebes last night. Word of that must have spread through Academy City. Assuming she intercepted those reports and has been analyzing the situation based on them, ''it won’t be long now.'' Kingsford will make her move soon.”

===Part 3===

Aleister Crowley, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

Since they looked like a foreign nun and a mysterious near-future glasses woman out walking a large dog (after martial law was declared), they had to make for quite a bizarre sight. Except they didn’t. When they walked right in front of an armed Anti-Skill group, not one person demanded they stop.

Was it Kihara Noukan who had said they were bound to be caught if they snuck into Academy City again?

Aleister sighed.

(This simple recognition manipulation won’t work on anyone with a deep knowledge of magic. That of course applies to the Transcendents, but also to the artificial demon working for Academy City – Qliphah Puzzle 545.)

He could imagine all this so easily, but he could never make sense of the human mind.

He was constantly making mistakes.

Meanwhile, Anna Kingsford curiously viewed the vehicles parked on the curb. The tanks and armored vehicles were all painted dark because they were meant for use in an urban environment.

They were closer than expected. Much too close.

The great knowledge goddess took small steps up to within a meter of one, looking just like a tourist with one of the red guards at a certain English palace.

If not for their magic, they would have been instantly discovered and forced to fight.

“Oh, how fun. It’s like a parade.”

“Don’t place too much faith in that preserved corpse. It might look just like a living body, but it’s still only a corpse being forced into motion. You can’t use any magical defenses, so if you were held in place by the ground collapsing below your feet or exposure to a high voltage current, an ordinary tank gun could blast you to smithereens.”

“Then am I relatively safe from the ones ❌ in a vehicle?”

“How did you find a way to ‘look on the bright side’ of that warning?”

When Kingsford pointed at an Anti-Skill group from less than a meter away, Aleister shut an eye and held a hand to his forehead.

That she went unnoticed was proof that she was the spell expert Aleister was not.

A true expert did not neglect these fundamental of magic.

Or rather, it was all part of a single large system. There were no unnecessary gears in the world of magic.

So instead of learning a single special move, you increased your overall strength by thoroughly honing your skills in all the most common spells until they were their own special moves.

An expert like Kingsford probably resented the very act of designing a spell exclusively for killing.

The golden retriever sniffed at the cigarette smoke exhaled by an Anti-Skill officer on break and reacted with disgust when he detected the vanilla additive.

”Explain it to her, Aleister. I would understand if you had explained it over and over and she refused to learn, but she can’t be blamed for her ignorance.”

“I know that, but still.”

The great knowledge goddess’s knowledge stopped in the 1800s, so while her magic knowledge was unmatched, she didn’t know much about the threat posed by science. The lack of knowledge wasn’t necessary a problem, but her inability to appreciate the threat was. She was too innocent, like a young child who had never touched a hot kettle.

Eventually, Aleister pointed up into the early morning sky.

“Academy City has developed 200mm self-propelled grenade launchers and multistage rocket launchers with a range of more than 30km. They can accurately drop a grenade on you anywhere in the city. And if they don’t care about damage to civilian facilities, a single Anti-Skill officer can give a signal by radio, laser, or even smoke to summon a downpour of explosives. A single volley of the rocket launchers will cover the designated area with ten thousand bomblets. Do you still feel safe?”

A sound like an electric shaver passed by overhead.

This one was not for aerial photography.

The 45cm plastic isosceles triangle was joined by hundreds more clustered together like a flock of starlings. From a distance, they appeared to undulate like a great serpent. These were self-destruct drones designed to spread out in the sky, locate their target, gather overhead, lock on, ignite their solid fuel, drop toward their target, and explode.

Aleister sighed.

“Each of those Snakeheads is loaded with as much explosive as an anti-tank rocket. The sky above is the hardest place for a ground vehicle to attack, so if those things attack from there, the tanks and armored vehicles don’t stand a chance. A person outside of a vehicle even less so.”

“My, my. The 🌍 has become a very ☠️ place in my absence.”

Anna Kingsford held a hand to her cheek and elegantly tilted her head.

She had lived in the late 1800s. That was before World War One, which meant a world without tanks, aircraft, and poison gas, so some might call it a nice place to live. Especially in an age where war without nuclear weapons sounded like something from an impossible fantasy world.

Of course, small drones commonly lost control and crashed due to signal interference and crosswinds. What would happen if those armed explosives were constantly flying through the city? As the numbers went up, what seemed like small odds of an accident would rise as well. Instead of launching a missile or artillery shell in response to a threat, explosives were ''already'' filling the sky above. Instead of avoiding the small odds of an accident, the city had ordered its people to stay home to avoid anyone coming to harm by the accidents. These next-generation weapons could only be used with martial law in place.

“What’s the plan for today?” asked Aleister right in front of the enemy.

“I 💭 it is about ⏰ to take this seriously☆”

===Part 4===

Kamijou’s group slowly drove the mobile combat vehicle through the District 6 amusement park.

There was a biting chill outside, but the cramped vehicle was filled with the sweet warmth of girls.

In the commander’s seat, Anna made occasional adjustments to the self-driving while she messed with the communications. Kamijou thought she was accessing a civilian frequency to listen to the radio, but she was apparently watching an online TV station displayed in a corner of the touchscreen. How much could she access with that thing?

“Today is January 4. Good morning and welcome to the Children’s Q&A Advice Show. You’re in for a treat because today’s New Year’s special is two hours long☆ Now, our first Scype call is a question from Azumi-chan, a 2nd grader from District 13. Happy New Year, Azumi-chan. What is it you want to know?”

“H-Happy New Year. Um, why do you catch a cold when it’s cold out?”

“That’s actually a really interesting question, Azumi-chan. But first I need to correct a misunderstanding there. It’s hard to tell because they’re too small to see, but colds are caused by germs you can find floating in the air any time of year. We see more cold patients in the winter because the air is drier. See, people have something called an immune system and…”

“Hee hee,” someone laughed.

It was Anna Sprengel with her hand over her mouth. It was an unusually gentle laugh for her how harsh she tended to be. It lacked her usual edge.

“Excellent. She honestly asks the question on her mind and then listens to the answer. She earns a perfect 100 as a student.”

“Really?”

“You need to be careful, you dull fool. All of you fools like to ask the question before even trying to think for yourselves. Instead, you need to listen, work to comprehend what you have learned, and – if you still do not understand – gather up what you know, put it in your own words, and feel no shame about asking. That is what I call perfect.”

So did he have to learn to act like a 7 or 8 year old to please Miss Sprengel? That honestly sounded way too hard.

“The problem isn’t how much or how little knowledge you have.”

Anna elegantly crossed her legs in the highest seat, rested her elbow on the armrest, and her head in her hand.

And she whispered in Demon Lord mode.

“Knowledge you never use grows rusty. If you avoid writing a word for fear of misspelling it, you really will forget how to spell it before long. So the greatest barrier to true knowledge is the silly pride that believes you are too good to study and master the fundamentals. Feel no shame, learner. The textbook lies before you. It might look intimidating, but your predecessors have proven that you will eventually achieve mastery if you take it slow and complete each step in turn. You must not skip past the basics and immediately attempt the practical side. Even worse is to fail to realize you have given up on thinking, fail to learn a single thing, and find all you have left is an inflated sense of pride.”

This advice had arrived unexpectedly.

He needed to listen, work to comprehend, and if he still didn’t understand, gather his knowledge, put it in his own words, and ask without shame.

Kamijou decided to put Anna’s advice to practice.

“So…what were you hoping to accomplish?”

“I didn’t have a lofty goal like guiding all of humanity in the right direction.”

Miss Sprengel’s thoughts had been transported elsewhere while she listened to that innocent exchange on the radio.

And the words spilled from her lips now.

“I wanted to share what I had if it could quench people’s thirst for knowledge. But only if they sought that knowledge in the proper way. In the end, that never came to pass. The incomplete knowledge I brought them only created hopeless conflict and self-proclaimed geniuses who arrogantly mocked everyone they met.”

“Let’s see,” continued the radio show. “Next we have Shunta-kun, a 4th grader from District 7.”

“Gyah! Wah!!”

“U-um, Shunta-kun? Shunta-kuuun?”

“What- ah ha ha! Wait, it’s about to start- (wham thud!!) Did you hear that!? Kya ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!!”

“…”

“You don’t have to get that upset!” shouted Kamijou. “It’s not like he’s your kid!!”

Kamijou quickly restrained little Anna who looked so furious she might utter a mysterious curse that not even the Anglicans were familiar with.

“That pissed me off almost as much as those self-proclaimed geniuses in the Golden cabal.”

“I’m really not sure what to say about that, but should I update my mental image of them?”

“Pant, pant. M-Miss Host,” said a new voice on the radio. “I’m a 47-year-old baby. Hee hee. C-can you tell me where babies come from? Bweh heh heh heh.”

“Yikes!” shouted the host. “H-how did this call get past the screening!? Producer!!”

“Anna? Him you can curse,” said Kamijou, staring into the distance and feeling very glad he didn’t have to deal with a live broadcast.

Maybe everyone just had too much time on their hands while forced to stay home all day. Choosing to stay home during the holiday and being told you couldn’t leave the house were two very different things.

(This martial law thing is scary. I never thought being able to go where you want could feel like a luxury.)

Anna wasn’t driving their vehicle at full speed, but not because she was focused on the online TV show playing on the screen.

“I don’t trust the quality of the pavement on private property. Worse, this looks like tile, not asphalt. I hope we don’t break through all of a sudden.”

“Break through to where?”

“That question earns you 0 points. You didn’t even try to think first.” The little wicked woman’s voice was ice cold. “There is more to an amusement park than what meets the eye. There is a lot built underground like the giant motors and industrial power transformers for the thrill rides. For example…yes. Just imagine it, fool. Have you ever seen an amusement park with power lines strung up overhead? Any realistic equipment that would break the illusion are buried underfoot.”

Was that how it worked?

Kamijou took a look at the monitor Anna was messing with.

“But it looks like the Ferris wheel and the other rides are all stopped. Is it just too early in the morning?”

“You have a fool’s imagination. The attractions are put through test runs before the park opens to ensure safety, so amusement parks are actually quite busy early in the morning.”

Anna poked at the touchscreen as she answered. The exasperated sigh was quickly becoming her default state. She was probably making an adjustment to the self-driving, but the lack of a steering wheel made it hard to think of her as operating a vehicle.

Their motionless surroundings made it look like the giant amusement park had frozen in the winter cold.

But did that mean the martial law was to blame? The amusement park was district-wide private property, so if the people at the top – the management? – decided to shut it down, it could be shut down in a matter of seconds.

“But aren’t there a lot of people here? This has facial recognition boxes popping up all over!”

“Do not breathe on me in your panic, fool. Do it again and I will shove yellow mustard paste down your dickhole.”

“I would’ve thought a wicked woman would understand male anatomy better than that! Do that and it would explode!!”

“It makes sense to me,” said Aradia, also sounding exasperated.

Kamijou bristled at the thought of her shoving something in there too, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“You can demand people stay home all you want, but some people are going to head out regardless.”

It was before the park even opened, so these people weren’t breaking the rules to enjoy a day at this land of dreams. They appeared to be here for work. About half seemed to be park staff and half seemed to be truckers. The sudden declaration of martial law hadn’t shut down District 17’s unmanned factories (because no one had to show up for work there) and what were they supposed to do about the cakes, twisted donuts, and other park exclusive foods they had prepared the day before? Maybe it was a good thing Kamijou’s group had left the gas station early on Aradia’s suggestion.

Anna shut off the online TV show and displayed the outside footage on the full monitor.

“Wow. Hey, Anna, what are things like outside? The lack of windows scares me.”

“Foolish fool. There is a periscope linked with a camera at your seat. That is the loader’s seat, so it has secondary 360-degree observation equipment separate from the gunner’s.”

“If you say so.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………You’re the one who asked.”

“Wait, no, put that yellow tube away! You lost me at the peri-whatever part!! And unlike with my phone, I can’t exactly learn how this equipment works through trial and error! I could press the wrong button and launch some weapon or another!!”

“It’s called a periscope. You know, like on a submarine? Oh, are my words converting properly here?”

Aradia was actually speaking a mystery language called “common tones” rather than Japanese, but she still helped him out like a kind older sister. The way he could actually hear her saying two different things at once was kind of scary.

“Coddle him like that and his foolishness will only grow.”

“I didn’t start it. You can blame a certain Magic God for that one.”

Anna had no interest in a child with no drive to learn, so she ended up doing everything on her own. She poked her fingers boredly at the thin touchscreen from the commander’s seat.

“I’m still scared, Anna. Can’t you let me see outside too?”

“Sigh. Do you never shut up, fool? Here.”

Anna stood up from the commander’s seat and let him take it. He was worried about her leaving the controls, but she seemed fine reaching in from the side to make the necessary adjustments.

So the spiky-haired boy sat in the warm commander’s seat.

Then something happened.

Little Anna sat down in his lap.

What now? He was seriously unsure where to put his hands.

He ended up holding them overhead.

She also seemed weirdly smooth, so he looked down to discover she only had her baggy dress held up at her chest. This was more than he could have imagined. Her defenses from the rear were as nonexistent as with a naked apron!

His eyes widened further when Miss Sprengel did not hesitate to lean back against him.

“Um, Anna-san?”

“I’m kind of busy right now, so stay still. I don’t have time for questions. Besides, I doubt a fool like you would learn much from looking at the screen.”

“I thought you were being unusually accommodating, but you’re still upset, aren’t you?”

“Oh? Finally figured something out on your own, did you? Good job. I’ll have you know I am the type to hold a grudge.”

Kamijou felt a kick at the base of the seat bolted to the floor.

He looked over to see Aradia refusing to look his way. Nothing he did got any reaction out of her.

But he had bigger worries.

He took a look at the screen past Anna’s head and noticed a shocking development.

Ice filled his stomach.

“Those aren’t workers, are they? I knew Anti-Skill would be here. Yikes, that’s a lot!! And they have tanks!!”

The deep rumble of diesel engines approached from up ahead. One would be bad enough, but this was several lined up in a column.

Little Anna sighed in a bored way.

“Those are not tanks. They are infantry fighting vehicles.”

“What’s the difference? And that longer name sounds stronger if you ask me!”

“How many times must I remind you to think before you ask a question, fool? These are only about half the weight of a tank and they only use smaller guns with barrels the size of a clothesline pole. Those are 35mm autocannons. They might as well be peashooters compared to a 120mm. And the armor is aluminum to keep them lightweight enough for air transport.”

“Y-you mean they’re lower grade than ordinary tanks?”

“Yes, I do. Although they can still punch right through the Predator Octopus’s armor since it’s only armored vehicle class.”

“So I should still be terrified!!”

A sweet tremor ran through small Anna’s back while she sat in his lap. The wicked woman was apparently willing to be riddled with bullets if it let her torment Kamijou like this.

A convoy of tanks(?), armored vehicles, and military trucks arrived from up ahead. But they must have already been here. If not for the many military vehicles driving around this private property like they owned the place, the Predator Octopus would have aroused suspicion among the workers.

If Kamijou’s group was discovered, it would mean a battle, but the amusement park employees were all around. Not to mention that the Anti-Skill officers were all teachers.

If that deep siren began to sound, it was all over.

Aradia rubbed her bare feet together while still occupying the gunner’s seat. That was how she used her magic. The look on her face said she was willing to take action at a moment’s notice.

Kamijou gulped, but Anna casually flashed the headlights. Drawing attention to themselves like that sent ice down Kamijou’s spine, but the other vehicles returned the greeting in kind.

And they continued on.

The siren remained silent.

Apparently their identity wasn’t apparent from the vehicle’s exterior.

Did that mean it was better to move around like they belonged than to sneak in the shadows like a ninja?

Kamijou took another look around and saw a lot of Anti-Skill beyond the fixed checkpoints. They were stopping their vehicles in the area and receiving large artillery shells from the gunless tanks.

“Those are specialized ammo supply vehicles, fool. I believe they reused the same frame.”

“I feel like it would be more efficient to do this in the city.”

Was the risk of accidents lower if they kept things simple?

Anti-Skill was also gathering carts loaded with the kind of metal trays seen at all-you-can-eat buffets. More than hold food, they appeared to also heat the food with a heating element, allowing for cooking. The adults were gathering around and receiving breakfast from a strange vehicle that Anna smugly explained was a field kitchen. Unlike the students at school, they formed an orderly line without any fighting. ''This martial law thing is just like being at war,'' thought Kamijou (one of their prime targets), which would have angered certain people had they heard it. Anti-Skill really did look more like soldiers than schoolteachers here.

After nonchalantly driving by, Anna bit her thumbnail in his lap.

“Don’t relax yet, fool. They will discover who we are eventually. A military vehicle not found on the central datalink’s timetable is wandering around and loaded with live ammunition, after all.”

And there was no real reason they had to get through this without being discovered.

The fuse had already been lit. They only had to reach District 15 before the explosion.

“?”

The Predator Octopus came to a slow stop.

Not even Kamijou had to ask why.

He lowered Anna from his lap and grabbed the ladder. He opened the hatch and poked his head out to view the 50m-wide obstacle blocking their way.

“A river.”

“Failing to find the right answer while looking right at it is unusual indeed, fool. That is technically a canal since it was intentionally dug by the amusement park.”

Anna’s voice pursued him through the hatch smaller than a manhole.

River or canal, the 20tn mobile combat vehicle could not float in water. Crossing would require using one of the bridges and bridges were crucial for transportation. There was of course more than one, but even from here he could tell Anti-Skill had checkpoints set up on all of them.

They had built barricades from steel beams and barbed wire and they were shining large construction site lights. They also had the firepower of tanks and armored vehicles at their disposal. Were those stacks of boxes full of ammunition?

Approaching any of those bridges would be a bad idea.

Kamijou looked down into the vehicle which had become an oddly warm and sweet girl zone.

“Could we drive right by them in this vehicle like we did before?”

“That may have looked simple to an ignorant fool, but that was a risky gamble. And at an official checkpoint, they will not even let their own people through without an ID check for the vehicle and its occupants. Try it there and we will be exposed and forced to fight. …Which will lead the Bridge Builders Cabal and Kingsford right to us.”

Anna was right. If they could drive right through, they wouldn’t have had such a hard time last night either.

“If they’re watching all the bridges…oh, I know. Could we create a floating bridge or something?”

“With some wooden boxes and ropes we find lying around? I do appreciate the attempt to think for yourself, but anything sturdy enough to allow a 20tn vehicle across would be extremely conspicuous, fool.”

Aradia seemed unusually happy given he was letting the cold air in through the open hatch.

“Ugh, I can’t resist any longer. Move aside so I can get some fresh air too.”

“Wait, Aradia, there’s no room!”

With two of them, the small hatch was cramped indeed. There was only one ladder to stand on, so it was a lot like having two people crammed onto the same side of a kotatsu. What was she, a kind but weirdly careless big sister?

They were practically in each other’s arms while Aradia took a deep breathe of the chilly air.

But…

“What are you looking at, Aradia?”

“The park workers. They do us a great service by giving witches a positive image of magic and dreams, so I need to make sure they’ll be alright.”

''But you don’t care about Anti-Skill?'' wondered Kamijou, but did that mean he was too distracted by their surroundings? When he thought about it, if a normal person came to the amusement park, they wouldn’t be here to see the armed enemy force.

“For me, people watching is more than just a hobby.”

“?”

Kamijou looked puzzled, so Aradia changed the subject to the main topic at hand.

“Couldn’t we abandon this vehicle, cross the river on our own, and steal a different military vehicle on the opposite bank? This 8-wheeled thing can be remotely controlled to an extent, can’t it? We can send it into one of those dangerous bridge checkpoints as a diversion.”

“That can be our last resort,” said Anna. “I want to avoid stealing another vehicle if possible to reduce the odds of them noticing I hacked the datalink. Both because it robs us of transportation and because I don’t want to give them even the slightest hint that our goal is data related – that is, accessing the magic database in District 15.”

Kamijou felt they should also spend some time addressing the fact that crossing the river without a bridge during the middle of winter meant jumping into water that was near freezing and giving off a white steam. And wasn’t this river more than 50m across? The Transcendents might be fine going for a celebratory New Year’s swim since they were walking around in what might as well have been swimsuits, but an ordinary high school boy like Kamijou would freeze and be swept away before he made it across.

Anna kicked the ladder with her small foot as a warning, so the other two ducked back down and shut the hatch.

Kamijou heard the rhythmic sound of a Six Wings helicopter passing by overhead.

“We need to think up a way to safely cross the river.”

“I already told you it’s a canal. Get it right or I’ll drag you around town with a nose hook, fool.”

The other two tilted their heads with “what’s a nose hook?” written on their faces and Anna cleared her throat for some reason.

The girl(?) had stepped on the gas a little too hard, so she stammered a bit before continuing.

“But Academy City aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Let’s just hope Mut Thebes and Kingsford are polite enough to wait for us to find a solution.”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Between the Lines 3===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter2

2023-05-21T10:03:22Z

JDMP: /* Part 4 */

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=9}}
==Chapter 2: Transcendent Mut Thebes – The_Death_Penalty_WH.==

===Part 1===

It was all right there in her head.

When you got down to it, the old R&C Occultics magic database was no more than a collection of notes jotted down by Anna Sprengel herself. So journeying to District 15 and searching the database would only turn up Anna’s own knowledge.

The lights were off inside the cold metal box and the little wicked woman didn’t look away from the screen as she whispered to someone.

“What do you want, Aiwass?”

“Nothing really. Just noting how uncharacteristically patient you’re being.”

“Come to see me because I haven’t stepped on you recently, fool?”

After that, little Anna laughed but otherwise ignored him.

So only the unknown being’s voice continued.

“You finally have your body back from Madame Horos, so you can perceive this world as you like and go wherever you desire within it. I assumed you would be rejoicing in your newfound freedom, so I found this odd.”

Miss Sprengel clenched and unclenched her little hand.

“In this body?”

“You don’t seem all that fixated on fully reclaiming your original power and form.”

“Hmph,” snorted Anna.

Bull’s eye.

That being was meant to deliver divine knowledge to humanity, after all.

She wanted something else.

Something not found inside her.

“I will start with the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

“Not with Anna Kingsford?”

“I am starting with what I know I can do.”

She knew the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plan and was in the unique position to stop it, so she could negotiate (or threaten) them.

Furthermore, Academy City needed her for the same reason.

So traveling to District 15 was her best option.

On the other hand…

“I currently ''have no countermeasure for Kingsford.'' Even with the full power of my Secret Chief.”

Aiwass was supposed to be her trump card, but he hadn’t been enough to defeat Kingsford. What would have happened if she confidently used him to escape her human film canister form? The thought sent a small chill down her spine.

However…

“Maybe I can’t do it, but maybe that cabal of Transcendents can. And unlike Kingsford, I can take control of them. Either by manipulating Alice or by using the Shrink Drink that contains a portion of her power. They’ve left me a lot of openings for such a powerful group.”

“I see. Just as wicked a plan as I would expect from you.”

‘I wish I could have sent Alice Anotherbible against that woman, but how would that have influenced my current partnership with Kamijou Touma? Still, there are other Transcendents with bizarre specialties. Perhaps one of them is such a poor match for Kingsford that she goes down easily to them. Like a necromancer or a machine killer. Giving up doesn’t improve my situation, so my best bet is to keep struggling no matter how ugly it gets.”

So she would start with what she knew she could do.

She most likely had her Bridge Builders Cabal countermeasure constructed in her mind.

But that was why she wanted absolute certainty.

That meant comparing the idea in her mind with the database she had created.

She felt some nagging doubt because of how extraordinary the cabal’s plan was.

Even seen through Miss Sprengel’s eyes.

“Do you think they can pull it off?” asked Aiwass.

“I don’t know. But it’s never a good idea to immediately reject something because it sounds crazy. That reflex isn’t about a lack of validation or credibility – it’s you trying to deny the worst case scenario. When there is a very real threat out there, what could be more foolish than letting your fear take hold and shutting yourself away for peace of mind?”

That was why she wanted more than her own thoughts and emotions – why she wanted to rely on the cold, hard data.

She wanted objective corroboration that her prediction was in fact correct. Even if it was so horrifying that even a wicked woman like her didn’t want to think about it.

To repeat, Anna most likely had the answer already.

Now she only needed the final confirmation.

Then she only had to download it onto a physical medium she could present to a third party.

“It’s times like this that I curse my lack of a perfect memory.”

“It seems to me that would bring its own problems.”

Whether a disk or nonvolatile memory, all physical media deteriorated and eventually grew unreadable as time passed, but if she kept the information in her own mind, the pressure of her own self-restricting questions would distort the answer. And unlike someone with a perfect memory, her memories provided no objective trust or proof.

She knew their plan.

She was familiar with all of their Achilles heels, so she could crush them at any time.

“But you can’t negotiate with the cabal’s Transcendents unless you can ''objectively'' prove it,” said Aiwass.

“Isn’t that your specialty? You are a messenger who provides oracles while pretending to be some secret divine messenger. It all began when you borrowed Rose’s mouth. That message was then written down in a form anyone could read. And it became known as the Book of the Law.”

“But that was all a new seed you had me plant because you were so disgusted by the Golden cabal’s rapid decline after the Battle of Blythe Road. But…”

“Yes, fool.” Miss Sprengel sighed. “Negotiation is not my primary goal here.”

“That plan must not be brought to fruition. In your mind, anyway. I am honestly mildly surprised you see any room for negotiation left.”

That was why she had installed a backdoor in that unseen organization so she could throw them into disarray and crush them from within. All she had to do was tell Alice Anotherbible the “personal legend” of Kamijou Touma and make sure the girl adored him like a character from a children’s book.

(So what am I doing now?)

“Keep in mind I can hear your thoughts, Miss Sprengel. Because I am your Secret Chief and you are my priestess.”

She kicked her little foot at that.

But Aiwass was right. If she were focused primarily on destroying the cabal’s extremely dangerous plan, negotiation would be meaningless. It would be much faster to slash their Achilles heels without warning.

Was she here to save the world? Nonsense.

She had only just reclaimed her physical freedom from one of the greatest frauds in the history of Modern Western Magic. The little wicked woman should have been living it up and greedily taking everything she wanted from the world around her. So her battle against the cabal and her drive to crush their plan could not be classified as good deeds.

So what did she hope to protect?

What did she want most?

“My king,” whispered Anna Sprengel.

===Part 2===

January 4. Early morning.

Kamijou Touma awoke to a light slap on his cheek.

He first thought the calico cat had play swatted him, but he quickly realized that couldn’t be it.

It was Aradia.

“Wake up.”

“Ugh.”

He opened his eyes to find they were at a gas station. There was no clerk there thanks to the martial law, so they had refueled and he had taken a nap on the bench by the vending machines. Aradia was crouching next to the wooden bench and teasing him, so her face was a lot closer than strictly necessary. Her silver hair spilled down and tickled his cheek.

But that aside…

“It’s already 5:30. Based on the work schedule posted in the office, a manager normally arrives at about this time. If the concept of martial law is enough to make the ordinary citizens nervous, the manager might drop by to make sure their workplace is safe.”

“Wah, wamh, ah, arh?”

“Are you trying to be cute?”

He was simply so sleepy his tongue wasn’t working right, but she coldly criticized him for it.

(It’s January 4 and I’m being told it’s “already” 5:30 in the morning? Has the world gone crazy?)

“Hurry up. Your mind will clear once you get up.”

“Mhh.”

If she said he had to get up, that’s what he would have to do.

But right as he did, Aradia stuck her lithe hand between his back and the bench.

The timing was unfortunate.

Kamijou’s lips contacted something: Aradia’s cheek, which had moved unexpectedly close.

At first, he thought he had to still be dreaming.

“Hm? H-huh!? Wait, did I really just do that!?”

The fog in his mind instantly cleared away.

He doubted she would be kind enough to let him off with a simple head chomp. This was the Great Aradia who had already killed him more than once on December 31.

And yet…

“Relax. That was clearly an accident.”

“?”

Confused, Kamijou froze with his arms crossed in front of his face.

Aradia was avoiding his gaze a bit, but that was all.

The lack of any repercussions scared him in a different way. Like he was building up an unseen debt somewhere.

“You still need to get up. We can’t stick around here forever.”

They were on the run.

He had chosen this path for himself, so he couldn’t complain now.

His head felt super heavy, but he somehow managed to get up on his own. Thanks to the wooden bench, he ached all over. He left the vending machine area which had a blind pulled down over it and was greeted by the biting cold. He saw a white haze outside.

“Why do you seem wide awake at this hour, Aradia? I don’t know what country you came from, but are you jetlagged?”

“Witches follow a strict schedule and receive the blessings of nature – I just haven’t been able to do so recently because you had me tied up. It shouldn’t surprise you to see me up before sunrise.”

Aradia threw the response at him like a slap.

Then the witch goddess winked.

“What? You look like you have several things to say.”

That wasn’t true at all, but if Aradia had read too deep into his expression and opened the door to questions, he couldn’t pass up the chance.

Because wait.

Did this mean he could have her clear up the mysteries surrounding the Transcendents and the Bridge Builders Cabal?

“Um, uh! I-if you insist!!”

“Calm down. I’m not going anywhere, so relax your shoulders and try that again, boy.”

“A-are you actually a red android?”

“You’re starting there!? I suppose it’s best to be careful, but still!!” shouted Aradia, bristling at his question.

But she no longer had that air of a cool witch lady. Didn’t she seem more open to anything, and even a bit indulgent?

“Um, then to cover a more immediate issue, what do you know about Mut Thebes? I could be killed without knowing that. But I understand if you don’t want to give up info on a fellow cabal member.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Not anymore anyway.” Aradia shrugged and sighed, the breath appearing white in the January morning. “Then I will start with the basics. Mut is a goddess found in Egyptian mythology.”

“Right.”

He was pretty sure H. T. Trismegistus had told him that at the consulate.

He wanted to know more than that.

“She is a war goddess who uses the vulture as her symbol. While the other gods promise happiness in a vaguely defined afterlife, she is a ‘physical goddess’ who actually fought on Earth and protected her people from their enemies. She is specifically said to have defended the ancient city of Thebes from an outside enemy.”

“Seriously? So she’s a god who specializes in war ''and nothing else''?”

“It was believed that was one of the many abilities of a protective mother,” Aradia subtly corrected. “Mut was special in that she was both a goddess and the wife of the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Technically, the queen and Mut were seen as one and the same. Of course, that would mean each pharaoh’s wife was Mut again, which would make her the pharaoh’s mother, wife, and daughter all at once.”

That sounded very confusing, but Kamijou decided it was silly to apply a modern conception of romance to Ancient Egypt which existed millennia ago.

“Also, some suspect that she was created later on because Amun, the top god, needed a wife. Of course, I’m Aradia, so I’m not one to talk there.”

“…?”

That was something that had bothered him for a while now.

Index had said the goddess Aradia was thought to have been invented by an Italian witch. Then what was this Aradia here?

What was the point of borrowing the name of someone who never even existed?

Had the witch actually been telling the truth, but the story had been so extraordinary that the man writing it down hadn’t recorded it properly?

“What’s wrong?” asked Aradia.

“Nothing…”

Why did he hesitate? She was willing to answer his questions. And even if she refused to answer, the fact that she had openly refused could act as a major hint.

Or was he afraid of receiving confirmation?

He felt like the temporary peace they had established would crumble before his eyes.

Anna walked in from outside and grinned as soon as she saw the witch.

“''Nice ankle.''”

“''I don’t want a word out of you.''”

“?” Kamijou tilted his head.

Come to think of it, why was she still doing that? Thanks to Kamijou’s hesitation, Aradia had switched modes. And given how prickly she was being now, he doubted she would answer even if he asked.

The fuel pumps were dangerous since they worked with gasoline. And they were located outside, so they would have been locked down separately to the office. But that hadn’t been much of an obstacle to Anna Sprengel’s technology.

The wicked woman gave a snort of laughter.

“In the end, single use passwords and two factor authentication are still patterns. Once you decode the pseudorandom number generator, it might as well not be locked at all. At least they seem aware that biometric data like fingerprint or eye scans are a lot less safe given how high quality cameras are these days.”

“I’m suddenly glad my dorm room uses an old-fashioned analog key.”

“Trying to set a new record for foolishness? That’s an even simpler combination of patterns. The best security system a fool like you can manage is being too poor to own anything worth stealing.”

Meanwhile…

Kamijou spotted an old-fashioned payphone nearby.

Even a high schooler like him knew using his phone was a bad idea while on the run, but since a payphone wouldn’t leave a record of who made the call, couldn’t he contact Index or Misaka Mikoto that way?

Little Anna glared up at him.

“Again, don’t even think about it, fool. Get us in trouble by trying it and I will kick your ass headfirst into a doghouse.”

“Alright, alright.”

It looked like he had to abandon that idea. She refused to explain why, but this must have been riskier than he thought. Anna had singlehandedly built up R&C Occultics as a global IT company, so he doubted he could outdo her when it came to computer knowledge. Academy City technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world, but Kamijou hadn’t designed that technology himself.

(I hope they’re okay. It’s so frustrating when they’re in the same city as me.)

He had to believe that the pursuers’ attention on him meant less focus on Index, Mikoto, and the others.

The mobile combat vehicle stood out thanks to its 8 wheels and swiveling tank gun, but they had shoved it inside the carwash on Anna’s suggestion. Apparently no one would notice it as long as it fit inside.

Little Anna unfolded a large paper map on the concrete ground. She and Aradia stared at the map through a magnifying glass they had found somewhere.

“Let’s see. Based on my scrying, it should look something like this.”

“Anyone’s spell would reveal the same thing. And it seems to be showing water-based danger on the horizon.”

They didn’t seem to be reading miniscule text or setting down small game pierces to simulate the enemy(?) formation. This sounded like occult divination. When Aradia slid the magnifying glass across the map, Kamijou noticed small flashes of light dancing inside the distorted lens.

“Don’t be shy. If you want to see the map, move in closer.”

Still crouching, Aradia scooted a bit aside.

Kamijou did as she suggested, but he still couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be seeing. He just didn’t want to be standing behind her because he felt guilty seeing her butt while she crouched like that.

The oblivious woman was still focused on the map.

“I’m using crystal divination. It’s a common enough technique in Wicca. You stare into the crystal and ''decode'' the information you want from the vision you see within. This is a variation on it. I bet you didn’t know the crystal doesn’t actually have to be a ball, did you?”

He was more interested in what she had discovered than the method she was using.

Aradia removed the magnifying glass from the map and raised it like an old-fashioned detective.

“Lend me your right hand.”

“?”

Kamijou held out his hand as asked and she touched the rim of the magnifying glass to it. It made a high-pitched cracking sound.

Aradia was apparently done with the magnifying glass now, so she spun it in her hand and brought her lips to the rim like it was a giant lollipop she was about to lick.

“Imagine Breaker makes this so much easier.”

“It does,” agreed Anna. “It lets you omit the entire process for exorcising the summoned power. And you don’t have to worry about the backlash if you screw up. The Golden cabal was a sorry excuse for a cabal that kept growing more bloated until it ruptured, but I can see why they had it stored deep within Blythe Road as a last resort.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure how to interpret this assessment. Should he view this like the young woman next door asking him to get a stubborn lid off of a bottle?”

…If so, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, fool. And we should keep the divination to a minimum. Academy City might not know much about magic, but Mut Thebes or Kingsford might notice and use it to track us down. Like suddenly noticing a presence in some abandoned ruins.”

Little Anna pouted her lips and swiftly folded up the map.

“We are in District 6 now, so we still need to cross Districts 5 and 7. So, fool, let’s continue on toward District 15.”

“I get that,” said Kamijou while climbing for the hatch on top of the gun.

The interior was still cramped and the seats even more so. There was a reason they had refused to spend the night inside there.

“But I still can’t believe we got an armored vehicle inside the amusement park district. I would have thought they had a solid gate at the entrance to make sure no one gets in without a ticket.”

“You really are a fool. This is a mobile combat vehicle.” Anna made sure to correct him every time. “If you refuse to learn, I’ll start shoving the vocabulary sticks up your asshole.”

“…”

What was a vocabulary stick?

Whatever the case, he got the feeling she would also get furious over the debate regarding whether corn was a grain or a vegetable.

“Also, fool. Amusement parks have industrial vehicle entrances located out of sight of the guests. How do you think they receive all the food and souvenirs they sell across the entire park? Or what about replacing the heavy metal rails and thick wires for upkeep of the thrill rides? You didn’t think it was all carried in by hand, did you?”

“That’s not what I meant. District 6 is one giant amusement park, right? It just feels like the end of the world to see a military vehicle intruding on this land of hopes and dreams.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Do not interrupt me again.”

“Most fairy tales are more like horror stories if you follow them back to their roots,” added Aradia.

Was that supposed to be helpful?

Also, the expert on witch stories spoke down from above the other two. The nature-loving mountain girl couldn’t stand being cooped up in that tin can all day, so she had her upper body sticking out of the hatch to enjoy the breeze. Which meant she had one leg on the ladder up to the hatch.

“Bwah, Aradia!? Have you no sense!? Don’t just show off that angle!!”

“?”

“If she isn’t aware, don’t bother her. And it’s her decision to do it or not. I know you are a hopeless fool, but you don’t have to tackle every single problem you come across with fists flying.”

A skirt-wearing girl version of a kasa-obake was staring down at them from above, but Anna Sprengel seemed a lot more interested in trying the mentaiko, corn, and mayo bread she had bought at a bread vending machine earlier. Even though they had stocked up inside the vehicle just yesterday. She was also enjoying a health drink that claimed to contain a trillion lactobacilli, which sounded to Kamijou like a battle manga with so much power level inflation nothing had any meaning anymore.

Generally, the other two let Anna operate the Predator Octopus.

Kamijou was still in high school, so he wouldn’t know how to operate a steering wheel. And this used a touchscreen, so it didn’t even have a steering wheel. Aradia was skeptical of technology, so she was out of the question too. That meant Anna was the one swiping her hand across the console monitor in front of the commander’s seat.

Kamijou Touma continued to pour all of his willpower into ignoring Aradia’s crotch that seemed unnecessarily conspicuous only a meter over his head. (Was this some kind of mental training!?)

“So is the plan for today the same as yesterday: look out for Mut Thebes while avoiding Anti-Skill’s checkpoints?”

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, fool. Do I need to shove enough things up your asshole you look like a restaurant’s chopstick holder?”

She may have been even more foulmouthed than that human.

Kamijou couldn’t help but sigh, but…

“I notice you failed to mention Aleister’s group who have been concerningly silent. Do you want to die?”

The mood clearly changed when she mentioned Aleister.

Surprisingly, the majority of the tension came from Anna herself.

“Unlike a fool like you, Anna Kingsford seeks certainty. She goes beyond never making a wasted move. If any of her moves fails to accomplish anything, she will change her point of view to transform it into a useful card in her deck,” whispered Anna.

That little wicked woman was revealing her own weakness to someone else.

Kamijou didn’t see that as regression. It was only one step, but she was making progress.

“Even if she does locate us through divination, she wouldn’t launch an attack on that alone. She will increase the certainty of her information by relying on multiple sources, work out the most meaningful move she can make, and then make that move.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, fool. We fought a highly conspicuous artillery battle to escape Mut Thebes last night. Word of that must have spread through Academy City. Assuming she intercepted those reports and has been analyzing the situation based on them, ''it won’t be long now.'' Kingsford will make her move soon.”

===Part 3===

Aleister Crowley, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

Since they looked like a foreign nun and a mysterious near-future glasses woman out walking a large dog (after martial law was declared), they had to make for quite a bizarre sight. Except they didn’t. When they walked right in front of an armed Anti-Skill group, not one person demanded they stop.

Was it Kihara Noukan who had said they were bound to be caught if they snuck into Academy City again?

Aleister sighed.

(This simple recognition manipulation won’t work on anyone with a deep knowledge of magic. That of course applies to the Transcendents, but also to the artificial demon working for Academy City – Qliphah Puzzle 545.)

He could imagine all this so easily, but he could never make sense of the human mind.

He was constantly making mistakes.

Meanwhile, Anna Kingsford curiously viewed the vehicles parked on the curb. The tanks and armored vehicles were all painted dark because they were meant for use in an urban environment.

They were closer than expected. Much too close.

The great knowledge goddess took small steps up to within a meter of one, looking just like a tourist with one of the red guards at a certain English palace.

If not for their magic, they would have been instantly discovered and forced to fight.

“Oh, how fun. It’s like a parade.”

“Don’t place too much faith in that preserved corpse. It might look just like a living body, but it’s still only a corpse being forced into motion. You can’t use any magical defenses, so if you were held in place by the ground collapsing below your feet or exposure to a high voltage current, an ordinary tank gun could blast you to smithereens.”

“Then am I relatively safe from the ones ❌ in a vehicle?”

“How did you find a way to ‘look on the bright side’ of that warning?”

When Kingsford pointed at an Anti-Skill group from less than a meter away, Aleister shut an eye and held a hand to his forehead.

That she went unnoticed was proof that she was the spell expert Aleister was not.

A true expert did not neglect these fundamental of magic.

Or rather, it was all part of a single large system. There were no unnecessary gears in the world of magic.

So instead of learning a single special move, you increased your overall strength by thoroughly honing your skills in all the most common spells until they were their own special moves.

An expert like Kingsford probably resented the very act of designing a spell exclusively for killing.

The golden retriever sniffed at the cigarette smoke exhaled by an Anti-Skill officer on break and reacted with disgust when he detected the vanilla additive.

”Explain it to her, Aleister. I would understand if you had explained it over and over and she refused to learn, but she can’t be blamed for her ignorance.”

“I know that, but still.”

The great knowledge goddess’s knowledge stopped in the 1800s, so while her magic knowledge was unmatched, she didn’t know much about the threat posed by science. The lack of knowledge wasn’t necessary a problem, but her inability to appreciate the threat was. She was too innocent, like a young child who had never touched a hot kettle.

Eventually, Aleister pointed up into the early morning sky.

“Academy City has developed 200mm self-propelled grenade launchers and multistage rocket launchers with a range of more than 30km. They can accurately drop a grenade on you anywhere in the city. And if they don’t care about damage to civilian facilities, a single Anti-Skill officer can give a signal by radio, laser, or even smoke to summon a downpour of explosives. A single volley of the rocket launchers will cover the designated area with ten thousand bomblets. Do you still feel safe?”

A sound like an electric shaver passed by overhead.

This one was not for aerial photography.

The 45cm plastic isosceles triangle was joined by hundreds more clustered together like a flock of starlings. From a distance, they appeared to undulate like a great serpent. These were self-destruct drones designed to spread out in the sky, locate their target, gather overhead, lock on, ignite their solid fuel, drop toward their target, and explode.

Aleister sighed.

“Each of those Snakeheads is loaded with as much explosive as an anti-tank rocket. The sky above is the hardest place for a ground vehicle to attack, so if those things attack from there, the tanks and armored vehicles don’t stand a chance. A person outside of a vehicle even less so.”

“My, my. The 🌍 has become a very ☠️ place in my absence.”

Anna Kingsford held a hand to her cheek and elegantly tilted her head.

She had lived in the late 1800s. That was before World War One, which meant a world without tanks, aircraft, and poison gas, so some might call it a nice place to live. Especially in an age where war without nuclear weapons sounded like something from an impossible fantasy world.

Of course, small drones commonly lost control and crashed due to signal interference and crosswinds. What would happen if those armed explosives were constantly flying through the city? As the numbers went up, what seemed like small odds of an accident would rise as well. Instead of launching a missile or artillery shell in response to a threat, explosives were ''already'' filling the sky above. Instead of avoiding the small odds of an accident, the city had ordered its people to stay home to avoid anyone coming to harm by the accidents. These next-generation weapons could only be used with martial law in place.

“What’s the plan for today?” asked Aleister right in front of the enemy.

“I 💭 it is about ⏰ to take this seriously☆”

===Part 4===

Kamijou’s group slowly drove the mobile combat vehicle through the District 6 amusement park.

There was a biting chill outside, but the cramped vehicle was filled with the sweet warmth of girls.

In the commander’s seat, Anna made occasional adjustments to the self-driving while she messed with the communications. Kamijou thought she was accessing a civilian frequency to listen to the radio, but she was apparently watching an online TV station displayed in a corner of the touchscreen. How much could she access with that thing?

“Today is January 4. Good morning and welcome to the Children’s Q&A Advice Show. You’re in for a treat because today’s New Year’s special is two hours long☆ Now, our first Scype call is a question from Azumi-chan, a 2nd grader from District 13. Happy New Year, Azumi-chan. What is it you want to know?”

“H-Happy New Year. Um, why do you catch a cold when it’s cold out?”

“That’s actually a really interesting question, Azumi-chan. But first I need to correct a misunderstanding there. It’s hard to tell because they’re too small to see, but colds are caused by germs you can find floating in the air any time of year. We see more cold patients in the winter because the air is drier. See, people have something called an immune system and…”

“Hee hee,” someone laughed.

It was Anna Sprengel with her hand over her mouth. It was an unusually gentle laugh for her how harsh she tended to be. It lacked her usual edge.

“Excellent. She honestly asks the question on her mind and then listens to the answer. She earns a perfect 100 as a student.”

“Really?”

“You need to be careful, you dull fool. All of you fools like to ask the question before even trying to think for yourselves. Instead, you need to listen, work to comprehend what you have learned, and – if you still do not understand – gather up what you know, put it in your own words, and feel no shame about asking. That is what I call perfect.”

So did he have to learn to act like a 7 or 8 year old to please Miss Sprengel? That honestly sounded way too hard.

“The problem isn’t how much or how little knowledge you have.”

Anna elegantly crossed her legs in the highest seat, rested her elbow on the armrest, and her head in her hand.

And she whispered in Demon Lord mode.

“Knowledge you never use grows rusty. If you avoid writing a word for fear of misspelling it, you really will forget how to spell it before long. So the greatest barrier to true knowledge is the silly pride that believes you are too good to study and master the fundamentals. Feel no shame, learner. The textbook lies before you. It might look intimidating, but your predecessors have proven that you will eventually achieve mastery if you take it slow and complete each step in turn. You must not skip past the basics and immediately attempt the practical side. Even worse is to fail to realize you have given up on thinking, fail to learn a single thing, and find all you have left is an inflated sense of pride.”

This advice had arrived unexpectedly.

He needed to listen, work to comprehend, and if he still didn’t understand, gather his knowledge, put it in his own words, and ask without shame.

Kamijou decided to put Anna’s advice to practice.

“So…what were you hoping to accomplish?”

“I didn’t have a lofty goal like guiding all of humanity in the right direction.”

Miss Sprengel’s thoughts had been transported elsewhere while she listened to that innocent exchange on the radio.

And the words spilled from her lips now.

“I wanted to share what I had if it could quench people’s thirst for knowledge. But only if they sought that knowledge in the proper way. In the end, that never came to pass. The incomplete knowledge I brought them only created hopeless conflict and self-proclaimed geniuses who arrogantly mocked everyone they met.”

“Let’s see,” continued the radio show. “Next we have Shunta-kun, a 4th grader from District 7.”

“Gyah! Wah!!”

“U-um, Shunta-kun? Shunta-kuuun?”

“What- ah ha ha! Wait, it’s about to start- (wham thud!!) Did you hear that!? Kya ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!!”

“…”

“You don’t have to get that upset!” shouted Kamijou. “It’s not like he’s your kid!!”

Kamijou quickly restrained little Anna who looked so furious she might utter a mysterious curse that not even the Anglicans were familiar with.

“That pissed me off almost as much as those self-proclaimed geniuses in the Golden cabal.”

“I’m really not sure what to say about that, but should I update my mental image of them?”

“Pant, pant. M-Miss Host,” said a new voice on the radio. “I’m a 47-year-old baby. Hee hee. C-can you tell me where babies come from? Bweh heh heh heh.”

“Yikes!” shouted the host. “H-how did this call get past the screening!? Producer!!”

“Anna? Him you can curse,” said Kamijou, staring into the distance and feeling very glad he didn’t have to deal with a live broadcast.

Maybe everyone just had too much time on their hands while forced to stay home all day. Choosing to stay home during the holiday and being told you couldn’t leave the house were two very different things.

(This martial law thing is scary. I never thought being able to go where you want could feel like a luxury.)

Anna wasn’t driving their vehicle at full speed, but not because she was focused on the online TV show playing on the screen.

“I don’t trust the quality of the pavement on private property. Worse, this looks like tile, not asphalt. I hope we don’t break through all of a sudden.”

“Break through to where?”

“That question earns you 0 points. You didn’t even try to think first.” The little wicked woman’s voice was ice cold. “There is more to an amusement park than what meets the eye. There is a lot built underground like the giant motors and industrial power transformers for the thrill rides. For example…yes. Just imagine it, fool. Have you ever seen an amusement park with power lines strung up overhead? Any realistic equipment that would break the illusion are buried underfoot.”

Was that how it worked?

Kamijou took a look at the monitor Anna was messing with.

“But it looks like the Ferris wheel and the other rides are all stopped. Is it just too early in the morning?”

“You have a fool’s imagination. The attractions are put through test runs before the park opens to ensure safety, so amusement parks are actually quite busy early in the morning.”

Anna poked at the touchscreen as she answered. The exasperated sigh was quickly becoming her default state. She was probably making an adjustment to the self-driving, but the lack of a steering wheel made it hard to think of her as operating a vehicle.

Their motionless surroundings made it look like the giant amusement park had frozen in the winter cold.

But did that mean the martial law was to blame? The amusement park was district-wide private property, so if the people at the top – the management? – decided to shut it down, it could be shut down in a matter of seconds.

“But aren’t there a lot of people here? This has facial recognition boxes popping up all over!”

“Do not breathe on me in your panic, fool. Do it again and I will shove yellow mustard paste down your dickhole.”

“I would’ve thought a wicked woman would understand male anatomy better than that! Do that and it would explode!!”

“It makes sense to me,” said Aradia, also sounding exasperated.

Kamijou bristled at the thought of her shoving something in there too, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“You can demand people stay home all you want, but some people are going to head out regardless.”

It was before the park even opened, so these people weren’t breaking the rules to enjoy a day at this land of dreams. They appeared to be here for work. About half seemed to be park staff and half seemed to be truckers. The sudden declaration of martial law hadn’t shut down District 17’s unmanned factories (because no one had to show up for work there) and what were they supposed to do about the cakes, twisted donuts, and other park exclusive foods they had prepared the day before? Maybe it was a good thing Kamijou’s group had left the gas station early on Aradia’s suggestion.

Anna shut off the online TV show and displayed the outside footage on the full monitor.

“Wow. Hey, Anna, what are things like outside? The lack of windows scares me.”

“Foolish fool. There is a periscope linked with a camera at your seat. That is the loader’s seat, so it has secondary 360-degree observation equipment separate from the gunner’s.”

“If you say so.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………You’re the one who asked.”

“Wait, no, put that yellow tube away! You lost me at the peri-whatever part!! And unlike with my phone, I can’t exactly learn how this equipment works through trial and error! I could press the wrong button and launch some weapon or another!!”

“It’s called a periscope. You know, like on a submarine? Oh, are my words converting properly here?”

Aradia was actually speaking a mystery language called “common tones” rather than Japanese, but she still helped him out like a kind older sister. The way he could actually hear her saying two different things at once was kind of scary.

“Coddle him like that and his foolishness will only grow.”

“I didn’t start it. You can blame a certain Magic God for that one.”

Anna had no interest in a child with no drive to learn, so she ended up doing everything on her own. She poked her fingers boredly at the thin touchscreen from the commander’s seat.

“I’m still scared, Anna. Can’t you let me see outside too?”

“Sigh. Do you never shut up, fool? Here.”

Anna stood up from the commander’s seat and let him take it. He was worried about her leaving the controls, but she seemed find reaching in from the side to make the necessary adjustments.

So the spiky-haired boy sat in the warm commander’s seat.

Then something happened.

Little Anna sat down in his lap.

What now? He was seriously unsure where to put his hands.

He ended up holding them overhead.

She also seemed weirdly smooth, so he looked down to discover she only had her baggy dress held up at her chest. This was more than he could have imagined. Her defenses from the rear were as nonexistent as with a naked apron!

His eyes widened further when Miss Sprengel did not hesitate to lean back against him.

“Um, Anna-san?”

“I’m kind of busy right now, so stay still. I don’t have time for questions. Besides, I doubt a fool like you would learn much from looking at the screen.”

“I thought you were being unusually accommodating, but you’re still upset, aren’t you?”

“Oh? Finally figured something out on your own, did you? Good job. I’ll have you know I am the type to hold a grudge.”

Kamijou felt a kick at the base of the seat bolted to the floor.

He looked over to see Aradia refusing to look his way. Nothing he did got any reaction out of her.

But he had bigger worries.

He took a look at the screen past Anna’s head and noticed a shocking development.

Ice filled his stomach.

“Those aren’t workers, are they? I knew Anti-Skill would be here. Yikes, that’s a lot!! And they have tanks!!”

The deep rumble of diesel engines approached from up ahead. One would be bad enough, but this was several lined up in a column.

Little Anna sighed in a bored way.

“Those are not tanks. They are infantry fighting vehicles.”

“What’s the difference? And that longer name sounds stronger if you ask me!”

“How many times must I remind you to think before you ask a question, fool? These are only about half the weight of a tank and they only use smaller guns with barrels the size of a clothesline pole. Those are 35mm autocannons. They might as well be peashooters compared to a 120mm. And the armor is aluminum to keep them lightweight enough for air transport.”

“Y-you mean they’re lower grade than ordinary tanks?”

“Yes, I do. Although they can still punch right through the Predator Octopus’s armor since it’s only armored vehicle class.”

“So I should still be terrified!!”

A sweet tremor ran through small Anna’s back while she sat in his lap. The wicked woman was apparently willing to be riddled with bullets if it let her torment Kamijou like this.

A convoy of tanks(?), armored vehicles, and military trucks arrived from up ahead. But they must have already been here. If not for the many military vehicles driving around this private property like they owned the place, the Predator Octopus would have aroused suspicion among the workers.

If Kamijou’s group was discovered, it would mean a battle, but the amusement park employees were all around. Not to mention that the Anti-Skill officers were all teachers.

If that deep siren began to sound, it was all over.

Aradia rubbed her bare feet together while still occupying the gunner’s seat. That was how she used her magic. The look on her face said she was willing to take action at a moment’s notice.

Kamijou gulped, but Anna casually flashed the headlights. Drawing attention to themselves like that sent ice down Kamijou’s spine, but the other vehicles returned the greeting in kind.

And they continued on.

The siren remained silent.

Apparently their identity wasn’t apparent from the vehicle’s exterior.

Did that mean it was better to move around like they belonged than to sneak in the shadows like a ninja?

Kamijou took another look around and saw a lot of Anti-Skill beyond the fixed checkpoints. They were stopping their vehicles in the area and receiving large artillery shells from the gunless tanks.

“Those are specialized ammo supply vehicles, fool. I believe they reused the same frame.”

“I feel like it would be more efficient to do this in the city.”

Was the risk of accidents lower if they kept things simple?

Anti-Skill was also gathering carts loaded with the kind of metal trays seen at all-you-can-eat buffets. More than hold food, they appeared to also heat the food with a heating element, allowing for cooking. The adults were gathering around and receiving breakfast from a strange vehicle that Anna smugly explained was a field kitchen. Unlike the students at school, they formed an orderly line without any fighting. ''This martial law thing is just like being at war,'' thought Kamijou (one of their prime targets), which would have angered certain people had they heard it. Anti-Skill really did look more like soldiers than schoolteachers here.

After nonchalantly driving by, Anna bit her thumbnail in his lap.

“Don’t relax yet, fool. They will discover who we are eventually. A military vehicle not found on the central datalink’s timetable is wandering around and loaded with live ammunition, after all.”

And there was no real reason they had to get through this without being discovered.

The fuse had already been lit. They only had to reach District 15 before the explosion.

“?”

The Predator Octopus came to a slow stop.

Not even Kamijou had to ask why.

He lowered Anna from his lap and grabbed the ladder. He opened the hatch and poked his head out to view the 50m-wide obstacle blocking their way.

“A river.”

“Failing to find the right answer while looking right at it is unusual indeed, fool. That is technically a canal since it was intentionally dug by the amusement park.”

Anna’s voice pursued him through the hatch smaller than a manhole.

River or canal, the 20tn mobile combat vehicle could not float in water. Crossing would require using one of the bridges and bridges were crucial for transportation. There was of course more than one, but even from here he could tell Anti-Skill had checkpoints set up on all of them.

They had built barricades from steel beams and barbed wire and they were shining large construction site lights. They also had the firepower of tanks and armored vehicles at their disposal. Were those stacks of boxes full of ammunition?

Approaching any of those bridges would be a bad idea.

Kamijou looked down into the vehicle which had become an oddly warm and sweet girl zone.

“Could we drive right by them in this vehicle like we did before?”

“That may have looked simple to an ignorant fool, but that was a risky gamble. And at an official checkpoint, they will not even let their own people through without an ID check for the vehicle and its occupants. Try it there and we will be exposed and forced to fight. …Which will lead the Bridge Builders Cabal and Kingsford right to us.”

Anna was right. If they could drive right through, they wouldn’t have had such a hard time last night either.

“If they’re watching all the bridges…oh, I know. Could we create a floating bridge or something?”

“With some wooden boxes and ropes we find lying around? I do appreciate the attempt to think for yourself, but anything sturdy enough to allow a 20tn vehicle across would be extremely conspicuous, fool.”

Aradia seemed unusually happy given he was letting the cold air in through the open hatch.

“Ugh, I can’t resist any longer. Move aside so I can get some fresh air too.”

“Wait, Aradia, there’s no room!”

With two of them, the small hatch was cramped indeed. There was only one ladder to stand on, so it was a lot like having two people crammed onto the same side of a kotatsu. What was she, a kind but weirdly careless big sister?

They were practically in each other’s arms while Aradia took a deep breathe of the chilly air.

But…

“What are you looking at, Aradia?”

“The park workers. They do us a great service by giving witches a positive image of magic and dreams, so I need to make sure they’ll be alright.”

''But you don’t care about Anti-Skill?'' wondered Kamijou, but did that mean he was too distracted by their surroundings? When he thought about it, if a normal person came to the amusement park, they wouldn’t be here to see the armed enemy force.

“For me, people watching is more than just a hobby.”

“?”

Kamijou looked puzzled, so Aradia changed the subject to the main topic at hand.

“Couldn’t we abandon this vehicle, cross the river on our own, and steal a different military vehicle on the opposite bank? This 8-wheeled thing can be remotely controlled to an extent, can’t it? We can send it into one of those dangerous bridge checkpoints as a diversion.”

“That can be our last resort,” said Anna. “I want to avoid stealing another vehicle if possible to reduce the odds of them noticing I hacked the datalink. Both because it robs us of transportation and because I don’t want to give them even the slightest hint that our goal is data related – that is, accessing the magic database in District 15.”

Kamijou felt they should also spend some time addressing the fact that crossing the river without a bridge during the middle of winter meant jumping into water that was near freezing and giving off a white steam. And wasn’t this river more than 50m across? The Transcendents might be fine going for a celebratory New Year’s swim since they were walking around in what might as well have been swimsuits, but an ordinary high school boy like Kamijou would freeze and be swept away before he made it across.

Anna kicked the ladder with her small foot as a warning, so the other two ducked back down and shut the hatch.

Kamijou heard the rhythmic sound of a Six Wings helicopter passing by overhead.

“We need to think up a way to safely cross the river.”

“I already told you it’s a canal. Get it right or I’ll drag you around town with a nose hook, fool.”

The other two tilted their heads with “what’s a nose hook?” written on their faces and Anna cleared her throat for some reason.

The girl(?) had stepped on the gas a little too hard, so she stammered a bit before continuing.

“But Academy City aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Let’s just hope Mut Thebes and Kingsford are polite enough to wait for us to find a solution.”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Between the Lines 3===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter2

2023-05-21T09:54:06Z

JDMP: /* Part 2 */

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=9}}
==Chapter 2: Transcendent Mut Thebes – The_Death_Penalty_WH.==

===Part 1===

It was all right there in her head.

When you got down to it, the old R&C Occultics magic database was no more than a collection of notes jotted down by Anna Sprengel herself. So journeying to District 15 and searching the database would only turn up Anna’s own knowledge.

The lights were off inside the cold metal box and the little wicked woman didn’t look away from the screen as she whispered to someone.

“What do you want, Aiwass?”

“Nothing really. Just noting how uncharacteristically patient you’re being.”

“Come to see me because I haven’t stepped on you recently, fool?”

After that, little Anna laughed but otherwise ignored him.

So only the unknown being’s voice continued.

“You finally have your body back from Madame Horos, so you can perceive this world as you like and go wherever you desire within it. I assumed you would be rejoicing in your newfound freedom, so I found this odd.”

Miss Sprengel clenched and unclenched her little hand.

“In this body?”

“You don’t seem all that fixated on fully reclaiming your original power and form.”

“Hmph,” snorted Anna.

Bull’s eye.

That being was meant to deliver divine knowledge to humanity, after all.

She wanted something else.

Something not found inside her.

“I will start with the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

“Not with Anna Kingsford?”

“I am starting with what I know I can do.”

She knew the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plan and was in the unique position to stop it, so she could negotiate (or threaten) them.

Furthermore, Academy City needed her for the same reason.

So traveling to District 15 was her best option.

On the other hand…

“I currently ''have no countermeasure for Kingsford.'' Even with the full power of my Secret Chief.”

Aiwass was supposed to be her trump card, but he hadn’t been enough to defeat Kingsford. What would have happened if she confidently used him to escape her human film canister form? The thought sent a small chill down her spine.

However…

“Maybe I can’t do it, but maybe that cabal of Transcendents can. And unlike Kingsford, I can take control of them. Either by manipulating Alice or by using the Shrink Drink that contains a portion of her power. They’ve left me a lot of openings for such a powerful group.”

“I see. Just as wicked a plan as I would expect from you.”

‘I wish I could have sent Alice Anotherbible against that woman, but how would that have influenced my current partnership with Kamijou Touma? Still, there are other Transcendents with bizarre specialties. Perhaps one of them is such a poor match for Kingsford that she goes down easily to them. Like a necromancer or a machine killer. Giving up doesn’t improve my situation, so my best bet is to keep struggling no matter how ugly it gets.”

So she would start with what she knew she could do.

She most likely had her Bridge Builders Cabal countermeasure constructed in her mind.

But that was why she wanted absolute certainty.

That meant comparing the idea in her mind with the database she had created.

She felt some nagging doubt because of how extraordinary the cabal’s plan was.

Even seen through Miss Sprengel’s eyes.

“Do you think they can pull it off?” asked Aiwass.

“I don’t know. But it’s never a good idea to immediately reject something because it sounds crazy. That reflex isn’t about a lack of validation or credibility – it’s you trying to deny the worst case scenario. When there is a very real threat out there, what could be more foolish than letting your fear take hold and shutting yourself away for peace of mind?”

That was why she wanted more than her own thoughts and emotions – why she wanted to rely on the cold, hard data.

She wanted objective corroboration that her prediction was in fact correct. Even if it was so horrifying that even a wicked woman like her didn’t want to think about it.

To repeat, Anna most likely had the answer already.

Now she only needed the final confirmation.

Then she only had to download it onto a physical medium she could present to a third party.

“It’s times like this that I curse my lack of a perfect memory.”

“It seems to me that would bring its own problems.”

Whether a disk or nonvolatile memory, all physical media deteriorated and eventually grew unreadable as time passed, but if she kept the information in her own mind, the pressure of her own self-restricting questions would distort the answer. And unlike someone with a perfect memory, her memories provided no objective trust or proof.

She knew their plan.

She was familiar with all of their Achilles heels, so she could crush them at any time.

“But you can’t negotiate with the cabal’s Transcendents unless you can ''objectively'' prove it,” said Aiwass.

“Isn’t that your specialty? You are a messenger who provides oracles while pretending to be some secret divine messenger. It all began when you borrowed Rose’s mouth. That message was then written down in a form anyone could read. And it became known as the Book of the Law.”

“But that was all a new seed you had me plant because you were so disgusted by the Golden cabal’s rapid decline after the Battle of Blythe Road. But…”

“Yes, fool.” Miss Sprengel sighed. “Negotiation is not my primary goal here.”

“That plan must not be brought to fruition. In your mind, anyway. I am honestly mildly surprised you see any room for negotiation left.”

That was why she had installed a backdoor in that unseen organization so she could throw them into disarray and crush them from within. All she had to do was tell Alice Anotherbible the “personal legend” of Kamijou Touma and make sure the girl adored him like a character from a children’s book.

(So what am I doing now?)

“Keep in mind I can hear your thoughts, Miss Sprengel. Because I am your Secret Chief and you are my priestess.”

She kicked her little foot at that.

But Aiwass was right. If she were focused primarily on destroying the cabal’s extremely dangerous plan, negotiation would be meaningless. It would be much faster to slash their Achilles heels without warning.

Was she here to save the world? Nonsense.

She had only just reclaimed her physical freedom from one of the greatest frauds in the history of Modern Western Magic. The little wicked woman should have been living it up and greedily taking everything she wanted from the world around her. So her battle against the cabal and her drive to crush their plan could not be classified as good deeds.

So what did she hope to protect?

What did she want most?

“My king,” whispered Anna Sprengel.

===Part 2===

January 4. Early morning.

Kamijou Touma awoke to a light slap on his cheek.

He first thought the calico cat had play swatted him, but he quickly realized that couldn’t be it.

It was Aradia.

“Wake up.”

“Ugh.”

He opened his eyes to find they were at a gas station. There was no clerk there thanks to the martial law, so they had refueled and he had taken a nap on the bench by the vending machines. Aradia was crouching next to the wooden bench and teasing him, so her face was a lot closer than strictly necessary. Her silver hair spilled down and tickled his cheek.

But that aside…

“It’s already 5:30. Based on the work schedule posted in the office, a manager normally arrives at about this time. If the concept of martial law is enough to make the ordinary citizens nervous, the manager might drop by to make sure their workplace is safe.”

“Wah, wamh, ah, arh?”

“Are you trying to be cute?”

He was simply so sleepy his tongue wasn’t working right, but she coldly criticized him for it.

(It’s January 4 and I’m being told it’s “already” 5:30 in the morning? Has the world gone crazy?)

“Hurry up. Your mind will clear once you get up.”

“Mhh.”

If she said he had to get up, that’s what he would have to do.

But right as he did, Aradia stuck her lithe hand between his back and the bench.

The timing was unfortunate.

Kamijou’s lips contacted something: Aradia’s cheek, which had moved unexpectedly close.

At first, he thought he had to still be dreaming.

“Hm? H-huh!? Wait, did I really just do that!?”

The fog in his mind instantly cleared away.

He doubted she would be kind enough to let him off with a simple head chomp. This was the Great Aradia who had already killed him more than once on December 31.

And yet…

“Relax. That was clearly an accident.”

“?”

Confused, Kamijou froze with his arms crossed in front of his face.

Aradia was avoiding his gaze a bit, but that was all.

The lack of any repercussions scared him in a different way. Like he was building up an unseen debt somewhere.

“You still need to get up. We can’t stick around here forever.”

They were on the run.

He had chosen this path for himself, so he couldn’t complain now.

His head felt super heavy, but he somehow managed to get up on his own. Thanks to the wooden bench, he ached all over. He left the vending machine area which had a blind pulled down over it and was greeted by the biting cold. He saw a white haze outside.

“Why do you seem wide awake at this hour, Aradia? I don’t know what country you came from, but are you jetlagged?”

“Witches follow a strict schedule and receive the blessings of nature – I just haven’t been able to do so recently because you had me tied up. It shouldn’t surprise you to see me up before sunrise.”

Aradia threw the response at him like a slap.

Then the witch goddess winked.

“What? You look like you have several things to say.”

That wasn’t true at all, but if Aradia had read too deep into his expression and opened the door to questions, he couldn’t pass up the chance.

Because wait.

Did this mean he could have her clear up the mysteries surrounding the Transcendents and the Bridge Builders Cabal?

“Um, uh! I-if you insist!!”

“Calm down. I’m not going anywhere, so relax your shoulders and try that again, boy.”

“A-are you actually a red android?”

“You’re starting there!? I suppose it’s best to be careful, but still!!” shouted Aradia, bristling at his question.

But she no longer had that air of a cool witch lady. Didn’t she seem more open to anything, and even a bit indulgent?

“Um, then to cover a more immediate issue, what do you know about Mut Thebes? I could be killed without knowing that. But I understand if you don’t want to give up info on a fellow cabal member.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Not anymore anyway.” Aradia shrugged and sighed, the breath appearing white in the January morning. “Then I will start with the basics. Mut is a goddess found in Egyptian mythology.”

“Right.”

He was pretty sure H. T. Trismegistus had told him that at the consulate.

He wanted to know more than that.

“She is a war goddess who uses the vulture as her symbol. While the other gods promise happiness in a vaguely defined afterlife, she is a ‘physical goddess’ who actually fought on Earth and protected her people from their enemies. She is specifically said to have defended the ancient city of Thebes from an outside enemy.”

“Seriously? So she’s a god who specializes in war ''and nothing else''?”

“It was believed that was one of the many abilities of a protective mother,” Aradia subtly corrected. “Mut was special in that she was both a goddess and the wife of the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Technically, the queen and Mut were seen as one and the same. Of course, that would mean each pharaoh’s wife was Mut again, which would make her the pharaoh’s mother, wife, and daughter all at once.”

That sounded very confusing, but Kamijou decided it was silly to apply a modern conception of romance to Ancient Egypt which existed millennia ago.

“Also, some suspect that she was created later on because Amun, the top god, needed a wife. Of course, I’m Aradia, so I’m not one to talk there.”

“…?”

That was something that had bothered him for a while now.

Index had said the goddess Aradia was thought to have been invented by an Italian witch. Then what was this Aradia here?

What was the point of borrowing the name of someone who never even existed?

Had the witch actually been telling the truth, but the story had been so extraordinary that the man writing it down hadn’t recorded it properly?

“What’s wrong?” asked Aradia.

“Nothing…”

Why did he hesitate? She was willing to answer his questions. And even if she refused to answer, the fact that she had openly refused could act as a major hint.

Or was he afraid of receiving confirmation?

He felt like the temporary peace they had established would crumble before his eyes.

Anna walked in from outside and grinned as soon as she saw the witch.

“''Nice ankle.''”

“''I don’t want a word out of you.''”

“?” Kamijou tilted his head.

Come to think of it, why was she still doing that? Thanks to Kamijou’s hesitation, Aradia had switched modes. And given how prickly she was being now, he doubted she would answer even if he asked.

The fuel pumps were dangerous since they worked with gasoline. And they were located outside, so they would have been locked down separately to the office. But that hadn’t been much of an obstacle to Anna Sprengel’s technology.

The wicked woman gave a snort of laughter.

“In the end, single use passwords and two factor authentication are still patterns. Once you decode the pseudorandom number generator, it might as well not be locked at all. At least they seem aware that biometric data like fingerprint or eye scans are a lot less safe given how high quality cameras are these days.”

“I’m suddenly glad my dorm room uses an old-fashioned analog key.”

“Trying to set a new record for foolishness? That’s an even simpler combination of patterns. The best security system a fool like you can manage is being too poor to own anything worth stealing.”

Meanwhile…

Kamijou spotted an old-fashioned payphone nearby.

Even a high schooler like him knew using his phone was a bad idea while on the run, but since a payphone wouldn’t leave a record of who made the call, couldn’t he contact Index or Misaka Mikoto that way?

Little Anna glared up at him.

“Again, don’t even think about it, fool. Get us in trouble by trying it and I will kick your ass headfirst into a doghouse.”

“Alright, alright.”

It looked like he had to abandon that idea. She refused to explain why, but this must have been riskier than he thought. Anna had singlehandedly built up R&C Occultics as a global IT company, so he doubted he could outdo her when it came to computer knowledge. Academy City technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world, but Kamijou hadn’t designed that technology himself.

(I hope they’re okay. It’s so frustrating when they’re in the same city as me.)

He had to believe that the pursuers’ attention on him meant less focus on Index, Mikoto, and the others.

The mobile combat vehicle stood out thanks to its 8 wheels and swiveling tank gun, but they had shoved it inside the carwash on Anna’s suggestion. Apparently no one would notice it as long as it fit inside.

Little Anna unfolded a large paper map on the concrete ground. She and Aradia stared at the map through a magnifying glass they had found somewhere.

“Let’s see. Based on my scrying, it should look something like this.”

“Anyone’s spell would reveal the same thing. And it seems to be showing water-based danger on the horizon.”

They didn’t seem to be reading miniscule text or setting down small game pierces to simulate the enemy(?) formation. This sounded like occult divination. When Aradia slid the magnifying glass across the map, Kamijou noticed small flashes of light dancing inside the distorted lens.

“Don’t be shy. If you want to see the map, move in closer.”

Still crouching, Aradia scooted a bit aside.

Kamijou did as she suggested, but he still couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be seeing. He just didn’t want to be standing behind her because he felt guilty seeing her butt while she crouched like that.

The oblivious woman was still focused on the map.

“I’m using crystal divination. It’s a common enough technique in Wicca. You stare into the crystal and ''decode'' the information you want from the vision you see within. This is a variation on it. I bet you didn’t know the crystal doesn’t actually have to be a ball, did you?”

He was more interested in what she had discovered than the method she was using.

Aradia removed the magnifying glass from the map and raised it like an old-fashioned detective.

“Lend me your right hand.”

“?”

Kamijou held out his hand as asked and she touched the rim of the magnifying glass to it. It made a high-pitched cracking sound.

Aradia was apparently done with the magnifying glass now, so she spun it in her hand and brought her lips to the rim like it was a giant lollipop she was about to lick.

“Imagine Breaker makes this so much easier.”

“It does,” agreed Anna. “It lets you omit the entire process for exorcising the summoned power. And you don’t have to worry about the backlash if you screw up. The Golden cabal was a sorry excuse for a cabal that kept growing more bloated until it ruptured, but I can see why they had it stored deep within Blythe Road as a last resort.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure how to interpret this assessment. Should he view this like the young woman next door asking him to get a stubborn lid off of a bottle?”

…If so, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Wipe that smirk off your face, fool. And we should keep the divination to a minimum. Academy City might not know much about magic, but Mut Thebes or Kingsford might notice and use it to track us down. Like suddenly noticing a presence in some abandoned ruins.”

Little Anna pouted her lips and swiftly folded up the map.

“We are in District 6 now, so we still need to cross Districts 5 and 7. So, fool, let’s continue on toward District 15.”

“I get that,” said Kamijou while climbing for the hatch on top of the gun.

The interior was still cramped and the seats even more so. There was a reason they had refused to spend the night inside there.

“But I still can’t believe we got an armored vehicle inside the amusement park district. I would have thought they had a solid gate at the entrance to make sure no one gets in without a ticket.”

“You really are a fool. This is a mobile combat vehicle.” Anna made sure to correct him every time. “If you refuse to learn, I’ll start shoving the vocabulary sticks up your asshole.”

“…”

What was a vocabulary stick?

Whatever the case, he got the feeling she would also get furious over the debate regarding whether corn was a grain or a vegetable.

“Also, fool. Amusement parks have industrial vehicle entrances located out of sight of the guests. How do you think they receive all the food and souvenirs they sell across the entire park? Or what about replacing the heavy metal rails and thick wires for upkeep of the thrill rides? You didn’t think it was all carried in by hand, did you?”

“That’s not what I meant. District 6 is one giant amusement park, right? It just feels like the end of the world to see a military vehicle intruding on this land of hopes and dreams.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Do not interrupt me again.”

“Most fairy tales are more like horror stories if you follow them back to their roots,” added Aradia.

Was that supposed to be helpful?

Also, the expert on witch stories spoke down from above the other two. The nature-loving mountain girl couldn’t stand being cooped up in that tin can all day, so she had her upper body sticking out of the hatch to enjoy the breeze. Which meant she had one leg on the ladder up to the hatch.

“Bwah, Aradia!? Have you no sense!? Don’t just show off that angle!!”

“?”

“If she isn’t aware, don’t bother her. And it’s her decision to do it or not. I know you are a hopeless fool, but you don’t have to tackle every single problem you come across with fists flying.”

A skirt-wearing girl version of a kasa-obake was staring down at them from above, but Anna Sprengel seemed a lot more interested in trying the mentaiko, corn, and mayo bread she had bought at a bread vending machine earlier. Even though they had stocked up inside the vehicle just yesterday. She was also enjoying a health drink that claimed to contain a trillion lactobacilli, which sounded to Kamijou like a battle manga with so much power level inflation nothing had any meaning anymore.

Generally, the other two let Anna operate the Predator Octopus.

Kamijou was still in high school, so he wouldn’t know how to operate a steering wheel. And this used a touchscreen, so it didn’t even have a steering wheel. Aradia was skeptical of technology, so she was out of the question too. That meant Anna was the one swiping her hand across the console monitor in front of the commander’s seat.

Kamijou Touma continued to pour all of his willpower into ignoring Aradia’s crotch that seemed unnecessarily conspicuous only a meter over his head. (Was this some kind of mental training!?)

“So is the plan for today the same as yesterday: look out for Mut Thebes while avoiding Anti-Skill’s checkpoints?”

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, fool. Do I need to shove enough things up your asshole you look like a restaurant’s chopstick holder?”

She may have been even more foulmouthed than that human.

Kamijou couldn’t help but sigh, but…

“I notice you failed to mention Aleister’s group who have been concerningly silent. Do you want to die?”

The mood clearly changed when she mentioned Aleister.

Surprisingly, the majority of the tension came from Anna herself.

“Unlike a fool like you, Anna Kingsford seeks certainty. She goes beyond never making a wasted move. If any of her moves fails to accomplish anything, she will change her point of view to transform it into a useful card in her deck,” whispered Anna.

That little wicked woman was revealing her own weakness to someone else.

Kamijou didn’t see that as regression. It was only one step, but she was making progress.

“Even if she does locate us through divination, she wouldn’t launch an attack on that alone. She will increase the certainty of her information by relying on multiple sources, work out the most meaningful move she can make, and then make that move.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, fool. We fought a highly conspicuous artillery battle to escape Mut Thebes last night. Word of that must have spread through Academy City. Assuming she intercepted those reports and has been analyzing the situation based on them, ''it won’t be long now.'' Kingsford will make her move soon.”

===Part 3===

Aleister Crowley, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

Since they looked like a foreign nun and a mysterious near-future glasses woman out walking a large dog (after martial law was declared), they had to make for quite a bizarre sight. Except they didn’t. When they walked right in front of an armed Anti-Skill group, not one person demanded they stop.

Was it Kihara Noukan who had said they were bound to be caught if they snuck into Academy City again?

Aleister sighed.

(This simple recognition manipulation won’t work on anyone with a deep knowledge of magic. That of course applies to the Transcendents, but also to the artificial demon working for Academy City – Qliphah Puzzle 545.)

He could imagine all this so easily, but he could never make sense of the human mind.

He was constantly making mistakes.

Meanwhile, Anna Kingsford curiously viewed the vehicles parked on the curb. The tanks and armored vehicles were all painted dark because they were meant for use in an urban environment.

They were closer than expected. Much too close.

The great knowledge goddess took small steps up to within a meter of one, looking just like a tourist with one of the red guards at a certain English palace.

If not for their magic, they would have been instantly discovered and forced to fight.

“Oh, how fun. It’s like a parade.”

“Don’t place too much faith in that preserved corpse. It might look just like a living body, but it’s still only a corpse being forced into motion. You can’t use any magical defenses, so if you were held in place by the ground collapsing below your feet or exposure to a high voltage current, an ordinary tank gun could blast you to smithereens.”

“Then am I relatively safe from the ones ❌ in a vehicle?”

“How did you find a way to ‘look on the bright side’ of that warning?”

When Kingsford pointed at an Anti-Skill group from less than a meter away, Aleister shut an eye and held a hand to his forehead.

That she went unnoticed was proof that she was the spell expert Aleister was not.

A true expert did not neglect these fundamental of magic.

Or rather, it was all part of a single large system. There were no unnecessary gears in the world of magic.

So instead of learning a single special move, you increased your overall strength by thoroughly honing your skills in all the most common spells until they were their own special moves.

An expert like Kingsford probably resented the very act of designing a spell exclusively for killing.

The golden retriever sniffed at the cigarette smoke exhaled by an Anti-Skill officer on break and reacted with disgust when he detected the vanilla additive.

”Explain it to her, Aleister. I would understand if you had explained it over and over and she refused to learn, but she can’t be blamed for her ignorance.”

“I know that, but still.”

The great knowledge goddess’s knowledge stopped in the 1800s, so while her magic knowledge was unmatched, she didn’t know much about the threat posed by science. The lack of knowledge wasn’t necessary a problem, but her inability to appreciate the threat was. She was too innocent, like a young child who had never touched a hot kettle.

Eventually, Aleister pointed up into the early morning sky.

“Academy City has developed 200mm self-propelled grenade launchers and multistage rocket launchers with a range of more than 30km. They can accurately drop a grenade on you anywhere in the city. And if they don’t care about damage to civilian facilities, a single Anti-Skill officer can give a signal by radio, laser, or even smoke to summon a downpour of explosives. A single volley of the rocket launchers will cover the designated area with ten thousand bomblets. Do you still feel safe?”

A sound like an electric shaver passed by overhead.

This one was not for aerial photography.

The 45cm plastic isosceles triangle was joined by hundreds more clustered together like a flock of starlings. From a distance, they appeared to undulate like a great serpent. These were self-destruct drones designed to spread out in the sky, locate their target, gather overhead, lock on, ignite their solid fuel, drop toward their target, and explode.

Aleister sighed.

“Each of those Snakeheads is loaded with as much explosive as an anti-tank rocket. The sky above is the hardest place for a ground vehicle to attack, so if those things attack from there, the tanks and armored vehicles don’t stand a chance. A person outside of a vehicle even less so.”

“My, my. The 🌍 has become a very ☠️ place in my absence.”

Anna Kingsford held a hand to her cheek and elegantly tilted her head.

She had lived in the late 1800s. That was before World War One, which meant a world without tanks, aircraft, and poison gas, so some might call it a nice place to live. Especially in an age where war without nuclear weapons sounded like something from an impossible fantasy world.

Of course, small drones commonly lost control and crashed due to signal interference and crosswinds. What would happen if those armed explosives were constantly flying through the city? As the numbers went up, what seemed like small odds of an accident would rise as well. Instead of launching a missile or artillery shell in response to a threat, explosives were ''already'' filling the sky above. Instead of avoiding the small odds of an accident, the city had ordered its people to stay home to avoid anyone coming to harm by the accidents. These next-generation weapons could only be used with martial law in place.

“What’s the plan for today?” asked Aleister right in front of the enemy.

“I 💭 it is about ⏰ to take this seriously☆”

===Part 4===

Kamijou’s group slowly drove the mobile combat vehicle through the District 6 amusement park.

There was a biting chill outside, but the cramped vehicle was filled with the sweet warmth of girls.

In the commander’s seat, Anna made occasional adjustments to the self-driving while she messed with the communications. Kamijou thought she was accessing a civilian frequency to listen to the radio, but she was apparently watching an online TV station displayed in a corner of the touchscreen. How much could she access with that thing?

“Today is January 4. Good morning and welcome to the Children’s Q&A Advice Show. You’re in for a treat because today’s New Year’s special is two hours long☆ Now, our first Scype call is a question from Azumi-chan, a 2nd grader from District 13. Happy New Year, Azumi-chan. What is it you want to know?”

“H-Happy New Year. Um, why do you catch a cold when it’s cold out?”

“That’s actually a really interesting question, Azumi-chan. But first I need to correct a misunderstanding there. It’s hard to tell because they’re too small to see, but colds are caused by germs you can find floating in the air any time of year. We see more cold patients in the winter because the air is dryer. See, people have something called an immune system and…”

“Hee hee,” someone laughed.

It was Anna Sprengel with her hand over her mouth. It was an unusually gentle laugh for her how harsh she tended to be. It lacked her usual edge.

“Excellent. She honestly asks the question on her mind and then listens to the answer. She earns a perfect 100 as a student.”

“Really?”

“You need to be careful, you dull fool. All of you fools like to ask the question before even trying to think for yourselves. Instead, you need to listen, work to comprehend what you have learned, and – if you still do not understand – gather up what you know, put it in your own words, and feel no shame about asking. That is what I call perfect.”

So did he have to learn to act like a 7 or 8 year old to please Miss Sprengel? That honestly sounded way too hard.

“The problem isn’t how much or how little knowledge you have.”

Anna elegantly crossed her legs in the highest seat, rested her elbow on the armrest, and her head in her hand.

And she whispered in Demon Lord mode.

“Knowledge you never use grows rusty. If you avoid writing a word for fear of misspelling it, you really will forget how to spell it before long. So the greatest barrier to true knowledge is the silly pride that believes you are too good to study and master the fundamentals. Feel no shame, learner. The textbook lies before you. It might look intimidating, but your predecessors have proven that you will eventually achieve mastery if you take it slow and complete each step in turn. You must not skip past the basics and immediately attempt the practical side. Even worse is to fail to realize you have given up on thinking, fail to learn a single thing, and find all you have left is an inflated sense of pride.”

This advice had arrived unexpectedly.

He needed to listen, work to comprehend, and if he still didn’t understand, gather his knowledge, put it in his own words, and ask without shame.

Kamijou decided to put Anna’s advice to practice.

“So…what were you hoping to accomplish?”

“I didn’t have a lofty goal like guiding all of humanity in the right direction.”

Miss Sprengel’s thoughts had been transported elsewhere while she listened to that innocent exchange on the radio.

And the words spilled from her lips now.

“I wanted to share what I had if it could quench people’s thirst for knowledge. But only if they sought that knowledge in the proper way. In the end, that never came to pass. The incomplete knowledge I brought them only created hopeless conflict and self-proclaimed geniuses who arrogantly mocked everyone they met.”

“Let’s see,” continued the radio show. “Next we have Shunta-kun, a 4th grader from District 7.”

“Gyah! Wah!!”

“U-um, Shunta-kun? Shunta-kuuun?”

“What- ah ha ha! Wait, it’s about to start- (wham thud!!) Did you hear that!? Kya ha ha! Ah ha ha ha!!”

“…”

“You don’t have to get that upset!” shouted Kamijou. “It’s not like he’s your kid!!”

Kamijou quickly restrained little Anna who looked so furious she might utter a mysterious curse that not even the Anglicans were familiar with.

“That pissed me off almost as much as those self-proclaimed geniuses in the Golden cabal.”

“I’m really not sure what to say about that, but should I update my mental image of them?”

“Pant, pant. M-Miss Host,” said a new voice on the radio. “I’m a 47-year-old baby. Hee hee. C-can you tell me where babies come from? Bweh heh heh heh.”

“Yikes!” shouted the host. “H-how did this call get past the screening!? Producer!!”

“Anna? Him you can curse,” said Kamijou, staring into the distance and feeling very glad he didn’t have to deal with a live broadcast.

Maybe everyone just had too much time on their hands while forced to stay home all day. Choosing to stay home during the holiday and being told you couldn’t leave the house were two very different things.

(This martial law thing is scary. I never thought being able to go where you want could feel like a luxury.)

Anna wasn’t driving their vehicle at full speed, but not because she was focused on the online TV show playing on the screen.

“I don’t trust the quality of the pavement on private property. Worse, this looks like tile, not asphalt. I hope we don’t break through all of a sudden.”

“Break through to where?”

“That question earns you 0 points. You didn’t even try to think first.” The little wicked woman’s voice was ice cold. “There is more to an amusement park than what meets the eye. There is a lot built underground like the giant motors and industrial power transformers for the thrill rides. For example…yes. Just imagine it, fool. Have you ever seen an amusement park with power lines strung up overhead? Any realistic equipment that would break the illusion are buried underfoot.”

Was that how it worked?

Kamijou took a look at the monitor Anna was messing with.

“But it looks like the Ferris wheel and the other rides are all stopped. Is it just too early in the morning?”

“You have a fool’s imagination. The attractions are put through test runs before the park opens to ensure safety, so amusement parks are actually quite busy early in the morning.”

Anna poked at the touchscreen as she answered. The exasperated sigh was quickly becoming her default state. She was probably making an adjustment to the self-driving, but the lack of a steering wheel made it hard to think of her as operating a vehicle.

Their motionless surroundings made it look like the giant amusement park had frozen in the winter cold.

But did that mean the martial law was to blame? The amusement park was district-wide private property, so if the people at the top – the management? – decided to shut it down, it could be shut down in a matter of seconds.

“But aren’t there a lot of people here? This has facial recognition boxes popping up all over!”

“Do not breathe on me in your panic, fool. Do it again and I will shove yellow mustard paste down your dickhole.”

“I would’ve thought a wicked woman would understand male anatomy better than that! Do that and it would explode!!”

“It makes sense to me,” said Aradia, also sounding exasperated.

Kamijou bristled at the thought of her shoving something in there too, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“You can demand people stay home all you want, but some people are going to head out regardless.”

It was before the park even opened, so these people weren’t breaking the rules to enjoy a day at this land of dreams. They appeared to be here for work. About half seemed to be park staff and half seemed to be truckers. The sudden declaration of martial law hadn’t shut down District 17’s unmanned factories (because no one had to show up for work there) and what were they supposed to do about the cakes, twisted donuts, and other park exclusive foods they had prepared the day before? Maybe it was a good thing Kamijou’s group had left the gas station early on Aradia’s suggestion.

Anna shut off the online TV show and displayed the outside footage on the full monitor.

“Wow. Hey, Anna, what are things like outside? The lack of windows scares me.”

“Foolish fool. There is a periscope linked with a camera at your seat. That is the loader’s seat, so it has secondary 360-degree observation equipment separate from the gunner’s.”

“If you say so.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………You’re the one who asked.”

“Wait, no, put that yellow tube away! You lost me at the peri-whatever part!! And unlike with my phone, I can’t exactly learn how this equipment works through trial and error! I could press the wrong button and launch some weapon or another!!”

“It’s called a periscope. You know, like on a submarine? Oh, are my words converting properly here?”

Aradia was actually speaking a mystery language called “common tones” rather than Japanese, but she still helped him out like a kind older sister. The way he could actually hear her saying two different things at once was kind of scary.

“Coddle him like that and his foolishness will only grow.”

“I didn’t start it. You can blame a certain Magic God for that one.”

Anna had no interest in a child with no drive to learn, so she ended up doing everything on her own. She poked her fingers boredly at the thin touchscreen from the commander’s seat.

“I’m still scared, Anna. Can’t you let me see outside too?”

“Sigh. Do you never shut up, fool? Here.”

Anna stood up from the commander’s seat and let him take it. He was worried about her leaving the controls, but she seemed find reaching in from the side to make the necessary adjustments.

So the spiky-haired boy sat in the warm commander’s seat.

Then something happened.

Little Anna sat down in his lap.

What now? He was seriously unsure where to put his hands.

He ended up holding them overhead.

She also seemed weirdly smooth, so he looked down to discover she only had her baggy dress held up at her chest. This was more than he could have imagined. Her defenses from the rear were as nonexistent as with a naked apron!

His eyes widened further when Miss Sprengel did not hesitate to lean back against him.

“Um, Anna-san?”

“I’m kind of busy right now, so stay still. I don’t have time for questions. Besides, I doubt a fool like you would learn much from looking at the screen.”

“I thought you were being unusually accommodating, but you’re still upset, aren’t you?”

“Oh? Finally figured something out on your own, did you? Good job. I’ll have you know I am the type to hold a grudge.”

Kamijou felt a kick at the base of the seat bolted to the floor.

He looked over to see Aradia refusing to look his way. Nothing he did got any reaction out of her.

But he had bigger worries.

He took a look at the screen past Anna’s head and noticed a shocking development.

Ice filled his stomach.

“Those aren’t workers, are they? I knew Anti-Skill would be here. Yikes, that’s a lot!! And they have tanks!!”

The deep rumble of diesel engines approached from up ahead. One would be bad enough, but this was several lined up in a column.

Little Anna sighed in a bored way.

“Those are not tanks. They are infantry fighting vehicles.”

“What’s the difference? And that longer name sounds stronger if you ask me!”

“How many times must I remind you to think before you ask a question, fool? These are only about half the weight of a tank and they only use smaller guns with barrels the size of a clothesline pole. Those are 35mm autocannons. They might as well be peashooters compared to a 120mm. And the armor is aluminum to keep them lightweight enough for air transport.”

“Y-you mean they’re lower grade than ordinary tanks?”

“Yes, I do. Although they can still punch right through the Predator Octopus’s armor since it’s only armored vehicle class.”

“So I should still be terrified!!”

A sweet tremor ran through small Anna’s back while she sat in his lap. The wicked woman was apparently willing to be riddled with bullets if it let her torment Kamijou like this.

A convoy of tanks(?), armored vehicles, and military trucks arrived from up ahead. But they must have already been here. If not for the many military vehicles driving around this private property like they owned the place, the Predator Octopus would have aroused suspicion among the workers.

If Kamijou’s group was discovered, it would mean a battle, but the amusement park employees were all around. Not to mention that the Anti-Skill officers were all teachers.

If that deep siren began to sound, it was all over.

Aradia rubbed her bare feet together while still occupying the gunner’s seat. That was how she used her magic. The look on her face said she was willing to take action at a moment’s notice.

Kamijou gulped, but Anna casually flashed the headlights. Drawing attention to themselves like that sent ice down Kamijou’s spine, but the other vehicles returned the greeting in kind.

And they continued on.

The siren remained silent.

Apparently their identity wasn’t apparent from the vehicle’s exterior.

Did that mean it was better to move around like they belonged than to sneak in the shadows like a ninja?

Kamijou took another look around and saw a lot of Anti-Skill beyond the fixed checkpoints. They were stopping their vehicles in the area and receiving large artillery shells from the gunless tanks.

“Those are specialized ammo supply vehicles, fool. I believe they reused the same frame.”

“I feel like it would be more efficient to do this in the city.”

Was the risk of accidents lower if they kept things simple?

Anti-Skill was also gathering carts loaded with the kind of metal trays seen at all-you-can-eat buffets. More than hold food, they appeared to also heat the food with a heating element, allowing for cooking. The adults were gathering around and receiving breakfast from a strange vehicle that Anna smugly explained was a field kitchen. Unlike the students at school, they formed an orderly line without any fighting. ''This martial law thing is just like being at war,'' thought Kamijou (one of their prime targets), which would have angered certain people had they heard it. Anti-Skill really did look more like soldiers than schoolteachers here.

After nonchalantly driving by, Anna bit her thumbnail in his lap.

“Don’t relax yet, fool. They will discover who we are eventually. A military vehicle not found on the central datalink’s timetable is wandering around and loaded with live ammunition, after all.”

And there was no real reason they had to get through this without being discovered.

The fuse had already been lit. They only had to reach District 15 before the explosion.

“?”

The Predator Octopus came to a slow stop.

Not even Kamijou had to ask why.

He lowered Anna from his lap and grabbed the ladder. He opened the hatch and poked his head out to view the 50m-wide obstacle blocking their way.

“A river.”

“Failing to find the right answer while looking right at it is unusual indeed, fool. That is technically a canal since it was intentionally dug by the amusement park.”

Anna’s voice pursued him through the hatch smaller than a manhole.

River or canal, the 20tn mobile combat vehicle could not float in water. Crossing would require using one of the bridges and bridges were crucial for transportation. There was of course more than one, but even from here he could tell Anti-Skill had checkpoints set up on all of them.

They had built barricades from steel beams and barbed wire and they were shining large construction site lights. They also had the firepower of tanks and armored vehicles at their disposal. Were those stacks of boxes full of ammunition?

Approaching any of those bridges would be a bad idea.

Kamijou looked down into the vehicle which had become an oddly warm and sweet girl zone.

“Could we drive right by them in this vehicle like we did before?”

“That may have looked simple to an ignorant fool, but that was a risky gamble. And at an official checkpoint, they will not even let their own people through without an ID check for the vehicle and its occupants. Try it there and we will be exposed and forced to fight. …Which will lead the Bridge Builders Cabal and Kingsford right to us.”

Anna was right. If they could drive right through, they wouldn’t have had such a hard time last night either.

“If they’re watching all the bridges…oh, I know. Could we create a floating bridge or something?”

“With some wooden boxes and ropes we find lying around? I do appreciate the attempt to think for yourself, but anything sturdy enough to allow a 20tn vehicle across would be extremely conspicuous, fool.”

Aradia seemed unusually happy given he was letting the cold air in through the open hatch.

“Ugh, I can’t resist any longer. Move aside so I can get some fresh air too.”

“Wait, Aradia, there’s no room!”

With two of them, the small hatch was cramped indeed. There was only one ladder to stand on, so it was a lot like having two people crammed onto the same side of a kotatsu. What was she, a kind but weirdly careless big sister?

They were practically in each other’s arms while Aradia took a deep breathe of the chilly air.

But…

“What are you looking at, Aradia?”

“The park workers. They do us a great service by giving witches a positive image of magic and dreams, so I need to make sure they’ll be alright.”

''But you don’t care about Anti-Skill?'' wondered Kamijou, but did that mean he was too distracted by their surroundings? When he thought about it, if a normal person came to the amusement park, they wouldn’t be here to see the armed enemy force.

“For me, people watching is more than just a hobby.”

“?”

Kamijou looked puzzled, so Aradia changed the subject to the main topic at hand.

“Couldn’t we abandon this vehicle, cross the river on our own, and steal a different military vehicle on the opposite bank? This 8-wheeled thing can be remotely controlled to an extent, can’t it? We can send it into one of those dangerous bridge checkpoints as a diversion.”

“That can be our last resort,” said Anna. “I want to avoid stealing another vehicle if possible to reduce the odds of them noticing I hacked the datalink. Both because it robs us of transportation and because I don’t want to give them even the slightest hint that our goal is data related – that is, accessing the magic database in District 15.”

Kamijou felt they should also spend some time addressing the fact that crossing the river without a bridge during the middle of winter meant jumping into water that was near freezing and giving off a white steam. And wasn’t this river more than 50m across? The Transcendents might be fine going for a celebratory New Year’s swim since they were walking around in what might as well have been swimsuits, but an ordinary high school boy like Kamijou would freeze and be swept away before he made it across.

Anna kicked the ladder with her small foot as a warning, so the other two ducked back down and shut the hatch.

Kamijou heard the rhythmic sound of a Six Wings helicopter passing by overhead.

“We need to think up a way to safely cross the river.”

“I already told you it’s a canal. Get it right or I’ll drag you around town with a nose hook, fool.”

The other two tilted their heads with “what’s a nose hook?” written on their faces and Anna cleared her throat for some reason.

The girl(?) had stepped on the gas a little too hard, so she stammered a bit before continuing.

“But Academy City aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Let’s just hope Mut Thebes and Kingsford are polite enough to wait for us to find a solution.”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Between the Lines 3===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter1

2023-05-17T15:39:17Z

JDMP: /* Part 8 */

==Chapter 1: I’m Sick of Running – Break_Through_MCV.==

===Part 1===

HsMCV-08 Predator Octopus

Class: Next Generation Mobile Combat Vehicle

Crew: 4 (but can be 0 while controlled remotely or used as a drone)

Measurements: 10m long, 2.8m wide, 3m tall (not counting antennae)

Weight: 20 tons (not counting ammunition, fuel, crew, and additional armor)

Max Speed: 250km/h

Max Climbable Slope: 60 degrees (varies based on slope conditions such as moisture or ice)

Engine: Diesel engine with electrical assistance

Drive Method: 4-wheel and 8-wheel drive modes. Front 4 and rear 4 wheels can be turned independently

Sensors: Anti-personnel, anti-air, and anti-vehicle multipurpose microwave radar, facial recognition and object search using optical imagery, IR detection, audio detection, and laser range finding. Also includes detection and countermeasures to locks of same types

C4I Communications: midrange ground radio, close and midrange IR laser, close range ultrasound, high-speed satellite communication. Combined, these methods provide a baselevel equivalent to a front line communications base.

Armaments: 120mm tank gun (can use various shells as well as launch anti-ground and anti-air drones), 40mm auto grenade launcher, 12.7mm heavy machinegun.

Defenses: multipurpose smoke emitter, anti-missile metal net launcher, auto attitude angling program to reduce damage when hit

“Huh, that’s a weird thing to see parked here. Stopping for lunch maybe?”

Hamazura Shiage, a delinquent boy wrapped in plenty of gauze and bandages, made that comment in front of a large discount store that was open for business so soon after New Year’s. But since this was District 12, the floor above it seemed to contain a shrine or church or something.

The dark gray 8-wheel vehicle designed for urban warfare wasn’t something you normally saw while walking around town, but fire trucks and ambulances would also stop by convenience stores for food when there was no emergency to respond to. You would sometimes see photos of it people had posted on social media.

Takitsubo Rikou tilted her head in her pink track suit.

“Probably part of the martial law they talked about on the emergency message sent to our phones. Remember when they beeped like they do before an earthquake?”

“Martial law. You can’t be serious. Surely it’s only training and they forgot to check the right box or something. Y’know, one of those false alarms where they don’t even give you any free gems to apologize. But now that you mention it, the convenience stores and supermarkets do all have their shutters down. I thought they were just closed for the holiday, but maybe not. This could be bad…”

“At least you’re out of the hospital. If you had been there any longer, they might have shut you inside in the name of protecting the sick and injured.”

Those two were only all the way in District 12 because they wanted to avoid the crowds at the few stores that were still open among all the closed shutters. But what if that wasn’t people after holiday sales and were actually buying up what they could before everything shut down?

Meanwhile, Takitsubo Rikou spoke to him with her usual blank look.

“We’ll be fine as long as the global search engine and that penguin logo discount store are still open for business. The Earth isn’t in danger yet.”

“I hope you’re right…”

With the deep rumble of diesel engines, a convoy of military vehicles drove past them. Another of the 8-wheel armored vehicles was in the lead, a trio of military trucks carrying materiel and ammo followed, and an anti-air tank with a radar and two humongous autocannons took up the rear. What were they planning to fight?

Takitsubo didn’t seem to mind as she removed one of the plastic baskets by the entrance and placed it in the cart.

“The others said they were sick of New Year’s food, didn’t they? So how about we have roast beef tonight?”

“I’m pretty sure Mugino and Kinuhata meant they don’t want any more fancy food, not just the Japanese kind. I bet they’d love it if we made curry udon.”

“Or a rice bowl? Okay, how about we make roast beef bowls as a compromise.”

“Wow, it’s the exact same ingredient, but it sounds way cheaper now!!”

===Part 2===

The aisles were cramped.

Kamijou was already feeling loopy from the theme song being played ad nauseam.

He held a shopping basket as he ventured into a modern dungeon packed full of every sort of product: food, cosmetics, toys, video games, camping goods, and even bicycles.

He stared at the boxes of masks stacked up by the entrance.

“Is the flu going around or something?”

Discount stores – especially the entrance area – could be used as a scientific form of divination. The in-season items they hoped to sell the most would be shoved to the front, reflecting the current trends.

Aradia picked up a box of over-the-counter cold medicine from a stacked pyramid of them.

“These colorful capsules are supposed to be medicine? Really, Academy City’s love of strange chemicals knows no end. These kinds of problems are for your local villagers and witches, not some scientist up in his ivory tower.”

“Hold on, Aradia. You aren’t seriously saying all-natural medicines made from tree roots or whatever have no side effects and you can’t overdose on them, are you? Ugh, that stuff is so gross.”

“You don’t have to look away when you say that. And come to think of it, didn’t that little god say you bought that sturdy foreign duct tape at a discount store? Hee hee hee. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not bringing that up for any particular reason. I’m only stating a fact, so I’m not going to hurt you or anything.”

Was he imagining it or was there a burning fire behind her dark expression?

It was just like a discount store to lazily be pushing ordinary cold medicine when it was the flu going around. And some of the masks in the clearance section were for sports and may not have done much at all to prevent the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, little wicked woman Anna was focused on something else entirely.

The bare-skin girl(?) who probably never caught a cold or the flu spoke up.

“All the alcoholic drinks have been moved to the back and locked up. Is that because of the martial law?”

That wasn’t something a high school boy like Kamijou paid much attention to.

Would people cause trouble because they were drinking or because they had been denied their drinks?

“This is awfully ironic.”

“What is?” Aradia tilted her head.

It was January 3 and Board Chairman Accelerator had apparently declared martial law across Academy City. Or so they were saying on the show displayed on all of the TVs advertised at their holiday sale prices. The given reason was to bring a swift end to a battle that had broken out at a foreign consulate, but Kamijou knew it was so they could hunt down his group (or Anna really).

“Fool. This shop is still open with martial law declared. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“The time will come when we can’t buy food and water?” asked Kamijou in shock.

Little Anna grinned.

“We’re on the run, remember? It’s too late to search out supplies once we need them. Our 8-wheel vehicle has plenty of horsepower, so it couldn’t hurt to stock up. Unless you want to risk your life for a cup of water later on, I recommend buying thrice the supplies you would consider the bare minimum. So for now, two or three days’ worth?”

Thanks to the martial law, no one would question the tanks and armored trucks driving down the streets or the unmanned attack helicopters and self-destruct attack drones flying through the sky.

“Damn. Does that bastard have to be taking his board chairman job so seriously?”

“He’s assumed the mantle well – including the part where he makes stupid decisions,” said Anna. “Hee hee. Anyone who sits in the executive seat seems to end up thinking the same way.”

Yes, this also meant that no one paid any real attention to the Predator Octopus that Kamijou’s group was driving around. No one reported it or tried to stop them.

It didn’t matter how much firepower someone had if they couldn’t locate their target. What could you call that but ironic?

Ideally, they would make their way to District 15 right away.

If Academy City learned of the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plans and that Anna was in the unique position to stop it, they might decide they needed her.

(Sigh. Down blankets and microwaves. They really sell everything here. Can’t I just live here? Are pets and other living animals the only thing they don’t have?)

Kamijou amused himself by checking out some colorful clothing cases that probably weren’t as useful as they looked. Maybe he just needed something to distract him from the fact that they were on the run.

But while the pointy haired boy entered old man mode, something concerning was underway behind him.

“Anna, you look much too conspicuous for someone on the run. Shouldn’t you wear actual clothing instead of holding that cloth up to your chest? Your butt could use covering.”

“You’re one to talk when it comes to clothing, bare navel bikini witch. And is it scored for easy tearing? Hoping someone will rip it off of you?”

Kamijou’s smile remained but a tear trickled from the corner of his eye.

Before they even addressing how much skin their clothing covered, he really wished they would note the fact that both of them were walking around barefoot in the frigid January weather. Thanks to the diagonal slash Aradia had received from a certain butler, her already revealing bikini had been hastily repaired with thread and needle. That looked 100 times more precarious than an ordinary bikini knot.

He was doing his best to pretend he didn’t know them, but he too was making a pretty wild fashion statement with his coat’s missing right sleeve. You could call it Kanzaki style.

But he couldn’t run away from reality.

So he turned around.

“Are you sure we don’t need a cart?”

“Stick to the one basket, fool. If you don’t set an upper limit for yourself, you’ll start shoving everything you see into the cart. Like this stamp-sized mobile router. It looks interesting, but how would we even use it?”

Small Anna was right.

Discount stores were experts at using the low prices to fuel impulse buying, so it was best to assume an amateur like him couldn’t fight it. The store had experts in psychology and economics on their side, so the vague feelings of an individual could never win.

“What about you, Aradia? Kamijou-san is a little overwhelmed by the wide variety of stuff they have here.”

“There’s a lot I want, but food should probably be our priority. …What is this long, angular bar? Ew, what kind of meat even is it?”

“It’s just chicken!! They gather up all the small pieces left on the bone and press it together for an economical food! Why does it scare you so much, Aradia!?”

The nature-loving forest witch goddess kept her distance from the block of meat that couldn’t look more processed if it tried.

“We want a quick source of nutrition, so…how about bananas? But raw ones don’t keep for long, so the chips might be best. Honey, nuts, and dried fruit sound like good options too.”

Was there any hidden meaning in that or not? She was probably focused on foods that would keep, but that lineup sounded like it would make you thirsty. And were banana chips really that nutritious? Kamijou had always thought they were junk food.

(Do they sell minifridges here? They do have microwaves.)

Kamijou took a bunch of stuff from the shelves and stuck it in the basket. With three of them, the basket was getting pretty full after a few minutes. Especially when cooking wouldn’t be an option. Also, not being poor was a wonderful thing. Running around Shibuya while being killed repeatedly by Aradia had been worth it. He did wish she would apologize at least once, though.

“What about water? Should we buy some?”

“There was a 50 liter tank in the vehicle. And try to picture our entire daily routine. We’ll need water for washing our faces and bathing.”

“Ugh, then will we have to buy toothbrushes too? Oh, god. I have all this stuff back at my dorm, so this is all wasted money! This is worse than accidentally buying a manga volume you already own. Can’t we stop by my dorm real quick? I know all this stuff is already there!”

“You know we can’t, fool. They will absolutely be watching it. Do you want to die?”

This was all Anna’s fault, so why was she being so condescending about it?

Kamijou wasn’t about to give up yet, so he looked elsewhere while trembling.

“Oh, they’re selling fukubukuro.”

“What are those? Giant fortune cookies?”

“Fool and country witch, don’t even think about it because no one bag will have everything you want. Remember, these are an assortment of unsold products at an already super-cheap discount store. Besides, Mr. Misfortune here has a solid 0% chance of choosing a good one.”

Aradia gently placed an arm around the shoulders of the boy who thought he was going to cry if this kept up.

Anyway, he never imagined he would be carrying a shopping basket and checking out the fresh foods and daily necessities sections while chatting with a witch goddess. Since she had quite literally killed him in Shibuya on December 31, it really did prove how strange life could be.

Aradia herself picked up some body soap and skeptically read the back of the bottle.

“It’s not just the food – everything in Academy City is creepy. What is this collection of chemicals? How do you even use it?”

Kamijou wondered how you could even make soap without chemically processing oil in some way.

“It’s quick-drying body soap,” he explained. “You rub it into your skin, wait a bit for it to bring up all the filth, and then peel it off. It’s popular with poor students who can’t even afford to fill their tub with water.”

“We also need new clothes for you. Who tore off your right sleeve anyway?”

“You and Anna need new clothes more than I do. Why are you both showing off so much skin for free? At this point, it should definitely be behind the paywall. And were you unaware that January is midwinter in the Northern Hemis- ow!? Stop kicking me, Anna!”

And so they also checked out a section across the store from the food.

They wanted a new coat for Kamijou, but there were plenty of other useful items like an electric heater and a collapsible bed. But if they started buying everything, the contents of his wallet would quickly run out, so Kamijou had to fight the urge.

Then he felt a tug on his sleeve.

He looked down to see Anna Sprengel holding something. It appeared to be a video game box. Her small size made it look like a little sister begging her big brother for a game, but then he saw the title: Jiggly☆Witch Trial.

“(Hey, hey. This says it’s a touchscreen game where you capture witches hidden around the city and reveal their identity using some lewd interrogation techniques. Is this part of the retro game rerelease boom? It’s been marked down a lot, so it’s a great price. Let’s buy it, fool. Hee hee. Japan really is a crazy country.)”

“(Do you wicked women have a sixth sense for stuff like this!? No, we aren’t buying that! Aradia would explode! And in a way that left my bones and organs visible! This isn’t the time for jiggly stuff!!)

“(Read between the lines, fool. That’s what I want to happen. Specifically, I want to see her kick you in the balls so hard it lifts you 2cm from the ground. Oh, now look what you made me say. How embarrassing.)”

“You trying to be tsundere works so poorly it’s triggering a bunch of unheard-of errors in my brain.”

Maybe discount stores had a little too much variety.

A short distance from Kamijou and Anna’s whispered conversation, Aradia (who was back in full Transcendent mode with her feet freed from the duct tape) was viewing a different product on the wall. She would likely grab Kamijou’s hair and rip his head from his body like a vegetable from the ground if she found out what he and Anna were discussing, so what had her so preoccupied?

(A picture book?)

“The Little Mermaid… Oh, what a tragic story. The sea witch gave the sheltered mermaid exactly what she wanted and even rooted for her, but everyone treats her like some kind of troublemaker!!”

“Are you sure that’s the tragedy of the story!? Are you sure it isn’t the princess who turns to foam!?”

After calming down the witch goddess who was trembling with her hands over her mouth, they continued shopping. At Aradia’s request, they put a few rolls of fabric in the basket. What was she going to use them for?

Even after their shopping was complete, they couldn’t let their guard down. The checkout area was loaded with traps.

“I want a roasted potato.”

“Do you go for any kind of natural food, Aradia?”

Kamijou Touma’s poor life was over. He had the results of his year-end job. So he carried the shopping basket up to the college girl cashier without hesitation. However…

“Oh?”

Anna’s small foot kicked him in the shin.

He really hoped she didn’t make a habit of it because that little girl’s foot hurt like hell.

“No using your phone, fool. Pay with cash. Why is it even still powered on? Do you want to die?”

“?”

“Anything you do with your phone is recorded. Not counting my special model where I fully swapped out the chips inside.”

He didn’t understand any of that, but he decided it was worth listening to the little wicked woman since she had run a global IT company. He paid in cash as told and left with the products in shopping bags. The two enormous yellow bags were both crammed full. Was this what it felt like to be rich? There was a parking meter on the curb, but the vehicle parked there was a mobile combat vehicle that looked like a tank gun sitting atop an 8-wheel chassis.

Anna pointed elsewhere while holding her dress against her flat chest.

A very temporary-looking 10m metal tower rose up from a small park there.

“That’s a phone interception antenna tower. It can see any data moving to and from your phone.”

“Are you serious?”

“Martial law, remember? Your right to privacy goes right out the window.”

Kamijou panicked when a helicopter loudly passed by overhead, but it didn’t seem to have found them. Because they didn’t hear any sirens or phone alerts in the area. Several transport helicopters flew elsewhere while using thick cables to carry barricades made by arranging thick steel beams in an asterisk shape.

(Come to think of it, who makes Academy City’s defense weapons? I get the feeling they don’t contract out to an ordinary company, but does that actually make a profit?)

“Fool. Everything from the production to the deployment of Academy City’s weapons is done in the name of technological research. The funding is 100% tax based, which means their budget is effectively endless. And they also create downgraded versions they force onto the cooperative institutes around the world, so they never go in the red no matter how many they produce. Just by saying the weapons have been field tested in Academy City to ensure safety, they can take Anti-Skill’s old, worn-out weapons, remove the components they want to keep secret, and force those cooperative institutes to buy them for 3 times what they’re worth. Quite the economical display of recycling, don’t you think? Even more underhanded than calling yourself a religious corporation to avoid paying taxes.”

Could Anna rattle off all of that unpleasant trivia because she spent so much time online?

A blimp with a large screen drifted through the January sky. Even that scared Kamijou now. What if it started dropping bombs? After seeing all those tanks and armored trucks driving around, he had lost sight of what was possible or not.

The ecological city of spinning three-blade wind turbines felt like a stage backdrop now.

(And you could even say that we’re the ones who caused this.)

The one saving grace was that he was still confident he had done the right thing.

They put a coin in the parking meter and reentered the vehicle. That was a rare experience for a high schooler.

Aradia tore apart her own clothing.

She used the fabric she had bought to sew back up the part that had been temporarily fixed. She was quite handy.

“Silk dyed with hyssop and rosemary flowers… Why did they only sell mesh fabrics?”

“Those are probably ventilation fan covers designed to keep bugs out. Ones made without chemicals.”

Kamijou put on his new jacket.

“So what did you two buy?”

Aradia dug through the yellow bags and then grimaced.

She had the look of a mother disappointed in what her child had spent his allowance on.

“A jelly drink, a nutrient block, and cup noodles? Oh, no. You were aware the point was to buy enough food to get by because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to shop, right?”

Kamijou had tried to choose things that were easy to eat and would keep, but the nature-loving, banana-obsessed woman did not approve. She viewed the contents of the yellow bags (advertised as made from plant materials) like they contained the mystery food from a dystopian SF movie.

“My selection is a lot healthier,” said Aradia.

“Ew, insect snacks!?” said Kamijou. “I’ve seen those for sale before, but I thought they were for people who lost a bet or for people to buy as a joke!”

“They’re a next-generation protein source. With this salted caramel flavor, it’s a lot like munching on popcorn.”

“…”

Kamijou had thought edible insects would be on the way out now that high-quality tofu meat was available, but it didn’t sound like Aradia had bought them just to freak him out. She made sure to remove her food from the bags to keep it separate.

He was worried about the dietary habits of this goddess who lived in the sacred forests of Europe. If she could reliably capture insects, he felt like she could use those as bait to catch fish.

“What’s that look for? Sigh, your Eastern culture weeps. This country has a wonderful culinary tradition of cooking insects like grasshoppers and hornet larvae. Your people stand at the forefront of the world there, so it would be a shame to let the tradition die.”

It was hard to tell if this goddess was extremely old-fashioned or cutting edge. And Aradia appeared to be the kind of person who relied on snacks and chips for nutrition when she was short on time. Like the messy young woman who ate snacks all day because she didn’t know how to cook.

“This stupid banana woman and her lewd outfit.”

“What was that you let slip just now?”

“Wait, no! I apologize, so please explain to me what you plan to do with that clenched fist, Transcendent! Good, Old Mary isn’t here now, so that’s t-t-terrifying!!”

Anyway.

She circled behind him and gave him a (gentle) two-handed noogie.

“Nweee? But, Anna, this 8-wheel vehicle really is conspicuous. There are people snapping photos with their phones.”

“Foolish fool. This thing weighs more than 20 tons, which is twice the weight of a dump truck. If we tried to hide it inside a turntable parking garage, it would break the elevator.”

Meanwhile, Anna didn’t seem to have an issue with chemicals. She even licked her lips as she grabbed a muscat flavor jelly drink. The weirdly alluring mannerisms on the young-looking body caused Kamijou’s brain to glitch a little.

He looked away, but that had him looking at Aradia who had ended the noogie, sat in the gunner’s seat, flipped her clasped hands around, and stretched them forward while her back trembled.

“Uhhh… I really am feeling weak. Is that cause I haven’t been getting much exercise?”

“Or maybe it’s just awkward being in such a cramped space?”

She gave Kamijou quite the depressing glare for that comment.

“No, I think it has more to do with being left wrapped up in duct tape for days on end. I’m just glad I don’t have any bedsores.”

What could he do but apologize?

An amplified voice outside made it through the thick armor.

It had to be absolutely deafening outside.

“Indefinite martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Please avoid heading out and remain in your dorm or home.”

The announcement was probably coming from the blimp’s screen and it repeated.

“Water, food, and other necessities will be supplied to you if you contact your dorm manager. Please remain calm and stay where you are.”

“They’re kidding, right? What dorm manager? I’ve never even seen an adult at my dorm. Being locked in the same building as a pretty young dorm manager in an apron sounds like heaven to me.”

“What makes you so sure the manager would be a young woman?”

What could he do but clear his throat and look away from Aradia?

Just like with the school doctor, it was about having dreams. But he got the feeling she would punch him square in the face if he said that out loud.

Aradia must have picked up on his adolescent fantasies because she frowned cautiously before speaking.

“Do they really expect a bunch of teenagers to stay indoors just because they say it’s dangerous outside? And who knows how long they can get away with it, but that discount store was open.”

Small Anna had her legs elegantly crossed up in the command seat while she messed with a monitor that could apparently pick up civilian frequencies in addition to the military ones. That meant it got TV and radio. The New Year’s holiday was winding down, so everything was returning to normal while the TV stations were still doing live variety shows. The set was still flooded with New Year’s props, but the entertainers were dressed normally now.

“Martial law might sound scary, but there is nothing to worry about. People were already staying home more due to the Kotatsu Syndrome, so will this even have that much of an effect?”

“Plus, it’s the holiday. Everyone’s exhausted from working so hard, so this is the perfect chance to relax at home☆”

“Also, the hospitals across the city have been asked to prepare for soldiers arriving as emergency patients. They have to reserve 40% of their beds for that, so everyone else is asked to refrain from visiting the hospital except in true emergencies. Your careless action could be a nuisance for our civil servants.”

Kamijou frowned.

Don’t go outside. Stay home. Don’t use the ordinary services. Being asked all that during winter break seemed like it would cause a lot of stress, but everyone on TV was reacting positively to the violation of people’s freedom. Or maybe it was more accurate to say any opposing views had been removed in advance.

“Fool, this is martial law.”

Anna Sprengel wagged her finger and gave a response he wasn’t sure really counted as an answer. He wasn’t sure what she had used since there was no remote, but she called up a TV guide.

Even Kamijou noticed something then. There should have been a few movies playing during the holiday, but all of the war and disaster movies had vanished from the schedule and were replaced by unusually long shopping shows.

And those ads were unusually cheerful.

“Have we got a New Year’s campaign for you! Every single roll is guaranteed an SSR or better and you earn 10 times – that’s right 10 times – the usual rate of magic gems, so make sure to pour all that XP into your favorite character. This is our New Year’s gift to you here at Samurai Street!!”

“That’s probably part of the plan to keep everyone inside,” said Anna. “Note that the event is nothing more than manipulating numbers.”

“?”

“The idea is to keep everyone glued to their tiny screens so they aren’t interested in going outside, fool. Instead of taking away the option, they give them a more attractive option. It’s a common tactic rulers use against people like you. And major campaigns from every company at once won’t raise any eyebrows during the holiday.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but he felt a chill when he saw the nasty grin on the face of that wicked woman who had created a global IT company and manipulated 7 billion people.

(The new board chairman must have put a lot of thought into this.)

Aradia didn’t seem too interested in the ordinary media because she started rummaging through the yellow discount store bags.

“We bought a lot, but did we think to buy a mirror?”

“Why not use the fool’s phone? The black screen works just like a mirror.”

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Kamijou watched as the witch goddess looked into the mirror(?), placed her hands on her face, and began stretching her cheeks. Was that…a massage? This new discovery about a girl’s daily life was kind of surreal.

(Wait. That green light on the side of the screen doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it?)

“Is this recording? Why would you record someone in such an unguarded moment, you pervert!?”

It finally hit home to Kamijou (while receiving a much less gentle noogie this time) that he was living with girls here.

He got the feeling that sharing a single living space like this was going to cause many more problems.

“Anyway, fool, let’s review our situation.”

“Okay. We bought what you said we needed, so what now?”

Kamijou was released by the sexy and intellectual young woman, so he reached for the chocolate-flavored nutrient block he had bought.

It seemed the closest to a snack to him.

“We’re being directly pursued by three forces right now: Academy City, Aleister, and the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

If any of those three captured Anna Sprengel, or Kamijou and Aradia who were assisting her, they would be in serious trouble. For Anna in particular, there was a growing trend toward killing her instead of capturing her.

Given what Anna had done, Kamijou didn’t want to just let her go free either.

But that did not mean he was willing to let her die.

Would that ending really satisfy St. Germain, Helcalia, and Melzabeth?

“For now, we need to focus our attention on the Bridge Builders Cabal,” said Anna. “To do that, I would like to move from here in District 12 to District 15 where my magic database is hidden.”

“District 12 is on the easternmost end of the city and District 15 is to the west. We can’t pass through District 23 since it’s full of airfields and thus off limits. The shortest route would be to travel through Districts 6, 5, and 7.”

“But this is all in the same city, right? We aren’t talking about inland Australia where you have to travel dozens of kilometers of near-desert to find the next house. The trip shouldn’t take even an hour in the vehicle.”

Aradia had a point, but a convoy of tanks passed by just then, throwing an unhealthy-looking cloud of asphalt dust into the air. Funnily enough, the Predator Octopus had a sideview mirrors, turn signals, brake lights, and a license plate. Which meant they had to obey the traffic laws while on the public roads. If they floored it and drove at top speed, the unusual behavior would quickly rouse suspicion.

Furthermore…

“The city isn’t as stupid as you are, so they will have set up checkpoints. Still, we should be safer in this billion-yen tin can than if we were walking outside where everyone could see who we are. It just means traveling very, very slowly,” explained Anna, slurping up her pack of jelly drink. Adding in some toxic laughter seemed to be second nature to her at this point. “Like I said before, the vehicle itself weights 20 tons. While that is better than a tank which could mean 40 or even 70 tons, I wouldn’t want to cross an old, rundown bridge in it and it’s too large to sneak through narrow back alleys. With any smaller or older roads, one of us will need to get out and make sure the MCV can get through before we make our move, so keep that in mind. That might sound simple enough to you, but large trucks usually need to submit a route in advance to make sure they don’t damage the pavement.”

“Then what is even the point of hiding in this cramped tin can that costs more than 8 times as much as an Italian sportscar?” asked Aradia. “Emerging to check the way ahead sounds risky to me.”

“I’m saying even that is better than being constantly exposed in this surveillance society chock full of everything from security cameras to drones and even satellites, foolish witch.”

Kamijou sensed an argument brewing, so he quickly intervened.

“A-anyway, you two! We’re all in this together, so arguing inside this cramped vehicle would only-”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………I do despise people who interrupt me without even attempting to grasp the situation first,” said Anna.

“Eh? Huh?”

“Shut up! Whose side are you on? Eat bugs!”

“Mgahhhhhh!!?”

In a complete surprise attack, Aradia shoved a generous handful of insect snacks into his mouth. His spine straightened with a start. This was likely the dried caterpillars, not the type with 6 legs. …But the worst part was how the salt and caramel transformed them into a nice sweet and salty snack. They reminded him a lot of a certain super popular caramel-flavor round snack, so he found them unexpectedly good. His brain was confused about what exactly he was even eating here, so he honestly found it hard to comment on.

“I-I’m not even sure how to categorize this as a memory. …But anyway, if we’re going to do something, shouldn’t we do it right away? I don’t know how these things are done, so could you tell us, Anna?”

“Bow to me before asking anything of me, fool. But you are right. We can start by circumventing the checkpoint they are running up there. That should make for a decent tutorial. You need to take measurements to see if the road can withstand 20 tons. Do that using this handheld ultrasonic sonar kit by-”

After he heard that much, Anna Sprengel’s voice grew unnaturally distorted.

Gravity vanished.

“?”

Without any warning, Kamijou Touma collapsed.

===Part 3===

Kamijou couldn’t see anything.

He also felt off balance, like he was floating in warm water.

He heard voices from somewhere.

“When…think about it…isn’t surprising.”

“I told…letting him rest…our top priority.”

Where was he?

That thought led Kamijou to realize what had happened. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He was in the same place as before. That is, inside the Predator Octopus.

He could hear voices.

Two voices speaking to each other.

“Most likely…Old Mary’s resurrection…but it isn’t perfect.”

“That spell rewinds…to the exact…of death, doesn’t it?”

“And it doesn’t…the lost blood. He probably…due to anemia. Oh, no. And…from the extreme exhaustion and tension…played a role too.”

“Then the best…give him something nutritious to eat. That way…create his own blood.”

(Aradia? Anna?)

Two names floated to the surface of Kamijou’s mind and he slowly opened his eyes.

Only then did he realize his eyes had been closed.

“That aside, was there any need to return your body to that size?”

“I want to see how it’s doing whenever I have the chance. Besides, this is my proper form – I just can’t maintain it for very long.”

Their voices were growing clearer, but probably because he was recovering, not because anything about the voices had changed.

And.

For some reason, he was sharing this enclosed space with two naked women.

Both of whom were using wet towels to wipe down their bodies.

They were probably using that thing.

That is, the Academy City quick-drying body soap that was like a combination of soap and hand disinfectant. First you rubbed it on your body, then you waited while it brought your body’s filth to the surface, and finally you wiped it off, leaving your body squeaky clean. But when you saw someone covered in the dried red cream and wiping it away with a towel, it felt a lot like coming across a naked person washing off their flashy body paint.

He wasn’t confident either of them actually wore underwear and their ordinary outfits showed off a lot of skin, but it was still something else entirely to see them fully nude. And when they were squishing their skin down with the towels, the visual information taught him exactly what the word “supple” meant. He was certain he would never ever forget that word on a vocabulary test.

He also understood it was an emergency and having him lie on the cold floor had been the only option.

But the low angle view that gave him was no laughing matter.

Also, Kamijou Touma very much wanted to say that they should not use him passing out as a “convenient” opportunity to engage in some girl-only activities! Really, wasn’t this their just deserts for doing that!?

He wanted to say those things, but his mouth was petrified.

But not because he was admiring how big and busty Anna Sprengel was now. Certainly not.

“I am more than ready for an easy life. All I want is a powerful king who can keep me in line.”

He had no idea why the bewitching woman version of Anna Sprengel was saying this all of a sudden.

In what she called her “proper form”, she grinned down at him.

“But I have no use for a horny king, fool.”

She stepped on the bastard’s face.

===Part 4===

Evening had begun.

They had left District 12 and arrived in the adjacent District 23.

Thanks to the martial law, the ordinary roads were blockaded and the district was being used as a cargo and air force base. So if any ordinary people were to climb the fence, they would be shot without even a warning, but these three didn’t care at all.

Aleister, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

They walked along the fence, passing right in front of the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers guarding the perimeter of the district. No human and no mechanical cameras or sensors could detect the intruders.

“What are we doing here?” Kihara Noukan sounded deeply exasperated. “I get the feeling you are involving me in your magic nonsense without bothering to explain any of it.”

The general public was aware of magic’s existence thanks to R&C Occultics, but that website had already been shut down. The city’s Anti-Skill didn’t know enough about magic to use it without the assistance of the site or the app.

''Except…

“Hee hee. This is ❌ anything difficult. 🪄 has always been hidden from the 🌍 at large.”

That was all the glasses woman had to say on the matter.

At her level of expertise, ordinary anti-recognition spells and people clearing fields could reach this level.

She had developed each of the fundamentals far enough to assassinate a superpower’s president with it.

And they were just as effective against ''mere'' expert magicians.

“That isn’t enough for me to relax,” said the blonde woman in a beige habit – or rather, Aleister who was borrowing her body. “Because this means someone else could do it too. Like the Transcendents and Anna Sprengel. We can’t get the upper hand unless we can outdo someone on their level.”

“Yes, yes.”

Kingsford only smiled gently in response to his low, unsteady voice.

A lot like a mother viewing her disobedient teenage son.

There was a decent crowd on the other side of the fence, but they didn’t appear to mean any real harm. A group of Anti-Skill with a tough-looking Doberman were clearly annoyed by the obsessive young men trying to volunteer. Anti-Skill were all teachers, so joining without a teaching license was apparently out of the question.

These young men saw it more like a survival game or like online play in an FPS, so they just wanted to hold real guns and ride a real tank. One of the Anti-Skill officers grabbed a device supported by a metal stand and redirected its aim toward the young men, who scowled and looked a lot less enthusiastic all of a sudden.

Aleister glanced that way.

“Is that low-frequency demoralization audio?”

Anti-Skill was playing an irritating sound too quiet to consciously hear so those young men would decide to leave. The city made it all sound so nice on TV and online, but this was the truth of the matter across the entire city. An invisible labyrinth had been constructed. Not that Aleister was one to talk as the person who had built the city in the first place.

At any rate.

Aleister’s group had no use for an airplane. They were here for the Science Tower. The rest of the district was airfield after airfield, making it very flat, so that 400m tower with an observation deck was highly conspicuous. In addition to broadcast purposes, it was currently being used for 49 different high altitude experiments, including laser lightning induction which could hit a desired location with a lightning bolt and research into what affect the large structure had on the human mind.

The observation deck at 350m also contained a restaurant and a hotel.

After they checked in under a false name at the automated front desk, Anna Kingsford took a look around the hotel rooms that were designed to look like the interior of an airplane.

“My, my. So many vacancies. And during the break.”

“People are restricted from leaving home,” softly replied Aleister. “And the observation deck isn’t in much demand after the New Year’s sunrise anyway.”

“Hee hee.”

Kingsford whispered while walking over to their room’s window.

It was the perfect place for ''a pursuer to hide out in.

“Now, then. Where have those lost 🐇 gone ⬇️ there?♪ A wide-area scan should 👁️ them soon enough.”

“You certainly lost track of them quick given how confident you sounded heading out,” said the exasperated golden retriever.

“I will admit that Secret Chief was something of a surprise. And that wasn’t an issue of 💪. I just didn’t expect her to use him for direct ⚔️. How sloppy. A lot like grabbing a thick 📗 full of knowledge and throwing it at my head.”

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Anna Sprengel wouldn’t think that same method would work again either. If it would, she would have used her trump card as soon as they turned her into a human film canister. That she had held back so long was a sign of her fear.

But she had used up her trump card now, which worked out in their favor.

Kingsford knew how to control herself. She wouldn’t let her own anxiety and hatred get the better of her here.

“Now, you need to decide on a 🔮 target. Are we after Anna Sprengel? Or Mut Thebes?”

Anna Kingsford remained flexible.

“''Or Kamijou Touma''?”

A dull thud echoed out.

In a very un-magician-like move, Aleister had slammed his fist against a nearby wall.

He had seen what Anna Sprengel was like during the battle against Great Demon Coronzon back in the UK.

Yes, Aiwass had been taken from him and he had died.

Anna had escaped even after being turned into a human film canister with no arms, legs, or torso. That meant the only option left was to kill her.

So.

That human’s answer carried resentment itself in his voice.

“Give us the location of the one we must defeat.”

“Then that is what I will do☆”

===Part 5===

“Why is Anna being so nice all of a sudden? Wh-why would that wicked woman hand me a blanket? Wait, hold on. She hasn’t fallen in love with me, has-”

“Do I need to bite your dick off, fool?”

Kamijou shrank down a size smaller. No, two sizes at least.

Her personality and appearance were just too different!! She had been in adult woman mode not long ago, but she apparently couldn’t stay in that form for long. So that line had come from what looked like a mini-size girl. The way she tilted her head and asked it in an innocently gentle way only made it more terrifying.

Anna put on a thoroughly exasperated look and handed him a jelly drink that apparently contained a lot of iron.

“I can’t have you making a habit of collapsing when we are trying to stay off the grid. Haven’t you heard that cavities and appendicitis are deadly for fugitives? You seem to be short on blood, so drink this and command your body’s factory to start producing more.”

“Let me guess, Aradia. You’re only giving me that fruit-flavored nutrient block because you tried one and realized you don’t like it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

At any rate.

He had gotten quite an eyeful earlier and the vehicle was filled with the heat and sweet scent of girls, so he felt unnecessarily nervous. He was beginning to think living together in this armored vehicle (or whatever it was called) wasn’t going to work. He now had two big sisters(?) with only a single living space between them all! He might have a cat, a nun, and a god living in his no-pets-allowed boys dorm, but even there he made sure to sleep in a separate room!

The witch goddess stared at him

“Are you still hung up on that, you pervert?”

“You don’t know how to handle adolescents, do you, banana woman? Your sulking insult caused it all to rush back into my mind. The image is in there this very instant, in fact.”

Aradia blushed a bit and wordlessly kicked his chair.

Why didn’t she understand that being attacked by an older woman like that made his heart pound in something like the suspension bridge effect!?

“Then do you want to sit in the driver’s seat, fool?”

Kamijou was doing his best to focus entirely on his jelly drink when little Anna gave him a thoroughly scornful look.

“The vehicle can be operated from any one of the console monitors, so there’s no real need for a vehicle commander or a gunner anymore. But there is still a diver’s seat in case there are technical issues with the electronics. It’s located right up in the front instead of below the gun.”

“You can’t make me drive! I don’t even know how to drive a car or a moped!”

“I just got through saying my console monitor can handle that. A fool like you only needs to sit in the seat. Being all alone in that cramped space probably won’t be fun, but you could move in there whenever you need to take a break in your own private world.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“(Of course, the Predator Octopus’s driver’s seat isn’t really necessary, so I bet it was redesigned to stop projectiles from reaching the rest of the vehicle. A separate space at the front of the vehicle would be perfect to sacrifice so it can stop any Munroe effect blasts or metal jets. Hee hee.)”

“You need to give all the detailed warnings so I can hear them, Anna-san! You can’t just whisper them real fast at the end like a consumer credit ad!!”

Meanwhile, it could be easy to forget in the sweet girls’ room that the military vehicle had become, but they had work to do.

“Okay.”

Kamijou Touma opened the overhead hatch and climbed out of the Predator Octopus. It was already dark out. Sunset came early in the winter, but his fight with Alice had been in the morning. He must have been passed out for quite a while.

He could see his breaths.

He felt refreshed like he had just washed his face.

The January 3 night air carried the biting chill of midwinter.

He was surrounded by true darkness. The fact that the city was under martial law was much more obvious at night. He could hardly believe the city had been lit up with Christmas and New Year’s decorations so recently.

The spiky-haired boy finally climbed down to the ground.

“A 20ton mobile combat vehicle can only travel on certain roads.”

So someone had to walk out ahead and check on the road to ensure they weren’t going to break through an aged overpass or something. And they of course also had to avoid the checkpoints set up around the city.

There weren’t any checkpoints here – because Anna had found a poorly guarded spot – but he got the impression there were more cleaning robots, security robots, and fixed surveillance cameras than normal. While inside the vehicle, he had spotted several of them staring their way from where they had been attached to makeshift metal poles. Those were meant to track down Kamijou’s group, so he had to be careful.

“Now, then.”

The tool Anna had given him looked like a 50cm stick.

He had expected a disturbing superweapon when she called it an ultrasonic sonar kit, but it was more like the glowing red staffs used for guiding traffic but with a small monitor attached near the bottom. The entire side apparently functioned as a scanner, so he was supposed to pass it close over the road surface.

(Hm. Do I really have to stoop over the entire time I use this? It would be so much easier if it had a long handle like a mop.)

“I don’t have to scan every centimeter. We only need to know the general condition of the pavement, so I only need to get a few samples for every square meter, right?”

Kamijou muttered his instructions to himself while teasing the switch with his thumb.

Like an AED, it was best to simply follow the machine’s instructions.

He noticed the cold shutters lowered at a shop selling strange, toxic-looking donuts. The posted notice suggested it was closed for good, not just for today. Even when a trend looked like it would last forever, you never knew when it was going to end.

(Still…)

He saw some faint light in the distance.

The martial law had its advantages.

Most every business had closed up and lowered its metal shutters, so the light at the checkpoints was hard to miss. That considerably reduced the risk of running into one on accident. Even at this distance, he could make out the military vehicles blocking the street and a bunch of outdoor lights like you would find at a construction site.

(What are they doing? They aren’t just stopping that truck passing through – they’re opening up each and every one of the packages its delivering.)

The driver stood outside the truck, scratching his chin uncertainly.

So much for privacy. If they were checking through any vehicle at that level, then one of Anti-Skill’s own 8-wheel mobile combat vehicles would be at risk too. Staying away from the checkpoints looked like the best plan.

The checkpoints were located at large intersections, tunnels, or other areas where multiple routes converged.

But there were bright spots at other points as well. It scared him that he couldn’t determine the pattern.

“What’s this, fool? Too stupid to figure it out on your own?”

Little Anna poked her head out from the hatch, holding some smart glasses that looked a lot like sports sunglasses. It apparently gave her control without being in the commander’s seat. Using her gaze and voice had to feel a lot different from using her fingers on the large monitor and it probably didn’t give as much control, but she had said something about it being a lot like remotely operating a ground-based drone.

She gave her usual toxic laughter, but she also gave him the answer.

“I will only explain this once. That light is likely a carwash or a taxi maintenance shop.”

“?”

“Or it could be a shipping company or rental car lot. Fool, they are using a preexisting industrial garage to maintain their tanks and armored vehicles.”

Academy City’s Anti-Skill probably weren’t bad people, but letting them find Anna now would only complicate matters. He was afraid they would shoot without even trying to talk it out and things would get even worse if Mut Thebes or Aleister’s group showed up to join the fray.

Those schoolteachers could find themselves in the middle of a deadly battle between magic users so powerful their presence had been kept a secret even on the magic side.

Kamijou took a look through a pair of binoculars he had found in the vehicle.

(Tch. I know the Sisters were helping bolster security during the holiday, but I don’t see any around here. Nothing but grownups. I should probably assume they won’t listen if I try to explain the situation.)

The Sisters’ absence bothered him.

Even though he knew intellectually that he simply felt so trapped that he was searching for special meaning in every little thing.

Were the Sisters alright? And what about Index, Mikoto, and the others?

How many Transcendents had been at that consulate? The confusion caused by the martial law hadn’t redirected the pursuers toward anyone else he knew, had it? Because those people probably would come running to save him. Even if he couldn’t get their help, he wanted to know they were safe.

(I know Anna said using my phone would be dangerous, but still.)

“You haven’t turned on that amateur phone of yours, have you? Don’t you dare post anything on social media. Even carelessly marking a message as read would be a mistake.”

Kamijou looked away from the binoculars.

He looked down at the asphalt below his feet, but…

“Fool, don’t even think about leaving a message with chalk or stones. That might be better than using a phone or computer, but any code you can come up with on the spot will be cracked in seconds by an Academy City supercomputer. And I don’t just mean textual or numerical codes that are easily represented as 1s and 0s. Even messages left in fuzzy graffiti or color patterns can be cracked using image linkage algorithms that find common factors between them.”

“Kh.”

“Were you unaware this city’s scientists seriously analyzed the crop circles left in crop fields and announced at an academic conference that they found no trace of actual language and concluded they were merely pranks? What a dreary way to view the world,” lamented Anna. “Your friends will of course be monitored. And they could be taken hostage if you give any sign they could be used to lure you out. So if you want to protect them, cut off all forms of contact. To the point that this city’s giant computers can’t find a single thing. That is what it means to take this seriously.”

“Okay, okay.”

Anna seemed legitimately exasperated with him, so Kamijou raised his hands in defeat.

Anything that his friends would instantly recognize probably would be discovered in seconds by their pursuers.

That meant their only option was to find their own way ahead while avoiding those lights – the checkpoints set up by Anti-Skill.

“But can we really find a way around the checkpoints? That 20ton thing can’t fit in the narrow alleys and Anti-Skill is set up at all the major intersections, so we’re bound to run into them no matter what wider road we choose.”

“Try using your brain for once, fool. It will rot in your skull otherwise.” Anna shrugged. “Not every route is found on the map. And if we find those hidden routes, we can pass right under Academy City’s collective nose. Especially when those Anti-Skill people are using their computers to share information and monitor their surroundings.”

“Routes not found on the map? What, are we going to dig our own tunnel like bank robbers?”

“Nothing that involved, but surprisingly close to the mark for a fool. It’s scary how wild guesses are correct on occasion.”

“?”

He had meant that as a joke, so her response took him by surprise.

Apparently Anna hadn’t given him a trick question with no real answer.

“Hint 1: these routes are invisible when viewed from the ground. Hint 2: map apps provide detailed information on public roads, but are much less thorough when it comes to private property. Hint 3: they are more common in densely populated areas with limited land. After so many generous hints, I seriously hope you have figured it out by now.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just give me the answer?”

“Not happening, fool. Those so-called intellectuals of the Golden cabal all let their brains rot in the same way. If they hadn’t all been conceited enough to think they were the world’s greatest magician, the Battle of Blythe Road never would have happened. Either side could have withdrawn and kept things peaceful.”

With that, Anna Sprengel ducked back into the hatch.

Then the turret turned to the side.

“?”

===Part 6===

Night had fallen.

The wind had a biting chill outdoors on January 3.

This was a District 12 storage unit lined with large containers.

“Mhh.”

The Bologna Succubus raised her arms overhead and stretched like she had just woken up. The flapping sound came from the large bat wings she spread wide to either side of her slim silhouette.

She no longer needed the bandages or IV stand.

The District 12 consulate had only been Alice’s plaything. The other Transcendents had no reason to stay there now that she was no more than an empty shell. In fact, staying there would have meant an unnecessary confrontation with Academy City.

But more than that, ''slaughtering innocent people went against the Bologna Succubus’s principles.

After stretching to one side and then the other, the demon whispered into the emptiness.

“What, admitting defeat already?”

“Seeking out the enemy is not my forte,” said a voice from nowhere. “Just give me a list of where I need to go and who I need to kill.”

“Aye, aye. Your demon sister is on it.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I am Mut Thebes. I provide punishment.”

“''And why would that bother me?''”

The Bologna Succubus looked puzzled as she pulled out a vial and poured a cloudy white liquid onto the ground. She crouched down, extended a finger, and drew out a sinister magic circle with it.

She was surrounded by deserted, desolate, and completely artificial scenery.

The only light came from the bright moon overhead.

This was her home ground as a demon.

Several presences ''stirred'' in the darkness. Bologna Succubus laughed among it all.

“I have no reason to fight Kamijou Touma. The same goes for Aradia. But Anna Sprengel is a different matter. Given what she has done, I don’t see any way to call her falsely accused. She does not meet my conditions for salvation.”

“Your reasons don’t matter as long as you take our side. I wasn’t aware succubi could use divination, though.”

“Don’t be silly. Prophesies that lead to the subject’s ruin no matter what they do are standard practice for demons.”

“What kind of divination do you use?”

“Tah dah! I use a mixture of unspeakable male and female bodily fluids.”

“…”

Silence followed.

A certain of succubus would seduce a man and then use the acquired substance to assault a woman. Which meant they would have a technique for searching out a target who met the appropriate conditions.

The Bologna Succubus chuckled and flapped her wings.

“But not so fast! Did you know a man can ward off a succubus attack by placing a spoonful of milk in a saucer by his pillow because the succubus will mistake it for the fluid she’s after? So I can use this spell artificially by mixing my saliva with some milk.”

“I see.”

“What’s this? You sound relieved. Eh heh heh. What two fluids did you think I was using, Little Miss Chaste?”

“Are you trying to anger me?”

Meanwhile, the Bologna Succubus was completing her spell.

As time passed, sinister live sacrifice ceremonies usually began substituting other materials like dolls or grains. Look into the ancients roots of modern festivals and you will generally see it growing more harmless over time. Sex magic was complicated and took a lot of effort to perform, so it too had grown more simplified and harmless over time.

You could think of magic as a scam used to cheat your way into activating a legitimate contract or transaction. Anyone who stuck to the original rules and failed to develop their own methods of economizing would wind up deep in debt. And a demon was supposed to be the one making the deals, so it would be embarrassing indeed if she was weighed down with debt.

“Now, then.”

Of course, their target group included Witch Goddess Aradia and their actual target was ''the'' Anna Sprengel. Your average divination would easily be shut down. But it was impossible to fully eliminate the reading detected when shutting it down.

That technique would only work once.

But if that once was enough, it was the perfect trump card for tracking them down.

With a sizzling sound, the cloudy white liquid forming the perimeter of the magic circle turned brown.

“They are 2.5km SSW. Oh, and that’s from my position.”

“They detected your search, didn’t they? Then I need to be quick about it.”

===Part 7===

Something had changed.

Someone now floated in the night sky over District 12.

The skinny girl showed off most of her brown skin and wore her wavy blonde hair long.

She was Transcendent Mut Thebes.

Aradia was on top of the gun and she shouted down at Kamijou on the road.

“Get in! Hurry!!”

“Eek!?”

The 8 thick tires began to turn before Kamijou had even climbed onto the Predator Octopus’s gun by grabbing Aradia’s hand while she practically leaned out of the hatch.

And Anna Sprengel shouted an old-fashioned phrase from inside the cutting-edge mobile combat vehicle.

“''The Apostle Peter forbids Simon Magus’s demonic flight''!!”

Mut Thebes lost her balance and plummeted.

But she did not bat an eye.

She landed on her feet a short distance away and metal tubes burst from her brown shoulders. They were arranged a lot like a bouquet of flowers. Kamijou didn’t know much about weapons, but he had seen these before. They were the barrels to the guns he had seen on all the tank and mobile combat vehicle driving around the city during the day.

Except these were all colored pure white.

“Oops.”

Mut Thebes staggered from the weight of the weapons she had produced.

“I forgot this.”

With that emotionless and weirdly carefree comment, a ladder truck’s stabilizing legs emerged from her thighs. They pressed firmly against the ground to forcibly keep her balance.

There was no escape. She was faster.

She spread the gun barrels like an ominous bird’s wings and then flapped those wings to aim each gun toward Kamijou’s group.

“Fire,” she whispered.

''Boom, boom, kaboooooom!!!

A concrete building wall was blown away and the road’s asphalt was torn from the ground over a distance of several meters.

120mm shells were scattered like a massive shotgun blast.

The muzzle flashes alone produced an explosive blast that fanned out.

The Predator Octopus’s eight tires shrieked. The front four were turned right and the rear four turned left, so the mobile combat vehicle spun like a turntable to escape. Aradia only had her upper body sticking out of the hatch, but Kamijou was still fully out on the roof. Even a fragment of a shell would kill him instantly and he would be thrown from the speeding Predator Octopus if he wasn’t careful.

Mut Thebes tilted her head.

“These can’t hit from this distance? Are the biggest guns alone not enough? Why must Academy City make everything so complicated?”

She had fired several pure white 120mm tank guns at once.

A hit from any of them would obliterate a three-story building, but she was operating it like a smartphone she had picked up ''to try out and see how it works''.

What happened to the division between science and magic? Where was the treaty?

Necessarius’s Stiyl Magnus would probably have a fit if he saw this.

Meanwhile, Kamijou wasn’t exactly calm himself. The armored vehicle provided something of a shield for him, but he didn’t trust that too much. A shoulder-fired rocket could blow a hole in that armor, so a direct hit here would blow all three of them up along with the entire vehicle.

Mut Thebes threw away the white gun barrels like a toy she had grown tired of and held her hand to the side. A car was parked on the curb below the streetlight there. Kamijou heard a dull sound right before large white wheels and thick suspension emerged from her hips.

They contacted the ground.

Kamijou heard the scream of rubber and his eyes bugged out as he clung to the roof of the gun.

She was pursuing them on the high-speed roadway.

“What the hell!? Did she absorb that!?”

“Mut Thebes specializes in punishment.”

Aradia, also from the Bridge Builders Cabal, clenched her teeth.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Kamijou’s spiky head and held him to her chest to make sure he didn’t fall off.

“''Which means she has a way to supply an appropriate method of punishment for each target.'' This is not good. Academy City gives her access to so much bizarre technology.”

“More importantly, fool, this is causing quite a scene. The Academy City guards twiddling their thumbs at the checkpoint are headed this way! And if this lasts long, Kingsford will be here too!!”

As soon as little Anna shouted up from inside the vehicle, the siren began sounding across the city once more.

That meant Academy City had noticed them.

This just kept getting worse.

Anna Sprengel had given them a warning while she operated the touchscreen that gave her control over everything from the driving to the gun control, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned about the next-generation weapons.

The rhythmic noise circling in the sky above was an HsAFH-11 Six Wings attack helicopter. That cold weapon was unmanned.

Mut Thebes did not even glance up at it.

With a dull sound, a honeycomb of white missile launch pods emerged from her back. That weaponry was supposed to belong to her pursuer. Before the Six Wings could target its moving target, several missiles blew up the unmanned attack helicopter. This time, she knew what she was doing.

This was very bad.

Academy City technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world. Military weaponry was no exception. The more attention this battle gathered, the more advanced the weaponry that would be brought in and the more toys Mut Thebes would have at her disposal!

But Aradia and Anna were focused on something else entirely.

The witch goddess looked down toward her navel and shouted into the vehicle below.

“Did you notice that?”

“More or less, yes.”

Kamijou had no idea what that short exchange was referring to.

Aradia adjusted her grip on Kamijou when he nearly slipped from her arms.

“There, there. That helicopter was way up the in the sky, but she absorbed its weapon just as easily as she did that car. That means distance isn’t the condition for her absorption.”

“Wait.”

“She uses the same thing I do,” said Aradia stiffly, still holding Kamijou tight. “''She can make use of anything if her shadow touches its shadow.''”

“…”

Come to think of it.

Back at the consulate, H. T. Trismegistus’s surprise attack had hit Aradia because their abilities both came from the number 3. Good, Old Mary with her resurrection and Bologna Succubus with her ability to use sexuality as an attack could both be seen as directly using “life”.

Did all the Transcendents overlap like this? They seemed completely different at first, but was that hiding some hidden logic?

If so, what did that make Alice Anotherbible who the rest of the Transcendents so feared?

“That’s why she didn’t need to fly up and approach the airborne helicopter to absorb it. She only had to combine her shadow with the shadow it cast on the ground. Anna!!”

The rear four tires slid roughly along the pavement as they made a sharp turn at an intersection and Anna Sprengel even fired the 120mm gun in the middle of the unsteady curve.

The boom made Kamijou duck down and his eardrums briefly forgot what their job was.

Instead of directly hitting anything, Anna had detonated the tank shell in midair air to hit everything with the shockwave. In other words, it was an air burst. All of the nearby streetlights were torn from the pavement.

That should have prevented Mut Thebes from using her shadow which she needed for her spell. But…

“Ah!?” shouted Kamijou.

He heard something like a bursting firework.

Mut Thebes raised her right hand overhead and launched a bright light into the sky. The flare floated gently down thanks to the small parachute attached.

“Why would she use magnesium instead of a flashlight or a handheld fluorescent light? Does she need a certain level of illumination? If it’s based on natural sunlight, it might require tens of thousands of luxes.”

Anna carefully analyzed the situation, but Kamijou was not so calm.

The blinding light was more like welding light than a firework, so deep shadows stretched long across the ground all around it.

As soon as the brown girl’s shadow contacted the shadow of a giant object abandoned on a construction site, Mut Thebe’s right arm seemed to explode. A white club disproportionately large for her body emerged. Anna sent the 8 wheels weaving across the road to try and escape, but then Kamijou saw it.

That was not in fact a meters-long blunt weapon.

It was a reel containing wire thicker than a thumb. It was big enough to function as a table if set down on its side, so it had only looked like a giant club when it emerged from her thin arm.

The vehicle was moving at more than 100km/h now. If she whipped them with that wire, it could easily take out the thick military tires. If it so much as grazed a human, it would tear off a limb.

Mut Thebes herself staggered because the enormous wire reel threw off her balance.

But she still swung it horizontally.

“Oh, no!! Anna, you need to turn there! Hurry!!” shouted Aradia while very nearly biting Kamijou’s shoulder as she held him.

The thick tires screeched against the pavement. Kamijou had to hold on with all his might to avoid falling off. The Predator Octopus had not turned onto another road. It had turned toward a giant church. Unusual for District 12, it was a standalone building instead of part of a skyscraper.

But instead of plowing onto the church’s grounds, the eight wheels took them down below ground.

The church was ''painted to look'' old, but a concrete slope led to a parking garage directly below it. Was that just Academy City’s style?

Orange sparks scattered everywhere outside.

That pure white shadow was joined by the roar of death slicing through the air. The thumb-thick metal wire crashed into the entranceway, tearing away a concrete wall.

Mut Thebes must have decided the table-sized wire reel would keep her from entering the narrow entranceway because she cut it loose. She walked nimbly down the slope on her own two feet.

But it was a single straight path in there.

Miss Sprengel only had to make the command on the touchscreen.

Her small finger tapped the console at the commander’s seat.

“And done.”

A 120mm blast roared out.

It struck Mut Thebes square in the gut.

The Transcendent doubled over as she was launched back up the slope like a human rocket.

“Hee hee. Now is the time to compliment me to death, fool!!”

Of course, one hit wasn’t enough to relax. Kamijou could still sense the tingling tension of imminent death at the back of his head. The tires tore at the ground as the mobile combat vehicle raced through the parking garage. Anna kept the gun aimed backwards for defense while breaking down the metal shutter on the slope back up to another road on the other side of the building.

“Wait! Is this what you meant by hidden routes we can use to avoid the checkpoints!?”

“Good job. It is always worth thinking for yourself and reaching the answer on your own, fool. We can pass through the large parking garages to reach another street. That lets us sneak right past the barricades Anti-Skill set up while staring at their map apps which only show them the public roads.”

“Great, wonderful. By the way, if Aradia hadn’t yanked me into the hatch just before you crashed into that shutter, the mangled wreckage would have taken my head off!!”

===Part 8===

''I am so sorry,'' thought Mut Thebes.

She lay face up on the ground, painfully aware she had squashed a sidewalk flower bed below her rear. That was meaningless destruction. The flowers were not her target and would not boost her strength. They weren’t even in the way of her job. A punisher was meant to minimize destruction and only use it to keep the peace.

She heard a heavy metallic clang.

A lot like someone had dropped a wok onto the pavement.

(But it’s a good thing I chose the composite armor at the last second. Reactive armor sounds cool, but an armor piercing round would have passed right through it.)

The blonde-haired, brown-skinned Transcendent looked up at the moon in thought.

Punishment had to be administered fairly. Exceptions would not be tolerated. The human world could only function properly when good deeds were rewarded and bad deeds punished. That created a society where the people living their best lives would find happiness. Following the rules required patience. And people deserved to be rewarded for the patience they demonstrated.

Mut was an Egyptian goddess, but she did not grant people happiness in the afterlife. She had visited the giant city of Thebes millennia ago, where she fought enemy countries in the real world and physically protected her people.

That made it all the more painful that this target had escaped her here.

She only had herself to blame.

(The Shrink Drink…is safe. Of course, after ''shrinking it'' in its binder, it is smaller than a matchbook, so I can hide it just about anywhere.)

She heard what sounded like a metal belt moving.

She also realized the deep siren was still playing in the night sky.

That meant Academy City hadn’t given up the fight.

A deep voice shouted from a loudspeaker.

“You there!! The entire city is currently under martial law. If you are a resident, pull out your student ID or some other reliable form of identification! If you are a guest, get your travel certificate out where we can see it! We do not want any unfortunate misunderstandings here, so do not do anything that could be misconstrued. We have been given authority to fire!!”

Mut Thebes ignored him and stood up.

Bright headlights surrounded her from a distance. The beams were reminiscent of eyes because of the asphalt dust hanging in the air like fog thanks to the treads.

She didn’t know if they were technically classified as tanks, antiair tanks, armored troop transports, or mobile combat vehicles. A voice came from one of them, but with Academy City technology, she couldn’t even be sure there was anyone onboard. They did have an unusual number of antennae on the roofs.

But the many lights sources cast long shadows all around her.

She appreciated their cooperation.

“Society and its rules are not to blame for my inability to complete my job.” Transcendent Mut Thebes remained expressionless. “My own lack of strength is to blame.”

“Um?”

“''So I will absorb as many shadows as necessary to create a free and fair society.''”

Mut was an Egyptian goddess of protection and war whose symbol was the vulture devouring unclean dead flesh.

===Between the Lines 2===

Board Chairman Accelerator’s eyes and ears remained active while he remained inside the most strictly guarded cell in District 10’s prison. He could not manage Academy City otherwise.

Population density and the flow of people, things, and money.

A list of online trends, especially dangerous rumors.

The state of the deployed troops.

Organizing and prioritizing witness accounts of their target and of the dangerous element known as Transcendents.

Etc., etc.

However, he did not use the Underline nanodevices distributed to every corner of the city by previous Board Chairman Aleister. He had already frozen the usage key for that largescale peeping tom tool.

Then again, what he was using may have been even more unfair: a scientific angel and a magical demon.

They could fly freely throughout the city, so the #1 used them as his eyes and ears.

Accelerator sat on a bed far too luxurious for a prison cell and viewed the large LCD screen embedded in the wall while he thought quietly.

He scanned through all information available to him, but it wasn’t enough.

He didn’t even have a solid definition of the Transcendents who were at the base of it all.

At any time of day or night, he could pick up the receiver on the wall and a nervously sweating guard would bring him a veal fillet, but he was too preoccupied to even take a sip of water at the moment.

(Did I declare martial law too soon? No, the city was already swept up in that ridiculously named Kotatsu Syndrome thanks to those Transcendents. If I can’t predict what the people will do, it’s safest to keep them at home. Some external factor has been injected into the ordinary people’s decision making process, so I can’t even be sure ''they would stop after seeing a red light.'')

''And while he had declared martial law, he hadn’t expected everyone to accept it so readily.

''He had been prepared for some harsh pushback, so it was frankly creeping him out that everyone just went along with it.

“Tch.”

This focus on defense was a large departure from Accelerator’s normal way of thinking. But the fate of the city had been left in his hands, so he had a responsibility to keep the city peaceful and safe. Gone were the days when he could focus on his pride and aesthetics and ''pull off a win'' by making a reckless attack all on his own.

Or maybe he hadn’t accomplished anything back then. Maybe he had only convinced himself he had.

Qliphah Puzzle 545 continued her report while she flew through the night sky.

“As far as I can see, there’s a clash between tank-size guns in District 12. It’s throwing the checkpoint layout into chaos. They still haven’t reported in to the central datalink, but I’m trying to identity the vehicles that fired. Also…wait. Y-you’re kidding, right?”

“?”

Was it Mut Thebes?

Or was it Kamijou Touma, Aradia, and Anna Sprengel?

(What does that bastard think he’s doing working with a world-class wicked woman?)

Accelerator expected one of them had made some kind of move, but the answer was beyond anything he had imagined.

“Someone’s entering the city by crossing the eastern wall. Th-they’re Transcendents! And a lot of them! Wait, am I seeing this righ- ksssssshhhhhhh!!!”

''The tides were turning.

Even though she was artificial, Qliphah Puzzle 545 was still a demon. Her demonic powers allowed her to single-handedly trap the UK in the passion and confusion of war. Anyone who took her down that easily had to be quite powerful.

Plus, cutting him off from the artificial demon was like taking out one of his eyes and ears.

But panicking wouldn’t change that.

He had to stand firm and assume this wasn’t over yet.

“Kazakiri.”

“U-um, uh?”

“The demon can take care of herself. If you’re okay, then report. Don’t you dare disappear before you do. If you want to rescue Qliphah Puzzle 545, you can do so ''after'' reporting.”

“Okay!!” the angel replied with excess enthusiasm.

She was obsessed with doing the right thing.

She was delighted by that option even though it didn’t benefit her in the slightest and wasn’t worth the effort.

If that was the combined will of Academy City’s espers, then apparently the entire city was too nice for its own good.

Accelerator scowled and held a hand to his ear.

“Give a rough estimate if you have to, but how many Transcendents crossed the wall?”

“I-I’m sorry, but, um, I’m not really sure what a Transcendent is.”

“Just tell me how fucking many got into the city!”

“I can’t say for sure, but I saw maybe ''20 or 30'' from here.”

Did that mean the Bridge Builders Cabal was taking this seriously?

It sounded like the Transcendents already in Academy City had been the minority.

<noinclude>
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter1

2023-05-12T13:53:00Z

JDMP: /* Part 5 */

{{Incomplete|parts=5|tparts=9}}
==Chapter 1: I’m Sick of Running – Break_Through_MCV.==

===Part 1===

HsMCV-08 Predator Octopus

Class: Next Generation Mobile Combat Vehicle

Crew: 4 (but can be 0 while controlled remotely or used as a drone)

Measurements: 10m long, 2.8m wide, 3m tall (not counting antennae)

Weight: 20 tons (not counting ammunition, fuel, crew, and additional armor)

Max Speed: 250km/h

Max Climbable Slope: 60 degrees (varies based on slope conditions such as moisture or ice)

Engine: Diesel engine with electrical assistance

Drive Method: 4-wheel and 8-wheel drive modes. Front 4 and rear 4 wheels can be turned independently

Sensors: Anti-personnel, anti-air, and anti-vehicle multipurpose microwave radar, facial recognition and object search using optical imagery, IR detection, audio detection, and laser range finding. Also includes detection and countermeasures to locks of same types

C4I Communications: midrange ground radio, close and midrange IR laser, close range ultrasound, high-speed satellite communication. Combined, these methods provide a baselevel equivalent to a front line communications base.

Armaments: 120mm tank gun (can use various shells as well as launch anti-ground and anti-air drones), 40mm auto grenade launcher, 12.7mm heavy machinegun.

Defenses: multipurpose smoke emitter, anti-missile metal net launcher, auto attitude angling program to reduce damage when hit

“Huh, that’s a weird thing to see parked here. Stopping for lunch maybe?”

Hamazura Shiage, a delinquent boy wrapped in plenty of gauze and bandages, made that comment in front of a large discount store that was open for business so soon after New Year’s. But since this was District 12, the floor above it seemed to contain a shrine or church or something.

The dark gray 8-wheel vehicle designed for urban warfare wasn’t something you normally saw while walking around town, but fire trucks and ambulances would also stop by convenience stores for food when there was no emergency to respond to. You would sometimes see photos of it people had posted on social media.

Takitsubo Rikou tilted her head in her pink track suit.

“Probably part of the martial law they talked about on the emergency message sent to our phones. Remember when they beeped like they do before an earthquake?”

“Martial law. You can’t be serious. Surely it’s only training and they forgot to check the right box or something. Y’know, one of those false alarms where they don’t even give you any free gems to apologize. But now that you mention it, the convenience stores and supermarkets do all have their shutters down. I thought they were just closed for the holiday, but maybe not. This could be bad…”

“At least you’re out of the hospital. If you had been there any longer, they might have shut you inside in the name of protecting the sick and injured.”

Those two were only all the way in District 12 because they wanted to avoid the crowds at the few stores that were still open among all the closed shutters. But what if that wasn’t people after holiday sales and were actually buying up what they could before everything shut down?

Meanwhile, Takitsubo Rikou spoke to him with her usual blank look.

“We’ll be fine as long as the global search engine and that penguin logo discount store are still open for business. The Earth isn’t in danger yet.”

“I hope you’re right…”

With the deep rumble of diesel engines, a convoy of military vehicles drove past them. Another of the 8-wheel armored vehicles was in the lead, a trio of military trucks carrying materiel and ammo followed, and an anti-air tank with a radar and two humongous autocannons took up the rear. What were they planning to fight?

Takitsubo didn’t seem to mind as she removed one of the plastic baskets by the entrance and placed it in the cart.

“The others said they were sick of New Year’s food, didn’t they? So how about we have roast beef tonight?”

“I’m pretty sure Mugino and Kinuhata meant they don’t want any more fancy food, not just the Japanese kind. I bet they’d love it if we made curry udon.”

“Or a rice bowl? Okay, how about we make roast beef bowls as a compromise.”

“Wow, it’s the exact same ingredient, but it sounds way cheaper now!!”

===Part 2===

The aisles were cramped.

Kamijou was already feeling loopy from the theme song being played ad nauseam.

He held a shopping basket as he ventured into a modern dungeon packed full of every sort of product: food, cosmetics, toys, video games, camping goods, and even bicycles.

He stared at the boxes of masks stacked up by the entrance.

“Is the flu going around or something?”

Discount stores – especially the entrance area – could be used as a scientific form of divination. The in-season items they hoped to sell the most would be shoved to the front, reflecting the current trends.

Aradia picked up a box of over-the-counter cold medicine from a stacked pyramid of them.

“These colorful capsules are supposed to be medicine? Really, Academy City’s love of strange chemicals knows no end. These kinds of problems are for your local villagers and witches, not some scientist up in his ivory tower.”

“Hold on, Aradia. You aren’t seriously saying all-natural medicines made from tree roots or whatever have no side effects and you can’t overdose on them, are you? Ugh, that stuff is so gross.”

“You don’t have to look away when you say that. And come to think of it, didn’t that little god say you bought that sturdy foreign duct tape at a discount store? Hee hee hee. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not bringing that up for any particular reason. I’m only stating a fact, so I’m not going to hurt you or anything.”

Was he imagining it or was there a burning fire behind her dark expression?

It was just like a discount store to lazily be pushing ordinary cold medicine when it was the flu going around. And some of the masks in the clearance section were for sports and may not have done much at all to prevent the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, little wicked woman Anna was focused on something else entirely.

The bare-skin girl(?) who probably never caught a cold or the flu spoke up.

“All the alcoholic drinks have been moved to the back and locked up. Is that because of the martial law?”

That wasn’t something a high school boy like Kamijou paid much attention to.

Would people cause trouble because they were drinking or because they had been denied their drinks?

“This is awfully ironic.”

“What is?” Aradia tilted her head.

It was January 3 and Board Chairman Accelerator had apparently declared martial law across Academy City. Or so they were saying on the show displayed on all of the TVs advertised at their holiday sale prices. The given reason was to bring a swift end to a battle that had broken out at a foreign consulate, but Kamijou knew it was so they could hunt down his group (or Anna really).

“Fool. This shop is still open with martial law declared. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“The time will come when we can’t buy food and water?” asked Kamijou in shock.

Little Anna grinned.

“We’re on the run, remember? It’s too late to search out supplies once we need them. Our 8-wheel vehicle has plenty of horsepower, so it couldn’t hurt to stock up. Unless you want to risk your life for a cup of water later on, I recommend buying thrice the supplies you would consider the bare minimum. So for now, two or three days’ worth?”

Thanks to the martial law, no one would question the tanks and armored trucks driving down the streets or the unmanned attack helicopters and self-destruct attack drones flying through the sky.

“Damn. Does that bastard have to be taking his board chairman job so seriously?”

“He’s assumed the mantle well – including the part where he makes stupid decisions,” said Anna. “Hee hee. Anyone who sits in the executive seat seems to end up thinking the same way.”

Yes, this also meant that no one paid any real attention to the Predator Octopus that Kamijou’s group was driving around. No one reported it or tried to stop them.

It didn’t matter how much firepower someone had if they couldn’t locate their target. What could you call that but ironic?

Ideally, they would make their way to District 15 right away.

If Academy City learned of the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plans and that Anna was in the unique position to stop it, they might decide they needed her.

(Sigh. Down blankets and microwaves. They really sell everything here. Can’t I just live here? Are pets and other living animals the only thing they don’t have?)

Kamijou amused himself by checking out some colorful clothing cases that probably weren’t as useful as they looked. Maybe he just needed something to distract him from the fact that they were on the run.

But while the pointy haired boy entered old man mode, something concerning was underway behind him.

“Anna, you look much too conspicuous for someone on the run. Shouldn’t you wear actual clothing instead of holding that cloth up to your chest? Your butt could use covering.”

“You’re one to talk when it comes to clothing, bare navel bikini witch. And is it scored for easy tearing? Hoping someone will rip it off of you?”

Kamijou’s smile remained but a tear trickled from the corner of his eye.

Before they even addressing how much skin their clothing covered, he really wished they would note the fact that both of them were walking around barefoot in the frigid January weather. Thanks to the diagonal slash Aradia had received from a certain butler, her already revealing bikini had been hastily repaired with thread and needle. That looked 100 times more precarious than an ordinary bikini knot.

He was doing his best to pretend he didn’t know them, but he too was making a pretty wild fashion statement with his coat’s missing right sleeve. You could call it Kanzaki style.

But he couldn’t run away from reality.

So he turned around.

“Are you sure we don’t need a cart?”

“Stick to the one basket, fool. If you don’t set an upper limit for yourself, you’ll start shoving everything you see into the cart. Like this stamp-sized mobile router. It looks interesting, but how would we even use it?”

Small Anna was right.

Discount stores were experts at using the low prices to fuel impulse buying, so it was best to assume an amateur like him couldn’t fight it. The store had experts in psychology and economics on their side, so the vague feelings of an individual could never win.

“What about you, Aradia? Kamijou-san is a little overwhelmed by the wide variety of stuff they have here.”

“There’s a lot I want, but food should probably be our priority. …What is this long, angular bar? Ew, what kind of meat even is it?”

“It’s just chicken!! They gather up all the small pieces left on the bone and press it together for an economical food! Why does it scare you so much, Aradia!?”

The nature-loving forest witch goddess kept her distance from the block of meat that couldn’t look more processed if it tried.

“We want a quick source of nutrition, so…how about bananas? But raw ones don’t keep for long, so the chips might be best. Honey, nuts, and dried fruit sound like good options too.”

Was there any hidden meaning in that or not? She was probably focused on foods that would keep, but that lineup sounded like it would make you thirsty. And were banana chips really that nutritious? Kamijou had always thought they were junk food.

(Do they sell minifridges here? They do have microwaves.)

Kamijou took a bunch of stuff from the shelves and stuck it in the basket. With three of them, the basket was getting pretty full after a few minutes. Especially when cooking wouldn’t be an option. Also, not being poor was a wonderful thing. Running around Shibuya while being killed repeatedly by Aradia had been worth it. He did wish she would apologize at least once, though.

“What about water? Should we buy some?”

“There was a 50 liter tank in the vehicle. And try to picture our entire daily routine. We’ll need water for washing our faces and bathing.”

“Ugh, then will we have to buy toothbrushes too? Oh, god. I have all this stuff back at my dorm, so this is all wasted money! This is worse than accidentally buying a manga volume you already own. Can’t we stop by my dorm real quick? I know all this stuff is already there!”

“You know we can’t, fool. They will absolutely be watching it. Do you want to die?”

This was all Anna’s fault, so why was she being so condescending about it?

Kamijou wasn’t about to give up yet, so he looked elsewhere while trembling.

“Oh, they’re selling fukubukuro.”

“What are those? Giant fortune cookies?”

“Fool and country witch, don’t even think about it because no one bag will have everything you want. Remember, these are an assortment of unsold products at an already super-cheap discount store. Besides, Mr. Misfortune here has a solid 0% chance of choosing a good one.”

Aradia gently placed an arm around the shoulders of the boy who thought he was going to cry if this kept up.

Anyway, he never imagined he would be carrying a shopping basket and checking out the fresh foods and daily necessities sections while chatting with a witch goddess. Since she had quite literally killed him in Shibuya on December 31, it really did prove how strange life could be.

Aradia herself picked up some body soap and skeptically read the back of the bottle.

“It’s not just the food – everything in Academy City is creepy. What is this collection of chemicals? How do you even use it?”

Kamijou wondered how you could even make soap without chemically processing oil in some way.

“It’s quick-drying body soap,” he explained. “You rub it into your skin, wait a bit for it to bring up all the filth, and then peel it off. It’s popular with poor students who can’t even afford to fill their tub with water.”

“We also need new clothes for you. Who tore off your right sleeve anyway?”

“You and Anna need new clothes more than I do. Why are you both showing off so much skin for free? At this point, it should definitely be behind the paywall. And were you unaware that January is midwinter in the Northern Hemis- ow!? Stop kicking me, Anna!”

And so they also checked out a section across the store from the food.

They wanted a new coat for Kamijou, but there were plenty of other useful items like an electric heater and a collapsible bed. But if they started buying everything, the contents of his wallet would quickly run out, so Kamijou had to fight the urge.

Then he felt a tug on his sleeve.

He looked down to see Anna Sprengel holding something. It appeared to be a video game box. Her small size made it look like a little sister begging her big brother for a game, but then he saw the title: Jiggly☆Witch Trial.

“(Hey, hey. This says it’s a touchscreen game where you capture witches hidden around the city and reveal their identity using some lewd interrogation techniques. Is this part of the retro game rerelease boom? It’s been marked down a lot, so it’s a great price. Let’s buy it, fool. Hee hee. Japan really is a crazy country.)”

“(Do you wicked women have a sixth sense for stuff like this!? No, we aren’t buying that! Aradia would explode! And in a way that left my bones and organs visible! This isn’t the time for jiggly stuff!!)

“(Read between the lines, fool. That’s what I want to happen. Specifically, I want to see her kick you in the balls so hard it lifts you 2cm from the ground. Oh, now look what you made me say. How embarrassing.)”

“You trying to be tsundere works so poorly it’s triggering a bunch of unheard-of errors in my brain.”

Maybe discount stores had a little too much variety.

A short distance from Kamijou and Anna’s whispered conversation, Aradia (who was back in full Transcendent mode with her feet freed from the duct tape) was viewing a different product on the wall. She would likely grab Kamijou’s hair and rip his head from his body like a vegetable from the ground if she found out what he and Anna were discussing, so what had her so preoccupied?

(A picture book?)

“The Little Mermaid… Oh, what a tragic story. The sea witch gave the sheltered mermaid exactly what she wanted and even rooted for her, but everyone treats her like some kind of troublemaker!!”

“Are you sure that’s the tragedy of the story!? Are you sure it isn’t the princess who turns to foam!?”

After calming down the witch goddess who was trembling with her hands over her mouth, they continued shopping. At Aradia’s request, they put a few rolls of fabric in the basket. What was she going to use them for?

Even after their shopping was complete, they couldn’t let their guard down. The checkout area was loaded with traps.

“I want a roasted potato.”

“Do you go for any kind of natural food, Aradia?”

Kamijou Touma’s poor life was over. He had the results of his year-end job. So he carried the shopping basket up to the college girl cashier without hesitation. However…

“Oh?”

Anna’s small foot kicked him in the shin.

He really hoped she didn’t make a habit of it because that little girl’s foot hurt like hell.

“No using your phone, fool. Pay with cash. Why is it even still powered on? Do you want to die?”

“?”

“Anything you do with your phone is recorded. Not counting my special model where I fully swapped out the chips inside.”

He didn’t understand any of that, but he decided it was worth listening to the little wicked woman since she had run a global IT company. He paid in cash as told and left with the products in shopping bags. The two enormous yellow bags were both crammed full. Was this what it felt like to be rich? There was a parking meter on the curb, but the vehicle parked there was a mobile combat vehicle that looked like a tank gun sitting atop an 8-wheel chassis.

Anna pointed elsewhere while holding her dress against her flat chest.

A very temporary-looking 10m metal tower rose up from a small park there.

“That’s a phone interception antenna tower. It can see any data moving to and from your phone.”

“Are you serious?”

“Martial law, remember? Your right to privacy goes right out the window.”

Kamijou panicked when a helicopter loudly passed by overhead, but it didn’t seem to have found them. Because they didn’t hear any sirens or phone alerts in the area. Several transport helicopters flew elsewhere while using thick cables to carry barricades made by arranging thick steel beams in an asterisk shape.

(Come to think of it, who makes Academy City’s defense weapons? I get the feeling they don’t contract out to an ordinary company, but does that actually make a profit?)

“Fool. Everything from the production to the deployment of Academy City’s weapons is done in the name of technological research. The funding is 100% tax based, which means their budget is effectively endless. And they also create downgraded versions they force onto the cooperative institutes around the world, so they never go in the red no matter how many they produce. Just by saying the weapons have been field tested in Academy City to ensure safety, they can take Anti-Skill’s old, worn-out weapons, remove the components they want to keep secret, and force those cooperative institutes to buy them for 3 times what they’re worth. Quite the economical display of recycling, don’t you think? Even more underhanded than calling yourself a religious corporation to avoid paying taxes.”

Could Anna rattle off all of that unpleasant trivia because she spent so much time online?

A blimp with a large screen drifted through the January sky. Even that scared Kamijou now. What if it started dropping bombs? After seeing all those tanks and armored trucks driving around, he had lost sight of what was possible or not.

The ecological city of spinning three-blade wind turbines felt like a stage backdrop now.

(And you could even say that we’re the ones who caused this.)

The one saving grace was that he was still confident he had done the right thing.

They put a coin in the parking meter and reentered the vehicle. That was a rare experience for a high schooler.

Aradia tore apart her own clothing.

She used the fabric she had bought to sew back up the part that had been temporarily fixed. She was quite handy.

“Silk dyed with hyssop and rosemary flowers… Why did they only sell mesh fabrics?”

“Those are probably ventilation fan covers designed to keep bugs out. Ones made without chemicals.”

Kamijou put on his new jacket.

“So what did you two buy?”

Aradia dug through the yellow bags and then grimaced.

She had the look of a mother disappointed in what her child had spent his allowance on.

“A jelly drink, a nutrient block, and cup noodles? Oh, no. You were aware the point was to buy enough food to get by because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to shop, right?”

Kamijou had tried to choose things that were easy to eat and would keep, but the nature-loving, banana-obsessed woman did not approve. She viewed the contents of the yellow bags (advertised as made from plant materials) like they contained the mystery food from a dystopian SF movie.

“My selection is a lot healthier,” said Aradia.

“Ew, insect snacks!?” said Kamijou. “I’ve seen those for sale before, but I thought they were for people who lost a bet or for people to buy as a joke!”

“They’re a next-generation protein source. With this salted caramel flavor, it’s a lot like munching on popcorn.”

“…”

Kamijou had thought edible insects would be on the way out now that high-quality tofu meat was available, but it didn’t sound like Aradia had bought them just to freak him out. She made sure to remove her food from the bags to keep it separate.

He was worried about the dietary habits of this goddess who lived in the sacred forests of Europe. If she could reliably capture insects, he felt like she could use those as bait to catch fish.

“What’s that look for? Sigh, your Eastern culture weeps. This country has a wonderful culinary tradition of cooking insects like grasshoppers and hornet larvae. Your people stand at the forefront of the world there, so it would be a shame to let the tradition die.”

It was hard to tell if this goddess was extremely old-fashioned or cutting edge. And Aradia appeared to be the kind of person who relied on snacks and chips for nutrition when she was short on time. Like the messy young woman who ate snacks all day because she didn’t know how to cook.

“This stupid banana woman and her lewd outfit.”

“What was that you let slip just now?”

“Wait, no! I apologize, so please explain to me what you plan to do with that clenched fist, Transcendent! Good, Old Mary isn’t here now, so that’s t-t-terrifying!!”

Anyway.

She circled behind him and gave him a (gentle) two-handed noogie.

“Nweee? But, Anna, this 8-wheel vehicle really is conspicuous. There are people snapping photos with their phones.”

“Foolish fool. This thing weighs more than 20 tons, which is twice the weight of a dump truck. If we tried to hide it inside a turntable parking garage, it would break the elevator.”

Meanwhile, Anna didn’t seem to have an issue with chemicals. She even licked her lips as she grabbed a muscat flavor jelly drink. The weirdly alluring mannerisms on the young-looking body caused Kamijou’s brain to glitch a little.

He looked away, but that had him looking at Aradia who had ended the noogie, sat in the gunner’s seat, flipped her clasped hands around, and stretched them forward while her back trembled.

“Uhhh… I really am feeling weak. Is that cause I haven’t been getting much exercise?”

“Or maybe it’s just awkward being in such a cramped space?”

She gave Kamijou quite the depressing glare for that comment.

“No, I think it has more to do with being left wrapped up in duct tape for days on end. I’m just glad I don’t have any bedsores.”

What could he do but apologize?

An amplified voice outside made it through the thick armor.

It had to be absolutely deafening outside.

“Indefinite martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Please avoid heading out and remain in your dorm or home.”

The announcement was probably coming from the blimp’s screen and it repeated.

“Water, food, and other necessities will be supplied to you if you contact your dorm manager. Please remain calm and stay where you are.”

“They’re kidding, right? What dorm manager? I’ve never even seen an adult at my dorm. Being locked in the same building as a pretty young dorm manager in an apron sounds like heaven to me.”

“What makes you so sure the manager would be a young woman?”

What could he do but clear his throat and look away from Aradia?

Just like with the school doctor, it was about having dreams. But he got the feeling she would punch him square in the face if he said that out loud.

Aradia must have picked up on his adolescent fantasies because she frowned cautiously before speaking.

“Do they really expect a bunch of teenagers to stay indoors just because they say it’s dangerous outside? And who knows how long they can get away with it, but that discount store was open.”

Small Anna had her legs elegantly crossed up in the command seat while she messed with a monitor that could apparently pick up civilian frequencies in addition to the military ones. That meant it got TV and radio. The New Year’s holiday was winding down, so everything was returning to normal while the TV stations were still doing live variety shows. The set was still flooded with New Year’s props, but the entertainers were dressed normally now.

“Martial law might sound scary, but there is nothing to worry about. People were already staying home more due to the Kotatsu Syndrome, so will this even have that much of an effect?”

“Plus, it’s the holiday. Everyone’s exhausted from working so hard, so this is the perfect chance to relax at home☆”

“Also, the hospitals across the city have been asked to prepare for soldiers arriving as emergency patients. They have to reserve 40% of their beds for that, so everyone else is asked to refrain from visiting the hospital except in true emergencies. Your careless action could be a nuisance for our civil servants.”

Kamijou frowned.

Don’t go outside. Stay home. Don’t use the ordinary services. Being asked all that during winter break seemed like it would cause a lot of stress, but everyone on TV was reacting positively to the violation of people’s freedom. Or maybe it was more accurate to say any opposing views had been removed in advance.

“Fool, this is martial law.”

Anna Sprengel wagged her finger and gave a response he wasn’t sure really counted as an answer. He wasn’t sure what she had used since there was no remote, but she called up a TV guide.

Even Kamijou noticed something then. There should have been a few movies playing during the holiday, but all of the war and disaster movies had vanished from the schedule and were replaced by unusually long shopping shows.

And those ads were unusually cheerful.

“Have we got a New Year’s campaign for you! Every single roll is guaranteed an SSR or better and you earn 10 times – that’s right 10 times – the usual rate of magic gems, so make sure to pour all that XP into your favorite character. This is our New Year’s gift to you here at Samurai Street!!”

“That’s probably part of the plan to keep everyone inside,” said Anna. “Note that the event is nothing more than manipulating numbers.”

“?”

“The idea is to keep everyone glued to their tiny screens so they aren’t interested in going outside, fool. Instead of taking away the option, they give them a more attractive option. It’s a common tactic rulers use against people like you. And major campaigns from every company at once won’t raise any eyebrows during the holiday.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but he felt a chill when he saw the nasty grin on the face of that wicked woman who had created a global IT company and manipulated 7 billion people.

(The new board chairman must have put a lot of thought into this.)

Aradia didn’t seem too interested in the ordinary media because she started rummaging through the yellow discount store bags.

“We bought a lot, but did we think to buy a mirror?”

“Why not use the fool’s phone? The black screen works just like a mirror.”

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Kamijou watched as the witch goddess looked into the mirror(?), placed her hands on her face, and began stretching her cheeks. Was that…a massage? This new discovery about a girl’s daily life was kind of surreal.

(Wait. That green light on the side of the screen doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it?)

“Is this recording? Why would you record someone in such an unguarded moment, you pervert!?”

It finally hit home to Kamijou (while receiving a much less gentle noogie this time) that he was living with girls here.

He got the feeling that sharing a single living space like this was going to cause many more problems.

“Anyway, fool, let’s review our situation.”

“Okay. We bought what you said we needed, so what now?”

Kamijou was released by the sexy and intellectual young woman, so he reached for the chocolate-flavored nutrient block he had bought.

It seemed the closest to a snack to him.

“We’re being directly pursued by three forces right now: Academy City, Aleister, and the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

If any of those three captured Anna Sprengel, or Kamijou and Aradia who were assisting her, they would be in serious trouble. For Anna in particular, there was a growing trend toward killing her instead of capturing her.

Given what Anna had done, Kamijou didn’t want to just let her go free either.

But that did not mean he was willing to let her die.

Would that ending really satisfy St. Germain, Helcalia, and Melzabeth?

“For now, we need to focus our attention on the Bridge Builders Cabal,” said Anna. “To do that, I would like to move from here in District 12 to District 15 where my magic database is hidden.”

“District 12 is on the easternmost end of the city and District 15 is to the west. We can’t pass through District 23 since it’s full of airfields and thus off limits. The shortest route would be to travel through Districts 6, 5, and 7.”

“But this is all in the same city, right? We aren’t talking about inland Australia where you have to travel dozens of kilometers of near-desert to find the next house. The trip shouldn’t take even an hour in the vehicle.”

Aradia had a point, but a convoy of tanks passed by just then, throwing an unhealthy-looking cloud of asphalt dust into the air. Funnily enough, the Predator Octopus had a sideview mirrors, turn signals, brake lights, and a license plate. Which meant they had to obey the traffic laws while on the public roads. If they floored it and drove at top speed, the unusual behavior would quickly rouse suspicion.

Furthermore…

“The city isn’t as stupid as you are, so they will have set up checkpoints. Still, we should be safer in this billion-yen tin can than if we were walking outside where everyone could see who we are. It just means traveling very, very slowly,” explained Anna, slurping up her pack of jelly drink. Adding in some toxic laughter seemed to be second nature to her at this point. “Like I said before, the vehicle itself weights 20 tons. While that is better than a tank which could mean 40 or even 70 tons, I wouldn’t want to cross an old, rundown bridge in it and it’s too large to sneak through narrow back alleys. With any smaller or older roads, one of us will need to get out and make sure the MCV can get through before we make our move, so keep that in mind. That might sound simple enough to you, but large trucks usually need to submit a route in advance to make sure they don’t damage the pavement.”

“Then what is even the point of hiding in this cramped tin can that costs more than 8 times as much as an Italian sportscar?” asked Aradia. “Emerging to check the way ahead sounds risky to me.”

“I’m saying even that is better than being constantly exposed in this surveillance society chock full of everything from security cameras to drones and even satellites, foolish witch.”

Kamijou sensed an argument brewing, so he quickly intervened.

“A-anyway, you two! We’re all in this together, so arguing inside this cramped vehicle would only-”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………I do despise people who interrupt me without even attempting to grasp the situation first,” said Anna.

“Eh? Huh?”

“Shut up! Whose side are you on? Eat bugs!”

“Mgahhhhhh!!?”

In a complete surprise attack, Aradia shoved a generous handful of insect snacks into his mouth. His spine straightened with a start. This was likely the dried caterpillars, not the type with 6 legs. …But the worst part was how the salt and caramel transformed them into a nice sweet and salty snack. They reminded him a lot of a certain super popular caramel-flavor round snack, so he found them unexpectedly good. His brain was confused about what exactly he was even eating here, so he honestly found it hard to comment on.

“I-I’m not even sure how to categorize this as a memory. …But anyway, if we’re going to do something, shouldn’t we do it right away? I don’t know how these things are done, so could you tell us, Anna?”

“Bow to me before asking anything of me, fool. But you are right. We can start by circumventing the checkpoint they are running up there. That should make for a decent tutorial. You need to take measurements to see if the road can withstand 20 tons. Do that using this handheld ultrasonic sonar kit by-”

After he heard that much, Anna Sprengel’s voice grew unnaturally distorted.

Gravity vanished.

“?”

Without any warning, Kamijou Touma collapsed.

===Part 3===

Kamijou couldn’t see anything.

He also felt off balance, like he was floating in warm water.

He heard voices from somewhere.

“When…think about it…isn’t surprising.”

“I told…letting him rest…our top priority.”

Where was he?

That thought led Kamijou to realize what had happened. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He was in the same place as before. That is, inside the Predator Octopus.

He could hear voices.

Two voices speaking to each other.

“Most likely…Old Mary’s resurrection…but it isn’t perfect.”

“That spell rewinds…to the exact…of death, doesn’t it?”

“And it doesn’t…the lost blood. He probably…due to anemia. Oh, no. And…from the extreme exhaustion and tension…played a role too.”

“Then the best…give him something nutritious to eat. That way…create his own blood.”

(Aradia? Anna?)

Two names floated to the surface of Kamijou’s mind and he slowly opened his eyes.

Only then did he realize his eyes had been closed.

“That aside, was there any need to return your body to that size?”

“I want to see how it’s doing whenever I have the chance. Besides, this is my proper form – I just can’t maintain it for very long.”

Their voices were growing clearer, but probably because he was recovering, not because anything about the voices had changed.

And.

For some reason, he was sharing this enclosed space with two naked women.

Both of whom were using wet towels to wipe down their bodies.

They were probably using that thing.

That is, the Academy City quick-drying body soap that was like a combination of soap and hand disinfectant. First you rubbed it on your body, then you waited while it brought your body’s filth to the surface, and finally you wiped it off, leaving your body squeaky clean. But when you saw someone covered in the dried red cream and wiping it away with a towel, it felt a lot like coming across a naked person washing off their flashy body paint.

He wasn’t confident either of them actually wore underwear and their ordinary outfits showed off a lot of skin, but it was still something else entirely to see them fully nude. And when they were squishing their skin down with the towels, the visual information taught him exactly what the word “supple” meant. He was certain he would never ever forget that word on a vocabulary test.

He also understood it was an emergency and having him lie on the cold floor had been the only option.

But the low angle view that gave him was no laughing matter.

Also, Kamijou Touma very much wanted to say that they should not use him passing out as a “convenient” opportunity to engage in some girl-only activities! Really, wasn’t this their just deserts for doing that!?

He wanted to say those things, but his mouth was petrified.

But not because he was admiring how big and busty Anna Sprengel was now. Certainly not.

“I am more than ready for an easy life. All I want is a powerful king who can keep me in line.”

He had no idea why the bewitching woman version of Anna Sprengel was saying this all of a sudden.

In what she called her “proper form”, she grinned down at him.

“But I have no use for a horny king, fool.”

She stepped on the bastard’s face.

===Part 4===

Evening had begun.

They had left District 12 and arrived in the adjacent District 23.

Thanks to the martial law, the ordinary roads were blockaded and the district was being used as a cargo and air force base. So if any ordinary people were to climb the fence, they would be shot without even a warning, but these three didn’t care at all.

Aleister, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

They walked along the fence, passing right in front of the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers guarding the perimeter of the district. No human and no mechanical cameras or sensors could detect the intruders.

“What are we doing here?” Kihara Noukan sounded deeply exasperated. “I get the feeling you are involving me in your magic nonsense without bothering to explain any of it.”

The general public was aware of magic’s existence thanks to R&C Occultics, but that website had already been shut down. The city’s Anti-Skill didn’t know enough about magic to use it without the assistance of the site or the app.

''Except…

“Hee hee. This is ❌ anything difficult. 🪄 has always been hidden from the 🌍 at large.”

That was all the glasses woman had to say on the matter.

At her level of expertise, ordinary anti-recognition spells and people clearing fields could reach this level.

She had developed each of the fundamentals far enough to assassinate a superpower’s president with it.

And they were just as effective against ''mere'' expert magicians.

“That isn’t enough for me to relax,” said the blonde woman in a beige habit – or rather, Aleister who was borrowing her body. “Because this means someone else could do it too. Like the Transcendents and Anna Sprengel. We can’t get the upper hand unless we can outdo someone on their level.”

“Yes, yes.”

Kingsford only smiled gently in response to his low, unsteady voice.

A lot like a mother viewing her disobedient teenage son.

There was a decent crowd on the other side of the fence, but they didn’t appear to mean any real harm. A group of Anti-Skill with a tough-looking Doberman were clearly annoyed by the obsessive young men trying to volunteer. Anti-Skill were all teachers, so joining without a teaching license was apparently out of the question.

These young men saw it more like a survival game or like online play in an FPS, so they just wanted to hold real guns and ride a real tank. One of the Anti-Skill officers grabbed a device supported by a metal stand and redirected its aim toward the young men, who scowled and looked a lot less enthusiastic all of a sudden.

Aleister glanced that way.

“Is that low-frequency demoralization audio?”

Anti-Skill was playing an irritating sound too quiet to consciously hear so those young men would decide to leave. The city made it all sound so nice on TV and online, but this was the truth of the matter across the entire city. An invisible labyrinth had been constructed. Not that Aleister was one to talk as the person who had built the city in the first place.

At any rate.

Aleister’s group had no use for an airplane. They were here for the Science Tower. The rest of the district was airfield after airfield, making it very flat, so that 400m tower with an observation deck was highly conspicuous. In addition to broadcast purposes, it was currently being used for 49 different high altitude experiments, including laser lightning induction which could hit a desired location with a lightning bolt and research into what affect the large structure had on the human mind.

The observation deck at 350m also contained a restaurant and a hotel.

After they checked in under a false name at the automated front desk, Anna Kingsford took a look around the hotel rooms that were designed to look like the interior of an airplane.

“My, my. So many vacancies. And during the break.”

“People are restricted from leaving home,” softly replied Aleister. “And the observation deck isn’t in much demand after the New Year’s sunrise anyway.”

“Hee hee.”

Kingsford whispered while walking over to their room’s window.

It was the perfect place for ''a pursuer to hide out in.

“Now, then. Where have those lost 🐇 gone ⬇️ there?♪ A wide-area scan should 👁️ them soon enough.”

“You certainly lost track of them quick given how confident you sounded heading out,” said the exasperated golden retriever.

“I will admit that Secret Chief was something of a surprise. And that wasn’t an issue of 💪. I just didn’t expect her to use him for direct ⚔️. How sloppy. A lot like grabbing a thick 📗 full of knowledge and throwing it at my head.”

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Anna Sprengel wouldn’t think that same method would work again either. If it would, she would have used her trump card as soon as they turned her into a human film canister. That she had held back so long was a sign of her fear.

But she had used up her trump card now, which worked out in their favor.

Kingsford knew how to control herself. She wouldn’t let her own anxiety and hatred get the better of her here.

“Now, you need to decide on a 🔮 target. Are we after Anna Sprengel? Or Mut Thebes?”

Anna Kingsford remained flexible.

“''Or Kamijou Touma''?”

A dull thud echoed out.

In a very un-magician-like move, Aleister had slammed his fist against a nearby wall.

He had seen what Anna Sprengel was like during the battle against Great Demon Coronzon back in the UK.

Yes, Aiwass had been taken from him and he had died.

Anna had escaped even after being turned into a human film canister with no arms, legs, or torso. That meant the only option left was to kill her.

So.

That human’s answer carried resentment itself in his voice.

“Give us the location of the one we must defeat.”

“Then that is what I will do☆”

===Part 5===

“Why is Anna being so nice all of a sudden? Wh-why would that wicked woman hand me a blanket? Wait, hold on. She hasn’t fallen in love with me, has-”

“Do I need to bite your dick off, fool?”

Kamijou shrank down a size smaller. No, two sizes at least.

Her personality and appearance were just too different!! She had been in adult woman mode not long ago, but she apparently couldn’t stay in that form for long. So that line had come from what looked like a mini-size girl. The way she tilted her head and asked it in an innocently gentle way only made it more terrifying.

Anna put on a thoroughly exasperated look and handed him a jelly drink that apparently contained a lot of iron.

“I can’t have you making a habit of collapsing when we are trying to stay off the grid. Haven’t you heard that cavities and appendicitis are deadly for fugitives? You seem to be short on blood, so drink this and command your body’s factory to start producing more.”

“Let me guess, Aradia. You’re only giving me that fruit-flavored nutrient block because you tried one and realized you don’t like it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

At any rate.

He had gotten quite an eyeful earlier and the vehicle was filled with the heat and sweet scent of girls, so he felt unnecessarily nervous. He was beginning to think living together in this armored vehicle (or whatever it was called) wasn’t going to work. He now had two big sisters(?) with only a single living space between them all! He might have a cat, a nun, and a god living in his no-pets-allowed boys dorm, but even there he made sure to sleep in a separate room!

The witch goddess stared at him

“Are you still hung up on that, you pervert?”

“You don’t know how to handle adolescents, do you, banana woman? Your sulking insult caused it all to rush back into my mind. The image is in there this very instant, in fact.”

Aradia blushed a bit and wordlessly kicked his chair.

Why didn’t she understand that being attacked by an older woman like that made his heart pound in something like the suspension bridge effect!?

“Then do you want to sit in the driver’s seat, fool?”

Kamijou was doing his best to focus entirely on his jelly drink when little Anna gave him a thoroughly scornful look.

“The vehicle can be operated from any one of the console monitors, so there’s no real need for a vehicle commander or a gunner anymore. But there is still a diver’s seat in case there are technical issues with the electronics. It’s located right up in the front instead of below the gun.”

“You can’t make me drive! I don’t even know how to drive a car or a moped!”

“I just got through saying my console monitor can handle that. A fool like you only needs to sit in the seat. Being all alone in that cramped space probably won’t be fun, but you could move in there whenever you need to take a break in your own private world.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“(Of course, the Predator Octopus’s driver’s seat isn’t really necessary, so I bet it was redesigned to stop projectiles from reaching the rest of the vehicle. A separate space at the front of the vehicle would be perfect to sacrifice so it can stop any Munroe effect blasts or metal jets. Hee hee.)”

“You need to give all the detailed warnings so I can hear them, Anna-san! You can’t just whisper them real fast at the end like a consumer credit ad!!”

Meanwhile, it could be easy to forget in the sweet girls’ room that the military vehicle had become, but they had work to do.

“Okay.”

Kamijou Touma opened the overhead hatch and climbed out of the Predator Octopus. It was already dark out. Sunset came early in the winter, but his fight with Alice had been in the morning. He must have been passed out for quite a while.

He could see his breaths.

He felt refreshed like he had just washed his face.

The January 3 night air carried the biting chill of midwinter.

He was surrounded by true darkness. The fact that the city was under martial law was much more obvious at night. He could hardly believe the city had been lit up with Christmas and New Year’s decorations so recently.

The spiky-haired boy finally climbed down to the ground.

“A 20ton mobile combat vehicle can only travel on certain roads.”

So someone had to walk out ahead and check on the road to ensure they weren’t going to break through an aged overpass or something. And they of course also had to avoid the checkpoints set up around the city.

There weren’t any checkpoints here – because Anna had found a poorly guarded spot – but he got the impression there were more cleaning robots, security robots, and fixed surveillance cameras than normal. While inside the vehicle, he had spotted several of them staring their way from where they had been attached to makeshift metal poles. Those were meant to track down Kamijou’s group, so he had to be careful.

“Now, then.”

The tool Anna had given him looked like a 50cm stick.

He had expected a disturbing superweapon when she called it an ultrasonic sonar kit, but it was more like the glowing red staffs used for guiding traffic but with a small monitor attached near the bottom. The entire side apparently functioned as a scanner, so he was supposed to pass it close over the road surface.

(Hm. Do I really have to stoop over the entire time I use this? It would be so much easier if it had a long handle like a mop.)

“I don’t have to scan every centimeter. We only need to know the general condition of the pavement, so I only need to get a few samples for every square meter, right?”

Kamijou muttered his instructions to himself while teasing the switch with his thumb.

Like an AED, it was best to simply follow the machine’s instructions.

He noticed the cold shutters lowered at a shop selling strange, toxic-looking donuts. The posted notice suggested it was closed for good, not just for today. Even when a trend looked like it would last forever, you never knew when it was going to end.

(Still…)

He saw some faint light in the distance.

The martial law had its advantages.

Most every business had closed up and lowered its metal shutters, so the light at the checkpoints was hard to miss. That considerably reduced the risk of running into one on accident. Even at this distance, he could make out the military vehicles blocking the street and a bunch of outdoor lights like you would find at a construction site.

(What are they doing? They aren’t just stopping that truck passing through – they’re opening up each and every one of the packages its delivering.)

The driver stood outside the truck, scratching his chin uncertainly.

So much for privacy. If they were checking through any vehicle at that level, then one of Anti-Skill’s own 8-wheel mobile combat vehicles would be at risk too. Staying away from the checkpoints looked like the best plan.

The checkpoints were located at large intersections, tunnels, or other areas where multiple routes converged.

But there were bright spots at other points as well. It scared him that he couldn’t determine the pattern.

“What’s this, fool? Too stupid to figure it out on your own?”

Little Anna poked her head out from the hatch, holding some smart glasses that looked a lot like sports sunglasses. It apparently gave her control without being in the commander’s seat. Using her gaze and voice had to feel a lot different from using her fingers on the large monitor and it probably didn’t give as much control, but she had said something about it being a lot like remotely operating a ground-based drone.

She gave her usual toxic laughter, but she also gave him the answer.

“I will only explain this once. That light is likely a carwash or a taxi maintenance shop.”

“?”

“Or it could be a shipping company or rental car lot. Fool, they are using a preexisting industrial garage to maintain their tanks and armored vehicles.”

Academy City’s Anti-Skill probably weren’t bad people, but letting them find Anna now would only complicate matters. He was afraid they would shoot without even trying to talk it out and things would get even worse if Mut Thebes or Aleister’s group showed up to join the fray.

Those schoolteachers could find themselves in the middle of a deadly battle between magic users so powerful their presence had been kept a secret even on the magic side.

Kamijou took a look through a pair of binoculars he had found in the vehicle.

(Tch. I know the Sisters were helping bolster security during the holiday, but I don’t see any around here. Nothing but grownups. I should probably assume they won’t listen if I try to explain the situation.)

The Sisters’ absence bothered him.

Even though he knew intellectually that he simply felt so trapped that he was searching for special meaning in every little thing.

Were the Sisters alright? And what about Index, Mikoto, and the others?

How many Transcendents had been at that consulate? The confusion caused by the martial law hadn’t redirected the pursuers toward anyone else he knew, had it? Because those people probably would come running to save him. Even if he couldn’t get their help, he wanted to know they were safe.

(I know Anna said using my phone would be dangerous, but still.)

“You haven’t turned on that amateur phone of yours, have you? Don’t you dare post anything on social media. Even carelessly marking a message as read would be a mistake.”

Kamijou looked away from the binoculars.

He looked down at the asphalt below his feet, but…

“Fool, don’t even think about leaving a message with chalk or stones. That might be better than using a phone or computer, but any code you can come up with on the spot will be cracked in seconds by an Academy City supercomputer. And I don’t just mean textual or numerical codes that are easily represented as 1s and 0s. Even messages left in fuzzy graffiti or color patterns can be cracked using image linkage algorithms that find common factors between them.”

“Kh.”

“Were you unaware this city’s scientists seriously analyzed the crop circles left in crop fields and announced at an academic conference that they found no trace of actual language and concluded they were merely pranks? What a dreary way to view the world,” lamented Anna. “Your friends will of course be monitored. And they could be taken hostage if you give any sign they could be used to lure you out. So if you want to protect them, cut off all forms of contact. To the point that this city’s giant computers can’t find a single thing. That is what it means to take this seriously.”

“Okay, okay.”

Anna seemed legitimately exasperated with him, so Kamijou raised his hands in defeat.

Anything that his friends would instantly recognize probably would be discovered in seconds by their pursuers.

That meant their only option was to find their own way ahead while avoiding those lights – the checkpoints set up by Anti-Skill.

“But can we really find a way around the checkpoints? That 20ton thing can’t fit in the narrow alleys and Anti-Skill is set up at all the major intersections, so we’re bound to run into them no matter what wider road we choose.”

“Try using your brain for once, fool. It will rot in your skull otherwise.” Anna shrugged. “Not every route is found on the map. And if we find those hidden routes, we can pass right under Academy City’s collective nose. Especially when those Anti-Skill people are using their computers to share information and monitor their surroundings.”

“Routes not found on the map? What, are we going to dig our own tunnel like bank robbers?”

“Nothing that involved, but surprisingly close to the mark for a fool. It’s scary how wild guesses are correct on occasion.”

“?”

He had meant that as a joke, so her response took him by surprise.

Apparently Anna hadn’t given him a trick question with no real answer.

“Hint 1: these routes are invisible when viewed from the ground. Hint 2: map apps provide detailed information on public roads, but are much less thorough when it comes to private property. Hint 3: they are more common in densely populated areas with limited land. After so many generous hints, I seriously hope you have figured it out by now.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just give me the answer?”

“Not happening, fool. Those so-called intellectuals of the Golden cabal all let their brains rot in the same way. If they hadn’t all been conceited enough to think they were the world’s greatest magician, the Battle of Blythe Road never would have happened. Either side could have withdrawn and kept things peaceful.”

With that, Anna Sprengel ducked back into the hatch.

Then the turret turned to the side.

“?”

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Between the Lines 2===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Chapter1

2023-05-12T04:33:47Z

JDMP: Added a missing "in" to complete a sentence in part 2

{{Incomplete|parts=5|tparts=9}}
==Chapter 1: I’m Sick of Running – Break_Through_MCV.==

===Part 1===

HsMCV-08 Predator Octopus

Class: Next Generation Mobile Combat Vehicle

Crew: 4 (but can be 0 while controlled remotely or used as a drone)

Measurements: 10m long, 2.8m wide, 3m tall (not counting antennae)

Weight: 20 tons (not counting ammunition, fuel, crew, and additional armor)

Max Speed: 250km/h

Max Climbable Slope: 60 degrees (varies based on slope conditions such as moisture or ice)

Engine: Diesel engine with electrical assistance

Drive Method: 4-wheel and 8-wheel drive modes. Front 4 and rear 4 wheels can be turned independently

Sensors: Anti-personnel, anti-air, and anti-vehicle multipurpose microwave radar, facial recognition and object search using optical imagery, IR detection, audio detection, and laser range finding. Also includes detection and countermeasures to locks of same types

C4I Communications: midrange ground radio, close and midrange IR laser, close range ultrasound, high-speed satellite communication. Combined, these methods provide a baselevel equivalent to a front line communications base.

Armaments: 120mm tank gun (can use various shells as well as launch anti-ground and anti-air drones), 40mm auto grenade launcher, 12.7mm heavy machinegun.

Defenses: multipurpose smoke emitter, anti-missile metal net launcher, auto attitude angling program to reduce damage when hit

“Huh, that’s a weird thing to see parked here. Stopping for lunch maybe?”

Hamazura Shiage, a delinquent boy wrapped in plenty of gauze and bandages, made that comment in front of a large discount store that was open for business so soon after New Year’s. But since this was District 12, the floor above it seemed to contain a shrine or church or something.

The dark gray 8-wheel vehicle designed for urban warfare wasn’t something you normally saw while walking around town, but fire trucks and ambulances would also stop by convenience stores for food when there was no emergency to respond to. You would sometimes see photos of it people had posted on social media.

Takitsubo Rikou tilted her head in her pink track suit.

“Probably part of the martial law they talked about on the emergency message sent to our phones. Remember when they beeped like they do before an earthquake?”

“Martial law. You can’t be serious. Surely it’s only training and they forgot to check the right box or something. Y’know, one of those false alarms where they don’t even give you any free gems to apologize. But now that you mention it, the convenience stores and supermarkets do all have their shutters down. I thought they were just closed for the holiday, but maybe not. This could be bad…”

“At least you’re out of the hospital. If you had been there any longer, they might have shut you inside in the name of protecting the sick and injured.”

Those two were only all the way in District 12 because they wanted to avoid the crowds at the few stores that were still open among all the closed shutters. But what if that wasn’t people after holiday sales and were actually buying up what they could before everything shut down?

Meanwhile, Takitsubo Rikou spoke to him with her usual blank look.

“We’ll be fine as long as the global search engine and that penguin logo discount store are still open for business. The Earth isn’t in danger yet.”

“I hope you’re right…”

With the deep rumble of diesel engines, a convoy of military vehicles drove past them. Another of the 8-wheel armored vehicles was in the lead, a trio of military trucks carrying materiel and ammo followed, and an anti-air tank with a radar and two humongous autocannons took up the rear. What were they planning to fight?

Takitsubo didn’t seem to mind as she removed one of the plastic baskets by the entrance and placed it in the cart.

“The others said they were sick of New Year’s food, didn’t they? So how about we have roast beef tonight?”

“I’m pretty sure Mugino and Kinuhata meant they don’t want any more fancy food, not just the Japanese kind. I bet they’d love it if we made curry udon.”

“Or a rice bowl? Okay, how about we make roast beef bowls as a compromise.”

“Wow, it’s the exact same ingredient, but it sounds way cheaper now!!”

===Part 2===

The aisles were cramped.

Kamijou was already feeling loopy from the theme song being played ad nauseam.

He held a shopping basket as he ventured into a modern dungeon packed full of every sort of product: food, cosmetics, toys, video games, camping goods, and even bicycles.

He stared at the boxes of masks stacked up by the entrance.

“Is the flu going around or something?”

Discount stores – especially the entrance area – could be used as a scientific form of divination. The in-season items they hoped to sell the most would be shoved to the front, reflecting the current trends.

Aradia picked up a box of over-the-counter cold medicine from a stacked pyramid of them.

“These colorful capsules are supposed to be medicine? Really, Academy City’s love of strange chemicals knows no end. These kinds of problems are for your local villagers and witches, not some scientist up in his ivory tower.”

“Hold on, Aradia. You aren’t seriously saying all-natural medicines made from tree roots or whatever have no side effects and you can’t overdose on them, are you? Ugh, that stuff is so gross.”

“You don’t have to look away when you say that. And come to think of it, didn’t that little god say you bought that sturdy foreign duct tape at a discount store? Hee hee hee. Oh, don’t worry. I’m not bringing that up for any particular reason. I’m only stating a fact, so I’m not going to hurt you or anything.”

Was he imagining it or was there a burning fire behind her dark expression?

It was just like a discount store to lazily be pushing ordinary cold medicine when it was the flu going around. And some of the masks in the clearance section were for sports and may not have done much at all to prevent the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, little wicked woman Anna was focused on something else entirely.

The bare-skin girl(?) who probably never caught a cold or the flu spoke up.

“All the alcoholic drinks have been moved to the back and locked up. Is that because of the martial law?”

That wasn’t something a high school boy like Kamijou paid much attention to.

Would people cause trouble because they were drinking or because they had been denied their drinks?

“This is awfully ironic.”

“What is?” Aradia tilted her head.

It was January 3 and Board Chairman Accelerator had apparently declared martial law across Academy City. Or so they were saying on the show displayed on all of the TVs advertised at their holiday sale prices. The given reason was to bring a swift end to a battle that had broken out at a foreign consulate, but Kamijou knew it was so they could hunt down his group (or Anna really).

“Fool. This shop is still open with martial law declared. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“The time will come when we can’t buy food and water?” asked Kamijou in shock.

Little Anna grinned.

“We’re on the run, remember? It’s too late to search out supplies once we need them. Our 8-wheel vehicle has plenty of horsepower, so it couldn’t hurt to stock up. Unless you want to risk your life for a cup of water later on, I recommend buying thrice the supplies you would consider the bare minimum. So for now, two or three days’ worth?”

Thanks to the martial law, no one would question the tanks and armored trucks driving down the streets or the unmanned attack helicopters and self-destruct attack drones flying through the sky.

“Damn. Does that bastard have to be taking his board chairman job so seriously?”

“He’s assumed the mantle well – including the part where he makes stupid decisions,” said Anna. “Hee hee. Anyone who sits in the executive seat seems to end up thinking the same way.”

Yes, this also meant that no one paid any real attention to the Predator Octopus that Kamijou’s group was driving around. No one reported it or tried to stop them.

It didn’t matter how much firepower someone had if they couldn’t locate their target. What could you call that but ironic?

Ideally, they would make their way to District 15 right away.

If Academy City learned of the Bridge Builders Cabal’s plans and that Anna was in the unique position to stop it, they might decide they needed her.

(Sigh. Down blankets and microwaves. They really sell everything here. Can’t I just live here? Are pets and other living animals the only thing they don’t have?)

Kamijou amused himself by checking out some colorful clothing cases that probably weren’t as useful as they looked. Maybe he just needed something to distract him from the fact that they were on the run.

But while the pointy haired boy entered old man mode, something concerning was underway behind him.

“Anna, you look much too conspicuous for someone on the run. Shouldn’t you wear actual clothing instead of holding that cloth up to your chest? Your butt could use covering.”

“You’re one to talk when it comes to clothing, bare navel bikini witch. And is it scored for easy tearing? Hoping someone will rip it off of you?”

Kamijou’s smile remained but a tear trickled from the corner of his eye.

Before they even addressing how much skin their clothing covered, he really wished they would note the fact that both of them were walking around barefoot in the frigid January weather. Thanks to the diagonal slash Aradia had received from a certain butler, her already revealing bikini had been hastily repaired with thread and needle. That looked 100 times more precarious than an ordinary bikini knot.

He was doing his best to pretend he didn’t know them, but he too was making a pretty wild fashion statement with his coat’s missing right sleeve. You could call it Kanzaki style.

But he couldn’t run away from reality.

So he turned around.

“Are you sure we don’t need a cart?”

“Stick to the one basket, fool. If you don’t set an upper limit for yourself, you’ll start shoving everything you see into the cart. Like this stamp-sized mobile router. It looks interesting, but how would we even use it?”

Small Anna was right.

Discount stores were experts at using the low prices to fuel impulse buying, so it was best to assume an amateur like him couldn’t fight it. The store had experts in psychology and economics on their side, so the vague feelings of an individual could never win.

“What about you, Aradia? Kamijou-san is a little overwhelmed by the wide variety of stuff they have here.”

“There’s a lot I want, but food should probably be our priority. …What is this long, angular bar? Ew, what kind of meat even is it?”

“It’s just chicken!! They gather up all the small pieces left on the bone and press it together for an economical food! Why does it scare you so much, Aradia!?”

The nature-loving forest witch goddess kept her distance from the block of meat that couldn’t look more processed if it tried.

“We want a quick source of nutrition, so…how about bananas? But raw ones don’t keep for long, so the chips might be best. Honey, nuts, and dried fruit sound like good options too.”

Was there any hidden meaning in that or not? She was probably focused on foods that would keep, but that lineup sounded like it would make you thirsty. And were banana chips really that nutritious? Kamijou had always thought they were junk food.

(Do they sell minifridges here? They do have microwaves.)

Kamijou took a bunch of stuff from the shelves and stuck it in the basket. With three of them, the basket was getting pretty full after a few minutes. Especially when cooking wouldn’t be an option. Also, not being poor was a wonderful thing. Running around Shibuya while being killed repeatedly by Aradia had been worth it. He did wish she would apologize at least once, though.

“What about water? Should we buy some?”

“There was a 50 liter tank in the vehicle. And try to picture our entire daily routine. We’ll need water for washing our faces and bathing.”

“Ugh, then will we have to buy toothbrushes too? Oh, god. I have all this stuff back at my dorm, so this is all wasted money! This is worse than accidentally buying a manga volume you already own. Can’t we stop by my dorm real quick? I know all this stuff is already there!”

“You know we can’t, fool. They will absolutely be watching it. Do you want to die?”

This was all Anna’s fault, so why was she being so condescending about it?

Kamijou wasn’t about to give up yet, so he looked elsewhere while trembling.

“Oh, they’re selling fukubukuro.”

“What are those? Giant fortune cookies?”

“Fool and country witch, don’t even think about it because no one bag will have everything you want. Remember, these are an assortment of unsold products at an already super-cheap discount store. Besides, Mr. Misfortune here has a solid 0% chance of choosing a good one.”

Aradia gently placed an arm around the shoulders of the boy who thought he was going to cry if this kept up.

Anyway, he never imagined he would be carrying a shopping basket and checking out the fresh foods and daily necessities sections while chatting with a witch goddess. Since she had quite literally killed him in Shibuya on December 31, it really did prove how strange life could be.

Aradia herself picked up some body soap and skeptically read the back of the bottle.

“It’s not just the food – everything in Academy City is creepy. What is this collection of chemicals? How do you even use it?”

Kamijou wondered how you could even make soap without chemically processing oil in some way.

“It’s quick-drying body soap,” he explained. “You rub it into your skin, wait a bit for it to bring up all the filth, and then peel it off. It’s popular with poor students who can’t even afford to fill their tub with water.”

“We also need new clothes for you. Who tore off your right sleeve anyway?”

“You and Anna need new clothes more than I do. Why are you both showing off so much skin for free? At this point, it should definitely be behind the paywall. And were you unaware that January is midwinter in the Northern Hemis- ow!? Stop kicking me, Anna!”

And so they also checked out a section across the store from the food.

They wanted a new coat for Kamijou, but there were plenty of other useful items like an electric heater and a collapsible bed. But if they started buying everything, the contents of his wallet would quickly run out, so Kamijou had to fight the urge.

Then he felt a tug on his sleeve.

He looked down to see Anna Sprengel holding something. It appeared to be a video game box. Her small size made it look like a little sister begging her big brother for a game, but then he saw the title: Jiggly☆Witch Trial.

“(Hey, hey. This says it’s a touchscreen game where you capture witches hidden around the city and reveal their identity using some lewd interrogation techniques. Is this part of the retro game rerelease boom? It’s been marked down a lot, so it’s a great price. Let’s buy it, fool. Hee hee. Japan really is a crazy country.)”

“(Do you wicked women have a sixth sense for stuff like this!? No, we aren’t buying that! Aradia would explode! And in a way that left my bones and organs visible! This isn’t the time for jiggly stuff!!)

“(Read between the lines, fool. That’s what I want to happen. Specifically, I want to see her kick you in the balls so hard it lifts you 2cm from the ground. Oh, now look what you made me say. How embarrassing.)”

“You trying to be tsundere works so poorly it’s triggering a bunch of unheard-of errors in my brain.”

Maybe discount stores had a little too much variety.

A short distance from Kamijou and Anna’s whispered conversation, Aradia (who was back in full Transcendent mode with her feet freed from the duct tape) was viewing a different product on the wall. She would likely grab Kamijou’s hair and rip his head from his body like a vegetable from the ground if she found out what he and Anna were discussing, so what had her so preoccupied?

(A picture book?)

“The Little Mermaid… Oh, what a tragic story. The sea witch gave the sheltered mermaid exactly what she wanted and even rooted for her, but everyone treats her like some kind of troublemaker!!”

“Are you sure that’s the tragedy of the story!? Are you sure it isn’t the princess who turns to foam!?”

After calming down the witch goddess who was trembling with her hands over her mouth, they continued shopping. At Aradia’s request, they put a few rolls of fabric in the basket. What was she going to use them for?

Even after their shopping was complete, they couldn’t let their guard down. The checkout area was loaded with traps.

“I want a roasted potato.”

“Do you go for any kind of natural food, Aradia?”

Kamijou Touma’s poor life was over. He had the results of his year-end job. So he carried the shopping basket up to the college girl cashier without hesitation. However…

“Oh?”

Anna’s small foot kicked him in the shin.

He really hoped she didn’t make a habit of it because that little girl’s foot hurt like hell.

“No using your phone, fool. Pay with cash. Why is it even still powered on? Do you want to die?”

“?”

“Anything you do with your phone is recorded. Not counting my special model where I fully swapped out the chips inside.”

He didn’t understand any of that, but he decided it was worth listening to the little wicked woman since she had run a global IT company. He paid in cash as told and left with the products in shopping bags. The two enormous yellow bags were both crammed full. Was this what it felt like to be rich? There was a parking meter on the curb, but the vehicle parked there was a mobile combat vehicle that looked like a tank gun sitting atop an 8-wheel chassis.

Anna pointed elsewhere while holding her dress against her flat chest.

A very temporary-looking 10m metal tower rose up from a small park there.

“That’s a phone interception antenna tower. It can see any data moving to and from your phone.”

“Are you serious?”

“Martial law, remember? Your right to privacy goes right out the window.”

Kamijou panicked when a helicopter loudly passed by overhead, but it didn’t seem to have found them. Because they didn’t hear any sirens or phone alerts in the area. Several transport helicopters flew elsewhere while using thick cables to carry barricades made by arranging thick steel beams in an asterisk shape.

(Come to think of it, who makes Academy City’s defense weapons? I get the feeling they don’t contract out to an ordinary company, but does that actually make a profit?)

“Fool. Everything from the production to the deployment of Academy City’s weapons is done in the name of technological research. The funding is 100% tax based, which means their budget is effectively endless. And they also create downgraded versions they force onto the cooperative institutes around the world, so they never go in the red no matter how many they produce. Just by saying the weapons have been field tested in Academy City to ensure safety, they can take Anti-Skill’s old, worn-out weapons, remove the components they want to keep secret, and force those cooperative institutes to buy them for 3 times what they’re worth. Quite the economical display of recycling, don’t you think? Even more underhanded than calling yourself a religious corporation to avoid paying taxes.”

Could Anna rattle off all of that unpleasant trivia because she spent so much time online?

A blimp with a large screen drifted through the January sky. Even that scared Kamijou now. What if it started dropping bombs? After seeing all those tanks and armored trucks driving around, he had lost sight of what was possible or not.

The ecological city of spinning three-blade wind turbines felt like a stage backdrop now.

(And you could even say that we’re the ones who caused this.)

The one saving grace was that he was still confident he had done the right thing.

They put a coin in the parking meter and reentered the vehicle. That was a rare experience for a high schooler.

Aradia tore apart her own clothing.

She used the fabric she had bought to sew back up the part that had been temporarily fixed. She was quite handy.

“Silk dyed with hyssop and rosemary flowers… Why did they only sell mesh fabrics?”

“Those are probably ventilation fan covers designed to keep bugs out. Ones made without chemicals.”

Kamijou put on his new jacket.

“So what did you two buy?”

Aradia dug through the yellow bags and then grimaced.

She had the look of a mother disappointed in what her child had spent his allowance on.

“A jelly drink, a nutrient block, and cup noodles? Oh, no. You were aware the point was to buy enough food to get by because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to shop, right?”

Kamijou had tried to choose things that were easy to eat and would keep, but the nature-loving, banana-obsessed woman did not approve. She viewed the contents of the yellow bags (advertised as made from plant materials) like they contained the mystery food from a dystopian SF movie.

“My selection is a lot healthier,” said Aradia.

“Ew, insect snacks!?” said Kamijou. “I’ve seen those for sale before, but I thought they were for people who lost a bet or for people to buy as a joke!”

“They’re a next-generation protein source. With this salted caramel flavor, it’s a lot like munching on popcorn.”

“…”

Kamijou had thought edible insects would be on the way out now that high-quality tofu meat was available, but it didn’t sound like Aradia had bought them just to freak him out. She made sure to remove her food from the bags to keep it separate.

He was worried about the dietary habits of this goddess who lived in the sacred forests of Europe. If she could reliably capture insects, he felt like she could use those as bait to catch fish.

“What’s that look for? Sigh, your Eastern culture weeps. This country has a wonderful culinary tradition of cooking insects like grasshoppers and hornet larvae. Your people stand at the forefront of the world there, so it would be a shame to let the tradition die.”

It was hard to tell if this goddess was extremely old-fashioned or cutting edge. And Aradia appeared to be the kind of person who relied on snacks and chips for nutrition when she was short on time. Like the messy young woman who ate snacks all day because she didn’t know how to cook.

“This stupid banana woman and her lewd outfit.”

“What was that you let slip just now?”

“Wait, no! I apologize, so please explain to me what you plan to do with that clenched fist, Transcendent! Good, Old Mary isn’t here now, so that’s t-t-terrifying!!”

Anyway.

She circled behind him and gave him a (gentle) two-handed noogie.

“Nweee? But, Anna, this 8-wheel vehicle really is conspicuous. There are people snapping photos with their phones.”

“Foolish fool. This thing weighs more than 20 tons, which is twice the weight of a dump truck. If we tried to hide it inside a turntable parking garage, it would break the elevator.”

Meanwhile, Anna didn’t seem to have an issue with chemicals. She even licked her lips as she grabbed a muscat flavor jelly drink. The weirdly alluring mannerisms on the young-looking body caused Kamijou’s brain to glitch a little.

He looked away, but that had him looking at Aradia who had ended the noogie, sat in the gunner’s seat, flipped her clasped hands around, and stretched them forward while her back trembled.

“Uhhh… I really am feeling weak. Is that cause I haven’t been getting much exercise?”

“Or maybe it’s just awkward being in such a cramped space?”

She gave Kamijou quite the depressing glare for that comment.

“No, I think it has more to do with being left wrapped up in duct tape for days on end. I’m just glad I don’t have any bedsores.”

What could he do but apologize?

An amplified voice outside made it through the thick armor.

It had to be absolutely deafening outside.

“Indefinite martial law has been declared for the entirety of Academy City. Please avoid heading out and remain in your dorm or home.”

The announcement was probably coming from the blimp’s screen and it repeated.

“Water, food, and other necessities will be supplied to you if you contact your dorm manager. Please remain calm and stay where you are.”

“They’re kidding, right? What dorm manager? I’ve never even seen an adult at my dorm. Being locked in the same building as a pretty young dorm manager in an apron sounds like heaven to me.”

“What makes you so sure the manager would be a young woman?”

What could he do but clear his throat and look away from Aradia?

Just like with the school doctor, it was about having dreams. But he got the feeling she would punch him square in the face if he said that out loud.

Aradia must have picked up on his adolescent fantasies because she frowned cautiously before speaking.

“Do they really expect a bunch of teenagers to stay indoors just because they say it’s dangerous outside? And who knows how long they can get away with it, but that discount store was open.”

Small Anna had her legs elegantly crossed up in the command seat while she messed with a monitor that could apparently pick up civilian frequencies in addition to the military ones. That meant it got TV and radio. The New Year’s holiday was winding down, so everything was returning to normal while the TV stations were still doing live variety shows. The set was still flooded with New Year’s props, but the entertainers were dressed normally now.

“Martial law might sound scary, but there is nothing to worry about. People were already staying home more due to the Kotatsu Syndrome, so will this even have that much of an effect?”

“Plus, it’s the holiday. Everyone’s exhausted from working so hard, so this is the perfect chance to relax at home☆”

“Also, the hospitals across the city have been asked to prepare for soldiers arriving as emergency patients. They have to reserve 40% of their beds for that, so everyone else is asked to refrain from visiting the hospital except in true emergencies. Your careless action could be a nuisance for our civil servants.”

Kamijou frowned.

Don’t go outside. Stay home. Don’t use the ordinary services. Being asked all that during winter break seemed like it would cause a lot of stress, but everyone on TV was reacting positively to the violation of people’s freedom. Or maybe it was more accurate to say any opposing views had been removed in advance.

“Fool, this is martial law.”

Anna Sprengel wagged her finger and gave a response he wasn’t sure really counted as an answer. He wasn’t sure what she had used since there was no remote, but she called up a TV guide.

Even Kamijou noticed something then. There should have been a few movies playing during the holiday, but all of the war and disaster movies had vanished from the schedule and were replaced by unusually long shopping shows.

And those ads were unusually cheerful.

“Have we got a New Year’s campaign for you! Every single roll is guaranteed an SSR or better and you earn 10 times – that’s right 10 times – the usual rate of magic gems, so make sure to pour all that XP into your favorite character. This is our New Year’s gift to you here at Samurai Street!!”

“That’s probably part of the plan to keep everyone inside,” said Anna. “Note that the event is nothing more than manipulating numbers.”

“?”

“The idea is to keep everyone glued to their tiny screens so they aren’t interested in going outside, fool. Instead of taking away the option, they give them a more attractive option. It’s a common tactic rulers use against people like you. And major campaigns from every company at once won’t raise any eyebrows during the holiday.”

Kamijou wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but he felt a chill when he saw the nasty grin on the face of that wicked woman who had created a global IT company and manipulated 7 billion people.

(The new board chairman must have put a lot of thought into this.)

Aradia didn’t seem too interested in the ordinary media because she started rummaging through the yellow discount store bags.

“We bought a lot, but did we think to buy a mirror?”

“Why not use the fool’s phone? The black screen works just like a mirror.”

“Stretchy, stretchy.”

Kamijou watched as the witch goddess looked into the mirror(?), placed her hands on her face, and began stretching her cheeks. Was that…a massage? This new discovery about a girl’s daily life was kind of surreal.

(Wait. That green light on the side of the screen doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it?)

“Is this recording? Why would you record someone in such an unguarded moment, you pervert!?”

It finally hit home to Kamijou (while receiving a much less gentle noogie this time) that he was living with girls here.

He got the feeling that sharing a single living space like this was going to cause many more problems.

“Anyway, fool, let’s review our situation.”

“Okay. We bought what you said we needed, so what now?”

Kamijou was released by the sexy and intellectual young woman, so he reached for the chocolate-flavored nutrient block he had bought.

It seemed the closest to a snack to him.

“We’re being directly pursued by three forces right now: Academy City, Aleister, and the Bridge Builders Cabal.”

If any of those three captured Anna Sprengel, or Kamijou and Aradia who were assisting her, they would be in serious trouble. For Anna in particular, there was a growing trend toward killing her instead of capturing her.

Given what Anna had done, Kamijou didn’t want to just let her go free either.

But that did not mean he was willing to let her die.

Would that ending really satisfy St. Germain, Helcalia, and Melzabeth?

“For now, we need to focus our attention on the Bridge Builders Cabal,” said Anna. “To do that, I would like to move from here in District 12 to District 15 where my magic database is hidden.”

“District 12 is on the easternmost end of the city and District 15 is to the west. We can’t pass through District 23 since it’s full of airfields and thus off limits. The shortest route would be to travel through Districts 6, 5, and 7.”

“But this is all in the same city, right? We aren’t talking about inland Australia where you have to travel dozens of kilometers of near-desert to find the next house. The trip shouldn’t take even an hour in the vehicle.”

Aradia had a point, but a convoy of tanks passed by just then, throwing an unhealthy-looking cloud of asphalt dust into the air. Funnily enough, the Predator Octopus had a sideview mirrors, turn signals, brake lights, and a license plate. Which meant they had to obey the traffic laws while on the public roads. If they floored it and drove at top speed, the unusual behavior would quickly rouse suspicion.

Furthermore…

“The city isn’t as stupid as you are, so they will have set up checkpoints. Still, we should be safer in this billion-yen tin can than if we were walking outside where everyone could see who we are. It just means traveling very, very slowly,” explained Anna, slurping up her pack of jelly drink. Adding in some toxic laughter seemed to be second nature to her at this point. “Like I said before, the vehicle itself weights 20 tons. While that is better than a tank which could mean 40 or even 70 tons, I wouldn’t want to cross an old, rundown bridge in it and it’s too large to sneak through narrow back alleys. With any smaller or older roads, one of us will need to get out and make sure the MCV can get through before we make our move, so keep that in mind. That might sound simple enough to you, but large trucks usually need to submit a route in advance to make sure they don’t damage the pavement.”

“Then what is even the point of hiding in this cramped tin can that costs more than 8 times as much as an Italian sportscar?” asked Aradia. “Emerging to check the way ahead sounds risky to me.”

“I’m saying even that is better than being constantly exposed in this surveillance society chock full of everything from security cameras to drones and even satellites, foolish witch.”

Kamijou sensed an argument brewing, so he quickly intervened.

“A-anyway, you two! We’re all in this together, so arguing inside this cramped vehicle would only-”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………I do despise people who interrupt me without even attempting to grasp the situation first,” said Anna.

“Eh? Huh?”

“Shut up! Whose side are you on? Eat bugs!”

“Mgahhhhhh!!?”

In a complete surprise attack, Aradia shoved a generous handful of insect snacks into his mouth. His spine straightened with a start. This was likely the dried caterpillars, not the type with 6 legs. …But the worst part was how the salt and caramel transformed them into a nice sweet and salty snack. They reminded him a lot of a certain super popular caramel-flavor round snack, so he found them unexpectedly good. His brain was confused about what exactly he was even eating here, so he honestly found it hard to comment on.

“I-I’m not even sure how to categorize this as a memory. …But anyway, if we’re going to do something, shouldn’t we do it right away? I don’t know how these things are done, so could you tell us, Anna?”

“Bow to me before asking anything of me, fool. But you are right. We can start by circumventing the checkpoint they are running up there. That should make for a decent tutorial. You need to take measurements to see if the road can withstand 20 tons. Do that using this handheld ultrasonic sonar kit by-”

After he heard that much, Anna Sprengel’s voice grew unnaturally distorted.

Gravity vanished.

“?”

Without any warning, Kamijou Touma collapsed.

===Part 3===

Kamijou couldn’t see anything.

He also felt off balance, like he was floating in warm water.

He heard voices from somewhere.

“When…think about it…isn’t surprising.”

“I told…letting him rest…our top priority.”

Where was he?

That thought led Kamijou to realize what had happened. He hadn’t gone anywhere. He was in the same place as before. That is, inside the Predator Octopus.

He could hear voices.

Two voices speaking to each other.

“Most likely…Old Mary’s resurrection…but it isn’t perfect.”

“That spell rewinds…to the exact…of death, doesn’t it?”

“And it doesn’t…the lost blood. He probably…due to anemia. Oh, no. And…from the extreme exhaustion and tension…played a role too.”

“Then the best…give him something nutritious to eat. That way…create his own blood.”

(Aradia? Anna?)

Two names floated to the surface of Kamijou’s mind and he slowly opened his eyes.

Only then did he realize his eyes had been closed.

“That aside, was there any need to return your body to that size?”

“I want to see how it’s doing whenever I have the chance. Besides, this is my proper form – I just can’t maintain it for very long.”

Their voices were growing clearer, but probably because he was recovering, not because anything about the voices had changed.

And.

For some reason, he was sharing this enclosed space with two naked women.

Both of whom were using wet towels to wipe down their bodies.

They were probably using that thing.

That is, the Academy City quick-drying body soap that was like a combination of soap and hand disinfectant. First you rubbed it on your body, then you waited while it brought your body’s filth to the surface, and finally you wiped it off, leaving your body squeaky clean. But when you saw someone covered in the dried red cream and wiping it away with a towel, it felt a lot like coming across a naked person washing off their flashy body paint.

He wasn’t confident either of them actually wore underwear and their ordinary outfits showed off a lot of skin, but it was still something else entirely to see them fully nude. And when they were squishing their skin down with the towels, the visual information taught him exactly what the word “supple” meant. He was certain he would never ever forget that word on a vocabulary test.

He also understood it was an emergency and having him lie on the cold floor had been the only option.

But the low angle view that gave him was no laughing matter.

Also, Kamijou Touma very much wanted to say that they should not use him passing out as a “convenient” opportunity to engage in some girl-only activities! Really, wasn’t this their just deserts for doing that!?

He wanted to say those things, but his mouth was petrified.

But not because he was admiring how big and busty Anna Sprengel was now. Certainly not.

“I am more than ready for an easy life. All I want is a powerful king who can keep me in line.”

He had no idea why the bewitching woman version of Anna Sprengel was saying this all of a sudden.

In what she called her “proper form”, she grinned down at him.

“But I have no use for a horny king, fool.”

She stepped on the bastard’s face.

===Part 4===

Evening had begun.

They had left District 12 and arrived in the adjacent District 23.

Thanks to the martial law, the ordinary roads were blockaded and the district was being used as a cargo and air force base. So if any ordinary people were to climb the fence, they would be shot without even a warning, but these three didn’t care at all.

Aleister, Anna Kingsford, and Kihara Noukan.

They walked along the fence, passing right in front of the fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers guarding the perimeter of the district. No human and no mechanical cameras or sensors could detect the intruders.

“What are we doing here?” Kihara Noukan sounded deeply exasperated. “I get the feeling you are involving me in your magic nonsense without bothering to explain any of it.”

The general public was aware of magic’s existence thanks to R&C Occultics, but that website had already been shut down. The city’s Anti-Skill didn’t know enough about magic to use it without the assistance of the site or the app.

''Except…

“Hee hee. This is ❌ anything difficult. 🪄 has always been hidden from the 🌍 at large.”

That was all the glasses woman had to say on the matter.

At her level of expertise, ordinary anti-recognition spells and people clearing fields could reach this level.

She had developed each of the fundamentals far enough to assassinate a superpower’s president with it.

And they were just as effective against ''mere'' expert magicians.

“That isn’t enough for me to relax,” said the blonde woman in a beige habit – or rather, Aleister who was borrowing her body. “Because this means someone else could do it too. Like the Transcendents and Anna Sprengel. We can’t get the upper hand unless we can outdo someone on their level.”

“Yes, yes.”

Kingsford only smiled gently in response to his low, unsteady voice.

A lot like a mother viewing her disobedient teenage son.

There was a decent crowd on the other side of the fence, but they didn’t appear to mean any real harm. A group of Anti-Skill with a tough-looking Doberman were clearly annoyed by the obsessive young men trying to volunteer. Anti-Skill were all teachers, so joining without a teaching license was apparently out of the question.

These young men saw it more like a survival game or like online play in an FPS, so they just wanted to hold real guns and ride a real tank. One of the Anti-Skill officers grabbed a device supported by a metal stand and redirected its aim toward the young men, who scowled and looked a lot less enthusiastic all of a sudden.

Aleister glanced that way.

“Is that low-frequency demoralization audio?”

Anti-Skill was playing an irritating sound too quiet to consciously hear so those young men would decide to leave. The city made it all sound so nice on TV and online, but this was the truth of the matter across the entire city. An invisible labyrinth had been constructed. Not that Aleister was one to talk as the person who had built the city in the first place.

At any rate.

Aleister’s group had no use for an airplane. They were here for the Science Tower. The rest of the district was airfield after airfield, making it very flat, so that 400m tower with an observation deck was highly conspicuous. In addition to broadcast purposes, it was currently being used for 49 different high altitude experiments, including laser lightning induction which could hit a desired location with a lightning bolt and research into what affect the large structure had on the human mind.

The observation deck at 350m also contained a restaurant and a hotel.

After they checked in under a false name at the automated front desk, Anna Kingsford took a look around the hotel rooms that were designed to look like the interior of an airplane.

“My, my. So many vacancies. And during the break.”

“People are restricted from leaving home,” softly replied Aleister. “And the observation deck isn’t in much demand after the New Year’s sunrise anyway.”

“Hee hee.”

Kingsford whispered while walking over to their room’s window.

It was the perfect place for ''a pursuer to hide out in.

“Now, then. Where have those lost 🐇 gone ⬇️ there?♪ A wide-area scan should 👁️ them soon enough.”

“You certainly lost track of them quick given how confident you sounded heading out,” said the exasperated golden retriever.

“I will admit that Secret Chief was something of a surprise. And that wasn’t an issue of 💪. I just didn’t expect her to use him for direct ⚔️. How sloppy. A lot like grabbing a thick 📗 full of knowledge and throwing it at my head.”

But that wasn’t an option anymore.

Anna Sprengel wouldn’t think that same method would work again either. If it would, she would have used her trump card as soon as they turned her into a human film canister. That she had held back so long was a sign of her fear.

But she had used up her trump card now, which worked out in their favor.

Kingsford knew how to control herself. She wouldn’t let her own anxiety and hatred get the better of her here.

“Now, you need to decide on a 🔮 target. Are we after Anna Sprengel? Or Mut Thebes?”

Anna Kingsford remained flexible.

“''Or Kamijou Touma''?”

A dull thud echoed out.

In a very un-magician-like move, Aleister had slammed his fist against a nearby wall.

He had seen what Anna Sprengel was like during the battle against Great Demon Coronzon back in the UK.

Yes, Aiwass had been taken from him and he had died.

Anna had escaped even after being turned into a human film canister with no arms, legs, or torso. That meant the only option left was to kill her.

So.

That human’s answer carried resentment itself in his voice.

“Give us the location of the one we must defeat.”

“Then that is what I will do☆”

===Part 5===

“Why is Anna being so nice all of a sudden? Wh-why would that wicked woman hand me a blanket? Wait, hold on. She hasn’t fallen in love with me, has-”

“Do I need to bite your dick off, fool?”

Kamijou shrank down a size smaller. No, two sizes at least.

Her personality and appearance were just too different!! She had been in adult woman mode not long ago, but she apparently couldn’t stay in that form for long. So that line had come from what looked like a mini-size girl. The way she tilted her head and asked it in an innocently gentle way only made it more terrifying.

Anna put on a thoroughly exasperated look and handed him a jelly drink that apparently contained a lot of iron.

“I can’t have you making a habit of collapsing when we are trying to stay off the grid. Haven’t you heard that cavities and appendicitis are deadly for fugitives? You seem to be short on blood, so drink this and command your body’s factory to start producing more.”

“Let me guess, Aradia. You’re only giving me that fruit-flavored nutrient block because you tried one and realized you don’t like it.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

At any rate.

He had gotten quite an eyeful earlier and the vehicle was filled with the heat and sweet scent of girls, so he felt unnecessarily nervous. He was beginning to think living together in this armored vehicle (or whatever it was called) wasn’t going to work. He now had two big sisters(?) with only a single living space between them all! He might have a cat, a nun, and a god living in his no-pets-allowed boys dorm, but even there he made sure to sleep in a separate room!

The witch goddess stared at him

“Are you still hung up on that, you pervert?”

“You don’t know how to handle adolescents, do you, banana woman? Your sulking insult caused it all to rush back into my mind. The image is in there this very instant, in fact.”

Aradia blushed a bit and wordlessly kicked his chair.

Why didn’t she understand that being attacked by an older woman like that made his heart pound in something like the suspension bridge effect!?

“Then do you want to sit in the driver’s seat, fool?”

Kamijou was doing his best to focus entirely on his jelly drink when little Anna gave him a thoroughly scornful look.

“The vehicle can be operated from any one of the console monitors, so there’s no real need for a vehicle commander or a gunner anymore. But there is still a diver’s seat in case there are technical issues with the electronics. It’s located right up in the front instead of below the gun.”

“You can’t make me drive! I don’t even know how to drive a car or a moped!”

“I just got through saying my console monitor can handle that. A fool like you only needs to sit in the seat. Being all alone in that cramped space probably won’t be fun, but you could move in there whenever you need to take a break in your own private world.”

“I guess I could do that.”

“(Of course, the Predator Octopus’s driver’s seat isn’t really necessary, so I bet it was redesigned to stop projectiles from reaching the rest of the vehicle. A separate space at the front of the vehicle would be perfect to sacrifice so it can stop any Munroe effect blasts or metal jets. Hee hee.)”

“You need to give all the detailed warnings so I can hear them, Anna-san! You can’t just whisper them real fast at the end like a consumer credit ad!!”

Meanwhile, it could be easy to forget in the sweet girls’ room that the military vehicle had become, but they had work to do.

“Okay.”

Kamijou Touma opened the overhead hatch and climbed out of the Predator Octopus. It was already dark out. Sunset came early in the winter, but his fight with Alice had been in the morning. He must have been passed out for quite a while.

He could see his breaths.

He felt refreshed like he had just washed his face.

The January 3 night air carried the biting chill of midwinter.

He was surrounded by true darkness. The fact that the city was under martial law was much more obvious at night. He could hardly believe the city had been lit up with Christmas and New Year’s decorations so recently.

The spiky-haired boy finally climbed down to the ground.

“A 20ton mobile combat vehicle can only travel on certain roads.”

So someone had to walk out ahead and check on the road to ensure they weren’t going to break through an aged overpass or something. And they of course also had to avoid the checkpoints set up around the city.

There weren’t any checkpoints here – because Anna had found a poorly guarded spot – but he got the impression there were more cleaning robots, security robots, and fixed surveillance cameras than normal. While inside the vehicle, he had spotted several of them staring their way from where they had been attached to makeshift metal poles. Those were meant to track down Kamijou’s group, so he had to be careful.

“Now, then.”

The tool Anna had given him looked like a 50cm stick.

He had expected a disturbing superweapon when she called it an ultrasonic sonar kit, but it was more like the glowing red staffs used for guiding traffic but with a small monitor attached near the bottom. The entire side apparently functioned as a scanner, so he was supposed to pass it close over the road surface.

(Hm. Do I really have to stoop over the entire time I use this? It would be so much easier if it had a long handle like a mop.)

“I don’t have to scan every centimeter. We only need to know the general condition of the pavement, so I only need to get a few samples for every square meter, right?”

Kamijou muttered his instructions to himself while teasing the switch with his thumb.

Like an AED, it was best to simply follow the machine’s instructions.

He noticed the cold shutters lowered at a shop selling strange, toxic-looking donuts. The posted notice suggested it was closed for good, not just for today. Even when a trend looked like it would last forever, you never knew when it was going to end.

(Still…)

He saw some faint light in the distance.

The martial law had its advantages.

Most every business had closed up and lowered its metal shutters, so the light at the checkpoints was hard to miss. That considerably reduced the risk of running into one on accident. Even at this distance, he could make out the military vehicles blocking the street and a bunch of outdoor lights like you would find at a construction site.

(What are they doing? They aren’t just stopping that truck passing through – they’re opening up each and every one of the packages its delivering.)

The driver stood outside the truck, scratching his chin uncertainly.

So much for privacy. If they were checking through any vehicle at that level, then one of Anti-Skill’s own 8-wheel mobile combat vehicles would be at risk too. Staying away from the checkpoints looked like the best plan.

The checkpoints were located at large intersections, tunnels, or other areas where multiple routes converged.

But there were bright spots at other points as well. It scared him that he couldn’t determine the pattern.

“What’s this, fool? Too stupid to figure it out on your own?”

Little Anna poked her head out from the hatch, holding some smart glasses that looked a lot like sports sunglasses. It apparently gave her control without being in the commander’s seat. Using her gaze and voice had to feel a lot different from using her fingers on the large monitor and it probably didn’t give as much control, but she had said something about it being a lot like remotely operating a ground-based drone.

She gave her usual toxic laughter, but she also gave him the answer.

“I will only explain this once. That light is likely a carwash or a taxi maintenance shop.”

“?”

“Or it could be a shipping company or rental car lot. Fool, they are using a preexisting industrial garage to maintain their tanks and armored vehicles.”

Academy City’s Anti-Skill probably weren’t bad people, but letting them find Anna now would only complicate matters. He was afraid they would shoot without even trying to talk it out and things would get even worse if Mut Thebes or Aleister’s group showed up to join the fray.

Those schoolteachers could find themselves in the middle of a deadly battle between magic users so powerful their presence had been kept a secret even on the magic side.

Kamijou took a look through a pair of binoculars he had found in the vehicle.

(Tch. I know the Sisters were helping bolster security during the holiday, but I don’t see any around here. Nothing but grownups. I should probably assume they won’t listen if I try to explain the situation.)

The Sisters’ absence bothered him.

Even though he knew intellectually that he simply felt so trapped that he was searching for special meaning in every little thing.

Were the Sisters alright? And what about Index, Mikoto, and the others?

How many Transcendents had been at that consulate? The confusion caused by the martial law hadn’t redirected the pursuers toward anyone else he knew, had it? Because those people probably would come running to save him. Even if he couldn’t get their help, he wanted to know they were safe.

(I know Anna said using my phone would be dangerous, but still.)

“You haven’t turned on that amateur phone of yours, have you? Don’t you dare post anything on social media. Even carelessly marking a message as read would be a mistake.”

Kamijou looked away from the binoculars.

He looked down at the asphalt below his feet, but…

“Fool, don’t even think about leaving a message with chalk or stones. That might be better than using a phone or computer, but any code you can come up with on the spot will be cracked in seconds by an Academy City supercomputer. And I don’t just mean textual or numerical codes that can are easily represented as 1s and 0s. Even messages left in fuzzy graffiti or color patterns can be cracked using image linkage algorithms that find common factors between them.”

“Kh.”

“Were you unaware this city’s scientists seriously analyzed the crop circles left in crop fields and announced at an academic conference that they found no trace of actual language and concluded they were merely pranks? What a dreary way to view the world,” lamented Anna. “Your friends will of course be monitored. And they could be taken hostage if you give any sign they could be used to lure you out. So if you want to protect them, cut off all forms of contact. To the point that this city’s giant computers can’t find a single thing. That is what it means to take this seriously.”

“Okay, okay.”

Anna seemed legitimately exasperated with him, so Kamijou raised his hands in defeat.

Anything that his friends would instantly recognize probably would be discovered in seconds by their pursuers.

That meant their only option was to find their own way ahead while avoiding those lights – the checkpoints set up by Anti-Skill.

“But can we really find a way around the checkpoints? That 20ton thing can’t fit in the narrow alleys and Anti-Skill is set up at all the major intersections, so we’re bound to run into them no matter what wider road we choose.”

“Try using your brain for once, fool. It will rot in your skull otherwise.” Anna shrugged. “Not every route is found on the map. And if we find those hidden routes, we can pass right under Academy City’s collective nose. Especially when those Anti-Skill people are using their computers to share information and monitor their surroundings.”

“Routes not found on the map? What, are we going to dig our own tunnel like bank robbers?”

“Nothing that involved, but surprisingly close to the mark for a fool. It’s scary how wild guesses are correct on occasion.”

“?”

He had meant that as a joke, so her response took him by surprise.

Apparently Anna hadn’t given him a trick question with no real answer.

“Hint 1: these routes are invisible when viewed from the ground. Hint 2: map apps provide detailed information on public roads, but are much less thorough when it comes to private property. Hint 3: they are more common in densely populated areas with limited land. After so many generous hints, I seriously hope you have figured it out by now.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to just give me the answer?”

“Not happening, fool. Those so-called intellectuals of the Golden cabal all let their brains rot in the same way. If they hadn’t all been conceited enough to think they were the world’s greatest magician, the Battle of Blythe Road never would have happened. Either side could have withdrawn and kept things peaceful.”

With that, Anna Sprengel ducked back into the hatch.

Then the turret turned to the side.

“?”

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Between the Lines 2===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume8 Prologue

2023-04-30T18:26:27Z

JDMP: Removed an unnecessary "the" between two words

Anna Sprengel was a wicked woman.

There was no getting around that fact. She was not following the events from a broader perspective and she had not been forced to do what she had to save even more people when viewed from the correct point of view. There was no tearjerking truth here.

What had R&C Occultics caused?

What about St. Germain who she had doomed to die whether Kamijou won or not?

Hadn’t she played a role in Academy City’s dark side as well?

What did you see in sandy Los Angeles?

Who had changed Alice Anotherbible?

…And had any of that ''been truly necessary and unavoidable?

She had countless options, she was free to choose whatever she wanted, and she had so much power she didn’t even need to consider the possibility of failure. Yet Miss Sprengel had still constantly chosen the cruelest card.

That was undoubtedly an issue of her personality and couldn’t be explained away with logic or efficiency. Also, Anna herself had no intention of making an argument to defend her case.

However.

''When she regained her body from Madame Horos, she had found a world gone mad.

That was her honest impression.

She had finally regained use of her body and could once more produce an endless expanse of thoughts and imagination in her mind. She had been planning to travel the world as she saw fit. But…

''What is this diseased world?

''Why does no one realize how sick they are?

It all came down to that. Anna Sprengel was undoubtedly wicked. She was a bewitching wicked woman who desired stability and thus sought out a king who could act as her umbrella. She wanted to do as she pleased without accepting any responsibility whatsoever. She was a glutton. But that was exactly why that demon lord refused to let the world shrivel away before she could devour all the enjoyment she desired.

That plan was out of the question.

She could not let the Bridge Builders Cabal succeed.

===Prologue: Attacked from Three Sides – Proclaim_ML.===

The Bridge Builders Cabal of Transcendents led by Alice Anotherbible.

Academy City led by Board Chairman Accelerator.

Aleister Crowley and his band of irregulars.

They were all enemies.

Anna Sprengel had spent the past while spreading malice on a global scale, but Kamijou Touma had still been unable to bear the treatment she received and reached out to help. So he had to accept the consequences of that action.

January 3, District 12.

That district was notable as the only one in Academy City with a large number of religious facilities built ''from a scientific perspective''. The consulate used as the Bridge Builders Cabal base was also there.

''Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

The blue sky erupted with a low, deep noise that rumbled in the gut more than the ear. It was a strange noise that a modern high schooler would only hear during a summer baseball tournament.

In other words…

“A-a siren?”

A beeping noise joined in.

That alarm was playing from the old folks’ smartphone in Kamijou’s pocket. First Delivery Go Round and now this – modern phones had so many different alerts it was confusing.

“Damn, what’s happened now!?’

The little wicked woman by his side had her strawberry blonde hair swept back in several fried shrimps and held a baggy dress in place at her flat chest.

Anna Sprengel provided an ominous prophecy.

“Either an emergency alert or declaration of martial law. Either way, this city is about to become a battlefield.”

“…”

“Since you decided to get involved, you need to prepare yourself, fool. Although it isn’t too late to hand me over and end all this.”

That could indeed end it.

When Anna Sprengel was arrested by Anti-Skill, she had easily escaped her cell and caused a major incident in Los Angeles. New Board Chairman Accelerator would know arresting Anna would not mean a peaceful ending.

If arresting her wouldn’t work, then stopping her would mean killing her.

The same was probably true of Aleister’s group who had turned her into a human film canister and kept her with them.

The Bridge Builders Cabal went without saying. They had openly announced their intention of executing her and even prepared the Shrink Drink, a specialized spiritual item shaped like a spear.

Kamijou Touma let out a long sigh before speaking.

He had made his decision.

“I’m still not abandoning you.”

“…”

“Dammit, so who’s the biggest threat!? Where can we go that’ll be safe!?”

“They’re all too dangerous to ignore. And the first threat is already here. In the form of Academy City’s bizarre tech!!”

Aradia, goddess of witches, the night, and the moon, was a Transcendent recognizable by her giant wimple and unusual bikini. Her long silver hair spread out as she gave her warning.

Several tires loudly skidded long the asphalt.

In no time, they were surrounded by more than 10 vehicles, but these were not Anti-Skill vehicles with flashing lights on top. They sounded a lot deeper and heavier.

Anna Sprengel grinned while holding her baggy red dress to her flat chest.

“Not bad, new board chairman.”

They looked like 8-wheel armored vehicles with a tank gun attached on top. Needless to say, these were mobile combat vehicles designed to move quickly without damaging Academy City’s roads and to use tank-class firepower to swiftly eliminate any dangerous elements in the city. They had more antennae than the ordinary model, so these could likely be controlled remotely, effectively making them ground-based drones.

They were known as the HsMCV-08 Predator Octopus.

A human like Kamijou would be blown to bits by the giant gun on top or even by its smallest machinegun.

“!!”

“Get back, fool!! This way!!”

He lost his balance surprisingly easily from an impact low on his body. Anna’s small body had practically tackled him to get him around a corner with her and Aradia.

The air was compressed and something exploded nearby.

He realized only a moment later the building wall right there had been blown away. A cloud of gray dust swelled out after a short delay. He could only just barely make out Aradia because she was right in front of him. She was shouting something into the fallen boy’s ear, but he couldn’t hear her over the sharp ringing in his ears. His vision and hearing were so confused he had trouble telling which way was which – including up from down.

“My, my.”

And yet.

This he heard clearly.

The strange voice seemed to enter his mind directly instead of by vibrating his eardrums.

A magician in glasses gave herself a witchy silhouette by wearing a large hat and a racing swimsuit plus sleeves and a paleo. But she was something else entirely from Witch Goddess Aradia. The Transcendent was the one who was trembling.

Reality returned to Kamijou in a way that put immense stress on his heart.

Aradia was supposedly a goddess for any and all witches, but here she spoke the name of a woman to whom that did not apply.

“Anna…Kingsford.”

“My, my, my. Are you alright, 👦? You must ❌ drag ordinary people into your problems, Miss Sprengel.”

“''Aiwass''!!!”

Anna’s small body shook and she raised her voice as if to shake off the terror.

''Something'' burst from her young body. The glasses woman frowned only slightly when she saw the colorless and formless torrent rushing toward her.

He was known as a Holy Guardian Angel, a Secret Chief, and an extraterrestrial lifeform, but no one know exactly what he was.

And he was the source of the limitless power Anna Sprengel drew on like a priestess.

Playing a trump card against a trump card.

…But Kamijou was too preoccupied to look at the site of the explosion or at the magician woman. The chill down his spine led him to look up into the sky before even getting up.

A small figure floated there.

She was a brown-skinned girl with long, wavy blonde hair. The binder she carried over her shoulder was made from several spears bundled together in an X-shape. Each one of those spears had a glass container at the tip and had the words “Drink Me” written on the shaft.

That was the Shrink Drink, a spiritual item developed specifically for executing Transcendents. It contained Alice’s power to kill with a single blow.

And Kamijou’s side had already played their trump card.

Kamijou Touma shouted her name on instinct.

He shouted the name of a heavenly oddity – of a Transcendent from the Bridge Builders Cabal who specialized in punishment.

“''Mut Thebes''!!?”

With a series of deep booms, the spears dropped down like pouring rain.

The way the weapons flew out to the sides before taking aim at their target created a shape some might have likened to a bird’s wings.

They collided with the asphalt, sent orange sparks flying from the armor of the 8-wheel Predator Octopuses, and covered the entire area with enough destruction to keep even a Transcendent from escaping. When the transparent tips shattered against the ground, they created glass shards and a chemical smoke produced by the toxic pink liquid contained inside. That smoke quickly swelled out like a cumulonimbus cloud.

(Odd.)

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

The brown girl floating in the sky silently tilted her head.

(''That timing seemed off''.)

“I didn’t sense it capturing the center of her life. Did she escape somewhere?”

The Shrink Drink was a spiritual item specialized for use against Transcendents. That meant it didn’t do ''all that much'' damage to any other target. That was why it failed to pierce the armored vehicles’ defenses and why the asphalt was unharmed.

Puzzled, Mut Thebes slowly descended to the ground and set foot on the asphalt covered in small glass shards.

There was a shockwave of expanding air. Several even. Anna Kingsford and Holy Guardian Angel Aiwass appeared to be engaged in an intense confrontation a short distance away, but Mut Thebes wasn’t interested.

She crouched where she was and peeked below a heavy 8-wheel vehicle that had gone silent as soon as its remote antennae were broken.

(Target: Anna Sprengel did not survive by hiding below the vehicle. Then did she leave the area under cover of the chemical smoke and glass shards created when the Shrink Drink hit the ground?)

Then Mut Thebes noticed something.

The 8-wheel vehicles were spread out a good bit. Also, the main gun of a Predator Octopus a decent distance from the Transcendent had rotated to aim directly at her face.

The explosive boom happened at just about the same moment she raised her palm.

A 120mm tank shell broke the sound barrier and Mut Thebes did not bat an eye as she snatched it from the air with a single hand.

But the tank shell was more than a hunk of lead. It had a fuse and it was set to detonate all of the explosives within when it sensed contact. That way it could pierce the armor and injure or destroy the crew and engine within the vehicle.

“Oh.”

A loud boom became a shockwave that shattered all the nearby windows.

But it did not end there.

The brown girl parted the gray cloud of dust, revealing herself unscathed form.

“I see.”

Then a change came over her. With a dull sound, a tank shell emerged from the outside edge of her right arm. More and more followed. Like a bizarre bird wing.

The weapons were colored a strange white and the brown girl smiled thinly at their appearance.

She even licked her lips.

“''Interesting.''”

''Boom, boom kaboom!!!

The main gun of the 8-wheel mobile combat vehicle was blasted straight up by an explosion within the vehicle, its armor ruptured, and its axles broke, sending the giant tires rolling away with the wheels still attached.

Generally, those were land-based drones which could be operated remotely or run via a program. That was easy to forget given the way the Predator Octopuses broke ranks and fled in a panic. Which may have been why no one questioned it when one of those mobile combat vehicles departed a lot more calmly than the others.

And eventually…

“Pwah.”

Kamijou Touma took a deep breath ''inside'' that extra-thick tin can.

He hadn’t been able to breathe before now because Miss Aradia had been hugging him to her large chest. Face-first. And quite firmly.

The 8-wheel vehicle was large enough you had to tilt your head back to look up at it from the outside, but it was dark and cramped on the inside. Frankly, it felt smaller than a boxy light vehicle. There were three separate seats within, so it was an awfully tight fit. Kamijou figured that was because the base of the rotating main gun stabbed down into vehicle, taking up a large cylindrical space.

The witch goddess didn’t seem to care as she held Kamijou’s head to her chest like a stuffed animal and looked up at the hatch overhead.

The eerie siren had stopped at some point.

Kamijou was starting to think the siren had been the grim reaper’s approaching footsteps.

In other words…

“A-are we safe now?”

“Not yet, fool. If we flee without a plan, we will quickly run out of time,” said Anna Sprengel, sounding exasperated.

She directly poked at the flat-screen monitor in her seemingly 10-year-old body. Controlling a vehicle like this had to be complicated – driving the vehicle itself, aiming and firing the main gun, loading shells, general command and communication, etc. – but Academy City’s modern military vehicle did it all by swiping at a flat computer. Controlling the rotating gun and driving the vehicle at the same time seemed like it would be disorienting, but Anna did not look remotely bothered.

Kamijou felt lost, so he widened his eyes in the witch woman’s arms.

“So what did you even do? Why did this thing take our side?”

He wasn’t just talking about how it hadn’t run them over when they approached.

''Before'' Mut Thebes had launched her downpour of spears, it had activated its smoke emitter to obscure her vision. That might not seem like much since it had only been a few seconds before the spears created their own chemical smoke, but Kamijou’s group couldn’t have snuck inside here without it.

“Hee hee. R&C Occultics was a world-famous IT company at the end of the year, remember?”

Anna put on a nasty grin.

She didn’t even look his way, keeping her focus on the flat screen console monitor.

“And if any IT company – not just the search engines – wants to call itself a global power, it needs to be linking and compiling data from every part of the world. Acquiring the Academy City format required spending Christmas spying on the contents of quite a few phones and tablets to analyze the code within.”

R&C Occultics.

Their official site had spread knowledge of magic to Academy City and the rest of the world.

Had that been for ''more than'' just distorting the world by revealing so much secret data?

“…Are you serious? You mean that entire site existed to suck data from the Academy City phones and computers that accessed it?”

“I know your technology is supposed to be 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world, but you need to understand that future technology isn’t as flawless or safe as you might like.”

Kamijou was speechless, but she definitely wasn’t.

Anna covered her mouth to hide a wicked grin as she laughed.

“These vehicles can be controlled remotely and it isn’t that hard to hijack a military vehicle that’s fully reliant on the network. Of course, if I ''show off'' too much, Academy City will notice the vulnerability and patch it. Still…hee hee. I know it’s convenient to reuse the same components, but it seems awfully postapocalyptic for phones and ground-based combat drones to use the same basic OS and firmware. They’re too reliant on their strategic firewalls and dangerous behavior detection algorithms.”

“If you say so,” was Aradia’s exasperated response.

The witch goddess must not have been too fond of cutting-edge technology. She had blended in well enough back in the fashion space of Shibuya, but she had screamed quite loudly after seeing the religious(?) facilities in Academy City’s District 12.

“Let’s ignore all that creepy tech-bragging that could be all made up for all I can tell. You did this instead of using magic because you’re afraid of the Transcendents, right? If you use too much of your magic power, they can track you down using the traces of your magic. So no matter how many fantastic spells you might have, you can’t use them. And the same is going to apply from here on. For now, ''Anna can’t use her magic.''”

Aradia said it with a cynical tone and Anna smiled darkly in response.

“And they aren’t the only magical threat here.”

Yes.

Anna had summoned Aiwass(?) as a trump card, but not for use against Transcendent Mut Thebes.

There was another.

One who was, for Miss Sprengel anyway, a greater threat.

(Anna called her Kingsford, but who is that glasses witch?)

If they really were being attacked from three sides, she probably wasn’t with the Bridge Builders Cabal or Academy City.

So did that mean she was with Aleister?

Despite being combat vehicles, the interior did not stink of machine oil or smoke. If anything, it was more like a cold and sterile server room. Aradia had the look of someone trapped inside an industrial-size refrigerator as she asked a question.

“Wicked rose woman, I’m not opposed to running, but what’s your plan now? Driving to the city wall, blasting the gate with this thing’s gun, and escaping outside?”

“That would draw too much attention.” Anna Sprengel flatly rejected the idea. “Plus, I doubt we can escape the Transcendents’ pursuit by leaving the city. They have hideouts all around the world, after all. Really, they would probably have an easier time of it out there.”

Then what were they going to do?

Kamijou couldn’t even get the words out, but Anna sighed and answered it anyway.

“Only an imbecile stops thinking just because they have run out of options, fool. Although that might be better than the top-level geniuses who never started thinking in the first place and then get mad when you point it out.”

“But what exactly are we going to-”

“''Interrupt me again and I will murder you, fool''.”

The air froze.

Aradia’s bare toes audibly scraped against the floor. Anna’s shoulders relaxed some when she noticed the witch goddess had casually shifted in position to protect Kamijou.

“The correct choice is to stay here – in Academy City.”

This appeared to be an answer Anna had ready from the beginning.

She spoke smoothly, not like someone who was in trouble.

“Fool. If fleeing will not improve our situation, then going on the offensive is our best option. But not by challenging those powerful freaks to a direct battle.”

“?”

“The Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, and the Russian Orthodox – the so-called defenders of the magic side were bound to come after R&C Occultics, so I left a ''backup'' of its massive magic database right here, tucked away in a corner of Academy City’s servers. In the IT business, data is your greatest weapon. The best way to stop the Bridge Builders Cabal’s pursuit is to dig up some dirt on them.”

None of this sounded realistic to Kamijou.

Because…

“Y-you plan to threaten them? Threaten those Transcendents? Othinus would probably be upset with me if I said they seem more worse than Magic Gods, but they really don’t seem like the kind of people who will stop out of fear of you telling people something about them. How are you going to silence a group who I doubt keeps their promises or even obeys the law?”

“Now, now. Don’t let their vibes deceive you, fool. Stop opening your mouth and begging for answers like a baby bird. Try thinking for yourself first. That proactive attempt will help the knowledge stick in your head. Plus, your past experiences will show you the answer in this case – no advanced magic knowledge necessary.”

Young-looking Anna lifted one foot up onto the commander’s seat and rested her chin on the knee.

And she spoke with the wicked delight of tormenting someone.

“Remember, those Transcendents have some big plan in the works, they loathe the two of us for interfering with Alice Anotherbible who is the key to that plan, and they even split into Rescuers and Killers before deciding to eliminate us. ''Which means our choices have the possibility of unbalancing and ruining their plan.'' We should be able to threaten them with that possibility. Their panic regarding us is proof enough. If those arrogant and insolent Transcendents learn the switch we hold in our hands can ruin their plan, they should go pale in the face.”

“Huh, now that you mention it. If it really is so important that their plan succeeds, they should be focusing all their energy on that, but they’re dedicating valuable personnel to pursuing us instead.”

“Possessing the fearsome power of a Transcendent does not guarantee their personal maturity. They claim to be at the mercy of young and pure Alice Anotherbible, but are those serving her really what you would call mature adults?”

“…”

Aradia remained silent.

Was she simply considering Miss Sprengel’s opinion, or did she still have some dangerous pride left as a Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal?

“So…if this database is something you typed in yourself, doesn’t that mean you have all the cabal’s secrets in your head already?”

“Fool. Are you trying to convince your teacher to step on you with these cute feet? But you do deserve some credit as a student for thinking up the question on your own.”

Anna rubbed her bare foot against the hard floor below her seat.

“But that would not work. Having the data in my head is insufficient proof. When threatening someone powerful, you need ''physical, visible evidence''.”

“Physical…”

“Correct, fool. A document powerful enough that even those Transcendents will want to avoid fighting. We need the stopping power of a silver bullet – something that will take them out in a single shot, leaving no room for counterattack once we make our move.”

But if they didn’t end it so cleanly, they would be in the cabal’s reach.

No matter how badly damaged those Transcendents were, they were still Transcendents. If they got desperate, Kamijou’s group had no chance.

In Kamijou’s case, he had never escaped a battle with a Transcendent without losing his life.

“Also, as great a magician as I am, I do not have a perfect memory. Since we have a database, it would be best to find the relevant data and save it in a different medium. When threatening an enemy more powerful than yourself, you need to be strategic about the image you present.”

Small Anna found a flare gun next to her seat and twirled it like a character in a Western.

“At the very least, having some digital evidence on hand will be safer than trying to escape emptyhanded. Only then can we bring the fight to the Bridge Builders Cabal. Moving around with martial law in place won’t be easy, but we need to reach the backup facility I set up in secret.”

The Bridge Builders Cabal weren’t the only people after them. New Board Chairman Accelerator and Aleister’s group were as well.

But the most unusual and most frightening of the groups did have to be the Transcendents.

(And the fact that ''she’s the only one capable of stopping the cabal’s ambitions'' could be used to protect Anna from the other groups.)

Call it the enemy of your enemy is your friend, or call it a plea bargain.

It would be a dangerous balancing act, but you couldn’t just wish away a powerful foe. So when there was not just one but three enemies, ''they needed to find a way of using that to their advantage.

Kamijou Touma cautiously asked another question.

“You say you kept a full backup of R&C Occultics’s magic database, but where is it?”

“A decent question for a fool. It is in District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district.”

===Between the Lines 1===

District 12, the Bridge Builders Cabal Consulate.

Time had frozen.

In her sinister leather outfit, Alice Anotherbible’s bare skin was exposed to the January air as she stared at a single point. She didn’t seem to have any interest in the outside world.

Even the powerful Transcendents were hesitant to speak to her.

They all knew a single careless word would be enough for an “ordinary” Transcendent to be pulverized.

“A-”

So it wasn’t that H. T. Trismegistus was careless.

He was willing to be pulverized in the attempt to bring the flow of time back to his beloved master. The action was the butler’s way of showing his loyalty.

“Alice?”

The following silence was deafening.

It carried so much tension.

Any Transcendent of the Bridge Builders Cabal knew firsthand that Alice Anotherbible’s mood trumped the world itself. So they all assumed this was a landmine. They assumed a storm of destruction was imminent.

But nothing happened.

She had stopped. The small girl did not collapse or slump to the ground. She simply stood there, frozen. Not a single hair on her head moved, like she was a stone statue.

She reminded H. T. Trismegistus of a stopped clock.

It had been that great a shock to her.

Maybe Kamijou Touma being her “teacher” was something imprinted on her after the fact.

But his rejection had still hit her just as hard.

The butler bit his lip until it produced an unpleasant tearing sound.

“Ohhhhhh!”

But it wasn’t just his lip.

The tearing sound continued. On and on. His entire silhouette collapsed.

He split right down the middle.

And even as he split himself apart, H. T. Trismegistus roared toward the sky above.

Using the giant fissure as his new jaws.

As a Transcendent, he could provide the ultimate cutting edge to any object or phenomenon.

“Mut Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeebes!!!”

And so the punisher Transcendent was released.

Once dispatched, Mut Thebes would not stop until she had completed her mission.

“H. T. Trismegistus.”

An exasperated voice spoke to the butler who had been driven to such great emotion he had split himself down the center. The demon girl placed a hand on her hip, spread her batlike wings, and sighed at the butler who had gotten a little ''too'' inhuman.

The Bologna Succubus removed the red transfusion tube from her arm as she spoke.

“I’m free to do what I want now, but don’t get into a fight with Good, Old Mary just because I’ve skedaddled. Try to be chums. Mama is in extremely upset with you, so you need to make the first move to patch things up between y’all.”

“…”

With a series of wet sounds, the butler grabbed his head in his hands and pushed his split body back together. The unharmed Transcendent wordlessly fixed himself up again before responding.

“Understood. Now that Mut Thebes’s ''role is complete'', common sense would indeed dictate that you are free again. With that in mind, I would like for you to support her punishment mission.”

“Then what will you be doing?”

“Calling in some members from outside the city. Common sense says the battle has already begun.”

H. T. Trismegistus bit his lip after that.

He said nothing more.

The Bologna Succubus was with the Rescuers who supported Kamijou Touma.

(And that will likely be the greatest attack against Kamijou Touma who harmed our Alice.)

It wasn’t just Anna Sprengel and her information on the cabal.

Kamijou Touma also needed to die.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Illustrations|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume8_Chapter1}}
</noinclude>

User:JDMP

2023-03-30T11:12:23Z

JDMP: Background

Hey. Hoping to correct mistakes in the text for Toaru related stuff here in BT also just a certain person who decided to take it upon himself to create the PDF files for Toaru LNs starting GT5. All Thanks to timely translations of JS06.
PDF Files created by me for GT5- GT7, Railgun SS 2022, Item LN can be found in Toarumajutsunoindex sub reddit links. Would happily continue the work as long as Kamachi dishes out his ideas for this series.

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter1

2023-03-30T11:04:38Z

JDMP: Typo from Identify to Identity. Context- "....Official Identity...."

==Chapter 1: The Fifth Girl==

===Part 1===

July 1, 10 AM.

Fifteen Bells, the largest complex in District 15.

As the largest shopping district in Academy City, District 15 was the envy of all 2.3 million residents.

The ultra-luxury apartments found in that primest of prime locations were sold more as investments than as actual residences. The very top floor and the roof garden of one such apartment building acted as Item’s base. Since the apartments were investments, the owners did not want to reduce the value by getting stains on the walls and floors or otherwise making the place feel “lived in”. That meant very few people actually lived there, so it was the perfect place to find a quiet life without actually escaping to nature and thus sacrificing the modern conveniences of the city.

“Academy City develops special powers based on quantum theory, so the city is home to scientific espers. Using the fact that observation alters the movement and nature of particles, methods such as hypnotism, drugs, and electric shocks have been used to help students develop a Personal Reality which allows them to produce ordinarily impossible phenomena.”

With nothing to do after completing their job, Mugino Shizuri was crossing a living room larger than a tennis court to reach her bedroom. The 100+ inch TV switched on by itself. Automatically searching out a recommended program upon detecting someone’s face didn’t seem like the best idea. It didn’t seem very ecological. And its recommendation algorithm had failed for her because she had no interest in the morning news program it had chosen.

But just this once, maybe it had done a good job after all.

This had delayed her just long enough to notice something flashing in a corner of the room.

“Huh?” she grumbled with a bottle of carbonated water in one hand.

She was only wearing a thin negligee since she had just taken a bath, but she had no real issues with standing by the window. She threw herself into one of the recliners lined up by the glass and grabbed the phone receiver. She leaned back and the chair collapsed back into something like a bed.

This was an ecological city of skyscrapers and three-blade wind turbines.

The large screen on the side of a blimp provided a UV forecast for the pedestrians walking below the summer sky.

The city sprawling out beyond the window was a shitty place. It could only shine so bright thanks to the dark side’s support, but no one there so much as glanced toward that dark side.

The call was from exactly who Mugino expected.

“Mujinayama, why do you always insist on calling the home phone? I don’t check this thing’s answering machine. You could reach me directly on my cellphone, so I’d never miss your calls.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, milady. I am but a lowly servant, so I would never be so rude as to directly contact you without prior arrangement. I really should not be calling your home either, but I can just barely preserve my honor by relaying it through your apartment landlord.”

Mujinayama was the ''butler'' who served at her family home outside of Academy City and he was like this about everything. She could never quite tell if the old man was treating her with care or trying to avoid interacting with her as much as possible.

“You may be living away from home in Academy City, but you must always be aware that you are a member of the glorious Mugino family and maintain the appropriate resolve.”

“You try to act humble, but did you call me up first thing in the morning to lecture me?”

“Milady.”

It was currently 10 AM. That was much too late for a student or a worker to be relaxing at home, but the gray-haired butler did not take issue with her not following the same schedule as ordinary people.

“Many things found their way to this country during the Westernization at the beginning of the Meiji period.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Science, art, meats, medicines, steamships, and – most importantly – wheat. The Mugino family is now one of the wealthiest in the world because they saw how the country was changing, actively accepted the Westernization, and spread its wings wider than anyone else. That family name is a sign of wisdom and glory that only a chosen few are privileged with, milady.”

“(Westernization, my ass. Udon and manju are made with wheat too. That pure white rice you see in samurai movies is a lie. In those days, I doubt much of anyone really ate just rice.)”

“Milady.”

Mujinayama still insisted on calling her that.

Mugino sighed in exasperation while lying back in the window-side recliner with the cordless receiver in hand. And she took a sip of carbonated water from the plastic bottle.

It was true a wide variety of new things had entered the country after it opened up from its isolationist period: new clothing, new cuisine, Western medicine, Shakespeare’s plays, etc. The Mugino family had indeed greedily absorbed those things and rapidly expanded just like Mujinayama so proudly stated (even more proudly than the girl who actually belonged to that family).

“''Don’t forget Western-style organized crime.''”

“''Now, now.''” The butler spoke like he was chiding a small child. “Violence is merely another form of negotiation, no different from conversation and money. But a Mugino must use violence as a tool, not be controlled by it. The honorable Mugino family is in fact one of the 5 wealthiest in the world and runs the grain production company which fills the bellies of 1.4 billion people worldwide.”

That put the Mugino family in a different position from the Japanese-style yakuza. They never did anything too noticeable and none of their criminal bases or criminal members every came to light. They did not wear obvious sunglasses and gold necklaces. On the surface, they were a global grain production company and, even there, the Mugino name was never found in the company name or the personnel list. But after the vast fortune earned there was laundered through specific banks and casinos, it was used to raise an army of a hundred thousand around the world. More than handguns of dubious origin, they even possessed tanks and attack helicopters. And the investment fund run by the group would buy up any company that gave them an opening – whether it was an old, established one or a new startup – to spread the corporation across the world like an amoeba.

It became an inextricable gear of society, all while hiding its presence.

Even the graffiti on the walls and the way they shook hands were used as signs to identify insiders and outsiders and any outsiders nosing around too much were eliminated. That was the Western way of using violence as a tool.

“If they’ve got so much wheat, they should just make illegal booze like a proper gang.”

“Unfortunately, there is no reason to make it illegally in the modern day.”

In other words, Mugino Shizuri had a dark lineage. Unlike most in the dark side, she hadn’t wound up there after making some kind of mistake. She was a monster born and raised in the darkness.

But in Academy City, she was simply a student.

That may have been what worried Mujinayama so much. He himself came from a more modern lineage that had thrown out their rusted bandit swords when the Westernization led to a prohibition on swords and were reborn as mountain-based snipers. He wished to personally assist when it came to combat rather than leaving that in the hands of Item’s other members, who were only with her by happenstance.

“Is there anything new with you, milady?”

“Hm, not really.”

She had diligently stayed up late last night killing. ''Same old, same old.

“I’m one of only seven Level 5s. I’m not going to find myself in serious trouble all that easily. There are those in the dark side who ''protect themselves by giving an invented story of their past,'' but I haven’t reached that point yet.”

(As long as the #6 – that Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane – doesn’t show up anyway.)

Mugino lazily yawned and rolled over in the recliner. The old butler’s adorably jealous voice came over the phone.

“What are your ''schoolmates'' doing?”

“They’re downstairs flirting.”

===Part 2===

“Ah hah hah!! In the end, I’ve always been the bullied one when it comes to chest size, but we’ve finally found someone who makes even my clothing look baggy!!”

“…”

Frenda Seivelun held her sides and laughed with tears in her eyes while Kinuhata the newcomer pouted. Kinuhata had borrowed some clothes since she couldn’t stay in only a towel forever and this was the treatment she got. It was all the worse because she had thought the two of them weren’t all that different in size.

Fifteen Bells was roughly divided between the luxury apartments on the upper floors, the offices on the midlevel floors, and the fashionable brand-name shopping mall on the lower floors. Kinuhata Saiai had been forced into a too-big summer dress with one of the shoulder straps slipping down and now she found herself in an aisle of a luxury brand shop where even one of its empty boxes would net you some cash at a pawnshop.

It was 10 in the morning and the mall’s front glass doors didn’t open until 11, but this was a secret time when only the residents of the apartments above could shop. The truly wealthy did not fight through crowds or enter online drawings to buy the products they wanted.

“Can we super really shop at a place like this? Aren’t you a criminal group that gets paid dirty money for illicit work?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. In the end, we just completed a big job, right? Our pay is deposited immediately upon completion, so there’s nothing to worry about. Now, it’s time for a shopping spree with the black card of your dreams!! It’s time to throw money around to transform an innocent young girl into my very own dress-up doll!!!”

It didn’t sound like Frenda was willing to listen to a reasonable argument. She hadn’t even bothered denying they were a criminal group.

Next to Kinuhata Saiai, the pink track suit girl named Takitsubo Rikou was staring into the distance.

The air conditioning must have been a bit chilly in her shorts that left the full length of her thighs bare because she occasionally rubbed her legs together.

“Is this super weirdo always like this?” Kinuhata whispered to Takitsubo.

“Frenda normally uses her sister as a dress-up doll, but that sister is down with a summer cold. Frenda said she was going to explode if she didn’t find some other outlet to relieve the pressure.”

How were you supposed to respond to that?

Frenda herself didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Anyway, I bought a few things to celebrate, but do you have any requests? In the end, I’ll choose for you if you don’t.”

“If possible, I’d super like something easier to move in. I don’t mind if it’s short, but a bunch of loose frills and stuff ''that catches on the air'' would be super annoying.”

“So in the end you prefer boyish clothes?”

“I super don’t care about that distinction.”

The three argued as they walked through mall. At a spot similar to a public square, several clerks had a thick tarp laid out on the floor. They were apparently doing watermelon splitting as a seasonal event. There were paper bags smaller than a light novel gathered in one corner, which appeared to be the prizes for anyone who got it in one hit. As small as they were, they were still brand-name products that hosts and hostesses would swarm like puppies.

The girls arbitrarily chose a shop with a sporty look and entered. Kinuhata chose a garment that looked easy to move in and easy to maintain, but her cheeks stiffened when she saw all the zeroes on the price tag. ''Hold on. Has Japan become a country where you need a stack of cash to buy a single pen?

Meanwhile, Frenda and Takitsubo didn’t mind at all.

“Huh. In the end, France really is the country to go with for bicycle stuff. C’mon, Takitsubo! It’s time you said goodbye to that track suit! How about we cover your curves with a formfitting road bike suit!?”

“Oh, no. Not one of those colorful skintight suits the female pilots wear in robot anime.”

“Wouldn’t it be more like the female member on a Sentai show? On Sunday mornings, my sister prefers tokusatsu shows like Kabuto Driver over anime. She’s 7, so it’s not easy keeping up on that stuff so I can discuss it with her. Anyway, take this formfitting suit!!”

“Hey, hey, hey!!” quickly cut in Kinuhata. “Maybe look at all the zeroes on the tag before playing around with this stuff! One super careless tear and you’re in serious trouble!!”

“Don’t underestimate the criminally wealthy just after getting paid for a job, newbie. In the end, did you find something you want to wear? Is that what you’re holding?”

“Eh? Um, super, uh, this is way too expensive.”

“Then let’s get to the fitting room! In the end, it’s time for the thrillingly embarrassing experience of changing behind a single cloth so flimsy it feels like the air conditioning is going to blow it out of the way!”

“I said it’s too expensive! I’m super terrified to wear this!!”

Her complaints went ignored, so Frenda and Takitsubo grabbed her arms and dragged her into the fitting room. Just like a captured alien. She was confident in her strength, but she didn’t dare struggle and tear the clothing.

“In the end, if you don’t shut the curtain yourself, everyone will be able to see you, just like someone who didn’t set their social media profile to friends only.”

“I super get it already!!”

She yanked the curtain shut.

Track suit Takitsubo Rikou’s gaze lazily wandered through empty air before landing on Frenda.

“You’re having fun.”

“Wah hah hah!! In the end, this is tradition. The newest member of Item is doomed to be the dress-up doll of the second-newest!”

This meant Takitsubo had done this to Frenda and Mugino to Takitsubo. Frenda was still traumatized after experiencing minor gestaltzerfall when that girl had lined up 72 colors of plain track suits and quietly pressured her to choose one.

And eventually…

“I’ve super put it on.”

The curtain opened and Kinuhata Saiai emerged.

Her outfit consisted of a hoodie dress, a shoulder-baring top, and leggings. It suited her a lot better than the fancy dress that had been forced onto her.

“Ohh.”

“You’re a new type for Item.”

Kinuhata looked uncomfortable at the attention from the other two.

Frenda crossed her arms and nodded twice for some reason.

“We can use this as a starting point and try out some other genres. Let’s head to the other shops so you can try on a wide variety of styles.”

“Wait, um, you’re super buying this!? But the zeroes!!”

“Frenda, you need to buy Kinuhata’s underwear too.”

“Hold off on that because I’m saving the best for last. Yay, yay! In the end, which will you find more embarrassing: adult lingerie that makes it look like you lost a bet or kiddy ones with a big kitten face printed on the butt?”

“Eh? You mean Kinuhata isn’t wearing any underwear under there? That’s a problem.”

“~ ~ ~!?”

Kinuhata blushed red and trembled. Really, it was the athletic shop’s fault for not selling underwear. But without an official identity, address, or student ID (or clothing), she would have nowhere to go if she left now. And she would probably be naked again. So in that sense, Frenda and the unlimited black card she was waving around were still the most reliable “umbrella” here.

“Excuse me, she’ll be wearing this home, so we’d like to check out.”

In Academy City, crime was not the result of poverty. Kinuhata took a detached stance as she noted that you couldn’t escape the dark side even if you had such a large pile of cash you could die in a money avalanche.

“Umm.”

The popular clerk with a gyaru look had to be terrified of upsetting such a good customer because her fear was almost palpable as she spoke to Frenda.

“I don’t know how to say this, but our reader can’t seem to approve your card. I checked and it isn’t an error with the card’s chip or the reader, so it must be the account it’s linked to.”

The clerk seemed legitimately distressed, so it didn’t appear to be a joke.

Time froze.

Frenda Seivelun hesitantly looked back.

The blonde girl was trembling as she witnessed a situation far worse than she had expected.

“Whoa, where did you super get those scissors from?”

“Kinuhata, you need to remove the tags if you’re going to wear this. There, all cut off. Now these clothes are yours.”

“Did you super cut off the washing instructions too? Ugh, and memorizing those is a super pain.”

“Ah ha ha. Now you can’t return these.”

Frenda couldn’t bring herself to intrude on that heartwarming scene.

She didn’t have the courage to count the zeroes on the price tags fluttering to the ground.

===Part 3===

“Wehh,” moaned a tearful voice.

Hanano Choubi was a girl who looked to be around 15. Her long black hair was split into three with only the very ends tied. She was still a young girl. Her general vibe was more doglike than catlike. And she was trembling like a wet chihuahua.

She wore a short-sleeved sailor uniform, but she wouldn’t be questioned by Anti-Skill for walking through District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district, at midday.

Everyone judged Hanano Choubi to be a girl with abysmal timing. Nothing she did or said was ever wrong, but the timing of those things was always off to a miraculous extent. So due to no real fault of her own, she earned everyone’s disapproval and found herself all alone.

''Kyah! This man is a molester☆

For how many people would that accusation lead to a counteraccusation of being a scammer making false accusations, getting called a slut, and having your entire life derailed?

“Ugh, what kind of public reputation is ‘enemy of train-commuting salarymen everywhere’?”

Her tendency to monologue to herself despite her lack of friends may have come from her time in the drama club.

At any rate, her life had continued after hitting rock bottom.

Today was the start of her new and exciting life on the dark side. The person instructing her over the phone had told her to go to the top floor of the Fifteen Bells complex in District 15, meet her new teammates there, and work as a four-person team.

But when she boarded the elevator and pressed the top floor button, nothing happened. She noticed an inconspicuous palmprint reader next to the rows of buttons.

“Hmm.”

''Hanano Choubi sprayed her palm with a special powder'' to easily get past the lockout and made her way to the top floor.

That was her specialty since she had no real esper power.

The elevator doors slid open and she found just one door in the space ahead. She hesitantly pressed the intercom doorbell, but there was no response. She had been told to be punctual, so she looked straight up, ''put a color contact in her right eye'', and had the eye-scanner door opened only a second later.

“E-excuse me…”

Despite the techniques she used, Hanano Choubi only opened the door a crack and stuck her head in like the nervous small animal type she was. Her voice was quiet but carried well, another sign of her drama club background.

There was no response, but she still entered.

(Wow, that’s a lot of clothing brushes. How many clothes do you have to own to end up with so many different kinds of brushes? I’m kind of jealous.)

She touched the small intercom screen on the interior wall to check the status of the security system. It looked like there were people here. Based on the guard function that worked with the cutting-edge AI air conditioner, there were four people gathered in the large living room.

That had to be her destination.

“Umm, my name is Hanano Choubi and the voice on the phone told me to join a team called Item…”

She must not have been aware of her own biggest problem.

(Wait, four people?)

The things she said and did were always correct, but her ''timing'' was bad.

So the instant she touched the living room doorknob from the hallway…

“We did the goddamn job you asked us to, so why the hell haven’t we been paid!? Braglhlbhlakdfghsfjhnbhfahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

She fell right to the floor.

Hanano Choubi’s hips gave out, leaving her in a cute w-sitting position. Even she could tell she had tears in her eyes. She had to gather all her strength in her crotch to keep her bladder from giving way.

There was a demon lord living in modern Japan.

Or rather, a girl with a demon lord aura was shouting incomprehensibly into a small phone with her hair standing angrily on end.

The pink track jacket and shorts girl standing blankly in a corner of the living room noticed Hanano Choubi and turned her way.

“Mugino, there’s someone here.”

“Blaghblkhaydfgblakhndflwehrnakldsfhababhahafh!? …Huh?”

The death metal shout was cut off by a note of confusion.

The girl even tilted her head quite cutely.

“I-I’m Hanano…Hanano Choubi.”

That was all Hanano Choubi could get out while trembling in her attempt to avoid wetting herself.

“Who’s she? A friend of yours, Kinuhata?”

“Super nope.”

Meanwhile, a voice spoke from the phone at the demon lord’s ear.

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, I transferred your payment like always. If you can’t access it, it must mean your account has been frozen for some reason. Go bitch at the stupid bank operator, not me.”

''Oh, I know that voice,'' thought Hanano Choubi, her face brightening a bit.

That was the usual voice on the phone.

The traditional demon lord, meaning she was more frightening than sexy, frowned.

“Why would it be frozen?”

“Do I look like the tutorial goddess who’ll answer every question you pray at me? The money’s gone from my wallet, so the rest is on you. I’m not transferring any more money for that job. But if your account was frozen without any kind of notification to you, it probably means you screwed up on the data front and triggered a criminal account alert with the bank.”

“You think we’d make such an amateur mistake?”

“Then someone set you up. Maybe a hacker and maybe a snitch, but someone from the dark side.”

The demon lord glared over at Hanano Choubi with the phone still in hand.

“Also, someone I don’t recognize has shown up in our apartment.”

“That would be Hanano Choubi. You were saying you wanted more variety since Item only has three members, remember? You should thank me. She’s a real prize. She specializes in disguise and infiltration, so she opens up a lot of new options for you☆”

An awkward air set in.

The voice on the phone had said they only had three members, but there were four other people here. With that one called Kinuhata and tearful, trembling Hanano Choubi, they made for a five-person Sentai team.

Every face there (expect for the trembling one) had “could her timing possibly be worse?” written on it.

“It’s up to you if you use her or not, but make your decision within 30 days. Oh, and you can’t return her if she dies or loses a limb or something. She might be Level 0, but like I said, she’s a real prize. If Item doesn’t want her, I have other places I can send her. So treat her with care even if this is only a trial period.”

“Hey, do you think we’re in any position to hire someone new? We can’t access our money with our account frozen! If we don’t do something soon, we’ll have to leave this apartment hideout!!”

“As cashless as our lives are these days, I’m sure you have some physical money lying around. If not, go crawling on the floors and check under your beds. All you need is a single yen to open a new bank account. Use whatever name you want as long as it can’t be traced back to us. By the way, Hanano Choubi’s disguises would be perfect for that. And don’t forget the most basic fact of life: if you want money, you need to work for it.”

“Do you have a job for us?”

“A big one. And if your frozen account was a targeted attack on Item, then I bet it was about this. They somehow learned what job I was bringing to you and made a ''preemptive'' strike. They’re so scared of you they were hoping to keep you away before the fighting even started. No one’s going to work if they can’t get paid for it, right?”

“…”

“I don’t care if you’re after the money or the revenge, but I have a feeling you’re very interested in hearing about this job.”

===Part 4===

If they were going to start on a new job, every member of Item needed all the details. That meant Mugino Shizuri’s phone was not enough.

Thus, the five girls took the elevator to the lower floors.

“How did you manage to buy Kinuhata’s clothes without your credit card?” asked blank-eyed Takitsubo.

“In the end, I dug through my pockets and found a few prepaid cards. Y’know, the kind where you input the alphanumeric string on them to buy stuff online or buy songs for your music player. If I wasn’t able to cash those out, I’d’ve been in trouble.”

“Hm? What would have happened to you then?”

“There are specialists for dealing with dark side people who don’t pay their debts, so I’d be on the run as they swarmed me like an endless stream of army ants. Now, I’m not about to let those losers take me alive and wring me out so tightly I turn into a super-rare cute girl diamond, but it’d be a pain regardless.”

“Eep. There are people like that on the dark side?”

Hanano Choubi shrank down even though this wasn’t about her.

Their destination was the classic style theater among the few different movie theaters in Fifteen Bells. It was strange for it to be deserted even at midday on a weekday, but no one voiced any confusion. Once they shut off the lights, deadly documents appeared on the large screen. Item’s job was in fact to erase and eliminate dangerous elements from Academy City.

“Huh? Why do you look so disturbed, Kinuhata-san?”

“It’s super nothing…”

They had to be surrounded by an unknown number of speakers because the voice on the phone sounded very three-dimensional as it explained. They still couldn’t see her face, though.

“Are you familiar with the Colosseum?”

“In the end, it’s an underground fight club with no rules – you can use any weapon or esper power you want,” readily supplied Frenda Seivelun.

Her immediate response suggested she was one of the ones who enjoyed watching the fights with a bowl of popcorn.

“The venue moves each time, so it’s hard to track down. The audience watches a dark web livestream on their computer or phone so they can enjoy seeing a real fight to death in high enough quality to make out each speck of splattered blood. It supports the latest high-definition resolution and even VR goggles. But they use some kind of obstruction program that prevents you from recording or screenshotting it. The contestants come from a variety of backgrounds, but I believe they’re all drawn in by the promise of the substantial prize money.”

“You know a lot about this, Frenda,” said Takitsubo. “You’re like a knowledge professor.”

“Heh heh. In the end, keep the praise coming☆”

The pink track suit girl’s off-kilter comment earned a bashful response from Frenda. Meanwhile, Hanano Choubi’s ordinary sensibilities had all the blood draining from her face.

“They claim the fights are to determine the strongest esper when it comes to pure violence rather than the Level system which is entirely based on what most benefits the adult researchers,” said the voice on the phone.

Even in the dark theater, one of Mugino’s eyebrows clearly twitched.

She was a battle freak who loved ''things like that''.

“We wouldn’t care if it was just a bunch of idiots gathering together and killing each other. The problem is the prize money your girl mentioned. The prize is 15 billion yen. Where do you think that comes from? Surely you don’t think livestream ads are quite that lucrative.”

The voice on the phone probably wasn’t expecting a response. She continued without even waiting three seconds.

“Life insurance.”

“…”

The only sound was Hanano’s groan.

“They take out insurance policies worth billions on all of the participants, kill all but one in what they claim is just a sporting event, and then give the payouts to the winner☆”

“Huh? That explains the prize money, but what about the Colosseum’s management? Taking out the insurance policies costs something and managing communications infrastructure you can’t afford to be discovered is a major risk, so aren’t those pieces of shit the ones who would super want the most money?”

“Who’s that? Never mind, I don’t care. The management makes their own money. There’s the ads I mentioned earlier, plus there’s a paid service that lets people gift weapons to their favorite contestant mid-fight.”

“In the end, that’s why a lot of the male contestants dress like hosts and the female ones wear risqué costumes in order to survive. But if they rely on that strategy too heavily, the results are pretty tragic once their fans get tired of them.”

“Right, right,” said the voice on the phone. “Then the management uses their earnings to fund insider trading and illegal loans over social media to make even more money. They of course threaten the losers who get scared and drop out of the fights and set up a breakwater of branch managers and specialized staff in order to construct a safe zone where no consequences will make it back to them even if the entire operation comes to light. Really, it comes down to how convenient cryptocurrency is. All this money is shifting hands, but no one can track any of it. So long story short, the managers aren’t interested in ''a mere'' 15 billion. Like that Frenda girl said, the life insurance payouts are only meant as bait for contestants.”

“So what do you want Item to do about it?” Mugino Shizuri did not sound happy. “Nothing as stupid as wanting us to kill them all, I hope.”

“Of course not. This job comes from the insurance company they’re taking advantage of. The insurance business is just like horse racing: they go under if the amount they take in from customers isn’t more than the amount paid out to the customers. They’re close to going out of business after paying out so many high-value policies back-to-back.”

“And we’re supposed to shut off the tap?”

“The managing director who hired us says there will be no questions asked regarding our methods. Basically, do whatever you want as a long as it doesn’t cause their company any trouble. So this is a DOA job. Got that?”

In this case, DOA meant “dead on arrival”, not “dead or alive”.

“Hm,” groaned Mugino Shizuri as she considered it.

(The managers aren’t interested in a mere 15 billion. I don’t know if they have it in cash, gold, or crypto, but their vault must contain ''even more'' than that.)

“That sounds good to me.”

“To be clear, the Colosseum management recruits powerful esper contestants, so they’ll be armed with enough firepower to deal with complaints from an entire group of those contestants. Which means they’re likely powerful espers from the dark side. Screw this up and you could end up dead.”

“This is sounding better all the time.”

They were done talking.

After the call ended, the entire theater lit up.

It was a clean space without a single stain. It seemed to perfectly represent the shittiness of Academy City.

“So in the end, what are we going to do?”

“First of all, you and you.”

Mugino ignored Frenda’s question and pointed at Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi.

“We have five people all of a sudden, so we need to figure out what to do with these newcomers.”

===Part 5===

Item was more than just the girls. Just like the bus and its driver from the night before, there was an entire support organization below them. There was a limit to how many people could receive that level of support. As Mugino saw it, a single organization could only support three or four people at full specs. Any more and the costs would be too high and the support would become imbalanced.

Bullets were more destructive to biological matter when made from a soft metal with a high relative density, but everyone would choose a lead bullet over a gold one. Why was that? Because even the military and police preferred the much cheaper substance if the effect was similar.

So…

“One of you will be a full member, the other will do odd jobs.”

“H-hwut!?”

One girl stumbled over her word with the worst possible timing, earning her glares from the other four. That was of course Hanano Choubi.

''And that statement sealed her fate.

“This timid chihuahua can do the odd jobs.”

“Wait, please waiiiiit!!”

Hanano Choubi tearfully begged, but Mugino’s exasperated look was unchanged.

Takitsubo approached from the side and whispered in her ear.

“(Hee hee. I didn’t know you were so nice, Mugino.)”

“Huh?”

“(A Level 0 who can’t fight on her own is a lot more likely to die on the front line. And she doesn’t seem to use tools like Frenda does.)”

Mugino shooed Takitsubo away without even looking her way. Takitsubo herself seemed amused despite the careless treatment.

“Eek! I’ll do anything! Anything! So please don’t throw me out!!”

Hanano Choubi seemed truly desperate, so Frenda shrugged.

“We have another job already, don’t we? In the end, why not use that to see how useful they are?”

“(Honestly, I’m not too interested in Item, so as long as I super have food to eat and a roof over my head, I’m perfectly fine doing odd jobs to support you.)”

“Kinuhata, don’t run away from a challenge,” said Takitsubo.

Unwanted support from an unexpected direction kept Kinuhata Saiai from running away.

The five of them boarded the elevator and rode it down past the ground floor.

Hanano Choubi was muttering to herself in the corner and friend-maker Frenda immediately got to talking to her.

“(Ehhh? Wait, how many dangerous landmines does this Mugino-san person have? You should have warned me! How is a newcomer supposed to know!?)”

“Not my problem. In the end, I had to carefully search out each of those landmines myself. I’m not handing over the product of my sweat and blood that easily.”

“(Please tell me you meant sweat and tears. And there’s something super fundamentally wrong with this team if you have to super search out personal landmines like that.)”

“Mugino.”

“Do those worms think I can’t hear them in this tiny elevator?”

The older girl hung her head while burning with rage.

They finally arrived at a concrete underground parking garage.

Since they were on their way to a vehicle, Mugino Shizuri had to already have a destination in mind. Hanano Choubi tilted her head curiously.

“Um, where are we going to start investigating this Colosseum thing? We don’t know who runs it or what they look like and I thought the fights are held at different locations each time.”

“Right.” Mugino nodded like a small child. “Our client is a life insurance company’s managing director, remember? We’re going to abduct them.”

Time froze.

But only for Hanano Choubi, it seemed. Frenda and Takitsubo didn’t seem at all surprised.

“Yeah. In the end, I figured we’d be doing that.”

“It did seem like they were holding back a lot of information.”

Mugino smiled.

One vehicle’s headlights flashed a few times in the gray parking garage. It was the seemingly rundown studio bus from before. The Level 5 girl waved casually toward it.

“Exactly. A lot of those who hire the dark side are in some kind of trouble they’re hesitant to come clean about, but I’m not about to sit around solving that puzzle using an intermediary in a game of telephone. We know who has the answers, so we’ll cheat and go to them directly. Dark side investigations start with the known factors and work from there.”

“Um, um, um, um!!” Hanano Choubi finally interrupted. The girl with abysmal timing already had tears in her eyes at this point. “I don’t really understand a lot of this, but I thought that important person from the insurance company was the one who hired us. Why are you starting by attacking our ally!?”

“Because it’s faster and easier.”

“But they’re the one paying us! Make the client mad and you won’t get paid even if you finish the job!”

“Who cares about the dark side’s stingy payment? Our target has at least 15 billion and probably a lot more. We can focus on taking all that for ourselves.”

“!!!??? I-isn’t this an important person!? What if that grownup with some kind of scary influence holds a grudge and puts our lives at risk!?”

“You think that’s enough to threaten a Level 5?”

You have to remember.

Just the day before, ''Item had destroyed the stronghold of quite a few powerful grownups.

“Besides, if this was an important client, the voice on the phone wouldn’t have given away so much of their information. If all we need to do is find the Colosseum and destroy it, we wouldn’t need to know about the insurance company or its general manager.”

“B-but do you even know which insurance company it is?”

Terrified Hanano Choubi kept asking Mugino more questions (which was actually quite reckless).

Fortunately, Queen Mugino was in a good mood, so Hanano Choubi didn’t have to blossom into a bright red flower.

“They’re about to go under, right? Before hiring us, they must have gathered a lot of data to determine the cause of their problem and that would have included some conspicuous searches into the dark side. There’s only going to be one insurance company that’s done that, so we target the general manager of that one.”

The safest option was to say nothing at all.

A member of the dark side could learn this much from a single statement.

Mugino chuckled.

“I know she’d deny it, but the voice on the phone wasn’t even trying to protect this client. Anyway, resolving this incident comes first.”

“…? But isn’t the insurance company the one with the problem?”

“In the end, someone else must want this job done. And since the voice on the phone never mentioned them, that’s the real client she wants to protect.”

Then Takitsubo Rikou spoke up.

She didn’t speak loudly. It was a quiet interruption, but it gathered everyone’s attention.

“Mugino. Even if they’re up to no good, this manager isn’t part of the dark side. We need to be careful of you-know-who.”

“Those are just stories.”

“Academy City’s #6 is known as the ''Dark Side’s Bane''. I don’t think we should underestimate them.”

An icy silence settled in.

The only sound was the silly noise of Hanano Choubi’s nervous fidgeting.

There were stories of a malicious stalker being found dangling upside-down from a streetlight. There were stories of a gunrunning group being wiped out in a single night. There were stories of a small child being rescued unharmed from a kidnapping group.

This person had as many legends as there were stars in the sky, but no one knew their name or what they looked like. They assisted the weak found weeping in a back alley, they provided a means of fighting the villains, and they had saved an unknown number of lives from the inescapable pit of the dark side. That might make them sound like a righteous saint, but for those being targeted, they were like a living disaster.

The #6.

It was said you could judge whether someone was a good or bad person by how they reacted to hearing that name in a dark alley: hope or fear.

Item was of course not a fan.

Mugino Shizuri ranked higher, but in a direct fight with another Level 5, she would not escape unscathed. Although she was an extreme battle freak, so she might not avoid such an obvious risk if she encountered it.

That kind of risk management was a job for Frenda who worked with bombs, which were destructive and always required proper preparation and funding.

“So in the end, we need to set things up, nab them in an instant, and make a quick getaway?”

“I suppose.”

Mugino wasn’t too happy about it, but she did give her agreement. She required a delicate touch. If they had suggested giving up on this job, she would have exploded right away.

In a contrast to Hanano Choubi, Kinuhata Saiai remained calm.

She looked up at tall Mugino and asked a question.

“Super what should I do?”

“You were in the Dark May Project. That means you have a portion of the #1’s thought patterns in your head, right? How much can you do? I’m not interested in theoreticals. What can you actually do?”

Kinuhata Saiai didn’t even need to think about it.

She plainly responded.

“Super well, I can at least kill someone.”

===Part 6===

Several highways were linked together by the loops of a multilayer junction.

The area directly below it was shielded from satellite surveillance thanks to the many overpasses blocking the sky. It was the perfect spot for attacking a vehicle even if it was being escorted by several military trucks to the front and back.

First, a few beams of light flashed from behind.

The slightest of grazes melted the armor of the rearmost truck, causing it to crash quite spectacularly, so the rest of the convoy sped up. The instant they triggered an infrared laser crossing the road at a height of one meter, an unmanned rocket fired from the side of the road.

“Good, the off-route mine got them!!”

Frenda clenched her fist in victory a short distance away.

With the frontmost truck engulfed in flames, nothing could stop them.

The black luxury car ended up in a multivehicle crash with its bumper caught below the rear of the taller truck in front of it, so its tires squealed in a futile attempt to move froward or back.

As long as the trucks had proper bulletproofing and anti-shock construction, the soldiers inside would be injured but alive. The flames only affected the exterior, but they were still out of the fight now that their doors were bent and burnt too badly to open. The bulletproof trucks were made sturdy, so the soldiers the VIP had paid so much to hire were trapped inside. In Academy City, there was a saying(?): if you need to get rid of a bulletproof car, knock it into the water.

“Don’t let your guard down yet, newcomer.”

“Super yeah, yeah.”

Mugino and Kinuhata left the studio bus that drove up behind the mess. Mugino used Meltdowner to burn the driver’s side door just enough to trap the driver inside. The target car was also bulletproof, so the same conditions applied. Kinuhata jabbed her skinny arm into the rear bulletproof door and tore it away with brute strength.

Dry popping sounds rang out.

Kinuhata Saiai took a spray of gunfire from a T-shaped PDW smaller than a puppy, but she didn’t even flinch. A layer of concentrated air forcibly stopped the small caliber bullets.

“E-e-eeeeek!?”

Kinuhata dragged out a man holding a now-empty gun. Takitsubo carried over a giant caddy bag. If you folded in someone’s limbs and stuffed them inside, it functioned like a straightjacket.

Takitsubo expressionlessly puffed out her cheeks.

“Mugino told you not to let your guard down.”

“I didn’t. Which is why I’m not hurt. So where are we super taking this guy?”

“While it is soundproofed, I don’t want to take him to our usual hideout. I’ll have our support organization find a decent spot for us. Maybe an abandoned factory or hospital.”

He must have decided there was no telling what these girls were going to do to him.

The elderly man, who was looking 50% grosser than normal with all the sweating he was doing, gave a desperate shout.

“''K-Kouzaku-kun''!!”

“''What a pain.''”

It sounded a lot like a bedsheet flapping in the wind.

Someone placed a foot atop the destroyed black luxury car’s roof so gently it was like gravity didn’t affect her. The gloomy black-haired girl wore a short-sleeved blouse with the chest left unbuttoned and a miniskirt. That was probably some school’s uniform, so she looked like a high school student, or maybe a middle school student. Well, if not for the silver horns on the sides of her head, the bat wings on her back, and the pointy tail at the back of her hips.

Mugino frowned.

“Metal. …And is it a liquid? Who hired you to hand out tissues in that getup?”

“Ah ha ha. Do you really think this is ''just'' a costume? It was originally the ''product'' of high-level cushioning research, but it turned out it was too heavy for practical use. But it’s a ''perfect'' match for my power☆”

Was the weird emphasis on some words meant to hide her natural speech? Despite her short skirt, the black-haired devil girl called Kouzaku bent forward, allowing her silver tail to rise up like a scorpion.

“Now, greasy old men aren’t my ''type'', but this bad grownup promised to tell me everything he ''knows'' about the Windowless Building. I’d at least ''like'' some plans of the place before I make my attack, so I’m sorry to say I’m doing some ''work'' for him.”

“Hah. What can one loner girl do? In combat, defense is a much harder role than offense. You have to defeat all of us while keeping that guy alive, but you couldn’t pull that off even if your power can grow you 6 cold arms. All you’ll do is give me some speedy target practice, loner metal!!”

“Oh, really?”

Something splatted against the studio bus’s windshield.

It was a lot like a raindrop.

Except it was silver.

Plus, no ordinary raindrops could reach the bus below the overpass.

“Hm? Everyone, look out above,” whispered Takitsubo Rikou when she noticed something.

A silver downpour began.

The “raindrops” were in fact metal arrows a bit longer than a pencil. But these were falling from an altitude of more than 10 thousand meters, so they had enough force to tear through the overpass and pierce through a bulletproof car’s armor.

The spiraling junction’s overpass collapsed into blocks.

Colorful cars crashed down along with it.

With a highway running above, the ordinary vehicles were not spared the devastation when the road suddenly collapsed below them. This destruction violated all the rules and standards of the dark side, which preferred to keep their presence hidden.

The deadly ceiling of silver arrows continued its descent.

“Tch. SAMs!!” shouted Frenda, swinging her arm horizontally.

Immediately, her short skirt ''flapped in the wind.'' More than five spear-like objects emerged and rocketed up into the sky. Explosive cylinders far thicker and longer than bottle rockets loudly exploded overhead.

Explosive blasts and steel pieces scattered in every direction, the two barrages collided in midair, and the distribution of the deadly rain ''was thrown off''.

Small holes – safe zones – were forcibly created.

“Eek!?” tearfully shouted Hanano Choubi, clinging to Frenda’s hips and falling onto her butt.

But not even multiple microwave/IR short-range surface-to-air missiles could shoot down tens of thousands of “raindrops”. Frenda felt a chill down her spine.

“Takitsubo!!”

The silver rain collided sharply with the asphalt. An earsplitting metallic screech drowned out Frenda’s shout. Every last metal arrow vibrating at the moment of impact created a noise far louder than a giant chandelier falling to the floor. The hard pavement accepted the arrows like clay, letting them stab deep.

But the pink track suit girl was not shredded along with it.

That was thanks to Kinuhata Saiai.

She lay on top of Takitsubo and blocked the metal downpour with an invisible nitrogen barrier. Deflected arrows lay all around her.

“Takitsubo-san, are you alright? This is super my job here, right?”

“Don’t give up, Hanano. You can still come out on top.”

But she had only managed to protect this one small area. There was nothing she could have done about the collapsed overpass or the cars that had fallen with it. One car was badly crushed and its windshield shattered. Something stuck out from the bottom of its broken door: a family fireworks set sold at just about any department store.

The plastic packaging was stained dark red.

Frenda Seivelun spat out an unusually low voice for her.

“In the end, you won’t get away with killing ordinary people for no reason. If you want to play, find a worthy opponent first.”

“I super agree. And it’s our turn now.”

There was a flash of light brighter than a nearby lightning strike.

After all this, Mugino had left her defense entirely in Frenda’s hands. She hadn’t even glance toward the falling “rain” as she held her hand straight out. All so she could vaporize her target with Meltdowner.

“Whew. Giving up on defense for an all-out offensive? How ''exciting''☆”

With the sound of flapping wings, the gloomy girl worked her metal bat wings and hopped down from the black bulletproof car’s roof. She placed her feet on the pavement she had just obliterated.

The wind finally carried over a rusty scent.

While Item’s bus had been bulletproof, it had still been torn to pieces. The metal arrows had pierced through the roof and even the chassis to reach the asphalt below. The windshield had turned white from all the cracks. No, there was red there too. The delinquent driver was probably dead.

The same had to be true of the enemy.

That devil girl had protected her client, the general manager, but no one needed to see what had happened to the bodyguards trapped in their vehicles. There had to be a mixture of blood and gasoline pooling up on the road below those vehicles.

Mugino clicked her tongue.

That girl was completely indiscriminate. Academy City’s shitty side was leaking out into the sunny side.

“Don’t just kill everyone. Safely cleaning up those corpses isn’t cheap, you know? You did it, so I hope you’ll be footing the bill for the cleanup. And if the #6 learns of this, you deal with that supposed Dark Side’s Bane on your own.”

“You’re so nice to get angry for the people who died, Mugino.”

Takitsubo was as expressionless as ever as Kinuhata helped her up. Maybe your sensibilities had to be that abnormal if you were going to get along with a violent Level 5.

And Kouzaku didn’t bother waiting around.

The tens of thousands of metal arrows piercing the pavement began to lose their shape. They gathered together and silver dolls rose up. There had to be at least 50 life-size dolls who looked a lot like Kouzaku herself.

“Ah, the dolls really ''are'' the easiest ''to'' control.”

The devil laughed as she raised her hands, gathered air in her wings, and wiggled her tail alluringly.

“''As you can see, I’ve got plenty of teammates too''.”

She used metal in liquid form. That should have been enough of a clue right there. It was absurd to think that skinny black-haired girl could carry around hundreds of kilograms or even several tons of a metal with a greater relative density than water. And if she could freely alter its shape, there was a simple solution there.

Not so much a mist as a cloud.

By filling it with plenty of air and parking up at high altitude, she could have it condense and pour down like rain when she needed it. If the surprise aerial bombing didn’t do the trick, she would then have an army of soldiers down on the ground.

“So what was it you were saying about having greater numbers?”

“…”

“Like you said, I need to defeat all of ''you'' while keeping this guy alive. ''This'' should be enough for that, don’t you think? Looks to me ''like'' you’re the ones on the defensive ''now''.”

Along with her casual comment, the countless silver dolls rushed toward Item from all sides.

===Part 7===

Since she was outnumbered more than 10-to-1, Mugino Shizuri must have decided a lengthy battle would be a bad idea.

She suddenly produced a sharp flash of light and an explosive boom.

But that must have been a diversion. Someone made a move in the brief moment Kouzaku Mitori’s eyes and ears were overloaded. The silver dolls controlled by her Liquid Shadow could not think for themselves. She was essentially remote-controlling them with her power, so they would stand still if her thoughts ground to a halt.

Someone slipped between the many silver dolls and arrived right in front of the small girl.

“!!”

Kinuhata Saiai aimed for the center of Kouzaku Mitori’s chest with her fingers strengthened in some way. This attack was destructive enough to singlehandedly tear off a bulletproof luxury car’s door.

For a brief moment, the lovely girl’s eyes were muddied by red killer intent.

This meant her power was being boosted by thought processes taken from Academy City’s #1.

“''How bout I super tear away half your body weight with just the one hand''!?”

The impact made a high-pitched sound.

That meant it wasn’t a clean hit. Kouzaku Mitori had raised a pair of thick knives to catch Kinuhata Saiai’s palm.

Kouzaku Mitori laughed with her blades locked with the other girl’s fingers.

The immense pressure was bending the knives, but they were meant to be disposable anyway.

“Did you think my Liquid Shadow power was the only card in my deck?”

“''You sack of shit''!!”

“''Also,'' that 5-star super rare boost probably won’t do much good against me.”

Meanwhile, Kouzaku’s eyes were pitch black.

Her voice dropped another level while staring out with her deep, stagnant eyes.

“It’s based on those ranks the shady ''higher'' ups of this city decided on for themselves. Seeing people innocently believe in and use that hierarchy to decide how many rights people get ''makes'' me want to vomit.”

Her silver tail tore through the air. But instead of Kinuhata herself, it was aimed at the ground below her. No matter how thick Kinuhata’s nitrogen armor was, she would still fall if the road below her crumbled.

The tables quickly turned.

Kinuhata noted the vibration of the thick knives Kouzaku was placing her full body weight behind to hold back Kinuhata’s hand.

“''A frequency edge? Does making a T-shaped razor super vibrate like some kinda toy really accomplish much''?”

“Hee hee. Oh, this ''toy'' might be a little too exciting ''for'' you.”

That was when three or four spheres smaller than baseballs were thrown in from the side.

They were grenades sans pin.

“In the end, I’m trusting your power is thick enough, newbie!!”

Kouzaku didn’t even glance over as she used her silver tail to throw an equal number of knives. As soon as the knives stabbed into the grenades, causing them to hover for a moment, the timed fuses activated. The explosives detonated one after another from quite close by.

“Tch!! Didn’t get a critical…hit…!?”

Frenda’s words trailed off.

Something tore apart the dust cloud and flew her way. They were the very same throwing knives that had stopped the grenades – and so should have lost all speed and momentum. They didn’t even fly along straight lines. They followed blatantly unnatural curved paths before stabbing into Frenda’s arm and side.

Kouzaku whispered bewitchingly while using the knives in her hands to pin Kinuhata on her back.

These thick blades were not an esper power.

“''They’re called drone knives.''”

“Kah! In the end, how many tricks do you have up your sleeve!?”

Frenda cursed but focused on evasive action over stopping and removing the knives, proving she really was an experienced dark side member. The next pair of knives that flew in only managed to hit her shadow.

But that was fine.

The knives came to a stop only 3mm away from the ground and changed direction. With a sound like a firework going off, triple flames erupted from the base of the knives in a Y-shape, creating something like a guard for the blade. The blades spun around and blasted the rocket-like flames from their pommel to pursue their target anew. They had already been introduced as “drone knives”.

And if the drone knives could fly on their own…

“''Gut her''☆”

“Tch!!”

Something exploded.

Kouzaku Mitori was secretly impressed. With no time to stop and remove the blades, Frenda had applied a small quantity of explosive to the knives and detonated it to forcibly propel them out of her. If she hadn’t done that, the drone knives would have spun around while still stabbing into her body, but it still wasn’t something most people could decide to do on such short notice.

One after another, rockets blasted through the air. The girl was skillfully and admirably focused on killing. But Kouzaku detonated an explosive of her own she had earlier kicked underneath a black bulletproof car. That rolled the heavy vehicle over as a giant shield to block all of the rockets.

(And if worse came to worst, I could use these movable wings as a shield☆)

Kouzaku’s power was only specialized to create and control those dolls ''under special conditions''. But by using her own body as the base of her calculations, she could create the metal wings and tail as an extension of altering the details of the dolls.

(''Of course'', if I screw up my control, I could end up tearing away large pieces of my ''body'' with my own metal.)

The blonde girl was reliant on projectiles and it didn’t look like she could get back up and rejoin the fight right away.

Kouzaku was up against multiple opponents. There were still more people she wanted to stop while she had the chance. She could take her time and kill them all after she had them all down.

“Now, then.”

“!?”

Kinuhata Saiai was still just barely pushing back against the knives while fallen onto her back, but she was suddenly knocked to the side. A silver doll had kicked her in the side like she was a soccer ball.

“They have a relative ''density'' of about 20. The human body’s would be 1, just like water, so ''even'' these very sexy dolls weigh around a ton.”

“Bfh. Doesn’t that make the original weigh 50kg or so? That’s super heav-”

“I said ‘around’, you scrawny chicken carcass!”

That was about as heavyweight as you could get. It was like getting hit by a giant offroad vehicle. Kinuhata’s Offense Armor could stop a shotgun blast, but this had to be testing even its limits.

“Now for the next one.”

Several metallic crashes and clangs rang out.

Kouzaku had sent drone knives after a target other than Frenda, but they never hit Takitsubo Rikou. Kinuhata Saiai had blocked them with her body by forcing her way in their path on her unsteady legs.

…That kind of phony friendship pissed Kouzaku off.

These people were soaked in the dark side. They had killed and taken so much, but they had the nerve to declare themselves the single exception and take good care of their own family and friends?

Yes. That was how it worked, wasn’t it?

The grownup researchers who had taken away Kouzaku’s precious ■■■■■ would have gone home to their own partners and children at the end of the day. They knew what it meant to care for someone more than your own life, but they had no problem taking those kinds of people from others.

To them, clones and espers were no more than guinea pigs.

Kouzaku Mitori could not let them get away with it any longer.

She had become yet another drop in the sludge of the dark side she so loathed because it was the only way she could rebel. She was willing to kill if it would help her take down ''the ruler of this city''.

“Hm. I ''had'' a feeling the drone knives wouldn’t work ''against'' that air armor.”

“Super technically, it’s nitrogen.”

“I really ''don’t'' care. And since you ''bothered'' to protect her, I take it ''that'' useless one in the track suit is your leader? That tells me my ''best'' bet is to focus my attacks on her.”

She probably couldn’t defeat Kinuhata, but she could immobilize her by siccing the liquid metal dolls on her, releasing their shape, and trapping her inside a block of the metal.

Once that was done, Kouzaku could capture the track suit girl and either kill her right away or use her as a shield.

Kouzaku stepped over a bloody corpse and swung her silver tail.

“The legs? No, I want her to stand on her own, so that won’t ''work''. Okay, Miss Leader, I ''believe'' this is checkmate. I’ll start by taking your arms.”

“''You will, will you? I’m so sad you’ve completely forgotten about me.''”

There was a sizzling sound, immediately followed by a beam of light. A few more followed. That was enough to tear through the entire group of Liquid Shadow dolls. It didn’t matter that there were 50 of them.

Mugino Shizuri and her Meltdowner were one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

But that was irrelevant. Shoot them or blow them up, those dolls could regenerate. Or each of the scattered droplets could transform into a sharp needle that rushed toward Mugino.

Yet they didn’t regenerate.

Kouzaku tried to control the blasted silver droplets, but for some reason, her power couldn’t reach them.

It all splattered across the ground.

“Wha-!?”

“You don’t use just water or metal. You went out of your way to control something as unusual as liquid metal, which tells me your power can only control a very limited range of things. You said this was the product of high-level cushioning research, but it never caught on because a relative density of 20 was too heavy, right? I’m betting you can only control a specific metal molecule created in a factory somewhere.”

Mugino Shizuri gathered light in her palm and held it straight out.

She was ready to fire at any moment.

“Then all I have to do is provide a generous injection of electrons ''to change its molecular structure''. Ion manipulation isn’t all that difficult. Mixing in various impurities on the microscopic level will make your special metal a lot lighter. It’s like dropping your melty candy in the sandbox. With all that gross sand coating it, you can’t eat the treat your mommy gave you.”

“That’s not possible…”

“This is Academy City. Don’t stop thinking so soon. My power is known as the atom breaker, for crying out loud.”

She made it sound so obvious.

She wasn’t even trying to brag. She was just pissed that she was being asked to give a detailed explanation of why 1 plus 1 is 2.

“S-so ''what''?”

Kouzaku Mitori spread her arms wide.

Her metal wings did the same.

Her silver tail rose and she shouted with a bloody corpse lying at her feet.

“I still have ''plenty'' more weapons waiting for me at 10 thousand meters. I have a grand total of 1000 tons! If I send it all down and make dolls from it, we’ll have a real war on our hands!!”

A scratchy groan came from Frenda who was collapsed bloody on the ground. That had to be more than 100 large dump trucks’ worth. A girl weighed around 50kg with a relative density of 1 and that metal had a relative density of 20. That meant the total amount could create 1000 dolls.

“Quadruple digits? What the hell? In the end, how many secret weapons do you have!?”

“Not even an army of thousands is ''enough'' if I really want to bring down that goddamn Windowless Building.”

A deep, muddy darkness could be seen in Kouzaku Mitori’s eyes.

“But they have other uses. High-Level espers always ''have'' to play alone, so I’ll show ''you'' what a real war is like. I can defeat anyone ''if'' I crush them with ''superior'' numbers!!”

“Oh, really?” Mugino Shizuri grinned. “There’s more to Item than me. We’re a team and we work together.”

That was when something stabbed Kouzaku Mitori in the flank.

The corpse at her feet had stood up.

No, ''Hanano Choubi had been lying face down covered in blood,'' but she had grabbed one of the fallen drone knives and tackled Kouzaku.

From close range and with no mercy.

She supposedly specialized in disguise and infiltration. The voice on the phone had called her “a real prize”, so her skill had to be real. When she decided to attack, Kouzaku didn’t have time to react with arm, leg, wing, or tail.

“Gah?”

“I’m not the only one sad I’d been completely forgotten,” said Mugino Shizuri with a savage smile.

She did not overlook the moment her opponent was immobilized.

“And we fight as a team!!”

She sent out another Meltdowner blast from dead ahead.

Time seemed to resume flowing all at once.

Something exploded.

The scattered silver droplets became silver arrows and tore through the dust cloud as they flew horizontally toward Mugino.

“Tch!!”

Mugino evaded to the side and fired more Meltdowner blasts, but to no avail.

The inability to focus on offense hurt her a fair bit.

“Wah, yikes, eek!! I’m here too! Please don’t shoot meeeee!?”

Hanano covered her head with her hands and curled up like a small animal, but that was all Mugino could see. The gloomy black-haired devil girl was nowhere to be found beyond the shredded dust cloud.

She had probably sacrificed her wings or tail to create that scattershot so she could escape.

“God, so she detonated her own stuff? She’s really thought her power through.”

Kouzaku had shown a familiarity with using her power to attack and to withdraw. When fighting alone, you had to deal with all your mistakes yourself, so securing an escape route was more important than gambling on a method of defeating the enemy.

The dolls spread across the area lost their shape and splashed down into silver puddles. Kouzaku must have severed her power’s control. That meant the battle was over.

Mugino roughly mussed up her hair with a hand.

“With that done…Hanano!!”

“Y-yesh!? Wha-what do you want!? D-did I do something that upset you and all your terrifying power!?”

“Upset me? That was a well-played attack. You got her good.”

The nervous girl stared blankly for a moment.

But her face finally seemed to melt.

“Heh…heh heh☆”

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo Rikou approached Mugino.

She shook a small case.

“''Should I use Body Crystal?''”

“Hmm.”

Mugino crossed her arms and looked up.

That girl had claimed to have had 1000 tons waiting at 10 thousand meters. Those were absurd numbers, but a military bomber was more than 200 tons when empty, which meant it wasn’t that much different from a formation of bombers flying on a mission. Assuming that wasn’t just a bluff, that girl could have covered every centimeter of the area with a downpour of metal arrows, but some time had passed and there was no sign of it. She must have truly run away.

She had wanted some information from a “bad grownup” so she could attack the Windowless Building.

Assuming that was true, it didn’t necessarily have to be the insurance company’s general manager. If things weren’t looking good, she could stage a hasty retreat and make use of another immoral VIP who had the information she needed.

After some thought, Mugino made her decision.

“No need. We wouldn’t make any money pursuing her.”

“(In the end, there would’ve been no stopping Mugino if she got mad. I’m so glad that bloodthirsty and immature old hag managed to keep her cool this time.)”

“Frenda, if you have something to say, you’ll need to speak up. But anyway, we need to deal with that general manager.”

“E-eek!?”

All alone now, the old man had fallen on his rear.

When one person had the fortune of escaping, someone else would be stuck with an equal amount of misfortune.

Unfortunately, that was how the dark side worked.

===Part 8===

Item’s usual luxury limo disguised as a used studio bus had been destroyed, but they had other options.

After calling a tow truck and street cleaner (both belonging to their support organization) and having the destroyed cars and bloodstains dealt with, Item boarded a boxy minivan with a delinquent feel to it. In Mugino’s opinion the rear spoiler on the boxy vehicle gave it the perfect cheap look she wanted in a disguise. Aerodynamically, it actually increased drag, so it was more a hindrance than anything. No one on the planet would pay any attention to someone stupid enough to do that. Although if that was the driver’s legitimate tastes, she would lecture them and immediately scrap the van.

“Hanano! What are you doing!? Hurry up!!”

“Oh, yes! Coming!!”

The new girl scrambled into the back seat. Mugino looked back curiously to see what the girl had been doing, but she had apparently picked a small flower from somewhere and laid it out as an offering. She may have been holding a moment of silent for the ordinary people killed by the downpour of metal arrows. In this shitty city of science, it didn’t matter what offerings you placed on the roadside. Especially when any trace of Item’s presence here would be erased by their support organization.

After loading the van with the stuffed caddy bag that squirmed like a caterpillar, they drove to a familiar abandoned factory in disorderly District 10. Mugino took ''a toolbox'' from their underlings, laid out a tarp on the dusty floor, unzipped the caddy bag, and dragged out their target.

The old man, who had gained a +80% boost to his greasiness, immediately shouted up at her. But he must have been too terrified to move because he made no attempt to escape despite not being handcuffed or tied up.

“Wh-who are you people!? What did I do to deserve this!?”

Kinuhata kicked aside the unneeded caddy bag and approached.

“Is he the super client? We only knew the name of the insurance company and the job title of general manager.”

“He doesn’t have to be the client. As long as he has the same privileges at the same company.”

Mugino Shizuri didn’t seem particularly interested as she applied some hand cream to the back of her hand. She must have scraped the surface of a nail on the latch of the toolbox, so she pulled out a small bottle of nail polish with far more interest than she showed for the fate of the human in front of her.

“But if he is a normal person with no role in any of this, why did he have that gun? And an ordinary person wouldn’t hire a dark side esper as a bodyguard.”

Client, insurance company, general manager. The scraps of information he overheard were enough for the man to figure out what was going on.

His attitude immediately changed.

“Oh, are you those Item thugs the voice on the phone mentioned? I-in that case, I am your client! Have you dealt with the Colosseum yet!? Don’t think you can get away with this. I will tell the voice on the phone what you’ve done! This is going to cost you!!”

“Sigh. I really don’t like having to torture people.”

That comment shut the frantic old man up.

While applying another coat of nail polish, Mugino kicked the toolbox with the toe of her shoe just hard enough to produce a solid metallic clunk.

The violent sound echoed on and on in the silent abandoned factory.

“''I always take things too far and they die on me.'' I don’t have any corpses to show you, but you can still see their scorched outlines on the walls. Like there. Or over there.”

“…!?”

“Unfortunately, those accidents have really driven down the value of the place. But you don’t have to worry about us.”

Mugino blew on her nail.

When she moved the shining finger to point at various spots on the walls, the greasy old man began to tremble.

“So tell us everything you know about the Colosseum. I’m sure you have tons of secrets you didn’t tell the voice on the phone. Come clean and I won’t have to worry about the blood and gore splattering past the tarp. Not that I’d be cleaning it up. That’s a job for our support organization.”

“Mugino,” Takitsubo quietly interrupted.

“Hm? Yeah, I know. If I do it, he’d die before we got anything out of him.”

“So in the end, I have to do it?”

Frenda tilted her head while ''burning open'' a mackerel can as a treat for herself.

“Want me to do the usual? The one where I ''shove a nonlethal amount of explosives up his nose'' and blow open his face just enough that he survives no matter how much he wishes he were dead?”

“No.”

Even Frenda’s seemingly superhuman suggestion was rejected.

Mugino continued as casually as if they were discussing stopping for some sweets afterschool.

“You and you.”

Her brightly polish finger pointed at Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi.

“Whichever one we end up choosing, you need to get to know your job. Choose whichever tool you like from the toolbox and give this old man a nonlethal beating. ''Just tenderizer him a bit,'' because we need him alive to tell us what we want.”

“Wait, wait, wait, please waiiiiiiit!!”

It was Hanano Choubi, not the man, who shouted in protest. She shook her pale face side to side.

“S-stabbing a villain in self-defense is one thing, but this is something else entirely. T-t-torture? You want us to use these hammers and saws on an unresisting old man who looks old enough to be a school principal!? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!! I could never do that!!”

“Hmm.”

Despite the blunt refusal, Mugino didn’t seem particularly offended and held her palm out.

Meltdowner pierced right through the thick concrete wall.

“But if you don’t ''I’ll kill him for sure.''”

“…”

“''So if you want to give him any chance at all of surviving, you’ll have to do it yourself.''”

In a small world cut off from the outside world, people’s values were easily replaced.

Especially in a place on the border of death.

Mugino blew on her nail again before continuing.

“How many times do I have to tell you to keep him alive? Maybe using violence to take a life is too difficult for you, but what about using violence to save a life? Even Anti-Skill and Judgment do that when they come running to protect the peace of Academy City.”

Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi exchanged a glance.

Silence.

Eventually, some metallic clattering sounds echoed through the abandoned factory.

The only one who didn’t keep their silence was the insurance company man.

Timid Hanano seemed especially shocked by her own change of heart. She was supposed to be the representative of benevolence here. For her, it may have felt like having your elevator suddenly and silently stop. The deadly height had always been there, so the greater fear came from the usually unnoticed safety features that had suddenly stopped working.

The old man, whose confidence had clung to him like fat, was now trying to cajole the girls.

“W-wait, what you two doing!? What is that? A-a file? A screwdriver!? What could you possibly plan to do with that? Hey, are you listening!?”

Mugino Shizuri and Frenda Seivelun were accustomed to using violence themselves.

Not even Takitsubo Rikou made any move to stop them.

This was the dark side.

Logic was twisted and reconnected like a Möbius strip to reach obviously distorted conclusions.

“''But if we don’t do this, you’ll super die.''”

“''This is allll for your own good.''”

Even a virtuous person could become a killer under the right circumstances and without the luxury of choice.

It happened so easily as long as the obvious violence had a virtuous reason attached.

This was how people lost all restraint.

===Between the Lines 2===

Accessing digital recorder.

Performing sound quality diagnosis and automatic text conversion on New Recording File 0001.

…Pant, pant.

Y-you know how it works, right? The Colosseum uses high-value life insurance policies for its prize money. The payouts for everyone but the winner are combined for the prize. But that shouldn’t be possible.

Stop, I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything, I swear! Gblahh, please not the below the eyelid!!

Unnatural contracts and payouts should trigger an automatic alert in the central server! So someone would notice. It’s impossible to withdraw 15 billion yen in such a short time!!

Th-then how does the Colosseum actually work, you ask?

Well, that’s why I hired you.

I was threatened! By the people behind it!! So I connected to the central server from inside the company and altered the settings for the auto alerts!!!

Pant, pant. Urp. Do you understand now?

I’m not lying. ''Ksh.

This case involves my own wrongdoing, so I couldn’t contact Anti-Skill like normal. I had no other choice. I needed to end this in the darkness, without any of it coming to light.

That’s why I couldn’t tell you everything when I hired you. I didn’t want you coming back later to blackmail me using what I’d done. I wanted to protect my family. They don’t know about any of this.

Who runs the Colosseum?

Well – ''ksh.

They called – ''ksh'' – emselv – ''ksshh'' – I – ''ksh'' – te – ''kssshh…

(Warning!) The microphone is too close. The recording target’s breaths, rustling clothing, and other sounds are too loud. However, modifying the recording file could affect its validity as evidence. Create new copy and use a noise reduction program? (y/n)

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Prologue|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter2}}
</noinclude>

Template:Toaru:Side Stories/Long SS

2023-03-19T16:53:24Z

JDMP: /* A Certain Dark Side Item */

<div class="mw-customtoggle-Long mw-customtoggle-LongClose mw-customtoggle-LongOpen" style="background:#ecf2ce;cursor:pointer" align="center">'''<big>Long Stories</big>'''</div>
<div class="mw-collapsible" style="text-align:left;margin:5px5pxclear:both;font-size:100%;background:transparent;width:100%" id="mw-customcollapsible-Long">
'''These are novel-length side stories published separately from the main series.'''

[[Image:SP.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SP ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume_SP|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter1|Stiyl Magnus]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter2|Mark Space]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter3|Kamijou Touma]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Chapter4|Uiharu Kazari]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Volume SP Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:RAILGUN SS1 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS: Liberal Arts City ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS1 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:INDEX Norse Mythology 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Norse Mythology===
::*Illustrations
::*Chapter 1: The Whereabouts of the Restraints — GLEIPNIR.
::*Chapter 2: When Will We Outgrow Tropical Countries? — YMIR's_ocean.
::*Chapter 3: The True Meaning of Environmental Protection — RULIC_letters.
::*Chapter 4: This and That About Life — ALFAR.
::*Chapter 5: Marine Prison — NAGLFAR.
::*Chapter 6: The Best Moment — BIFROST.
::*Chapter 7: The Destination of Salvation — GUNGNIR.
::*Chapter 8: The One who Teaches the Secret Rune — VALKYRIE.

[[Image:RAILGUN SS2 01 001.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]

===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS2: Shopping Mall Demonstration ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS2 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:RAILGUN PSP.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun PSP===
'''All links below are external links to [https://jerutz.wordpress.com/ JeruTz Translations]'''
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp-tutorial/ Tutorial]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-1/ Chapter 1: Longicorn of the Vacant Lot]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-2/ Chapter 2: Disciplinary Guidance]
::*[https://jerutz.wordpress.com/railgun-psp/railgun-psp-chapter-3/ Chapter 3: Grim Reaper Kakiko]
::*Chapter 4
::*Chapter 5
::*DLC Chapter

[[Image:INDEX RtE Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index: Road to Endymion ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Road_to_Endymion|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Endymion Chapter5|Chapter 5]]

[[Image:INDEX Necessarius Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Necessarius Special Entrance Exam===
::*Illustrations
::*Chapter 1
::*Chapter 2
::*Chapter 3
::*Chapter 4
::*Chapter 5
::*Chapter 6
::*Chapter 7
::*Chapter 8

[[Image:INDEX Virutal On Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: A Certain Magical Virtual-On ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Preface|Preface]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Prologue|Prologue]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Epilogue|Epilogue]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Virtual On Afterword|Afterword]]

[[Image:Railgun Cold Game Cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun_Cold_Game|Toaru Kagaku no Railgun: Cold Game]]===

<br style="clear:both"/>
[[Image:RailgunSS3 cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Kagaku no Railgun SS3 ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:RailgunSS3 Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:Biohacker_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Biohacker ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter6|Chapter 6]]

[[Image:AgneseSS_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===Toaru Majutsu no Index SS: Agnese’s Magic Side Work Trial ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter2|Chapter 2]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter4|Chapter 4]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter5|Chapter 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter6|Chapter 6]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter7|Chapter 7]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:AgneseSS Chapter8|Chapter 8]]

[[Image:Railgun_cover.jpg|x200px|frameless|right]]
===A Certain Scientific Railgun ([[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun|Full Text]])===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Illustrations|Illustrations]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Prologue|Prologue: Four Girls]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter1|Chapter 1: Shirai Kuroko Does Not Hesitate]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter2|Chapter 2: Saten Ruiko’s Messy Bloodbath Paradise☆]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter3|Chapter 3: Uiharu Kazari Can Do Real Work Too]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter4|Chapter 4: Misaka Mikoto and the Death of Class]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Epilogue|Epilogue: Four Girls+α]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Afterword|Afterword]]

===A Certain Dark Side Item===
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Prologue|Prologue: Feminine, Dangerous, Bright]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter1|Chapter 1: The Fifth Girl]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2|Chapter 2: >>Colosseum]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3|Chapter 3: A Certain Display of Courage, A Secret Reward]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4|Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Epilogue|Epilogue: A Path Leading to Another Time, Another Place]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Afterword|Afterword]]
::*[[Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Ending|?]]

[[#toc|'''<small>Back to Contents</small>''']]
<div style="clear:both;"> </div>
</div>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4

2023-03-19T12:29:31Z

JDMP: Missing "Of" , Context - "both of them..."

==Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5==

===Part 1===

July 21, 8 PM.

“Phew.”

A girl in a summer uniform and a large mask arrived in District 3. She was fortunate her usual makeup tools had survived the explosion. The mask covered most of her face’s identifiable features, but it could stand out too much if she didn’t eliminate the mismatch with her skin.

This was Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

A drum-shaped security robot passed nearby, but she was fine for now. Based on its movement pattern and the direction it pointed its lenses, it was likely on traffic duty. Panicking and running away would only draw its attention. While she was a criminal, there was not a major alert out for her arrest.

This was the northernmost district in Academy City. In addition to luxurious office buildings owned by many major corporations, it contained the North Gate leading to Saitama. That meant it also contained the traffic services and infrastructure related to the gate.

The blimp floating by overhead provided some advice on its screen: “The North Gate is experiencing light congestion. Plan for a 20-30 minute delay. If your vehicle is caught in the congestion, please turn off your engine to cut down on exhaust while idling.”

During the hot night, the roadside mist shower was unpleasant. It stuck to her skin and clothing like sweat.

A small light danced in the corner of her view while a three-blade wind turbine turned.

A couple in yukatas was crouched down, apparently enjoying some sparklers. Their phone backlights were brighter than the fireworks. ''Die,'' the upper-class girl cursed silently. It didn’t look like they had requested a security robot with a firefighting attachment to supervise, so she hoped they started a fire and had the worst night of their lives.

Her fluffy blonde hair with a decorative braid swayed as she walked, the suitcase rolled behind her, a bulging sports bag hung over her shoulder, and she entered a building that resembled a giant parking garage.

Ibotanokikouji had arrived at a long-distance bus terminal.

To efficiently process as many large buses as possible, the facility had been expanded to have loading stations on the upper and lower level. The lower level also had a taxi loading zone and a parking lot, but the bus loading stations were the main attraction.

The interior was a bit nicer than a concrete parking garage. Instead of metal signs and sun-faded plastic benches, the waiting area was protected by a glass box and contained large sofas like you would find in an airport lounge. A push of a button on the seat and a waiter from the affiliated café would come to take your order.

“C-11 – the Highway Cradle bound for Aomori should be…this one?”
Ibotanokikouji checked the alphanumeric designation provided by the e-ticket displayed on her new phone and made her way to the loading station for the bus she wanted. The bus itself had yet to arrive, so she would have to wait. She opened the clear door, found an empty spot on the sofas covering three of the four walls, and sat down.

“Phew.”

(I would have preferred to go to District 23 and escape overseas by air, but they should be monitoring all of the international flights.)

“Ugh, if only I could fly tonight. Just give me freedom. But that can wait until I escape Kantou and take a domestic flight to another international airport.”

The transportation facility was crowded even at night. There were other middle schoolers like her and even younger elementary schoolers wandering around with large suitcases. Public transportation usually shut down after the city curfew, but today was special.

It was the 21st.

There was a reason Ibotanokikouji had taken the risk of staying hidden until today.

Today was the first day of summer break.

The city had a population of 2.3 million, 80% of whom were students. They wouldn’t all be leaving the city to return home for the break, but a lot more would be leaving today than any other day. Tokiwadai was extremely strict about spending the night away from the dorm (although Ibotanokikouji snuck out of the dorm fairly frequently), but that changed if you were returning home for the break. She had gotten her form filled out a little differently from everyone else, but as long as it let her hide among all these people, she didn’t need to fear pursuit.

She heard a deep rumbling.

A late-night bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom was climbing a spiraling slope similar to a parking garage.

“…”

Ibotanokikouji was alone after losing her three teammates, but Mugino still had all four members of her team. That meant her opponent was more than just a Level 5. Mugino had multiple support personnel, so fighting her alone would be a bad idea. The strength of Ibotanokikouji’s power didn’t even come into it. If a power compatibility issue occurred in that situation, she would be doomed.

She was at a terrible disadvantage, but the battle wasn’t over yet.

Whoever emerged victorious in the end held the right to the Item name. That condition remained in effect.

It didn’t matter that she was the only one left.

If she gathered new teammates to fill all four slots again, she could redo her version of Item.

She crossed her legs in the waiting area sofa and rubbed her palm gently across the suitcase sitting next to her.

She had created this place for herself – no adult had given it to her. She couldn’t let some stranger have it.

Yes, for herself.

To put that another way, her teammates had only ever been a collection she kept to decorate her hideout according to her tastes. She might watch them, touch them, and adore them, but she would not lament their loss forever.

She loved her Item teammates from the bottom of her heart. That was completely true.

''But'' the sorrow would not last forever.

They could be replaced.

Replaced with an even greater collection which would create an even more comfortable place for herself.

If you lost your treasured possessions in a fire or other disaster, you would not just give up. When you loved something, you would naturally seek out new ones as long as you lived.

Hers was the love of someone looking down at her loved ones from above.

(I have plenty of money. I can rebuild my forces as many times as it takes. So what I need most now is freedom. I need to go into hiding and cut off all pursuit before slowly and gradually acquiring new fighters and finally becoming the hunter once more. Then I can turn the tables on them. I will make them pay for taking my collection from me.)

“This is not over.”

To do this, she needed to escape Mugino’s team’s pursuit, use the adults’ power to gradually weaken them, and end their turn as the hunters without having to lay a single finger on them herself.

For now, that meant escaping outside of Academy City.

“As long as I am undefeated, the threat of Item remains to plague you. I will grow and regenerate and wear you down.”

===Part 2===

“Mugino.”

“Okay, let’s make a real show of it.”

===Part 3===

Something exploded, sounding a lot like a giant firework going off.

Then the building shook vertically, sending an icy chill into her gut.

The bus terminal lost all power, but it wasn’t as dark as a movie theater. Similar to a parking garage, it wasn’t fully enclosed, but more than that, the lights directing people to the emergency exits immediately switched on.

The indoor speakers that had been playing light jazz now played an emergency announcement.

But this didn’t sound like a prerecorded synthesized voice.

“Hello, hello, hello☆ This is not a test. In the end, that was a real anti-tank rocket, so I’d evacuate pretty quick if I were you. We’ll try our best not to hit any of you, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t do your best to leave. I repeat, this is not a test.”

At first, the customers stared blankly in the dark.

But the mood changed once another explosion erupted quite close by.

The many customers scattered and fled in every direction.

It was like the glass waiting areas were hornet’s nests someone had poked with a stick.

The panic soon spread to the customers inside the building.

“Now, the rest of this message is for the piece of shit hiding in your midst!! We have the building surrounded by UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers. In the end, we have them programmed to detect your face and gait in the crowd no matter how well you try to hide them. That rectangular cage is our Colosseum ring. Everyone else can get out, but not you!! Take one step outside and you’ll be blown to pieces for breaking the rules!!!”

“…”

Those cursed words probably meant nothing at all to the ordinary people. The terms like “UAV bombers” and “remote grenade launchers” entered their ears, but their brains failed to convert the sounds into anything meaningful. If they had understood the situation, they would have been too afraid to leave.

The only one who understood was the true villain who was all too familiar with unreasonable death, so she was coated with sweat.

(Are they crazy? Launch a large UAV bomber in Academy City, and the airport radar will pick it up. Not to mention these explosions! Do they want to get killed by the unmanned Six Wings that will inevitably be called in!?)

No.

They probably didn’t care about that. It wouldn’t harm them if their unmanned weapons were shot down and the Six Wings attack helicopter might target Ibotanokikouji as well.

Panic clutched her heart, but her rational side insisted that, even if she were identified within the crowd, launching an explosive to kill her there would result in an indiscriminate slaughter. If they were really prepared to do that, they wouldn’t have bothered with a warning and simply blown up the entire building with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers or 300kg air-to-surface missiles.

However. While that did check out logically, could she really, truly predict what a dark side team would do while burning with rage? Would she really be safe heading outside with only that reasoning to go on?

It functioned much like landmines. The possibility of the threat was enough to restrict her actions.

(In that case, it would be better to escape in some way that prevents them from identifying me. That means hiding in a large roofed vehicle. Like in the large luggage space below a bus!!)

Ibotanokikouji’s eyes widened when she saw a uniformed driver rushing out of his large bus.

She left the glass box with her heavy suitcase.

“W-wait. You have the long-distance bus right here. We’re only 400m away from the North Gate. If you leave now…!!”

“You want me to leave with all this going on? They’ll be canceling all the trips anyway!!”

A bus would be perfect for escaping, but could it really avoid all the fleeing customers spread out over the area? The driver joined them. Ibotanokikouji considered using her power to control him, but it wasn’t suited for giving detailed instructions like the operation of machinery.

(If anyone is stupid enough to get in the bus’s way, you should just run them over.)

But only the dark side could carry out a plan like that without hesitation.

She looked to the bus, abandoned and driverless.

(I don’t gain anything by fighting here, but I can escape the city if I get this bus moving. C-could I drive it myself?)

She flinched back from a loud boom of destruction.

This one wasn’t a rocket. Nor did it sound like a collision between buses.

The slightly muffled sound reminded her of compressed gas, or maybe a powerful blow made with nitrogen.

Something was rolling in the shadowy distance. It appeared to be another late-night bus. An impact to its side had bent it and positioned it to block the spiraling slope leading down.

It weighed too much to ram out of the way, so now no one could get any of the large buses out.

“Tch!!”

She made sure to ''split the smoke and dust with her power so she could still see.

Given this, should she have given up on leaving the city and mixed in with the crowd? Even if she couldn’t escape the UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers, she could have tried going a step further and taking a hostage. They couldn’t aim at her alone with explosives!

But all the potential hostages were gone. Ibotanokikouji Kaede was alone in the bus terminal.

“It’s no use,” said a strange voice.

It was soft, but it still pierced sharply into her chest.

Someone passed by the broken bus and stood directly in front of Ibotanokikouji.

The girl wore a pink track jacket and shorts.

“We aren’t holding anything back. I have already used my Body Crystal and recorded your AIM Diffusion Field. It doesn’t matter what you do now. I can track you even if you escape into outer space or the deep sea.”

As an outsider, Ibotanokikouji couldn’t know if that voice from the darkness was telling the truth.

But there had to be something to it.

That wasn’t any ordinary gaze directed her way. She couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling like someone had their finger jabbed right between her eyes. It told her she couldn’t fool this observer no matter what.

“You cannot escape. Not as long as I live. So if you want to escape, you need to kill me and cut off my supernatural pursuit. Do you understand the rules now?”
Ibotanokikouji had figured that much out on her own.

She kicked away the suitcase and tossed aside the sports bag she carried over her shoulder. Even the mask was in the way now. She didn’t want anything obstructing her breathing even slightly, so she removed the cloth and let it fall to her feet.

That tracking power did sound like a problem, but at the same time, each esper could only have one power. That meant this girl could not shoot fire or electricity from her hand or otherwise fight directly.

A powerless location-tracking esper should have been hiding in the bushes holding a sniper rifle, but here she was standing in front of Ibotanokikouji. How stupid could she be? If she was going to set things up this perfectly, there was no good reason for Ibotanokikouji to not just kill her here.

But Ibotanokikouji did not step forward.

In fact, she stepped back.

A dreadful beam of light swept through the air from the side. The bus terminal was structured a lot like a parking garage and this blew away a few of the thick concrete columns supporting the ceiling. If she hadn’t noticed and moved toward the tracker girl, the first blast would have vaporized her upper body.

Yes, this was a battle between the two Items.

So of course this girl was here.

“Level 5. Mugino…Shizuri!?”

“What’s wrong, self-proclaimed #6!? Surely this isn’t enough to strip you of that title!?”

Mugino licked her lips as she approached.

The 80 billion yen in the suitcase no longer mattered.

She was much more interested in taking her time to shred that girl’s reputation.

So her first priority was…

“Kinuhata!!”

“Super on it. We’ve trapped her here, so I’ll super take Takitsubo-san and disappear.”

Kinuhata stuck to her initial role as Takitsubo’s shield by pulling on Takitsubo’s hand and gently guiding her into the darkness.

That was the right decision.

Ibotanokikouji’s win condition was not defeating Mugino – it was killing Takitsubo to stop being tracked. Fail to take those priorities into account, and Mugino’s side would lose another member.

They weren’t going to let that happen again.

Their target didn’t even bother suppressing her tongue click at this point.

“Tch!! Outta the way!”

“You’d better kill me quick, fancy girl. Otherwise Takitsubo will get away.”

Mugino slid to the side to position herself in between.

They walked in parallel for a bit.

The roles of hunter and hunted had been flipped by this one strategy. Mugino grinned and basked in a wolfish joy over stealing the advantages of being on the run.

The Tokiwadai girl could no longer escape.

Even if she intended to escape the city, she had to stop here and fight.

“You and your cheap tricks!”

“We’re not as bad as you. You decide who the good guys are in any given situation based on what benefits you the most.”

Sadism took a type of talent. Violence was just violence. To derive sweet pleasure from it required a different outlook. In a world full of targets, what you focused on differed from situation to situation. Like a cup of water in the desert or a single breath of air when buried alive. A sadist had a talent for determining what exactly that was for someone and destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.

Mugino had reached that point.

She sneered while embracing her own body and expanding a sweet barrier thickly around herself.

“So how should we handle this fight to the death. If we’re going to do it, I might as well hear your preference.”

“Oh? Have you forgotten I still get a say here? Don’t just decide what we’re about to do.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? The two team leaders are about to engage in single combat. Talking with the enemy to try and understand them would just be a bore.”

“Talking? Yes.” Ibotanokikouji laughed too. “That would be silly.”

Mugino Shizuri and Ibotanokikouji Kaede both launched something from their palm.

They didn’t bother waiting to confirm the rules. Both of them had lost at least one of their teammates. Talking couldn’t change the amount of spilled blood.

===Part 4===

Even so.

Mugino thought to herself while the anger sizzled at her heart.

Her Meltdowner beams had scorched the air and blown up a few empty buses. That much was fine.

Some of them had bent in a way she hadn’t expected, but she had seen the phenomenon before.

Ibotanokikouji immediately jumped to the side to dodge in the opposite direction, but it made sense she could get lucky there if she was guessing that a surprise attack was coming.

But what had Ibotanokikouji done?

A small red line ran across Mugino’s cheek. It was like a cut from a blade.

A moment later, the concrete wall behind Mugino was torn apart and blown away. Almost like an invisible wrecking ball had hit it.

She had seen this before when Ibotanokikouji had first demonstrated her power.

Or more accurately, she hadn’t seen it. But it was definitely there.

It was deadly.

(She claims to be the #6, but what kind of power is she actually using!?)

“Ha ha!!”

Instead of widening her eyes in shock, Mugino laughed.

By controlling her tension, she transformed it into elation and pleasure.

Like an athlete entering the zone.

Thrill rides and horror movies spent huge sums of money to safely mass produce thrills.

Since the villains were cut off from the benefits of justice and goodness, the primary rule for survival in the shadows was to convert anything and everything into sustenance.

So Mugino swallowed the lump of unease and advanced while firing Meltdowner beams as fast as she could. She ignored the passive rule of drawing out a circle that surrounded the target.

Without knowing the details of that girl’s power, she couldn’t calculate the risk of charging straight in or taking a more roundabout path.

So only one thing mattered now.

(I need to get her to use her power for defense even if I have to force it. Then I can reveal her secrets while staying safe myself!!)

Firing a machinegun could stop the enemy troops. If you didn’t want a single shot coming back your way, it was safest to pin them behind cover by firing ten thousand bullets of your own. Just like a turtle afraid to stick out its head and move because someone was poking at its shell.

And Meltdowner could do more than pin someone in place.

It could pierce through concrete pillars, abandoned buses, or any other cover. Mugino could keep most any enemy on the run without needing any evasive action of her own. She would fry them before they had a chance to counterattack.

Ultimately, she didn’t really need to reveal Ibotanokikouji’s power. Hanano had paid with her life to blow up Waniguchi and Inoue while the latter’s power remained a mystery and that was perfectly fine.

''However…

“Have you already forgotten? Do try to remember what I said before.”

Ibotanokikouji spoke from beyond the barrage. She still had time to talk with all this going on.

“Are you stupid? Your high score came from working through a list of easier small scale jobs chosen specifically to give you a taste for blood and victory. Just because you can power your way through some jobs on easy mode doesn’t mean every battle you come across will be as easy.”

It happened directly ahead of her. The thick beam launched from Mugino’s palm exploded shockingly close and scattered light everywhere.

“!?”

“Oh? The first time, our powers intersected and your beam bent, but this must be what happens when they perfectly overlap.”

Silence fell, like time had stopped for a moment.

About 10m away, Ibotanokikouji was holding out her own palm.

She didn’t even try to show off her high score of remaining unscathed in these circumstances.

Both girls came to a stop and glared at each other.

And like they had timed it…

“What the hell did you do, #6?”

“Guess, Level 5.”

The frozen time seemed to explode back into motion.

Mugino knew it would be neutralized, but she still launched another Meltdowner directly at her enemy. She dashed in the instant Ibotanokikouji held out her palm and the thick beam exploded. She kept low to duck below the scattering light to arrive right in front of her target.

She aimed her open palm up at Ibotanokikouji’s face.

Her right hand was spread as wide as it would go.

(Let’s see if you can block it when I grab your face and fire at point-blank range, Dark Side’s Bane!!)

A deep roar followed.

But that wasn’t Meltdowner. Mugino was the one who was knocked away, spinning through the air.

Ibotanokikouji winked, stuck out her tongue a bit, and whispered softly.

“I won’t even let you touch me.”

Mugino ended up embedded in the dented side of a bus, but she still smiled belligerently.

A trickle of red dripped down from her right temple, but she ignored that.

“That tells me ''even you’d be in trouble if I did manage to grab your face.''”

“My, my. You have no imagination at all, do you? It could be a bluff to make you think that.”

“If it was, you wouldn’t be so desperate to suggest it might be. If you had me fooled like you want, you would have no reason to raise any doubts.”

Ibotanokikouji fell silent.

That was the correct response.

But it revealed a concern over saying too much, so Mugino still docked her some points.

“And unlike your first attack, I wasn’t hit by enough force to destroy a thick concrete wall. Why not? I can’t think of any reason why you would hold back just now.”

Something exploded.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm out in a different direction and Mugino quickly rolled to the side. A long-distance bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom rolled onto its side after being torn through like an aluminum can in a ferocious dog’s jaws.

The diesel fuel ignited and the sprinklers on the ceiling produced their artificial rain.

But Mugino was still the one laughing.

“Ha ha ha!! Now I see. I’ve figured you out, you flimsy #6! Unlike my Meltdowner, your power doesn’t always have the same strength. It wavers with your resolve. And it’s something you need a fair amount of distance from to feel safe!!”

“What’s it like having such an empty head? What good is bragging about the enemy’s specs ''to'' the enemy?”

She moved to the left and right.

Ibotanokikouji ran sharp zigzags through the sprinkler rain to approach Mugino.

It could be hard to tell because Mugino was often reckless in her usage, but her power had such high firepower that it wasn’t well suited for close range. She could end up catching herself in the blast. And for whatever reason, Ibotanokikouji could deflect Meltdowner’s thick beams or convert them into a burst of sparkles. And each of those sparkles was still powerful enough to melt steel. Even Mugino would be in trouble if she took one of those to the head.

Thus, ''close range was a problem for both Mugino and Ibotanokikouji.

Realizing that, Mugino held out her hand and clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Please spare me some revelation that we’re birds of a feather!!”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Unlike you, I am brimming with nobility and class.”

Their arms and legs intersected.

Ibotanokikouji knocked Mugino’s wrist aside just before she could fire Meltdowner and then swept her leg toward the leg supporting Mugino as her own power spun her around.

(Damn, do they teach an elegant self-defense class at her rich girl school!?)

Mugino had already been off balance, so she completely fell backwards while Ibotanokikouji remained standing and aimed her palm down at her.

The concrete ground was torn through and dented in.

If Mugino hadn’t rolled aside so quickly, the same would have happened to her face.

And Ibotanokikouji had no real reason to stop with the one attack. Just like Mugino had fired repeatedly to pin her down earlier.

The floor was torn into over and over, so Mugino kept rolling until she fired Meltdowner into the floor, using the recoil to jump. She landed on a bus roof, so Ibotanokikouji used her invisible power to blow away the bus below her.

Ibotanokikouji must have found something odd because she frowned while still holding her arm out. Mugino grinned while easily jumping down from the rolling bus’s roof to the concrete floor.

“I can’t see that power, but I can still tell when you use it.”

“…”

“The outstretched hand is obvious, but you also ''wrinkle your brow a bit'' when you use your power. You screwed up not killing Kinuhata back at the library. Oh, don’t bother trying. That kind of habit isn’t something you can fix that quick. And once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear.”

Ibotanokikouji ignored that and continued using her power, but Mugino dove sharply below another bus. The bus bent, flew into the air, and rolled, but Mugino was no longer there.

“Your power is invisible.” Mugino landed in a different position, the soles of her boots crunching the glass scattered across the floor. “But since it shatters glass instead of passing through, it isn’t made of light like a laser. It can’t be electromagnetic either since it doesn’t produce any sparks when it hits the side or door of a bus. I’ve heard fluorescent lights light up on their own when exposed to microwaves, but I don’t see that either. So what invisible attacks does that leave? Ultrasonic waves? Controlling the wind or air?”

“Shouldn’t you consider the possibility of simple telekinesis?”

“Not a chance. If your power was that convenient and had this kind of range, you wouldn’t need to rely on projectile attacks. You’d just grab me directly and lift me up into the air like the crane game.”

Also, the enemy wasn’t going to provide the correct answer like that.

Anything she said would either work to her advantage or just be a silly mistake.

Just like Mugino was explaining all this to try and find confirmation in her opponent’s expressions.

“I’ve been hit by your power twice already. The first time it grazed my cheek and cut me, but the second time I took a direct hit and was knocked through the air. That second one has to be the real one. When it seemed to cut my cheek, it was more like I just barely dodged the attack and it tugged on my skin hard enough to tear it. Which suggests…”

Something swept through the air.

But Mugino kicked off a concrete pillar, performed a midair flip, and dodged the invisible attack moving by at hip height.

She didn’t advertise her ability to perform acrobatics, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it.

“Pressure. But instead of fanning it out around yourself, you narrow it down to a point like a spear.”

Ibotanokikouji immediately leaped to the right and took aim with her palm.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Killer Press!!”

The concrete pillar was easily destroyed, but Mugino was no longer there.

The Level 5 took one step to the side like a bullfighter.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty self-explanatory name. But you shouldn’t have given it away even if I already knew the answer. Did you panic? It didn’t help you at all.”

“You…”

“Currents of water, air, mud, lava, or any other particle have viscosity and they will naturally flow along the path of least resistance. I believe that’s the foundation of fluid dynamics. So by launching a point of invisible but powerful pressure, you can bend the path my Meltdowner takes as it travels through the air as a current. Just like river water traveling around a bridge support in the middle.”

Ibotanokikouji herself had said it wasn’t electricity when they first met.

To be blunt, that hint had been unnecessary.

When attacking that lab, Mugino herself had pushed back a grenade blast with her power.

With her specialty in pressure, Ibotanokikouji would be able to do even more than that. It was possible she could even turn a human into a diamond.

“And it makes sense now why your projectiles are weaker at close range. You can hit anything you want with a point of powerful pressure, but it isn’t convenient enough to break the law of action and reaction. If you did shatter my body, the blood, gore, and bone fragments would be launched in every direction with the force of a bullet. Your own survival comes first for you, so you don’t want to be killed by that gruesome scattershot. So of course you hold back when you get close.”

They glared at each other.

They were past the point of hiding anything.

“Kinuhata and Frenda told me they saw you make a microphone float in the air and that you controlled a grizzly to sow chaos during the battle in the Colosseum.”

But…

“Your power isn’t just the control of gravity or of animals. You used pressure to knock the microphone into the air like a billiards ball. You used pressure to hit the switch to the grizzly’s cage. Animal paths form in the mountains and forests because animals naturally choose the path of least resistance when walking, leading them the same way every time. So you used a minute amount of pressure to ''redirect the grizzly away from one direction and toward another.''”

“Well done. Killer Press allows me to design my own animal paths by creating invisible bushes and thickets. And the sensation is so subtle the influenced target isn’t even aware they are being controlled.”

That was when Mugino’s voice dropped in tone.

“So what about back at the Colosseum, when Hanano fled with Takitsubo?”

“That’s right. You gave the command, but I influenced the direction they chose.”

If not for that, the timid chihuahua of a girl would still be there by Mugino’s side.

Mugino hadn’t seen it herself, but the way the Tokiwadai girls had parted to clear the way for Ibotanokikouji had been an application of that technique.

She sent out a minute amount of pressure to distance people.

When water, air, bugs, lava, powder, or humans moved as a group, they followed the fluid movement of particles. That meant they had viscosity and would naturally flow along the path of least resistance. That fact was the basis of fluid dynamics.

(But if that’s her power, then our trump card will work against her!!)

Mugino roared.

But not to intimidate Ibotanokikouji and not to break the limiter in her mind.

Her opponent was the only member of her team left, but Item was fighting together.

“''Frenda!! It’s time to trap her!! Restore the power!!!''”

She was answered by the fluorescent lights.

The darkness was instantly swept away. But that was not necessarily a good thing.

Mugino and Ibotanokikouji had done a lot of damage to the walls and ceiling. Thick severed cables were hanging down here and there. And thanks to the bus fire, the sprinklers had covered the floor in water.

What happened when the power was restored in that state?

A deep staticky noise erupted out.

Mugino had already launched Meltdowner downwards and used the recoil to leap onto a bus roof. The bus’s rubber tires would prevent the electricity from traveling up from the floor.

“Tch!!”

Ibotanokikouji could not use her power like a rocket in that way. Instead, she dented in another bus’s metal side with her hands to climb up to the roof like it had a ladder.

“Oh, and I thought you would cling to the wall like you had suction cups. Can you only increase pressure, not decrease it? C’mon, is that all a student of the famous Tokiwadai can do? Ha ha! And you expect me to believe you’re the #6? What can those filthy adults research using that!? This is just sad!”

“Kh, your words mean nothing to me!!!”

Stun guns were sold with a voltage of over a million, but this was very different. The much greater current and constant exposure to the entire body made this much more dangerous. The couple hundred volts used for large appliances could easily kill a human with the help of some highly conductive water.

But aside from that, Ibotanokikouji whispered across the valley of deadly electricity between their buses.

“You do know the suitcase containing the 80 billion is still down there, don’t you? The money cards are made of plastic and, while the suitcase is stab and bomb resistant, it is still made of plastic. That deadly electricity will be enough to melt the cards, rendering them useless.

“That’s only 80 billion. ''Did you really think I was still fighting for that, you piece of shit''?

A Meltdowner beam immediately flew out.

Ibotanokikouji used her own power to destroy a ceiling panel and twist a thick pipe she swung on like a pendulum to reach another bus. And she launched her Killer Press to target Mugino from a distance.

Both missed attacks caused great destruction. Concrete pillars broke, cracks ran through the ceiling, and the buses providing the only safe footing rolled and exploded. The glass waiting areas were destroyed in the process.

Ibotanokikouji pointed her open palm elsewhere.

With a loud noise, a fallen square ceiling panel shot straight up from the ground. She had shoved the pressure spear between the floor and the panel to launch it up like kicking up a soccer ball.

And as soon as it arrived at her eye level atop the bus…

“Killer Press!!”

She knocked the thin panel outwards with all her might.

The many sharp fragments pierced by the invisible pressure spear fanned out to slice through the air. Just like the break shot in pool. They roughly filled the direction Mugino was.

They were stopped by a sizzling sound.

Mugino had eliminated the glass shards flying her way. Her beam had bent and flown elsewhere, but it had managed to secure her safety first.

“Didn’t I say once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear?”

“…”

“But that was neat. I never thought of scattering the attack to hit someone who won’t stay still.”

Mugino sneered as she continued firing her ultra-powerful projectiles, but she couldn’t get a hit in on Ibotanokikouji. She blew away buses and broke pillars, but Ibotanokikouji remained alive.

In fact…

“!!”

When a beam was on course to hit, it would bend unnaturally.

Ibotanokikouji raised her own voice while holding her hand out.

“And I told you all matter follows the path of least resistance!! All I have to do is launch my Killer Press straight ahead and your Meltdowner will bend at least a little. You can’t hit me!!”

“''Odd. Did I say anything about trying to hit you''?”

“No, you can’t mean…?”

“I flipped that card over to scare you. Worked, didn’t it?”

This whole time, Mugino had not been aiming for Ibotanokikouji who kept jumping from bus to bus to escape. She had been aiming just a bit lower, vaporizing the remaining buses to remove her opponent’s movement options.

Ibotanokikouji’s face finally clouded over.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Did you think I didn’t, you fancy slut?”

Another explosion laid the pressure on Ibotanokikouji.

With only one bus remaining, the two of them naturally had to rely on the same one. The two wicked girls faced each other like they were preparing for a duel.

Both espers used high firepower projectiles.

The next exchange of attacks would end this.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm straight out, but then something unexpected happened.

Mugino aimed her palm as well.

''But instead of aiming at her enemy, she aimed at the roof of the final bus they were standing on.

There was no more safe ground.

Destroy this bus, and there was no escape. They would be forced onto the wet and electrified floor of death.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Really?”

The word seemed to slip out of Ibotanokikouji’s mouth.

Whatever she was feeling, her lips formed an oddly tense smile.

And Mugino was not shaken.

“My objective here isn’t survival. If it were, I could’ve given up on avenging Hanano and let you run off.”

So she didn’t hesitate.

“All of us in Item were only after one thing this whole time: your shitty head!!”

A beam flashed out, the metal noisily vaporized, and all the fuel in the bus ignited.

Ibotanokikouji instinctually jumped from the roof…and then her thoughts ground to a halt.

That had been the right choice if she was to live as long as possible.

But where was she supposed to land? The floor was covered in electrified water, so her heart would stop the instant her feet touched down!!

Meanwhile…

“No…way?”

Mugino had thrown herself into the air as well, but she was holding her palm out toward Ibotanokikouji.

She didn’t even consider what would happen a second from now.

In this single snapshot in time, she would do what she could to personally kill a girl who was going to die regardless. Her piercing gaze conveyed only an intention to give Ibotanokikouji more than just an electric death.

Yes.

If Ibotanokikouji hadn’t been so focused on survival, she too might have launched a final attack. But in her fear, she had looked away from the battle. Her thoughts had abandoned the battle as they raced in search of some way to survive.

It was too late now to grip the trigger again.

The light of a high-speed particle-wave cannon was already gathering in Mugino’s palm.

In that final moment, her violent lips formed a few words.

Those words didn’t even reference Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the leader of Enemy Item.

Even her own life was a secondary concern.

“''Are you watching, Hanano?''” whispered Mugino.

The beam erupted forth.

The brutal beam that had so often mercilessly sliced through Academy City’s darkness struck Ibotanokikouji at the hip and vaporized her lower half.

Mugino was no longer focused on the 80 billion or her own life.

Once she decided someone had to die, she threw out all of those normal calculations.

That Level 5 wasn’t concerned with how her attack’s immense energy nearly blew away her own body.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4

2023-03-19T11:56:35Z

JDMP: Typo: I - If . Corrected context- " If you lost your treasured..."

==Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5==

===Part 1===

July 21, 8 PM.

“Phew.”

A girl in a summer uniform and a large mask arrived in District 3. She was fortunate her usual makeup tools had survived the explosion. The mask covered most of her face’s identifiable features, but it could stand out too much if she didn’t eliminate the mismatch with her skin.

This was Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

A drum-shaped security robot passed nearby, but she was fine for now. Based on its movement pattern and the direction it pointed its lenses, it was likely on traffic duty. Panicking and running away would only draw its attention. While she was a criminal, there was not a major alert out for her arrest.

This was the northernmost district in Academy City. In addition to luxurious office buildings owned by many major corporations, it contained the North Gate leading to Saitama. That meant it also contained the traffic services and infrastructure related to the gate.

The blimp floating by overhead provided some advice on its screen: “The North Gate is experiencing light congestion. Plan for a 20-30 minute delay. If your vehicle is caught in the congestion, please turn off your engine to cut down on exhaust while idling.”

During the hot night, the roadside mist shower was unpleasant. It stuck to her skin and clothing like sweat.

A small light danced in the corner of her view while a three-blade wind turbine turned.

A couple in yukatas was crouched down, apparently enjoying some sparklers. Their phone backlights were brighter than the fireworks. ''Die,'' the upper-class girl cursed silently. It didn’t look like they had requested a security robot with a firefighting attachment to supervise, so she hoped they started a fire and had the worst night of their lives.

Her fluffy blonde hair with a decorative braid swayed as she walked, the suitcase rolled behind her, a bulging sports bag hung over her shoulder, and she entered a building that resembled a giant parking garage.

Ibotanokikouji had arrived at a long-distance bus terminal.

To efficiently process as many large buses as possible, the facility had been expanded to have loading stations on the upper and lower level. The lower level also had a taxi loading zone and a parking lot, but the bus loading stations were the main attraction.

The interior was a bit nicer than a concrete parking garage. Instead of metal signs and sun-faded plastic benches, the waiting area was protected by a glass box and contained large sofas like you would find in an airport lounge. A push of a button on the seat and a waiter from the affiliated café would come to take your order.

“C-11 – the Highway Cradle bound for Aomori should be…this one?”
Ibotanokikouji checked the alphanumeric designation provided by the e-ticket displayed on her new phone and made her way to the loading station for the bus she wanted. The bus itself had yet to arrive, so she would have to wait. She opened the clear door, found an empty spot on the sofas covering three of the four walls, and sat down.

“Phew.”

(I would have preferred to go to District 23 and escape overseas by air, but they should be monitoring all of the international flights.)

“Ugh, if only I could fly tonight. Just give me freedom. But that can wait until I escape Kantou and take a domestic flight to another international airport.”

The transportation facility was crowded even at night. There were other middle schoolers like her and even younger elementary schoolers wandering around with large suitcases. Public transportation usually shut down after the city curfew, but today was special.

It was the 21st.

There was a reason Ibotanokikouji had taken the risk of staying hidden until today.

Today was the first day of summer break.

The city had a population of 2.3 million, 80% of whom were students. They wouldn’t all be leaving the city to return home for the break, but a lot more would be leaving today than any other day. Tokiwadai was extremely strict about spending the night away from the dorm (although Ibotanokikouji snuck out of the dorm fairly frequently), but that changed if you were returning home for the break. She had gotten her form filled out a little differently from everyone else, but as long as it let her hide among all these people, she didn’t need to fear pursuit.

She heard a deep rumbling.

A late-night bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom was climbing a spiraling slope similar to a parking garage.

“…”

Ibotanokikouji was alone after losing her three teammates, but Mugino still had all four members of her team. That meant her opponent was more than just a Level 5. Mugino had multiple support personnel, so fighting her alone would be a bad idea. The strength of Ibotanokikouji’s power didn’t even come into it. If a power compatibility issue occurred in that situation, she would be doomed.

She was at a terrible disadvantage, but the battle wasn’t over yet.

Whoever emerged victorious in the end held the right to the Item name. That condition remained in effect.

It didn’t matter that she was the only one left.

If she gathered new teammates to fill all four slots again, she could redo her version of Item.

She crossed her legs in the waiting area sofa and rubbed her palm gently across the suitcase sitting next to her.

She had created this place for herself – no adult had given it to her. She couldn’t let some stranger have it.

Yes, for herself.

To put that another way, her teammates had only ever been a collection she kept to decorate her hideout according to her tastes. She might watch them, touch them, and adore them, but she would not lament their loss forever.

She loved her Item teammates from the bottom of her heart. That was completely true.

''But'' the sorrow would not last forever.

They could be replaced.

Replaced with an even greater collection which would create an even more comfortable place for herself.

If you lost your treasured possessions in a fire or other disaster, you would not just give up. When you loved something, you would naturally seek out new ones as long as you lived.

Hers was the love of someone looking down at her loved ones from above.

(I have plenty of money. I can rebuild my forces as many times as it takes. So what I need most now is freedom. I need to go into hiding and cut off all pursuit before slowly and gradually acquiring new fighters and finally becoming the hunter once more. Then I can turn the tables on them. I will make them pay for taking my collection from me.)

“This is not over.”

To do this, she needed to escape Mugino’s team’s pursuit, use the adults’ power to gradually weaken them, and end their turn as the hunters without having to lay a single finger on them herself.

For now, that meant escaping outside of Academy City.

“As long as I am undefeated, the threat of Item remains to plague you. I will grow and regenerate and wear you down.”

===Part 2===

“Mugino.”

“Okay, let’s make a real show of it.”

===Part 3===

Something exploded, sounding a lot like a giant firework going off.

Then the building shook vertically, sending an icy chill into her gut.

The bus terminal lost all power, but it wasn’t as dark as a movie theater. Similar to a parking garage, it wasn’t fully enclosed, but more than that, the lights directing people to the emergency exits immediately switched on.

The indoor speakers that had been playing light jazz now played an emergency announcement.

But this didn’t sound like a prerecorded synthesized voice.

“Hello, hello, hello☆ This is not a test. In the end, that was a real anti-tank rocket, so I’d evacuate pretty quick if I were you. We’ll try our best not to hit any of you, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t do your best to leave. I repeat, this is not a test.”

At first, the customers stared blankly in the dark.

But the mood changed once another explosion erupted quite close by.

The many customers scattered and fled in every direction.

It was like the glass waiting areas were hornet’s nests someone had poked with a stick.

The panic soon spread to the customers inside the building.

“Now, the rest of this message is for the piece of shit hiding in your midst!! We have the building surrounded by UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers. In the end, we have them programmed to detect your face and gait in the crowd no matter how well you try to hide them. That rectangular cage is our Colosseum ring. Everyone else can get out, but not you!! Take one step outside and you’ll be blown to pieces for breaking the rules!!!”

“…”

Those cursed words probably meant nothing at all to the ordinary people. The terms like “UAV bombers” and “remote grenade launchers” entered their ears, but their brains failed to convert the sounds into anything meaningful. If they had understood the situation, they would have been too afraid to leave.

The only one who understood was the true villain who was all too familiar with unreasonable death, so she was coated with sweat.

(Are they crazy? Launch a large UAV bomber in Academy City, and the airport radar will pick it up. Not to mention these explosions! Do they want to get killed by the unmanned Six Wings that will inevitably be called in!?)

No.

They probably didn’t care about that. It wouldn’t harm them if their unmanned weapons were shot down and the Six Wings attack helicopter might target Ibotanokikouji as well.

Panic clutched her heart, but her rational side insisted that, even if she were identified within the crowd, launching an explosive to kill her there would result in an indiscriminate slaughter. If they were really prepared to do that, they wouldn’t have bothered with a warning and simply blown up the entire building with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers or 300kg air-to-surface missiles.

However. While that did check out logically, could she really, truly predict what a dark side team would do while burning with rage? Would she really be safe heading outside with only that reasoning to go on?

It functioned much like landmines. The possibility of the threat was enough to restrict her actions.

(In that case, it would be better to escape in some way that prevents them from identifying me. That means hiding in a large roofed vehicle. Like in the large luggage space below a bus!!)

Ibotanokikouji’s eyes widened when she saw a uniformed driver rushing out of his large bus.

She left the glass box with her heavy suitcase.

“W-wait. You have the long-distance bus right here. We’re only 400m away from the North Gate. If you leave now…!!”

“You want me to leave with all this going on? They’ll be canceling all the trips anyway!!”

A bus would be perfect for escaping, but could it really avoid all the fleeing customers spread out over the area? The driver joined them. Ibotanokikouji considered using her power to control him, but it wasn’t suited for giving detailed instructions like the operation of machinery.

(If anyone is stupid enough to get in the bus’s way, you should just run them over.)

But only the dark side could carry out a plan like that without hesitation.

She looked to the bus, abandoned and driverless.

(I don’t gain anything by fighting here, but I can escape the city if I get this bus moving. C-could I drive it myself?)

She flinched back from a loud boom of destruction.

This one wasn’t a rocket. Nor did it sound like a collision between buses.

The slightly muffled sound reminded her of compressed gas, or maybe a powerful blow made with nitrogen.

Something was rolling in the shadowy distance. It appeared to be another late-night bus. An impact to its side had bent it and positioned it to block the spiraling slope leading down.

It weighed too much to ram out of the way, so now no one could get any of the large buses out.

“Tch!!”

She made sure to ''split the smoke and dust with her power so she could still see.

Given this, should she have given up on leaving the city and mixed in with the crowd? Even if she couldn’t escape the UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers, she could have tried going a step further and taking a hostage. They couldn’t aim at her alone with explosives!

But all the potential hostages were gone. Ibotanokikouji Kaede was alone in the bus terminal.

“It’s no use,” said a strange voice.

It was soft, but it still pierced sharply into her chest.

Someone passed by the broken bus and stood directly in front of Ibotanokikouji.

The girl wore a pink track jacket and shorts.

“We aren’t holding anything back. I have already used my Body Crystal and recorded your AIM Diffusion Field. It doesn’t matter what you do now. I can track you even if you escape into outer space or the deep sea.”

As an outsider, Ibotanokikouji couldn’t know if that voice from the darkness was telling the truth.

But there had to be something to it.

That wasn’t any ordinary gaze directed her way. She couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling like someone had their finger jabbed right between her eyes. It told her she couldn’t fool this observer no matter what.

“You cannot escape. Not as long as I live. So if you want to escape, you need to kill me and cut off my supernatural pursuit. Do you understand the rules now?”
Ibotanokikouji had figured that much out on her own.

She kicked away the suitcase and tossed aside the sports bag she carried over her shoulder. Even the mask was in the way now. She didn’t want anything obstructing her breathing even slightly, so she removed the cloth and let it fall to her feet.

That tracking power did sound like a problem, but at the same time, each esper could only have one power. That meant this girl could not shoot fire or electricity from her hand or otherwise fight directly.

A powerless location-tracking esper should have been hiding in the bushes holding a sniper rifle, but here she was standing in front of Ibotanokikouji. How stupid could she be? If she was going to set things up this perfectly, there was no good reason for Ibotanokikouji to not just kill her here.

But Ibotanokikouji did not step forward.

In fact, she stepped back.

A dreadful beam of light swept through the air from the side. The bus terminal was structured a lot like a parking garage and this blew away a few of the thick concrete columns supporting the ceiling. If she hadn’t noticed and moved toward the tracker girl, the first blast would have vaporized her upper body.

Yes, this was a battle between the two Items.

So of course this girl was here.

“Level 5. Mugino…Shizuri!?”

“What’s wrong, self-proclaimed #6!? Surely this isn’t enough to strip you of that title!?”

Mugino licked her lips as she approached.

The 80 billion yen in the suitcase no longer mattered.

She was much more interested in taking her time to shred that girl’s reputation.

So her first priority was…

“Kinuhata!!”

“Super on it. We’ve trapped her here, so I’ll super take Takitsubo-san and disappear.”

Kinuhata stuck to her initial role as Takitsubo’s shield by pulling on Takitsubo’s hand and gently guiding her into the darkness.

That was the right decision.

Ibotanokikouji’s win condition was not defeating Mugino – it was killing Takitsubo to stop being tracked. Fail to take those priorities into account, and Mugino’s side would lose another member.

They weren’t going to let that happen again.

Their target didn’t even bother suppressing her tongue click at this point.

“Tch!! Outta the way!”

“You’d better kill me quick, fancy girl. Otherwise Takitsubo will get away.”

Mugino slid to the side to position herself in between.

They walked in parallel for a bit.

The roles of hunter and hunted had been flipped by this one strategy. Mugino grinned and basked in a wolfish joy over stealing the advantages of being on the run.

The Tokiwadai girl could no longer escape.

Even if she intended to escape the city, she had to stop here and fight.

“You and your cheap tricks!”

“We’re not as bad as you. You decide who the good guys are in any given situation based on what benefits you the most.”

Sadism took a type of talent. Violence was just violence. To derive sweet pleasure from it required a different outlook. In a world full of targets, what you focused on differed from situation to situation. Like a cup of water in the desert or a single breath of air when buried alive. A sadist had a talent for determining what exactly that was for someone and destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.

Mugino had reached that point.

She sneered while embracing her own body and expanding a sweet barrier thickly around herself.

“So how should we handle this fight to the death. If we’re going to do it, I might as well hear your preference.”

“Oh? Have you forgotten I still get a say here? Don’t just decide what we’re about to do.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? The two team leaders are about to engage in single combat. Talking with the enemy to try and understand them would just be a bore.”

“Talking? Yes.” Ibotanokikouji laughed too. “That would be silly.”

Mugino Shizuri and Ibotanokikouji Kaede both launched something from their palm.

They didn’t bother waiting to confirm the rules. Both them had lost at least one of their teammates. Talking couldn’t change the amount of spilled blood.

===Part 4===

Even so.

Mugino thought to herself while the anger sizzled at her heart.

Her Meltdowner beams had scorched the air and blown up a few empty buses. That much was fine.

Some of them had bent in a way she hadn’t expected, but she had seen the phenomenon before.

Ibotanokikouji immediately jumped to the side to dodge in the opposite direction, but it made sense she could get lucky there if she was guessing that a surprise attack was coming.

But what had Ibotanokikouji done?

A small red line ran across Mugino’s cheek. It was like a cut from a blade.

A moment later, the concrete wall behind Mugino was torn apart and blown away. Almost like an invisible wrecking ball had hit it.

She had seen this before when Ibotanokikouji had first demonstrated her power.

Or more accurately, she hadn’t seen it. But it was definitely there.

It was deadly.

(She claims to be the #6, but what kind of power is she actually using!?)

“Ha ha!!”

Instead of widening her eyes in shock, Mugino laughed.

By controlling her tension, she transformed it into elation and pleasure.

Like an athlete entering the zone.

Thrill rides and horror movies spent huge sums of money to safely mass produce thrills.

Since the villains were cut off from the benefits of justice and goodness, the primary rule for survival in the shadows was to convert anything and everything into sustenance.

So Mugino swallowed the lump of unease and advanced while firing Meltdowner beams as fast as she could. She ignored the passive rule of drawing out a circle that surrounded the target.

Without knowing the details of that girl’s power, she couldn’t calculate the risk of charging straight in or taking a more roundabout path.

So only one thing mattered now.

(I need to get her to use her power for defense even if I have to force it. Then I can reveal her secrets while staying safe myself!!)

Firing a machinegun could stop the enemy troops. If you didn’t want a single shot coming back your way, it was safest to pin them behind cover by firing ten thousand bullets of your own. Just like a turtle afraid to stick out its head and move because someone was poking at its shell.

And Meltdowner could do more than pin someone in place.

It could pierce through concrete pillars, abandoned buses, or any other cover. Mugino could keep most any enemy on the run without needing any evasive action of her own. She would fry them before they had a chance to counterattack.

Ultimately, she didn’t really need to reveal Ibotanokikouji’s power. Hanano had paid with her life to blow up Waniguchi and Inoue while the latter’s power remained a mystery and that was perfectly fine.

''However…

“Have you already forgotten? Do try to remember what I said before.”

Ibotanokikouji spoke from beyond the barrage. She still had time to talk with all this going on.

“Are you stupid? Your high score came from working through a list of easier small scale jobs chosen specifically to give you a taste for blood and victory. Just because you can power your way through some jobs on easy mode doesn’t mean every battle you come across will be as easy.”

It happened directly ahead of her. The thick beam launched from Mugino’s palm exploded shockingly close and scattered light everywhere.

“!?”

“Oh? The first time, our powers intersected and your beam bent, but this must be what happens when they perfectly overlap.”

Silence fell, like time had stopped for a moment.

About 10m away, Ibotanokikouji was holding out her own palm.

She didn’t even try to show off her high score of remaining unscathed in these circumstances.

Both girls came to a stop and glared at each other.

And like they had timed it…

“What the hell did you do, #6?”

“Guess, Level 5.”

The frozen time seemed to explode back into motion.

Mugino knew it would be neutralized, but she still launched another Meltdowner directly at her enemy. She dashed in the instant Ibotanokikouji held out her palm and the thick beam exploded. She kept low to duck below the scattering light to arrive right in front of her target.

She aimed her open palm up at Ibotanokikouji’s face.

Her right hand was spread as wide as it would go.

(Let’s see if you can block it when I grab your face and fire at point-blank range, Dark Side’s Bane!!)

A deep roar followed.

But that wasn’t Meltdowner. Mugino was the one who was knocked away, spinning through the air.

Ibotanokikouji winked, stuck out her tongue a bit, and whispered softly.

“I won’t even let you touch me.”

Mugino ended up embedded in the dented side of a bus, but she still smiled belligerently.

A trickle of red dripped down from her right temple, but she ignored that.

“That tells me ''even you’d be in trouble if I did manage to grab your face.''”

“My, my. You have no imagination at all, do you? It could be a bluff to make you think that.”

“If it was, you wouldn’t be so desperate to suggest it might be. If you had me fooled like you want, you would have no reason to raise any doubts.”

Ibotanokikouji fell silent.

That was the correct response.

But it revealed a concern over saying too much, so Mugino still docked her some points.

“And unlike your first attack, I wasn’t hit by enough force to destroy a thick concrete wall. Why not? I can’t think of any reason why you would hold back just now.”

Something exploded.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm out in a different direction and Mugino quickly rolled to the side. A long-distance bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom rolled onto its side after being torn through like an aluminum can in a ferocious dog’s jaws.

The diesel fuel ignited and the sprinklers on the ceiling produced their artificial rain.

But Mugino was still the one laughing.

“Ha ha ha!! Now I see. I’ve figured you out, you flimsy #6! Unlike my Meltdowner, your power doesn’t always have the same strength. It wavers with your resolve. And it’s something you need a fair amount of distance from to feel safe!!”

“What’s it like having such an empty head? What good is bragging about the enemy’s specs ''to'' the enemy?”

She moved to the left and right.

Ibotanokikouji ran sharp zigzags through the sprinkler rain to approach Mugino.

It could be hard to tell because Mugino was often reckless in her usage, but her power had such high firepower that it wasn’t well suited for close range. She could end up catching herself in the blast. And for whatever reason, Ibotanokikouji could deflect Meltdowner’s thick beams or convert them into a burst of sparkles. And each of those sparkles was still powerful enough to melt steel. Even Mugino would be in trouble if she took one of those to the head.

Thus, ''close range was a problem for both Mugino and Ibotanokikouji.

Realizing that, Mugino held out her hand and clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Please spare me some revelation that we’re birds of a feather!!”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Unlike you, I am brimming with nobility and class.”

Their arms and legs intersected.

Ibotanokikouji knocked Mugino’s wrist aside just before she could fire Meltdowner and then swept her leg toward the leg supporting Mugino as her own power spun her around.

(Damn, do they teach an elegant self-defense class at her rich girl school!?)

Mugino had already been off balance, so she completely fell backwards while Ibotanokikouji remained standing and aimed her palm down at her.

The concrete ground was torn through and dented in.

If Mugino hadn’t rolled aside so quickly, the same would have happened to her face.

And Ibotanokikouji had no real reason to stop with the one attack. Just like Mugino had fired repeatedly to pin her down earlier.

The floor was torn into over and over, so Mugino kept rolling until she fired Meltdowner into the floor, using the recoil to jump. She landed on a bus roof, so Ibotanokikouji used her invisible power to blow away the bus below her.

Ibotanokikouji must have found something odd because she frowned while still holding her arm out. Mugino grinned while easily jumping down from the rolling bus’s roof to the concrete floor.

“I can’t see that power, but I can still tell when you use it.”

“…”

“The outstretched hand is obvious, but you also ''wrinkle your brow a bit'' when you use your power. You screwed up not killing Kinuhata back at the library. Oh, don’t bother trying. That kind of habit isn’t something you can fix that quick. And once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear.”

Ibotanokikouji ignored that and continued using her power, but Mugino dove sharply below another bus. The bus bent, flew into the air, and rolled, but Mugino was no longer there.

“Your power is invisible.” Mugino landed in a different position, the soles of her boots crunching the glass scattered across the floor. “But since it shatters glass instead of passing through, it isn’t made of light like a laser. It can’t be electromagnetic either since it doesn’t produce any sparks when it hits the side or door of a bus. I’ve heard fluorescent lights light up on their own when exposed to microwaves, but I don’t see that either. So what invisible attacks does that leave? Ultrasonic waves? Controlling the wind or air?”

“Shouldn’t you consider the possibility of simple telekinesis?”

“Not a chance. If your power was that convenient and had this kind of range, you wouldn’t need to rely on projectile attacks. You’d just grab me directly and lift me up into the air like the crane game.”

Also, the enemy wasn’t going to provide the correct answer like that.

Anything she said would either work to her advantage or just be a silly mistake.

Just like Mugino was explaining all this to try and find confirmation in her opponent’s expressions.

“I’ve been hit by your power twice already. The first time it grazed my cheek and cut me, but the second time I took a direct hit and was knocked through the air. That second one has to be the real one. When it seemed to cut my cheek, it was more like I just barely dodged the attack and it tugged on my skin hard enough to tear it. Which suggests…”

Something swept through the air.

But Mugino kicked off a concrete pillar, performed a midair flip, and dodged the invisible attack moving by at hip height.

She didn’t advertise her ability to perform acrobatics, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it.

“Pressure. But instead of fanning it out around yourself, you narrow it down to a point like a spear.”

Ibotanokikouji immediately leaped to the right and took aim with her palm.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Killer Press!!”

The concrete pillar was easily destroyed, but Mugino was no longer there.

The Level 5 took one step to the side like a bullfighter.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty self-explanatory name. But you shouldn’t have given it away even if I already knew the answer. Did you panic? It didn’t help you at all.”

“You…”

“Currents of water, air, mud, lava, or any other particle have viscosity and they will naturally flow along the path of least resistance. I believe that’s the foundation of fluid dynamics. So by launching a point of invisible but powerful pressure, you can bend the path my Meltdowner takes as it travels through the air as a current. Just like river water traveling around a bridge support in the middle.”

Ibotanokikouji herself had said it wasn’t electricity when they first met.

To be blunt, that hint had been unnecessary.

When attacking that lab, Mugino herself had pushed back a grenade blast with her power.

With her specialty in pressure, Ibotanokikouji would be able to do even more than that. It was possible she could even turn a human into a diamond.

“And it makes sense now why your projectiles are weaker at close range. You can hit anything you want with a point of powerful pressure, but it isn’t convenient enough to break the law of action and reaction. If you did shatter my body, the blood, gore, and bone fragments would be launched in every direction with the force of a bullet. Your own survival comes first for you, so you don’t want to be killed by that gruesome scattershot. So of course you hold back when you get close.”

They glared at each other.

They were past the point of hiding anything.

“Kinuhata and Frenda told me they saw you make a microphone float in the air and that you controlled a grizzly to sow chaos during the battle in the Colosseum.”

But…

“Your power isn’t just the control of gravity or of animals. You used pressure to knock the microphone into the air like a billiards ball. You used pressure to hit the switch to the grizzly’s cage. Animal paths form in the mountains and forests because animals naturally choose the path of least resistance when walking, leading them the same way every time. So you used a minute amount of pressure to ''redirect the grizzly away from one direction and toward another.''”

“Well done. Killer Press allows me to design my own animal paths by creating invisible bushes and thickets. And the sensation is so subtle the influenced target isn’t even aware they are being controlled.”

That was when Mugino’s voice dropped in tone.

“So what about back at the Colosseum, when Hanano fled with Takitsubo?”

“That’s right. You gave the command, but I influenced the direction they chose.”

If not for that, the timid chihuahua of a girl would still be there by Mugino’s side.

Mugino hadn’t seen it herself, but the way the Tokiwadai girls had parted to clear the way for Ibotanokikouji had been an application of that technique.

She sent out a minute amount of pressure to distance people.

When water, air, bugs, lava, powder, or humans moved as a group, they followed the fluid movement of particles. That meant they had viscosity and would naturally flow along the path of least resistance. That fact was the basis of fluid dynamics.

(But if that’s her power, then our trump card will work against her!!)

Mugino roared.

But not to intimidate Ibotanokikouji and not to break the limiter in her mind.

Her opponent was the only member of her team left, but Item was fighting together.

“''Frenda!! It’s time to trap her!! Restore the power!!!''”

She was answered by the fluorescent lights.

The darkness was instantly swept away. But that was not necessarily a good thing.

Mugino and Ibotanokikouji had done a lot of damage to the walls and ceiling. Thick severed cables were hanging down here and there. And thanks to the bus fire, the sprinklers had covered the floor in water.

What happened when the power was restored in that state?

A deep staticky noise erupted out.

Mugino had already launched Meltdowner downwards and used the recoil to leap onto a bus roof. The bus’s rubber tires would prevent the electricity from traveling up from the floor.

“Tch!!”

Ibotanokikouji could not use her power like a rocket in that way. Instead, she dented in another bus’s metal side with her hands to climb up to the roof like it had a ladder.

“Oh, and I thought you would cling to the wall like you had suction cups. Can you only increase pressure, not decrease it? C’mon, is that all a student of the famous Tokiwadai can do? Ha ha! And you expect me to believe you’re the #6? What can those filthy adults research using that!? This is just sad!”

“Kh, your words mean nothing to me!!!”

Stun guns were sold with a voltage of over a million, but this was very different. The much greater current and constant exposure to the entire body made this much more dangerous. The couple hundred volts used for large appliances could easily kill a human with the help of some highly conductive water.

But aside from that, Ibotanokikouji whispered across the valley of deadly electricity between their buses.

“You do know the suitcase containing the 80 billion is still down there, don’t you? The money cards are made of plastic and, while the suitcase is stab and bomb resistant, it is still made of plastic. That deadly electricity will be enough to melt the cards, rendering them useless.

“That’s only 80 billion. ''Did you really think I was still fighting for that, you piece of shit''?

A Meltdowner beam immediately flew out.

Ibotanokikouji used her own power to destroy a ceiling panel and twist a thick pipe she swung on like a pendulum to reach another bus. And she launched her Killer Press to target Mugino from a distance.

Both missed attacks caused great destruction. Concrete pillars broke, cracks ran through the ceiling, and the buses providing the only safe footing rolled and exploded. The glass waiting areas were destroyed in the process.

Ibotanokikouji pointed her open palm elsewhere.

With a loud noise, a fallen square ceiling panel shot straight up from the ground. She had shoved the pressure spear between the floor and the panel to launch it up like kicking up a soccer ball.

And as soon as it arrived at her eye level atop the bus…

“Killer Press!!”

She knocked the thin panel outwards with all her might.

The many sharp fragments pierced by the invisible pressure spear fanned out to slice through the air. Just like the break shot in pool. They roughly filled the direction Mugino was.

They were stopped by a sizzling sound.

Mugino had eliminated the glass shards flying her way. Her beam had bent and flown elsewhere, but it had managed to secure her safety first.

“Didn’t I say once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear?”

“…”

“But that was neat. I never thought of scattering the attack to hit someone who won’t stay still.”

Mugino sneered as she continued firing her ultra-powerful projectiles, but she couldn’t get a hit in on Ibotanokikouji. She blew away buses and broke pillars, but Ibotanokikouji remained alive.

In fact…

“!!”

When a beam was on course to hit, it would bend unnaturally.

Ibotanokikouji raised her own voice while holding her hand out.

“And I told you all matter follows the path of least resistance!! All I have to do is launch my Killer Press straight ahead and your Meltdowner will bend at least a little. You can’t hit me!!”

“''Odd. Did I say anything about trying to hit you''?”

“No, you can’t mean…?”

“I flipped that card over to scare you. Worked, didn’t it?”

This whole time, Mugino had not been aiming for Ibotanokikouji who kept jumping from bus to bus to escape. She had been aiming just a bit lower, vaporizing the remaining buses to remove her opponent’s movement options.

Ibotanokikouji’s face finally clouded over.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Did you think I didn’t, you fancy slut?”

Another explosion laid the pressure on Ibotanokikouji.

With only one bus remaining, the two of them naturally had to rely on the same one. The two wicked girls faced each other like they were preparing for a duel.

Both espers used high firepower projectiles.

The next exchange of attacks would end this.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm straight out, but then something unexpected happened.

Mugino aimed her palm as well.

''But instead of aiming at her enemy, she aimed at the roof of the final bus they were standing on.

There was no more safe ground.

Destroy this bus, and there was no escape. They would be forced onto the wet and electrified floor of death.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Really?”

The word seemed to slip out of Ibotanokikouji’s mouth.

Whatever she was feeling, her lips formed an oddly tense smile.

And Mugino was not shaken.

“My objective here isn’t survival. If it were, I could’ve given up on avenging Hanano and let you run off.”

So she didn’t hesitate.

“All of us in Item were only after one thing this whole time: your shitty head!!”

A beam flashed out, the metal noisily vaporized, and all the fuel in the bus ignited.

Ibotanokikouji instinctually jumped from the roof…and then her thoughts ground to a halt.

That had been the right choice if she was to live as long as possible.

But where was she supposed to land? The floor was covered in electrified water, so her heart would stop the instant her feet touched down!!

Meanwhile…

“No…way?”

Mugino had thrown herself into the air as well, but she was holding her palm out toward Ibotanokikouji.

She didn’t even consider what would happen a second from now.

In this single snapshot in time, she would do what she could to personally kill a girl who was going to die regardless. Her piercing gaze conveyed only an intention to give Ibotanokikouji more than just an electric death.

Yes.

If Ibotanokikouji hadn’t been so focused on survival, she too might have launched a final attack. But in her fear, she had looked away from the battle. Her thoughts had abandoned the battle as they raced in search of some way to survive.

It was too late now to grip the trigger again.

The light of a high-speed particle-wave cannon was already gathering in Mugino’s palm.

In that final moment, her violent lips formed a few words.

Those words didn’t even reference Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the leader of Enemy Item.

Even her own life was a secondary concern.

“''Are you watching, Hanano?''” whispered Mugino.

The beam erupted forth.

The brutal beam that had so often mercilessly sliced through Academy City’s darkness struck Ibotanokikouji at the hip and vaporized her lower half.

Mugino was no longer focused on the 80 billion or her own life.

Once she decided someone had to die, she threw out all of those normal calculations.

That Level 5 wasn’t concerned with how her attack’s immense energy nearly blew away her own body.

<noinclude>
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4

2023-03-19T11:55:14Z

JDMP: Typo : To nice -Tonight. Corrected Context- - "...If only I could fly tonight,..."

==Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5==

===Part 1===

July 21, 8 PM.

“Phew.”

A girl in a summer uniform and a large mask arrived in District 3. She was fortunate her usual makeup tools had survived the explosion. The mask covered most of her face’s identifiable features, but it could stand out too much if she didn’t eliminate the mismatch with her skin.

This was Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

A drum-shaped security robot passed nearby, but she was fine for now. Based on its movement pattern and the direction it pointed its lenses, it was likely on traffic duty. Panicking and running away would only draw its attention. While she was a criminal, there was not a major alert out for her arrest.

This was the northernmost district in Academy City. In addition to luxurious office buildings owned by many major corporations, it contained the North Gate leading to Saitama. That meant it also contained the traffic services and infrastructure related to the gate.

The blimp floating by overhead provided some advice on its screen: “The North Gate is experiencing light congestion. Plan for a 20-30 minute delay. If your vehicle is caught in the congestion, please turn off your engine to cut down on exhaust while idling.”

During the hot night, the roadside mist shower was unpleasant. It stuck to her skin and clothing like sweat.

A small light danced in the corner of her view while a three-blade wind turbine turned.

A couple in yukatas was crouched down, apparently enjoying some sparklers. Their phone backlights were brighter than the fireworks. ''Die,'' the upper-class girl cursed silently. It didn’t look like they had requested a security robot with a firefighting attachment to supervise, so she hoped they started a fire and had the worst night of their lives.

Her fluffy blonde hair with a decorative braid swayed as she walked, the suitcase rolled behind her, a bulging sports bag hung over her shoulder, and she entered a building that resembled a giant parking garage.

Ibotanokikouji had arrived at a long-distance bus terminal.

To efficiently process as many large buses as possible, the facility had been expanded to have loading stations on the upper and lower level. The lower level also had a taxi loading zone and a parking lot, but the bus loading stations were the main attraction.

The interior was a bit nicer than a concrete parking garage. Instead of metal signs and sun-faded plastic benches, the waiting area was protected by a glass box and contained large sofas like you would find in an airport lounge. A push of a button on the seat and a waiter from the affiliated café would come to take your order.

“C-11 – the Highway Cradle bound for Aomori should be…this one?”
Ibotanokikouji checked the alphanumeric designation provided by the e-ticket displayed on her new phone and made her way to the loading station for the bus she wanted. The bus itself had yet to arrive, so she would have to wait. She opened the clear door, found an empty spot on the sofas covering three of the four walls, and sat down.

“Phew.”

(I would have preferred to go to District 23 and escape overseas by air, but they should be monitoring all of the international flights.)

“Ugh, if only I could fly tonight. Just give me freedom. But that can wait until I escape Kantou and take a domestic flight to another international airport.”

The transportation facility was crowded even at night. There were other middle schoolers like her and even younger elementary schoolers wandering around with large suitcases. Public transportation usually shut down after the city curfew, but today was special.

It was the 21st.

There was a reason Ibotanokikouji had taken the risk of staying hidden until today.

Today was the first day of summer break.

The city had a population of 2.3 million, 80% of whom were students. They wouldn’t all be leaving the city to return home for the break, but a lot more would be leaving today than any other day. Tokiwadai was extremely strict about spending the night away from the dorm (although Ibotanokikouji snuck out of the dorm fairly frequently), but that changed if you were returning home for the break. She had gotten her form filled out a little differently from everyone else, but as long as it let her hide among all these people, she didn’t need to fear pursuit.

She heard a deep rumbling.

A late-night bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom was climbing a spiraling slope similar to a parking garage.

“…”

Ibotanokikouji was alone after losing her three teammates, but Mugino still had all four members of her team. That meant her opponent was more than just a Level 5. Mugino had multiple support personnel, so fighting her alone would be a bad idea. The strength of Ibotanokikouji’s power didn’t even come into it. If a power compatibility issue occurred in that situation, she would be doomed.

She was at a terrible disadvantage, but the battle wasn’t over yet.

Whoever emerged victorious in the end held the right to the Item name. That condition remained in effect.

It didn’t matter that she was the only one left.

If she gathered new teammates to fill all four slots again, she could redo her version of Item.

She crossed her legs in the waiting area sofa and rubbed her palm gently across the suitcase sitting next to her.

She had created this place for herself – no adult had given it to her. She couldn’t let some stranger have it.

Yes, for herself.

To put that another way, her teammates had only ever been a collection she kept to decorate her hideout according to her tastes. She might watch them, touch them, and adore them, but she would not lament their loss forever.

She loved her Item teammates from the bottom of her heart. That was completely true.

''But'' the sorrow would not last forever.

They could be replaced.

Replaced with an even greater collection which would create an even more comfortable place for herself.

I you lost your treasured possessions in a fire or other disaster, you would not just give up. When you loved something, you would naturally seek out new ones as long as you lived.

Hers was the love of someone looking down at her loved ones from above.

(I have plenty of money. I can rebuild my forces as many times as it takes. So what I need most now is freedom. I need to go into hiding and cut off all pursuit before slowly and gradually acquiring new fighters and finally becoming the hunter once more. Then I can turn the tables on them. I will make them pay for taking my collection from me.)

“This is not over.”

To do this, she needed to escape Mugino’s team’s pursuit, use the adults’ power to gradually weaken them, and end their turn as the hunters without having to lay a single finger on them herself.

For now, that meant escaping outside of Academy City.

“As long as I am undefeated, the threat of Item remains to plague you. I will grow and regenerate and wear you down.”

===Part 2===

“Mugino.”

“Okay, let’s make a real show of it.”

===Part 3===

Something exploded, sounding a lot like a giant firework going off.

Then the building shook vertically, sending an icy chill into her gut.

The bus terminal lost all power, but it wasn’t as dark as a movie theater. Similar to a parking garage, it wasn’t fully enclosed, but more than that, the lights directing people to the emergency exits immediately switched on.

The indoor speakers that had been playing light jazz now played an emergency announcement.

But this didn’t sound like a prerecorded synthesized voice.

“Hello, hello, hello☆ This is not a test. In the end, that was a real anti-tank rocket, so I’d evacuate pretty quick if I were you. We’ll try our best not to hit any of you, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t do your best to leave. I repeat, this is not a test.”

At first, the customers stared blankly in the dark.

But the mood changed once another explosion erupted quite close by.

The many customers scattered and fled in every direction.

It was like the glass waiting areas were hornet’s nests someone had poked with a stick.

The panic soon spread to the customers inside the building.

“Now, the rest of this message is for the piece of shit hiding in your midst!! We have the building surrounded by UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers. In the end, we have them programmed to detect your face and gait in the crowd no matter how well you try to hide them. That rectangular cage is our Colosseum ring. Everyone else can get out, but not you!! Take one step outside and you’ll be blown to pieces for breaking the rules!!!”

“…”

Those cursed words probably meant nothing at all to the ordinary people. The terms like “UAV bombers” and “remote grenade launchers” entered their ears, but their brains failed to convert the sounds into anything meaningful. If they had understood the situation, they would have been too afraid to leave.

The only one who understood was the true villain who was all too familiar with unreasonable death, so she was coated with sweat.

(Are they crazy? Launch a large UAV bomber in Academy City, and the airport radar will pick it up. Not to mention these explosions! Do they want to get killed by the unmanned Six Wings that will inevitably be called in!?)

No.

They probably didn’t care about that. It wouldn’t harm them if their unmanned weapons were shot down and the Six Wings attack helicopter might target Ibotanokikouji as well.

Panic clutched her heart, but her rational side insisted that, even if she were identified within the crowd, launching an explosive to kill her there would result in an indiscriminate slaughter. If they were really prepared to do that, they wouldn’t have bothered with a warning and simply blown up the entire building with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers or 300kg air-to-surface missiles.

However. While that did check out logically, could she really, truly predict what a dark side team would do while burning with rage? Would she really be safe heading outside with only that reasoning to go on?

It functioned much like landmines. The possibility of the threat was enough to restrict her actions.

(In that case, it would be better to escape in some way that prevents them from identifying me. That means hiding in a large roofed vehicle. Like in the large luggage space below a bus!!)

Ibotanokikouji’s eyes widened when she saw a uniformed driver rushing out of his large bus.

She left the glass box with her heavy suitcase.

“W-wait. You have the long-distance bus right here. We’re only 400m away from the North Gate. If you leave now…!!”

“You want me to leave with all this going on? They’ll be canceling all the trips anyway!!”

A bus would be perfect for escaping, but could it really avoid all the fleeing customers spread out over the area? The driver joined them. Ibotanokikouji considered using her power to control him, but it wasn’t suited for giving detailed instructions like the operation of machinery.

(If anyone is stupid enough to get in the bus’s way, you should just run them over.)

But only the dark side could carry out a plan like that without hesitation.

She looked to the bus, abandoned and driverless.

(I don’t gain anything by fighting here, but I can escape the city if I get this bus moving. C-could I drive it myself?)

She flinched back from a loud boom of destruction.

This one wasn’t a rocket. Nor did it sound like a collision between buses.

The slightly muffled sound reminded her of compressed gas, or maybe a powerful blow made with nitrogen.

Something was rolling in the shadowy distance. It appeared to be another late-night bus. An impact to its side had bent it and positioned it to block the spiraling slope leading down.

It weighed too much to ram out of the way, so now no one could get any of the large buses out.

“Tch!!”

She made sure to ''split the smoke and dust with her power so she could still see.

Given this, should she have given up on leaving the city and mixed in with the crowd? Even if she couldn’t escape the UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers, she could have tried going a step further and taking a hostage. They couldn’t aim at her alone with explosives!

But all the potential hostages were gone. Ibotanokikouji Kaede was alone in the bus terminal.

“It’s no use,” said a strange voice.

It was soft, but it still pierced sharply into her chest.

Someone passed by the broken bus and stood directly in front of Ibotanokikouji.

The girl wore a pink track jacket and shorts.

“We aren’t holding anything back. I have already used my Body Crystal and recorded your AIM Diffusion Field. It doesn’t matter what you do now. I can track you even if you escape into outer space or the deep sea.”

As an outsider, Ibotanokikouji couldn’t know if that voice from the darkness was telling the truth.

But there had to be something to it.

That wasn’t any ordinary gaze directed her way. She couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling like someone had their finger jabbed right between her eyes. It told her she couldn’t fool this observer no matter what.

“You cannot escape. Not as long as I live. So if you want to escape, you need to kill me and cut off my supernatural pursuit. Do you understand the rules now?”
Ibotanokikouji had figured that much out on her own.

She kicked away the suitcase and tossed aside the sports bag she carried over her shoulder. Even the mask was in the way now. She didn’t want anything obstructing her breathing even slightly, so she removed the cloth and let it fall to her feet.

That tracking power did sound like a problem, but at the same time, each esper could only have one power. That meant this girl could not shoot fire or electricity from her hand or otherwise fight directly.

A powerless location-tracking esper should have been hiding in the bushes holding a sniper rifle, but here she was standing in front of Ibotanokikouji. How stupid could she be? If she was going to set things up this perfectly, there was no good reason for Ibotanokikouji to not just kill her here.

But Ibotanokikouji did not step forward.

In fact, she stepped back.

A dreadful beam of light swept through the air from the side. The bus terminal was structured a lot like a parking garage and this blew away a few of the thick concrete columns supporting the ceiling. If she hadn’t noticed and moved toward the tracker girl, the first blast would have vaporized her upper body.

Yes, this was a battle between the two Items.

So of course this girl was here.

“Level 5. Mugino…Shizuri!?”

“What’s wrong, self-proclaimed #6!? Surely this isn’t enough to strip you of that title!?”

Mugino licked her lips as she approached.

The 80 billion yen in the suitcase no longer mattered.

She was much more interested in taking her time to shred that girl’s reputation.

So her first priority was…

“Kinuhata!!”

“Super on it. We’ve trapped her here, so I’ll super take Takitsubo-san and disappear.”

Kinuhata stuck to her initial role as Takitsubo’s shield by pulling on Takitsubo’s hand and gently guiding her into the darkness.

That was the right decision.

Ibotanokikouji’s win condition was not defeating Mugino – it was killing Takitsubo to stop being tracked. Fail to take those priorities into account, and Mugino’s side would lose another member.

They weren’t going to let that happen again.

Their target didn’t even bother suppressing her tongue click at this point.

“Tch!! Outta the way!”

“You’d better kill me quick, fancy girl. Otherwise Takitsubo will get away.”

Mugino slid to the side to position herself in between.

They walked in parallel for a bit.

The roles of hunter and hunted had been flipped by this one strategy. Mugino grinned and basked in a wolfish joy over stealing the advantages of being on the run.

The Tokiwadai girl could no longer escape.

Even if she intended to escape the city, she had to stop here and fight.

“You and your cheap tricks!”

“We’re not as bad as you. You decide who the good guys are in any given situation based on what benefits you the most.”

Sadism took a type of talent. Violence was just violence. To derive sweet pleasure from it required a different outlook. In a world full of targets, what you focused on differed from situation to situation. Like a cup of water in the desert or a single breath of air when buried alive. A sadist had a talent for determining what exactly that was for someone and destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.

Mugino had reached that point.

She sneered while embracing her own body and expanding a sweet barrier thickly around herself.

“So how should we handle this fight to the death. If we’re going to do it, I might as well hear your preference.”

“Oh? Have you forgotten I still get a say here? Don’t just decide what we’re about to do.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? The two team leaders are about to engage in single combat. Talking with the enemy to try and understand them would just be a bore.”

“Talking? Yes.” Ibotanokikouji laughed too. “That would be silly.”

Mugino Shizuri and Ibotanokikouji Kaede both launched something from their palm.

They didn’t bother waiting to confirm the rules. Both them had lost at least one of their teammates. Talking couldn’t change the amount of spilled blood.

===Part 4===

Even so.

Mugino thought to herself while the anger sizzled at her heart.

Her Meltdowner beams had scorched the air and blown up a few empty buses. That much was fine.

Some of them had bent in a way she hadn’t expected, but she had seen the phenomenon before.

Ibotanokikouji immediately jumped to the side to dodge in the opposite direction, but it made sense she could get lucky there if she was guessing that a surprise attack was coming.

But what had Ibotanokikouji done?

A small red line ran across Mugino’s cheek. It was like a cut from a blade.

A moment later, the concrete wall behind Mugino was torn apart and blown away. Almost like an invisible wrecking ball had hit it.

She had seen this before when Ibotanokikouji had first demonstrated her power.

Or more accurately, she hadn’t seen it. But it was definitely there.

It was deadly.

(She claims to be the #6, but what kind of power is she actually using!?)

“Ha ha!!”

Instead of widening her eyes in shock, Mugino laughed.

By controlling her tension, she transformed it into elation and pleasure.

Like an athlete entering the zone.

Thrill rides and horror movies spent huge sums of money to safely mass produce thrills.

Since the villains were cut off from the benefits of justice and goodness, the primary rule for survival in the shadows was to convert anything and everything into sustenance.

So Mugino swallowed the lump of unease and advanced while firing Meltdowner beams as fast as she could. She ignored the passive rule of drawing out a circle that surrounded the target.

Without knowing the details of that girl’s power, she couldn’t calculate the risk of charging straight in or taking a more roundabout path.

So only one thing mattered now.

(I need to get her to use her power for defense even if I have to force it. Then I can reveal her secrets while staying safe myself!!)

Firing a machinegun could stop the enemy troops. If you didn’t want a single shot coming back your way, it was safest to pin them behind cover by firing ten thousand bullets of your own. Just like a turtle afraid to stick out its head and move because someone was poking at its shell.

And Meltdowner could do more than pin someone in place.

It could pierce through concrete pillars, abandoned buses, or any other cover. Mugino could keep most any enemy on the run without needing any evasive action of her own. She would fry them before they had a chance to counterattack.

Ultimately, she didn’t really need to reveal Ibotanokikouji’s power. Hanano had paid with her life to blow up Waniguchi and Inoue while the latter’s power remained a mystery and that was perfectly fine.

''However…

“Have you already forgotten? Do try to remember what I said before.”

Ibotanokikouji spoke from beyond the barrage. She still had time to talk with all this going on.

“Are you stupid? Your high score came from working through a list of easier small scale jobs chosen specifically to give you a taste for blood and victory. Just because you can power your way through some jobs on easy mode doesn’t mean every battle you come across will be as easy.”

It happened directly ahead of her. The thick beam launched from Mugino’s palm exploded shockingly close and scattered light everywhere.

“!?”

“Oh? The first time, our powers intersected and your beam bent, but this must be what happens when they perfectly overlap.”

Silence fell, like time had stopped for a moment.

About 10m away, Ibotanokikouji was holding out her own palm.

She didn’t even try to show off her high score of remaining unscathed in these circumstances.

Both girls came to a stop and glared at each other.

And like they had timed it…

“What the hell did you do, #6?”

“Guess, Level 5.”

The frozen time seemed to explode back into motion.

Mugino knew it would be neutralized, but she still launched another Meltdowner directly at her enemy. She dashed in the instant Ibotanokikouji held out her palm and the thick beam exploded. She kept low to duck below the scattering light to arrive right in front of her target.

She aimed her open palm up at Ibotanokikouji’s face.

Her right hand was spread as wide as it would go.

(Let’s see if you can block it when I grab your face and fire at point-blank range, Dark Side’s Bane!!)

A deep roar followed.

But that wasn’t Meltdowner. Mugino was the one who was knocked away, spinning through the air.

Ibotanokikouji winked, stuck out her tongue a bit, and whispered softly.

“I won’t even let you touch me.”

Mugino ended up embedded in the dented side of a bus, but she still smiled belligerently.

A trickle of red dripped down from her right temple, but she ignored that.

“That tells me ''even you’d be in trouble if I did manage to grab your face.''”

“My, my. You have no imagination at all, do you? It could be a bluff to make you think that.”

“If it was, you wouldn’t be so desperate to suggest it might be. If you had me fooled like you want, you would have no reason to raise any doubts.”

Ibotanokikouji fell silent.

That was the correct response.

But it revealed a concern over saying too much, so Mugino still docked her some points.

“And unlike your first attack, I wasn’t hit by enough force to destroy a thick concrete wall. Why not? I can’t think of any reason why you would hold back just now.”

Something exploded.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm out in a different direction and Mugino quickly rolled to the side. A long-distance bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom rolled onto its side after being torn through like an aluminum can in a ferocious dog’s jaws.

The diesel fuel ignited and the sprinklers on the ceiling produced their artificial rain.

But Mugino was still the one laughing.

“Ha ha ha!! Now I see. I’ve figured you out, you flimsy #6! Unlike my Meltdowner, your power doesn’t always have the same strength. It wavers with your resolve. And it’s something you need a fair amount of distance from to feel safe!!”

“What’s it like having such an empty head? What good is bragging about the enemy’s specs ''to'' the enemy?”

She moved to the left and right.

Ibotanokikouji ran sharp zigzags through the sprinkler rain to approach Mugino.

It could be hard to tell because Mugino was often reckless in her usage, but her power had such high firepower that it wasn’t well suited for close range. She could end up catching herself in the blast. And for whatever reason, Ibotanokikouji could deflect Meltdowner’s thick beams or convert them into a burst of sparkles. And each of those sparkles was still powerful enough to melt steel. Even Mugino would be in trouble if she took one of those to the head.

Thus, ''close range was a problem for both Mugino and Ibotanokikouji.

Realizing that, Mugino held out her hand and clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Please spare me some revelation that we’re birds of a feather!!”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Unlike you, I am brimming with nobility and class.”

Their arms and legs intersected.

Ibotanokikouji knocked Mugino’s wrist aside just before she could fire Meltdowner and then swept her leg toward the leg supporting Mugino as her own power spun her around.

(Damn, do they teach an elegant self-defense class at her rich girl school!?)

Mugino had already been off balance, so she completely fell backwards while Ibotanokikouji remained standing and aimed her palm down at her.

The concrete ground was torn through and dented in.

If Mugino hadn’t rolled aside so quickly, the same would have happened to her face.

And Ibotanokikouji had no real reason to stop with the one attack. Just like Mugino had fired repeatedly to pin her down earlier.

The floor was torn into over and over, so Mugino kept rolling until she fired Meltdowner into the floor, using the recoil to jump. She landed on a bus roof, so Ibotanokikouji used her invisible power to blow away the bus below her.

Ibotanokikouji must have found something odd because she frowned while still holding her arm out. Mugino grinned while easily jumping down from the rolling bus’s roof to the concrete floor.

“I can’t see that power, but I can still tell when you use it.”

“…”

“The outstretched hand is obvious, but you also ''wrinkle your brow a bit'' when you use your power. You screwed up not killing Kinuhata back at the library. Oh, don’t bother trying. That kind of habit isn’t something you can fix that quick. And once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear.”

Ibotanokikouji ignored that and continued using her power, but Mugino dove sharply below another bus. The bus bent, flew into the air, and rolled, but Mugino was no longer there.

“Your power is invisible.” Mugino landed in a different position, the soles of her boots crunching the glass scattered across the floor. “But since it shatters glass instead of passing through, it isn’t made of light like a laser. It can’t be electromagnetic either since it doesn’t produce any sparks when it hits the side or door of a bus. I’ve heard fluorescent lights light up on their own when exposed to microwaves, but I don’t see that either. So what invisible attacks does that leave? Ultrasonic waves? Controlling the wind or air?”

“Shouldn’t you consider the possibility of simple telekinesis?”

“Not a chance. If your power was that convenient and had this kind of range, you wouldn’t need to rely on projectile attacks. You’d just grab me directly and lift me up into the air like the crane game.”

Also, the enemy wasn’t going to provide the correct answer like that.

Anything she said would either work to her advantage or just be a silly mistake.

Just like Mugino was explaining all this to try and find confirmation in her opponent’s expressions.

“I’ve been hit by your power twice already. The first time it grazed my cheek and cut me, but the second time I took a direct hit and was knocked through the air. That second one has to be the real one. When it seemed to cut my cheek, it was more like I just barely dodged the attack and it tugged on my skin hard enough to tear it. Which suggests…”

Something swept through the air.

But Mugino kicked off a concrete pillar, performed a midair flip, and dodged the invisible attack moving by at hip height.

She didn’t advertise her ability to perform acrobatics, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it.

“Pressure. But instead of fanning it out around yourself, you narrow it down to a point like a spear.”

Ibotanokikouji immediately leaped to the right and took aim with her palm.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Killer Press!!”

The concrete pillar was easily destroyed, but Mugino was no longer there.

The Level 5 took one step to the side like a bullfighter.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty self-explanatory name. But you shouldn’t have given it away even if I already knew the answer. Did you panic? It didn’t help you at all.”

“You…”

“Currents of water, air, mud, lava, or any other particle have viscosity and they will naturally flow along the path of least resistance. I believe that’s the foundation of fluid dynamics. So by launching a point of invisible but powerful pressure, you can bend the path my Meltdowner takes as it travels through the air as a current. Just like river water traveling around a bridge support in the middle.”

Ibotanokikouji herself had said it wasn’t electricity when they first met.

To be blunt, that hint had been unnecessary.

When attacking that lab, Mugino herself had pushed back a grenade blast with her power.

With her specialty in pressure, Ibotanokikouji would be able to do even more than that. It was possible she could even turn a human into a diamond.

“And it makes sense now why your projectiles are weaker at close range. You can hit anything you want with a point of powerful pressure, but it isn’t convenient enough to break the law of action and reaction. If you did shatter my body, the blood, gore, and bone fragments would be launched in every direction with the force of a bullet. Your own survival comes first for you, so you don’t want to be killed by that gruesome scattershot. So of course you hold back when you get close.”

They glared at each other.

They were past the point of hiding anything.

“Kinuhata and Frenda told me they saw you make a microphone float in the air and that you controlled a grizzly to sow chaos during the battle in the Colosseum.”

But…

“Your power isn’t just the control of gravity or of animals. You used pressure to knock the microphone into the air like a billiards ball. You used pressure to hit the switch to the grizzly’s cage. Animal paths form in the mountains and forests because animals naturally choose the path of least resistance when walking, leading them the same way every time. So you used a minute amount of pressure to ''redirect the grizzly away from one direction and toward another.''”

“Well done. Killer Press allows me to design my own animal paths by creating invisible bushes and thickets. And the sensation is so subtle the influenced target isn’t even aware they are being controlled.”

That was when Mugino’s voice dropped in tone.

“So what about back at the Colosseum, when Hanano fled with Takitsubo?”

“That’s right. You gave the command, but I influenced the direction they chose.”

If not for that, the timid chihuahua of a girl would still be there by Mugino’s side.

Mugino hadn’t seen it herself, but the way the Tokiwadai girls had parted to clear the way for Ibotanokikouji had been an application of that technique.

She sent out a minute amount of pressure to distance people.

When water, air, bugs, lava, powder, or humans moved as a group, they followed the fluid movement of particles. That meant they had viscosity and would naturally flow along the path of least resistance. That fact was the basis of fluid dynamics.

(But if that’s her power, then our trump card will work against her!!)

Mugino roared.

But not to intimidate Ibotanokikouji and not to break the limiter in her mind.

Her opponent was the only member of her team left, but Item was fighting together.

“''Frenda!! It’s time to trap her!! Restore the power!!!''”

She was answered by the fluorescent lights.

The darkness was instantly swept away. But that was not necessarily a good thing.

Mugino and Ibotanokikouji had done a lot of damage to the walls and ceiling. Thick severed cables were hanging down here and there. And thanks to the bus fire, the sprinklers had covered the floor in water.

What happened when the power was restored in that state?

A deep staticky noise erupted out.

Mugino had already launched Meltdowner downwards and used the recoil to leap onto a bus roof. The bus’s rubber tires would prevent the electricity from traveling up from the floor.

“Tch!!”

Ibotanokikouji could not use her power like a rocket in that way. Instead, she dented in another bus’s metal side with her hands to climb up to the roof like it had a ladder.

“Oh, and I thought you would cling to the wall like you had suction cups. Can you only increase pressure, not decrease it? C’mon, is that all a student of the famous Tokiwadai can do? Ha ha! And you expect me to believe you’re the #6? What can those filthy adults research using that!? This is just sad!”

“Kh, your words mean nothing to me!!!”

Stun guns were sold with a voltage of over a million, but this was very different. The much greater current and constant exposure to the entire body made this much more dangerous. The couple hundred volts used for large appliances could easily kill a human with the help of some highly conductive water.

But aside from that, Ibotanokikouji whispered across the valley of deadly electricity between their buses.

“You do know the suitcase containing the 80 billion is still down there, don’t you? The money cards are made of plastic and, while the suitcase is stab and bomb resistant, it is still made of plastic. That deadly electricity will be enough to melt the cards, rendering them useless.

“That’s only 80 billion. ''Did you really think I was still fighting for that, you piece of shit''?

A Meltdowner beam immediately flew out.

Ibotanokikouji used her own power to destroy a ceiling panel and twist a thick pipe she swung on like a pendulum to reach another bus. And she launched her Killer Press to target Mugino from a distance.

Both missed attacks caused great destruction. Concrete pillars broke, cracks ran through the ceiling, and the buses providing the only safe footing rolled and exploded. The glass waiting areas were destroyed in the process.

Ibotanokikouji pointed her open palm elsewhere.

With a loud noise, a fallen square ceiling panel shot straight up from the ground. She had shoved the pressure spear between the floor and the panel to launch it up like kicking up a soccer ball.

And as soon as it arrived at her eye level atop the bus…

“Killer Press!!”

She knocked the thin panel outwards with all her might.

The many sharp fragments pierced by the invisible pressure spear fanned out to slice through the air. Just like the break shot in pool. They roughly filled the direction Mugino was.

They were stopped by a sizzling sound.

Mugino had eliminated the glass shards flying her way. Her beam had bent and flown elsewhere, but it had managed to secure her safety first.

“Didn’t I say once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear?”

“…”

“But that was neat. I never thought of scattering the attack to hit someone who won’t stay still.”

Mugino sneered as she continued firing her ultra-powerful projectiles, but she couldn’t get a hit in on Ibotanokikouji. She blew away buses and broke pillars, but Ibotanokikouji remained alive.

In fact…

“!!”

When a beam was on course to hit, it would bend unnaturally.

Ibotanokikouji raised her own voice while holding her hand out.

“And I told you all matter follows the path of least resistance!! All I have to do is launch my Killer Press straight ahead and your Meltdowner will bend at least a little. You can’t hit me!!”

“''Odd. Did I say anything about trying to hit you''?”

“No, you can’t mean…?”

“I flipped that card over to scare you. Worked, didn’t it?”

This whole time, Mugino had not been aiming for Ibotanokikouji who kept jumping from bus to bus to escape. She had been aiming just a bit lower, vaporizing the remaining buses to remove her opponent’s movement options.

Ibotanokikouji’s face finally clouded over.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Did you think I didn’t, you fancy slut?”

Another explosion laid the pressure on Ibotanokikouji.

With only one bus remaining, the two of them naturally had to rely on the same one. The two wicked girls faced each other like they were preparing for a duel.

Both espers used high firepower projectiles.

The next exchange of attacks would end this.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm straight out, but then something unexpected happened.

Mugino aimed her palm as well.

''But instead of aiming at her enemy, she aimed at the roof of the final bus they were standing on.

There was no more safe ground.

Destroy this bus, and there was no escape. They would be forced onto the wet and electrified floor of death.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Really?”

The word seemed to slip out of Ibotanokikouji’s mouth.

Whatever she was feeling, her lips formed an oddly tense smile.

And Mugino was not shaken.

“My objective here isn’t survival. If it were, I could’ve given up on avenging Hanano and let you run off.”

So she didn’t hesitate.

“All of us in Item were only after one thing this whole time: your shitty head!!”

A beam flashed out, the metal noisily vaporized, and all the fuel in the bus ignited.

Ibotanokikouji instinctually jumped from the roof…and then her thoughts ground to a halt.

That had been the right choice if she was to live as long as possible.

But where was she supposed to land? The floor was covered in electrified water, so her heart would stop the instant her feet touched down!!

Meanwhile…

“No…way?”

Mugino had thrown herself into the air as well, but she was holding her palm out toward Ibotanokikouji.

She didn’t even consider what would happen a second from now.

In this single snapshot in time, she would do what she could to personally kill a girl who was going to die regardless. Her piercing gaze conveyed only an intention to give Ibotanokikouji more than just an electric death.

Yes.

If Ibotanokikouji hadn’t been so focused on survival, she too might have launched a final attack. But in her fear, she had looked away from the battle. Her thoughts had abandoned the battle as they raced in search of some way to survive.

It was too late now to grip the trigger again.

The light of a high-speed particle-wave cannon was already gathering in Mugino’s palm.

In that final moment, her violent lips formed a few words.

Those words didn’t even reference Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the leader of Enemy Item.

Even her own life was a secondary concern.

“''Are you watching, Hanano?''” whispered Mugino.

The beam erupted forth.

The brutal beam that had so often mercilessly sliced through Academy City’s darkness struck Ibotanokikouji at the hip and vaporized her lower half.

Mugino was no longer focused on the 80 billion or her own life.

Once she decided someone had to die, she threw out all of those normal calculations.

That Level 5 wasn’t concerned with how her attack’s immense energy nearly blew away her own body.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3

2023-03-19T08:46:00Z

JDMP: Typo: you're to Yourself. Corrected Context- "...but you're really just trying to make yourself look powerful...."

==Chapter 3: A Certain Display of Courage, A Secret Reward==

===Part 1===

Dun, dun, dun, duuun!! Welcome to the Giant Croc Hell Dungeon, a life-size escape game!!!

Can you solve all the puzzles in the sunken underground mall of terror and escape back to the surface!?

“In – the – first – place!”

The mood was ruined in record time.

Frenda Seivelun was submerged up to her hips while wearing a fairly revealing swimsuit and another blonde girl was floating in a plastic inner tube small enough to be blown up by mouth. The 7-year-old who adored that inner tube was Frenda’s sister. But since almost all Academy City students lived in school dorms, it wasn’t unusual for family members to live apart.

It was July 14 at 2 PM.

The younger sister happily slapped her hands against the water below the cold fluorescent lighting. As her sister, Frenda was glad she had gotten over her summer cold.

The 7-year-old’s classes had ended after 4th period today, so she had gone here for the afternoon. But it was a mystery why her older sister, whose address and occupation were both unknown, could join her to play at this time of day.

“Academy City is such a strange place. How can they turn an entire underground labyrinth into a pool?”

“In the end, it’s a serious thing. Some kind of disaster response training.”

It was a summer urban flooding response program. They were running a largescale stress test in case a flash flood happened to fill an underground mall, but for most of the students, it might as well have been a temporary pool. And from elementary school to college, students could always get excited about playing in the water. Especially during the summer.

The event also provided a variety of business opportunities. The tablet in Frenda’s hand was one example. By viewing the area around them through its camera, it would augment the scene and even provide quiz-style codes and hints to search out and find.

Bikini Frenda waded through the hip-height water.

“Oh, this code is about cutting the right wire. Hey. In the end, what do you get when you mix yellow and blue?”

“Green!”

(Wait? In the end, is this using the primary colors of light or of color?)

It was a super simple question that even the 7-year-old could answer, but Frenda still suspected it was a trick question. Was that a sign of being a little ''too'' into the escape game?

One of AR’s best features was how different services could coexist at the same location. A service would use a location but not occupy it. The swimsuit couple that passed by while viewing a single screen appeared to be enjoying a mountain stream trivia quiz game. The four elementary-aged boys who each had a game system had formed an adventure party to explore the depths of an underwater cave.

Frenda rubbed her little sister’s head and operated the tablet with her other hand.

“Let’s see, we can’t get the thick rubber harpoon until we find a way to get past the electric lock on its box, so next we should solve the transformer puzzle and restore the power. No, in the end, that won’t work. It looks like we’d electrocute ourselves and get a game over if we electrified the flooded section while we’re in it. So do we have to put this entire area on hold? Is there some way to drain the water? Or is there a plastic diving suit that would protect us from the electric shock?”

“Frenda Onee-chan,” said the inner tube girl floating next to her.

At her age, she wanted to splash water on people and swim around when she was at a pool, so she wasn’t all that interested in solving some grand puzzle and cautiously advancing through a dungeon.

“In the first place, where did you buy that swimsuit?”

“What, has your mental carbonation run out already, princess? In the end, you were the one who said you wanted to do the limited-time croc escape.”

Frenda was mostly doing this for a practical test of her new summer eyeliner that claimed it didn’t run even when wet. But that had to remain a secret because the 7-year-old would have begged to wear the makeup too if Frenda mentioned it.

Anyway, about her swimsuit.

“Really, I just bought a random swimsuit at a District 15 shop. It’s called Shocking Beach and it’s the latest product from Mystery Beach. In the end, bikinis have replaced one pieces as the in thing this year. Specifically, the kind where you wear a normal bikini over a decorative thong.”

“Mhh.”

Frenda’s lazy answer didn’t receive quite the response she expected.

The younger sister was only 7, so she was wearing a cat one piece. It had been on sale for only a few thousand yen at an ordinary department store, but fashion wasn’t about the price tag. Frenda was confident in saying there was no better selection for that girl.

But the puffed-out cheeks suggested the princess was displeased.

The world’s cutest little sister frowned and explained.

“In the first place, I don’t like that your swimsuit has a brand and a name. It reminds me of those sneakers the boys show off because they’re supposed to make you run faster.”

“Eh? In the end, this is nothing like that. This isn’t a high-speed racing swimsuit, so it’s not going to change how fast I swim. In fact, with all the gaps in this, I couldn’t swim very well in it at all. The water’s current and viscosity would probably pull it right off of me. Being a grownup is such a pain. I envy you.”

“Hmph!! Now you’re looking down me. I want to wear a swimsuit like yours! In the first place, I want to grow up as soon as possible!!”

“Oh, shut up. In the end, you need to understand that I can’t wear a cat swimsuit like that anymore. It’s so childish I’d die.”

“Childish!? Die!! And I thought it was a little bit grownup because it isn’t a school swimsuit… In the first place, why do you get to be the grownup one!?”

“Because that’s how it works. In the end, you have the upper hand because you can wear that cat swimsuit and I can’t.”

“Hm?”

“And since you can wear either one, you should focus on the one only you’re allowed to wear. Kyah! Sister, you’re so dazzlingly beautiful and cute I can’t look right at you!”

“Ehh? You’ll make me blush if you keep singing my praises like that.”

The inner tube girl held her hands to her cheeks and wiggled. The way she smiled and did that reminded Frenda of a toy that did a wiggling dance in response to sound. Takitsubo had a habit of visiting a general store in rundown District 19 and her tastes were predictably unusual.

Complimenting while taking something away was one of Frenda’s standard big sister tactics for controlling little kids. If you complimented them and compromised, they would get a big head and, if you scolded them and confiscated something, they were guaranteed to rebel, so it could be tricky to get right. Those other tactics wouldn’t make her the perfect big sister who could get the girl to eat the green peas she so disliked.

“Hm. In the first place, I’m feeling kind of chilly.”

“In the end, what do you want to do? Head on up to the surface? It should be plenty hot there at 2 in the afternoon in the middle of the summer.”

They were playing an escape game where they moved around on their own, but you could also save your location to pause the game and leave. That way a larger demographic could enjoy the game with ease. The summer urban flooding response program lasted more than the one day.

“But you’re right. In the end, I could go for a drink and some sugar. If we get some hot sweets, would you prefer pancakes or some chocolate fondue?”

“Hmph! I don’t like it when you use grownup words like fondue.”

Frenda was pretty sure that was just French.

Then again, that cute but silly little sister would probably make a fuss about French things as a whole being too grownup.

“In the first place, I don’t like people who say sweets when they mean dessert.”

“Oh, that complaint I didn’t see coming.”

“Onee-chan…am I childish for wanting a hanetsuki taiyaki?”

“In the end, that makes you a classy grownup.”

That this was enough to cheer her up showed just how much of a child she was.

The thick waterproof shutters had been shut before flooding the underground mall, so all the shops there were closed. The vending machines had their power shut off to prevent any short circuiting, so they had to head all the way up to the surface to buy a drink. That may have been the one major flaw.

“Sigh. I can’t wait for summer break, but in the first place, I don’t want to do the homework or go exercise in the park. The one you do with the radio.”

“Fair warning: I won’t be helping you there, my sister. Don’t come crying to me when August 31 rolls around.”

“Mgyahhhhh!?”

After Frenda stuck a pin the map and finished saving their progress, she attached the tablet to the hook on the side of her bikini bottom and grabbed the decorative cord on the outer edge of her sister’s small inner tube. Dragging her back toward the stairs to the surface was enough for the little sister to shriek with delight.

(Hanano Choubi.)

Frenda thought to herself while towing her swimsuit sister in her inner tube.

The chill of the water dropped another level.

(In the end, I don’t even know if she’s still alive, but who knows what she’ll tell the enemy after they beat her up. Given the very real risk of a surprise attack, abandoning our hideout and escaping is worth considering.)

Worth considering

Did that mean there were other options to consider it against?

After the sisters left the water and climbed the stairs while holding hands, the little sister looked up and spoke to Frenda.

“Onee-chan, is something troubling you?”

“Hm? In the end, what makes you think that?”

“We got a rare chance to play in the water, but you don’t seem to be having much fun.”

Frenda thought about that for a bit.

That her wounds had healed was obvious enough in that swimsuit, but Hanano wasn’t so lucky. She was still suffering. Or in the worst case, she was already gone.

Also…

“In the end, here’s a question for you. Going to the pool is fun. I won’t deny that. But what if that means abandoning a friend to her problems?”

“Then you need to solve those problems so you can all go to the pool together!! Because you can’t enjoy the pool to its fullest otherwise!!”

“I see,” said Frenda before falling silent again.

She thought while holding the hand of her sister, who refused to remove the inner tube around her hips even after leaving the water.

“I went as far as buying the latest swimsuit, but I’m still too preoccupied to have fun. In the end, that must mean I already consider that newbie a friend.”

Frenda Seivelun could make friends with anyone, but she knew it was difficult for any one person people to stand out above the rest. In that sense, her emotions were thin and dry.

That meant something else about this was bothering her.

She considered that while approaching the bright exit with her sister.

(For one, her puppyish behavior doesn’t really fit in the dark side. In the end, does she feel more like a little sister than a colleague?)

===Part 2===

Fifteen Bells, District 15. Lower levels.

“Super good morning.”

“You seem sleepy. It’s already 3 in the afternoon. That’s snack time, Kinuhata.”

Takitsubo Rikou replied while adjusting the shoulder of her pink track jacket which must have slipped out of place as she moved.

“Oh, it’s only 3? I super shouldn’t have left that theater yet. Yawwwn. Ugh, the movies where they were intentionally trying to make a silly C movie are the worst. Real C movies are great because they were trying to make something good but things went wrong.”

If Kinuhata Saiai wasn’t even aware where the sun was in the sky, it was probably best not to ask her how long she had been in that windowless movie theater. Takitsubo had heard the girl liked movies, but this made it sound like she had been in the theater more than her bedroom at the apartment.

But Takitsubo’s thoughts were interrupted by…

“That apartment feels so gloomy right now. I’m staying close enough to super come running once I’m summoned by phone, but it’s honestly super easier to be out of the apartment. I’m not even sure what has Mugino-san so angry.”

“You were staying away on purpose.”

“I’m super ashamed to admit it. They super have showers at the spas and internet cafes and I can get my sleep when a movie turns out to be bad.”

Expressionless Takitsubo blinked twice.

No matter what happened, she always kept to her usual routine from when she woke up in the morning to when she went to bed at night, so the idea of making herself scarce for the time being hadn’t even occurred to her.

“With Hanano gone, aren’t you guaranteed your spot on Item?”

“I super don’t want to win that way. And I wouldn’t mind if I ended up in the support organization. It’s not like being a super elite of the delinquent world gets you anything special. So as long as I’m super guaranteed an ID and the basic necessities, I’m happy.” Kinuhata breathed a disinterested sigh. “But not if the person who holds the team together is super on edge all the time. If this place isn’t safe, I’d prefer to super leave and find the bare minimum elsewhere.”

Kinuhata didn’t need her home to be in Item. That was why she had started an illicit part-time job before all this had happened.

“She can’t help it,” replied Takitsubo, leaning against a fancy pillar in the mall of luxury shops. “Hanano is gone.”

That put a puzzled look on Kinuhata’s face.

She frowned and chose her words carefully.

“I thought Mugino-san super doesn’t value human life? Why would the loss of a single teammate super affect her like this?”

Financially, they had suffered a loss.

The suitcase filled with 80 billion yen worth of money cards had gotten away from them and they hadn’t received payment for the job from the voice on the phone either. And on top of it all, they had lost one of their team.

“I mean, I get that maybe it hurt her pride to be beaten by a group super calling themselves Item.”

“It’s not about that. Mugino is a kind person who cares deeply about her teammates.”

This time, Kinuhata’s thoughts ground to a complete halt.

Her mind refused to function, so her mouth flapped wordlessly. It took several seconds before she finally got some words out.

“Um, super what? Are we talking about the same tyrant queen here? Was there a movie version that was different???”

“I mean the real Mugino,” insisted Takitsubo. “Kinuhata, why do you think I joined the dark side?”

“Well…hm? That is strange now that I think about it. You can super keep to a normal schedule without anyone getting after you about it, can’t you? That’s super rare on the dark side. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who had to make a run for it after super killing a teacher that pissed her off.”

“I was arrested on false charges.”

She opened up so readily.

Everyone in the dark side had a reason for being there.

“My AIM Stalker is an unusual power, so some lab apparently wanted to gain custody over me. It was probably a project related to this dangerous Body Crystal drug and they wanted to keep it all a secret. I think the plan was to frame me for a crime to get me thrown in prison and then make me disappear once interest in me faded.”

“…”

A legal abduction to facilitate an experiment.

That was a strange phenomenon that could happen when the right person viewed a list of names and pointed at the one they wanted.

Kinuhata herself had been imprisoned and experimented on against her will in the Dark May Project.

Academy City really was shit.

“But Mugino saved me. The case against me was dismissed, but the reason why was never revealed. So I don’t actually know what firepower-obsessed Mugino did.”

Takitsubo smiled thinly as she explained this.

It was the smile of a girl revealing a small admiration.

“She said she wanted an esper who could support her since Meltdowner is too powerful and I don’t think she was lying about that. But if that was really ''all'' she wanted, she only needed to put me in a tiny cage in the corner of the room and give me food and water. Or if looking after a human was too burdensome and risky, there are specialized ‘pet sitters’ you can pay to do it for you. This is a city where ''people really will do things like that'' if they feel it’s necessary. But Mugino let me choose what clothes I wanted to wear, fed me whatever food I wanted to eat, gave me a room to sleep in, and – most importantly – gave me freedom and safety. I don’t care what anyone says – even Mugino herself – I think that came from a kindness in her that sets aside things like logic or efficiency.”

“So you think she’s super on edge because Hanano-san disappeared? That super doesn’t sound like the Mugino-san I’ve seen.”

“Aren’t you much the same? You don’t feel awkward in the apartment because of Mugino. When you’re there, you feel Hanano’s absence more starkly. Isn’t that what you wanted to avoid? Otherwise, you would never badmouth movies. Or fall asleep during them. I bet that was because you couldn’t focus on what you were watching.”

“…”

Strangely, Takitsubo’s words hit her right where it hurt.

What signals had she picked up coming from Kinuhata? She may have known more about Kinuhata than Kinuhata herself.

It was true. If Kinuhata had dealt with the two enemies in the library, then they couldn’t have gone after Hanano.

“Hanano is a part of Item now,” said Takitsubo. “And so are you for being so bothered by her absence. People who can care about others think everyone feels that way, but the dark side is where the people without those ordinary feelings end up. So the way you and Mugino are feeling shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

“Is that super so?” said Kinuhata as she changed direction.

She approached the elevator hall.

“Hanano-san was captured to super help you escape the Colosseum, right?”

“Yes.” Takitsubo nodded. “That gives me a reason to save her.”

“If I had been the one who didn’t fall from the library ceiling, ''I would super be in Hanano-san’s position now.'' I would have played my bodyguard role like normal and got super captured in the same way.”

Kinuhata clicked her tongue.

At times, the dark side had a way of highlighting the irony of fate.

“Damn, that super gives me a reason to fight too.”

“We all have one. No, we don’t even need one. When you get down to it, the question is whether or not you want to risk your own life to save her. I do. I can’t leave Hanano there.”

They boarded the elevator.

A palm scan and the press of a button brought them straight to their top floor hideout.

Kinuhata felt the ascent of the elevator as she watched the LCD floor number display and asked the other girl a question.

“I’ll super give you what you want here, Takitsubo-san. L-let’s just say I’m willing to let you talk me into it just this once. But super what if Mugino-san is against a rescue attempt?”

“Item generally acts on Mugino’s decisions, so I don’t think there is a way of dissenting outside of explaining how I feel.”

Takitsubo stopped there for a moment.

Until…

“But I don’t think that will be an issue.”

The elevator doors opened.

They opened the apartment entrance beyond and walked in.

“I see.”

Kinuhata put a hand on her hip and spoke with exasperation in her voice.

And a hint of amusement.

“''She’s super serious about this, huh?''”

The living room wall was entirely covered.

Documents and notes concerning the Enemy Item were pasted all across it.

The library that had been used as a Colosseum stage.

The people capable of secretly renting out the public facility, any suspicious payments they received, or any blackmail material.

Possible people who could have acquired and supplied that material.

Their personal information.

Especially anything that could be used to threaten them.

Which targets had a checkered past?

Etc., etc., etc.

The living room was large enough for an indoor game of tennis, but the entire wall was covered like a walking path covered by autumn leaves. It included the special camera equipment, the DJ who was clearly no amateur, the dark web setup, and the audience gathered at the library. Including the important and unimportant, there had to be at least a few thousand notes there in all.

But that must not have felt like enough because the lonely work was still underway.

All as a means of tracking down the enemy.

“…”

Mugino Shizuri did not even look their way. She showed no interest in the freedom and liberation of the midsummer shopping district outside and she continued her work while staring at the wall with the irritation written plain on her face. Mugino was known for being self-centered – for caring more about her nail polish than the foolish enemy’s cries for mercy – but now she had deep ''bags'' under her eyes. That was a sign of just how serious she was taking this. How long had it been since she slept? Kinuhata couldn’t say since she had been avoiding the apartment, but Mugino may have been doing this ever since their failure on July 7. That would mean a full week with no real sleep or rest.

Colored yarn extended in all directions from the known information – the library – creating something like a spider web. People, groups, money, buildings, information, equipment, fighting forces – any online information the slightest bit related had been printed out, cut out, and pasted up on the wall. The colored yarn visualized the relationships of interest, friends, enemies, superiors, subordinates, and group affiliations. It was all meant to build a giant web capable of snaring the unseen targets. The suitcase and the 80 billion were technically up there, but they were mostly buried by other notes.

That must not have been her priority any longer.

A few photographs of familiar faces were pasted at the edge of the spiderweb.

Mugino may have found the photos online, but they were the four members of the Enemy Item. The photos were fairly grainy, so she had probably found photos of other people where those four happened to appear in a corner or something.

They were pasted up there like it was nothing, but it was a miracle the spiderweb had managed to capture them at all. Tracking down those elusive girls had to have taken an unhealthy amount of effort and persistence. Mugino was known for vaporizing anything that pissed her off, but she had managed to restrain the part of her that always responded with thoughtless rage.

And.

There was also a photograph of missing Hanano Choubi’s face.

It came from the group selfie Frenda had taken as camouflage while tailing the Colosseum contestant.

Since that was pasted on the wall too, Mugino couldn’t be taking it lightly. In fact, she may have been the real center of the spiderweb, not the library.

Mugino would not let that girl become an unreachable memory.

She was the one who had ordered the girl to take Takitsubo and escape.

It would be one thing if Hanano had screwed up or run off without doing her job, but this was the result of carrying out Mugino’s order.

Mugino had to have her thoughts about Hanano for remaining faithful to the end despite being on the dark side.

She had kept her promise.

So it was only natural to risk your own life to repay the favor.

Takitsubo elbowed Kinuhata in the side and winked.

“See? I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You super win this one.”

Then they heard the front door open without the doorbell ringing.

Someone entered the apartment.

“Sorry. In the end, I know I’m way late. It took forever to buy up all the mackerel cans at the store.”

“You’re last, Frenda? Then you’re buying everyone dinner.”

It had been so long since Mugino spoke.

She may have forgotten how to do so over the past few days, so it came out as a low growl as she glared at the wall. Frenda complained through a cheerful smile.

“Eh? You aren’t even going to ask why I’m late? I had my own preparations to complete.”

That was true.

Frenda Seivelun was carrying so many bags you would think she had run away from home. First, she had a large suitcase in each hand. Then she wore a long mountain climber’s backpack on her back. But that must not have been enough because she had a sling bag worn diagonally across her front. It was July, shortly before summer break, so it was a miracle she hadn’t been taken in for questioning by Anti-Skill or Judgment while wandering around Academy City’s largest shopping district with all that luggage.

And she would have been in serious trouble if she had been taken in for questioning.

She lay down one of the suitcases and inserted a small key. It opened up like a pop-up book, revealing explosives in a variety of shapes and colors. Kinuhata didn’t know what they were all called and she doubted she would understand if Frenda explained what they all were. Since she had gone out of her way to bring them in from outside the hideout, they probably weren’t something that could be safely stored here.

She had gone around collecting them all for this.

Frenda winked.

“In the end, we need to pull out all the stops, right? If I’m going to save a friend, I’m going to give it my all.”

They wanted money, but what for?

As long as they didn’t lose sight of that, those girls would not lose their way.

What was a mere 80 billion worth?

If they couldn’t smile together with everyone they had accepted as a teammate, it wasn’t worth a damn thing.

===Part 3===

Tokiwadai Middle School was a conspicuous location even for the School Garden, a special area in District 7.

A curvy girl with a decorative braid in her fluffy blonde hair held her hands together in a polite greeting.

“How do you do?”

“Hello, ''Ibotanokikouji''-senpai. Aren’t you running late? I thought your last class today was swimming.”

They exchanged greetings like it was nothing, but the short-haired girl in front of her was in fact one of the seven Level 5s. People like that walking the halls on a daily basis was one reason Tokiwadai was a den of monsters.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, leader of a brutal dark side team, suppressed a soft sigh.

(Really, the weird thing is for elites like the Level 5s to be lurking in filthy back alleys during the day. As far as Academy City’s hierarchy is concerned, anyway.)

“I will be fine. Changing quickly is one of my talents, so don’t worry.”

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace in Tokiwadai, so I’m not sure I trust your idea of ‘quickly’. You should still probably hurry.”

Ibotanokikouji agreed with that assessment.

Tokiwadai Middle School was like a breathable aquarium.

The teachers and students all moved so maddeningly slowly as they walked down the hall or ate their lunch.

And she had to move just as slowly or everyone would see her as an aberration from the norm.

Like they did the Level 5 girl in front of her who chose to live true to herself.

“I assure you I will be fine. By the way, Misaka-sama, have you ever met the #6 Level 5?”

“I haven’t.” The girl shrugged. “It’s not like the Level 5s have some special community where we all get along. My arguments with the little one are famous, aren’t they? Or not, I don’t really know.”

The other Level 5, Mental Out, could reproduce just about any psychological power, so for better or for worse, this girl was the only one in Tokiwadai who could call her “the little one”. Which did make it seem like those two had some kind of special bond.

She casually shrugged again.

“There are only seven of us, but that doesn’t mean much. We haven’t all become friends and exchanged email addresses or anything. I don’t even know all their names and powers.”

“''What if I told you I was the #6''?”

“''Oh, really''?”

After that exchange, they parted with a smile.

Ibotanokikouji turned a corner in the hallway, and…

“Phew.”

Even the bright midsummer sun felt somehow cool inside Tokiwadai. It was a carefree world free of crime where the little birds someone had fed were relaxing on the windowsill.

Ibotanokikouji knew it was careless to attend a swimming class when an enemy dark side team wanted her dead.

Tokiwadai was a safe zone in every possible way. It was physically isolated, no information could leak out, and it was involved in Academy City politics.

But it took away everything except for safety, so staying there too long was stifling.

She felt staying here was like locking yourself up in prison for safety.

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace” was a good way of putting it.

Since she was attending Tokiwadai, Ibotanokikouji obviously was not short on money. She was soaking neck deep in the dark side anyway because she feared she would become cut off from the world at large like Urashima Tarou if she did not leave on occasion. Or to put it another way, she always wanted to be at the leading edge of the world. No matter how rotten the truth was, it helped her adjust the hands of her old watch that fell out of sync so easily.

(The dark side has a bad habit of drawing a solid line between themselves and the rest of the city.)

She raised both arms to stretch her back.

The girls in the hallway were moving carefully but somehow hurriedly just before the break ended, but all of a sudden they parted to the sides of the hallway.

''Her power was best suited for killing, but with a bit of creativity, it could also do things like this.

She walked right down the center of the hallway.

(The two worlds are geographically connected and function like two sides of the same coin. This sunlit field is within reach. I haven’t been reborn in another world or anything.)

Mugino’s team would have seen the Tokiwadai uniform in the library and they had to be working feverishly to track her down and rescue the hostage, but they must have assumed their enemy would not be attending school at the predetermined time each day.

She had sacrificed her freedom and bound herself here, so she needed it to cut off all pursuit, both physically and psychologically.

She glanced through a classroom door to check the clock on the wall, but she did not make her way to the locker room. She preferred a deserted location, so she set her sights on the landing of the stairs leading up to the roof. That some cleaning supplies had been left out but no one had reported it meant people barely ever came this way.

Ibotanokikouji nodded.

A sharp sound of splitting air scattered from her feet. Since barely anyone went up to the roof, a “closed for cleaning” sign had been left lying on the landing instead of being put away properly, but it hopped up like she had kicked it. She easily caught it in one hand when it arrived at eye level.

She set it up on the stairs below, transforming the landing up to the roof into her own private territory.

(Of course, ''if I have to, I can always have them subconsciously avoid the stairs.'')

“Now, then.”

She didn’t have much time, so she removed her uniform while operating her phone.

This was why she couldn’t use the locker room in the busy time before swimming class.

She attached an eraser-sized signal spoofing device to the phone’s bottom connector and manually input a number not recorded in the address book. She had to be clever since Tokiwadai had that electrical esper, that psychological esper, and so many more.

“Yes, I can talk now. But I need time to store my uniform, underwear, and valuables in the locker room, lock the locker, and reach the pool on time, so you have 5 minutes for your report.”

“Do they really allow private phones at that fancy school?”

“It won’t be a problem as long as none of you call me in the middle of class.”

She had called the art club girl named Inoue Laspezia.

Her plain, whispered voice was even harder to make out coming from the device.

“And a lot of the girls here don’t have one. Have you heard of love letters? They still write them on paper here. With a spritz of perfume on the stationery, of course.”

“At a girl’s school?”

“The rules in the student handbook never say a word about banning relationships with other students. Although it’s possible the teachers just didn’t think that one through.”

“Whatever. I don’t have anything to do but wait, so I was trying to figure out what to cook today.”

“Do forgive me. The school provides our lunches, so I won’t be able to eat your bento.”

“Don’t worry about it. I found some good eel, so I’m planning to make some jellied eel broth.”

“Eh? But today isn’t even your day to cook.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Jellied eel broth… Just a second. You aren’t planning to serve just that one dish for dinner, are you? Whenever you try to make a Kyoto dish, you always boil it down well past being a stew. Remember when you suddenly said you wanted to make Kyoto-style ramen the other day and ended up toiling over that huge pot for 8 hours? You always insist Waniguchi-chan doesn’t go to the convenience store to tide herself over, so she was so hungry she started rolling on the floor and begging you to let us eat even if it wasn’t perfect.”

“I will always wait as long as it takes. I will wait and wait even if it boils down beyond recognition.”

Ibotanokikouji stared into the distance, thinking she had better get home early today.

But anyway. She unzipped her skirt, leaving her in only her underwear and mentally listed out the things she wanted to check with her dark side teammate.

(We can wear whatever underwear we want, but here I am with matching white for the top and bottom. I’m so like the other girls here it makes me want to die.)

“How are things with the rest of you?” she asked.

“No real issues yet, but Waniguchi is on the verge of losing control, just as you feared. She says she wants to get back at them for what they did to our teammate, but that’s only an excuse. She really just can’t bear having to restrain herself from destroying someone who is at her mercy. …Then again, there are a number of legitimate reasons, like revenge and getting that girl to tell us where all the enemy’s hideouts are.”

Ibotanokikouji went on to remove her underwear on a stairway landing with no walls separating it from the rest of the school.

She held her phone between shoulder and cheek, grabbed the racing-style Tokiwadai swimsuit, and spread it out between her hands.

“You haven’t ''started'' without me, have you?”

“Not really. I don’t need you getting after me again, Kaede.”

“That’s a good girl. I will reward you later. I know this is an unusual situation, but we don’t gain anything by letting that get to us. Bear with it. We can all ‘welcome’ our cute newcomer together.”

“…”

Did that silence come from jealousy? But it was cute how Inoue still obeyed.

Ibotanokikouji continued the conversation with her phone held between shoulder and cheek and one leg lifted to put on the swimsuit. The angle of her head messed with her vision, so she had trouble staying balanced.

Hanano Choubi, was it?

“I still think we should have killed her then and there,” said Inoue.

“What’s this? Jealous? I chose to take her in because she’s cute.”

“That’s a bad habit of yours. And ultimately, you either don’t get along or they can’t keep the dark side’s secrets, so we have to kill them and clean up afterwards.”

Inoue sounded legitimately exasperated.

“You really need to understand that we are the only ones who can get along with someone as tricky as you. Because with both people and things, you prefer the ones ''with the presence of death about them'', don’t you?”

“Hee hee. If you’re going to react this cutely, I’m going to do it even more.”

There were two teams and the winner could officially call themselves Item.

That much was true, but there was no real reason to take the risk of searching out the enemy team’s personal information or hideouts. If all they wanted to do was lay the pressure on Mugino Shizuri’s team, they only needed to throw some of their Colosseum money at the adult world. It wouldn’t be immediate, but the damage would slowly but surely accumulate. The frozen bank account was one example. By the time the bubbles were visible on the surface, the bottom of the pot was already boiling away.

So they needed to preserve this situation.

It was crucial they kept themselves in a position where they could make unilateral attacks. If they got greedy and made a mistake, they might lose everything.

“I miss you,” said Inoue.

“Yes, yes. Just wait a while longer. I plan to head straight home today.”

“Thank you. I will have a sea bream hotpot ready for you. First, I slice it thinner than sashimi, then quickly heat it with some turnip…”

“Kyoto seasoning scares me.”

Generally, when a curvier girl attempted to put on a one piece swimsuit, pulling up the shoulder straps alone wasn’t enough to get the chest up. Ibotanokikouji pushed her large chest inside the swimsuit to fix that and finally took the phone from between her shoulder and cheek.

“The system will be back to normal either today or tomorrow. We will wait until then before working together to win over Hanano-chan. If she joins us, we have a new teammate.”

“And if she doesn’t, we kill her and dispose of her body?”

“Oh, you. You aren’t hoping for that outcome, are you?”

No response.

Ibotanokikouji seriously hoped she wouldn’t try the “she was resisting so I had no choice but to kill her” trick.

“I will do whatever you want of me, Kaede. Even if I am bored out of my mind.”

“If you’re bored, why not finally handwash your 2D body pillow covers and hang them up to dry?”

“Bff!?”

Inoue must not have been able to ignore that one because she gave a highly unusual response over the phone.

“And how can you be bored out there where your options are endless?”

Ibotanokikouji tugged on the shoulder strap with her thumb and let it snap back into place.

And she winked.

“You have it so much better than me, suffocating in this luxurious fish tank.”

===Part 4===

Mugino started with their primary assumption.

The living room wall behind her was covered by the “spiderweb” that only she could make sense of.

The enemy wasn’t here, but the battle had already begun.

“Hanano Choubi is almost certainly still alive.”

“What are you basing that on? I would super like to believe it, but I feel like optimism and wishful thinking are clouding your judgment.”

“Let me rephrase that: most likely, they want to kill her, but can’t.”

“?”

“It’s a simple issue of job allocation.”

Mugino made it sound obvious, but then she noticed the confusion on the other three’s faces.

She changed tack.

“Frenda, you arrived at the apartment with a big pile of explosives earlier, didn’t you?”

“What about it? I don’t want to hear a single word about it only being chemical fertilizer. I pulled out all the stops and even dug out the potassium perchlorate and pentaerythrite this time. Napalm, white phosphorous, thermobaric – I’ve got it all. In the end, I’m a one-girl chemical fireworks show of blood and death!!”

“''Why did you bring it yourself instead of asking the support organization?''”

Time froze for Frenda Seivelun.

She knew the answer now.

Mugino sighed.

“I’m sure you had other reasons, like not trusting them with those delicate explosives and not wanting to tell them about your hiding spots. But aside from that, you couldn’t even contact them, could you?”

Takitsubo glanced at the colorful spiderweb on the wall behind Mugino.

Mugino nodded before continuing.

“I would much prefer to leave all this research to them. Numbers are the fastest way of gathering intelligence. But that wasn’t an option, so I’m doing it myself.”

It wasn’t that they had run out of money or been abandoned. Mugino’s terrifying reputation was too powerful for that. Anyone who took the rules too lightly was guaranteed to die. Everyone who dealt with her understood that down to the marrow.

So…

“You super said it was about job allocation, didn’t you? In other words, something big is super going on, so none of the teams can gather the personnel needed to support them?”

“Kouzaku Mitori.”

Mugino pointed back over her shoulder to a photo on the wall.

It was the black-haired girl with the Liquid Shadow power who had guarded the insurance company general manager.

“She said she was preparing to attack the Windowless Building and it turns out she wasn’t bluffing. And I honestly respect that,” noted Mugino.

But that was a side issue.

“So all the villains have had their support organizations gathered up for investigation and defense related to that. No one on the dark side can easily dispose of a body right now.”

“Yeah. In the end, covering up the smell is really tricky once it starts to decompose.” Frenda shrugged in annoyance. “Those thugs on the support organizations wouldn’t have much to do otherwise. In Academy City, there’s legal precedent for the particles that cause the scent of human death being used as evidence of a crime, so no one wants to let the decomposition begin in their own hideout.”

The city did have decomposition experts who could cause even those particles to break down and excellent cleaners who could thoroughly remove the particles from the floor and wallpaper, but there weren’t many of them, which made them conspicuous.

That was bad for anyone who wanted to stay hidden.

And since the dark side’s standard(?) corpse disposal infrastructure had ceased to function, the few experts out there would be getting a rush of requests to deal with the ''already existing'' corpses. It was best to assume they were too overwhelmed to get in touch with.

“Which means I’m not very worried about Hanano Choubi being killed right now.”

If the problem was that serious, it might seem like they would want to call in a Level 5 like Mugino or a Level 4 like Kinuhata instead of the support organizations, but no one bothered to ask why that hadn’t happened.

Needless to say, if word got out that the situation was that bad, the standard(?) dark side member would use the emergency to demand excessive payment or even plot a coup of their own.

In other words, the people at the top were too concerned to open up the possibility of their pet dog biting them too.

“Mugino. Do you think she really can destroy the Windowless Building?”

“If anyone could destroy that thing, I’d have already done it,” replied Mugino like it was nothing.

She respected the attempt, but she never said it was realistic. Academy City was a shitty place that loved to shatter those kinds of hopes. All while pretending they were the good guys.

Since Kouzaku Mitori’s photo was on the wall and Mugino had an accurate idea of how likely her attack on the Windowless Building was, Mugino must have known their higher ups would be attacked but hadn’t bothered saying anything to them. She had also known Kouzaku’s plan was sure to end in failure, but she hadn’t bothered to warn her.

That was because the sooner this attack on the Board of Directors was solved, the sooner the dark side could return to normal, the sooner the corpse disposal infrastructure could recover, and the sooner Hanano’s life would be at risk.

Item was fighting the bad guys and risking their lives to save a friend.

But even with all that, they still weren’t heroes.

Nor did they want to be known as heroes.

This was evil cannibalizing itself.

“By my prediction, the anti-Kouzaku focus will end tonight at the latest. Then, with the incident over, the dark side will return to normal. So we need to attack that fake Enemy Item’s hideout and kill them all before then.”

It was just like Mugino to not mention saving Hanano there.

They had the enemy’s tail in their grasp, but they did not strike quite yet. If they screwed this up, the enemy would notice, go further into hiding with their hostage, and never return to the surface. So Mugino wanted to focus on gathering as much information as possible for as long as possible to increase the odds of success for their one and only chance.

Takitsubo smiled a little.

“What do we know about those four?”

“Only three really matter because I killed one back on the 7th.”

Mugino next pointed at the four photos she had tracked down and were pasted on the outer edge of the spiderweb.

When two groups clashed, it was important to know how many people and how much funding the enemy had. And in Academy City’s case, it also helped to know as much as you could about the esper powers and next-generation weapons they had available.

Mugino had of course spent a lot of time on this part.

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

“Age: 14. Sex: Female. The center of Enemy Item. A legit member of the upper class who attends Tokiwadai Middle School, but the veracity of her claim to being the #6 remains unknown. All that information is locked down too much to get at, but the rumors I’ve heard say Tokiwadai only has two Level 5s. Her power seemed to use wind or shockwaves, but it’s too soon to say for sure. She might have been holding back on her power while we were watching.

“She is a latent sadist who decided to experience the city’s night to distract herself from her oppressive upper class life. The obsession with earning a fortune without her parents’ help is probably a stereotypical rebellious phase. The way she shows no restraint with such a strong power suggests she is not a murder virgin.

“Like I said, details on her self-proclaimed #6 position are unknown.

“Still, the Dark Side’s Bane title may mean her job is to punish other villains.

“This goes without saying, but she’s the most dangerous one.

“Redirect her toward me if it all possible, but if you can’t, then don’t hesitate to run away. For now, we’ll assume she is the #6. You have my authorization to run away during this mission. You should assume contacting her on your own will cost you your life.”

“Hanayama Kamitsu.

“Age: 18. Sex: Female. She was a Level 0, but she called herself the courier and plowed through any pursuers using her Dragon Motor, a kick scooter modified to use a linear engine or jet engine. On the surface, she was a faithful courier, but she was definitely a peeping tom who loved to watch from a distance as the recipient was ruined by whatever she delivered to them. The quick-dried mummy accident in that one District 7 apartment was apparently her doing.

“I’m using the past tense because I killed her on the 7th. She won’t play a role here except for any friends or acquaintances who might hold a grudge, so you can forget the information about her personally.

“The Dragon Motor is mostly a mystery. Has it been mass-produced? If so, can anyone other than her operate it? Who knows. But we can’t deny the possibility, so we need to assume her ghost will return to haunt us in that way.”

“Inoue Laspezia.

“Age: 15. Sex: Female. Known as the modeler. On the art club and makes money counterfeiting various kinds of evidence. Like a hacker, she seems like a support specialist who uses tricks more than direct combat. In addition to creating counterfeit evidence, she also accepts jobs to destroy existing evidence. That’s a good way to earn people’s trust aside from killing.

“I can barely find a bad word about the girl either in the official Anti-Skill records or on the dark side. Almost no one has any complaints with her counterfeit evidence and the vast majority say they saved her. She might be the type who ended up here because she was a little too good at lying.”

“Waniguchi Nokoba.

“Age: 12. Sex: Female. That apparently isn’t her real name, but I couldn’t track down what her name really is. She’s small, but she’s an expert at MMA and has already killed a few people in unofficial matches at her age. Which earned her cheers from the audience, of course. In the Colosseum, she was apparently the executioner who punished anyone who broke the rules. Simply put, she’s just a combat-obsessed freak. It looked like she sought out the dark side herself because she found all the rules and regulations of the official matches too restrictive.

“She goes by a number of titles: the Executioner, the Steel Crusher, the Human Scrapper, the Death Game Queen – you get the picture.

“Since she doesn’t use any next-generation weapons, her ability to break her opponent’s spine and crush them into a giant meatball must come from her esper power.

“Leverage Struggle.

“It apparently lets her increase the force of leverage. It’s probably Level 3 or 4. She focuses on grappling since she’s a meathead, but she could make more creative use of it with some advice from the other members.”

Mugino let out a long breath after getting through all that.

Frenda shrugged.

Mugino had learned a lot, but they still only had the general outlines. Too much remained unknown: was Ibotanokikouji the #6 or not? Would Hanayama’s technology reappear after she had been retired to the graveyard? They didn’t even know Waniguchi’s real name.

And in cases like this, they couldn’t just suspect every little bit of information they had to be on the safe side. A detective who focused on all the details and prepared for the worst even without any definitive evidence would be crushed under the pressure of all the suspicion on the dark side where everything was a muddled mixture of truth and lies.

“In the end, should we find a vulnerable Judgment member and come up with something to threaten them with? Hiring a hacker and making an attack from outside would be even better. Why go to all this trouble when we could just get the data directly from the Bank?”

“In the past, Meltdowner was enough no matter who attacked us.”

Hadn’t Ibotanokikouji said their superiors had given Mugino’s team jobs they could win to give them a taste of victory? And once they had sunk beyond the point of no return, the higher ups could make use of them however they liked.

''She had a point,'' thought Mugino with a slight smile.

And…

“If this goes well, the biggest problem is Ibotanokikouji Kaede at the top. The next biggest would be Waniguchi Nokoba with her deadly martial arts. But we can’t ignore Inoue Laspezia and her ability to frame anyone for just about anything. She could end up being a dark horse. …After all, we don’t even know what her Level is. Is she a Level 0, or has she just not used her power since her job is to counterfeit evidence? They might be saving her as a last resort.”

“If they didn’t have a hostage, you could blow up their hideout from outside, Mugino.”

Takitsubo normally stared blankly into the distance, but now she gave a shocking idea. She may have been pissed too – it just didn’t show on the surface. Partially from the talk of framing people and counterfeiting evidence, but mostly about Hanano who had been captured in order to protect Takitsubo.

Kinuhata cracked her neck.

“Then let’s super think about how we’ll rescue the hostage. That’s our top priority and running away super isn’t going to help. Mugino-san, do you super know where Enemy Item’s base is?”

‘Technically speaking, they have five bases. But four are definitely abandoned, so we can ignore them. The cleaning maids have been in and out, but there was no response. Those bitches must have taken Hanano here – District 11’s abandoned railway tunnel.”

“What? In the end, are you saying those villains are a bunch of slugs who chose to live in filthy concrete ruins covered in graffiti!? When they have a suitcase filled with 80 billion yen!?”

“They did buy a retired luxury train, secretly stick it in the tunnel, and convert it into a hideout. I’m sure it was meant for technical research, but it wasn’t much use given the limited land in Academy City. Anyway, they’re living comfortably there. Any of the city’s train nerds would kill to be in their position. The Nightjar’s restaurant had three Bichelin stars, which means they have the nicest industrial kitchen you could ask for. It should also have a cocktail lounge and a pool car. The track was removed from the abandoned section, but the tunnel itself has power since laying out new power lines would have been too expensive.”

Mugino shrugged.

“But I imagine the real draw for them was the thick tunnel walls and the high-voltage train lines. They have a smart shelter where they don’t have to worry about being discovered from their phone signals, satellite images, or anything in between. Also, a nap room in a luxury beauty salon or a really nice private room in a university hospital aren’t great choices for hiding with a noisy hostage. They could apply violence to keep her silent, but the fear that produces is a double-edged sword. She might just get desperate. And remember that the corpse disposal infrastructure is down, so they can’t kill her even if they want to. As long as they have to hold onto her, they’ll stay to the tunnel.”

It meant a lot to know the location.

But a tunnel was a troublesome location. It had limited entrances and exits, so the enemy was bound to lay out tons of dangerous traps. And while they could blast a hole in the wall of an ordinary building with Meltdowner and make a surprise attack through there, it wasn’t so easy with a thick tunnel.

“You super can’t shoot through that?”

“I can, but the blast would be powerful enough to bring the entire tunnel down.”

Just like with a large arching dam, a tunnel not made with the shield method was not as sturdy as all the thick concrete made it look. Given the total amount of dirt bearing down on the ceiling, the columns were unbelievably skinny and unreliable, so it took some almost artistically creative load balancing to make it work. If that was thrown off, it could all collapse like a house of cards. And that wasn’t an option when you wanted to rescue a hostage, not kill everyone.

“If all the super traps are in the way, I could charge right on in with my Offense Armor. That would clear out all the stationary traps and give you a path.”

“That sounds great, but in the end, could the walls survive all those explosives going off?” Frenda breathed an exasperated sigh. “In the end, I want a map of the tunnel. If that line has been abandoned, the security level for that data should have dropped, right? Do you have that, Mugino?”

“Of course.”

Mugino unfurled two pieces of paper larger than picnic blankets. One was a map of the abandoned railway tunnel. The other was a diagram of the Nightjar train.

“But these are the official plans. This won’t include any of the modifications the Enemy Item made, so be careful.”

“In the end, it’s better than nothing.”

“Hee hee.”

Takitsubo held a hand over her mouth as she laughed.

Mugino gave her a funny look.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t expect you to tell us to ‘be careful’.”

If most people said something like that, they might end up reduced to charcoal.

But not so with Takitsubo.

She could rely on her own instincts to safely cross the minefield that was Mugino Shizuri.

“Tch.”

That was Mugino’s only real response.

She even looked away awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Frenda was busy analyzing. She crawled along the floor like a dog, sticking her butt up despite her short skirt, and even licking her lips.

“In the end, any modifications they made will be built on top of the original structure. No matter how much they change it, the foundation doesn’t lie.”

“You can super tell?”

“All those notes Mugino has on the wall give us enough to know the personalities and habits of each Enemy Item member. And they can’t pull traps out of thin air. Unlike guns and knives, the finished product isn’t packaged up and sold by the arms industry. Mugino, you’ve been tracking down their past actions, right? In the end, how much of your pride did you sacrifice for that?”

“I only went as far as collecting their receipts from the communal trash dump near their hideout.”

“You sure do you love your friends, huh? So in the end, I’ll look into what kinds of traps they could build with that list of materials.”

===Part 5===

A quiet scraping sound filled the room.

Silver-haired art club girl Inoue Laspezia sat on the sofa engrossed in her work. She used the kind of work magnifying glass that attached to the forehead and wore an apron over her summer uniform. Some might have thought she looked like a cute squirrel, but no one would be smiling when they learned she was working on creating a bloody ashtray as counterfeit evidence.

(I need as many cards in my deck as possible so I can help Kaede.)

She had always been good at lying.

Her adorable appearance, trouble making jokes, and plain whispery voice had helped make people trust her. Everyone had looked down on her and assumed “that boring girl” couldn’t lie and would be easy to manipulate. None of this had been intentional on her part; it had all been a miraculous combination of factors.

What would have happened to the boy who cried wolf if he fooled everyone to the very end? Inoue Laspezia was the answer.

Her parents.

Her teachers.

All of the adults.

It had been like a magic spell from a picture book that let her bend them all to her will. When the young girl had learned to use it, no one had ever scolded her for it, so her malice had only grown. It had been all the worse for how pure and innocent she was. When she shouted “a wolf is coming”, it was enough to send a silly adult to their doom.

She hadn’t wanted money.

She hadn’t resented anyone.

Inoue Laspezia had simply enjoyed the looks on their faces when a single silly false accusation against an adult so much stronger and older than her would cause everything they had built up over their lifetime to come crashing down.

It was such a common desire that it was found in a fable from more than 2000 years ago.

But it was also a villainous act that no one should have been allowed to actually commit.

(Phew.)

Maybe that was why she loved figurines. She also liked the works they were based on. In other words, she was an otaku. The residents of the 2D world never changed no matter how much she lied. They never got mad and they were never deceived. She could never be so open with anyone else. If it weren’t so easy to buy life-size body pillow covers of her favorite characters from the internet, she figured she would probably have kept a corpse in cold storage instead. …The only problem was how bulky those covers were even when rolled up like a scroll. Especially when she inevitably found a new favorite character each new season.

As anyone who had folded a 1000-yen note to play with the famous person’s face can likely imagine, one’s love can be shaken if their body pillow cover gets a crease in it. But if you carelessly iron it, things can get even worse. They fade, twist, and wrinkle so easily. They required a lot more delicate care than a resilient pet.

The pillows had a life of their own.

(Hmm. I know Kaede doesn’t like how much space they take up, so maybe I should finally switch over to VR. Then you just need the one blank body pillow you can touch and hug and the VR adds in whatever image you want. The data won’t deteriorate or take up extra space. On the other hand, you need the equipment, the hookups, enough space to move around in, and the initial setup sounds like a pain.)

“Hey.”

Waniguchi was back.

Inoue chose that as a good time to remove the magnifying glass from her forehead.

The 12-year-old executioner felt a need to resupply at the convenience store once every three hours. Inoue felt that was only the result of Ibotanokikouji spoiling the girl. What she wanted changed based on her mood, so she couldn’t just buy it all at once.

Waniguchi was supposedly an MMA fighter who wasn’t satisfied with the official matches and joined the deadly underground fights…so it was strange how dependent she was on the chips and sodas sold at the convenience store. Meatheads usually only ate protein, chicken tenders, egg whites, and raw vegetables.

“Don’t keep the refrigerator open too long. My jellied broth is setting in there.”

“Oh, you mean the stuff that’s way too bland?”

“Keep saying that and Kyoto will eventually fight back.”

"Does Kyoto transform or something?”

Waniguchi pulled a giant cup of blue condensed milk flavor shaved ice from the bag. You apparently heated it for ten seconds in the microwave to melt it just enough. Then she pointed at Inoue’s forehead.

“You’ve got paint on your face.”

Despite the warning, Inoue did not reach up to touch her face. She couldn’t let her guard down just because she was wearing thin gloves. If she got some ''red AB-type iron paint'' on her fingers, it could get all over her. She stopped working and made a mental note to use her small bottle of turpentine later on.

Waniguchi cackled.

“You’re a mess. This is the problem with you indoorsy art club types. How is it you have such a great eye for aesthetics and are so obsessive over making your artwork perfect, but you don’t give a single thought to your clothing or even your posture. Keep stooping over and whispering all the time and the Chief will lose interest in you.”

“Is that so, Aiyose Hiyoko-chan?”

“S-stop! I’ve thrown out that name! I have a much cooler ring name now!! Even the Chief said she loves it!!”

Waniguchi Nokoba quickly held her arms up in an X-shaped defensive stance.

That name apparently qualified as a counterattack.

The mood of the room changed drastically when Ibotanokikouji wasn’t around. These two were all over her, but wanted nothing to do with each other.

The nature of relationships differed depending on who they were with.

“Anyway, where’s the can opener?” asked Waniguchi. “Hello? The can opener? The thing you use to open cans?”

“How stupid do you think I am? I know what a can opener is.”

Inoue set down the small metal file in her right hand, grabbed another tool from the table, and tossed it over.

It was an enormous knife in a synthetic leather sheath. The end of the guard had a claw-like protrusion that could be used as a can opener. Of course, it could also be used to split open an enemy’s forehead in close combat.

Waniguchi caught it one-handed, but then she noticed something.

“Wait. Isn’t this the Chief’s knife?”

“…”

“You swiped one of her things and took it to your room ''again'', didn’t you!? You always do this. Whenever she gives you the opening, you sneak off with her underwear or handkerchief or something.”

2D was the best, but it had no scent or warmth.

And if the pillow smelled like Ibotanokikouji, then whatever Inoue did with the 2D character didn’t count as cheating.

“Say what you like, but I always clean up the evidence, leave it as good as new, and return it before Kaede notices, so you have no proof of anything.”

“What the hell!? And all I ever do is sneak into her bed when she’s away!!”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Are you going to fess up, or do I have to call Anti-Skill on you?”

The arguing continued.

Maybe she wanted to get in the way of Inoue’s work, but Waniguchi stuck around while she drew the large single-edge knife from the synthetic leather sheath and pressed the guard against the edge of the can. She easily got the lid open. She wasn’t just accustomed to doing this. She worked as fast as a sewing machine.

“Didn’t you go to the convenience store?” Inoue sounded a bit exasperated. “And do they even still sell cans you need an opener for?”

“The discount mackerel cans tend to need an opener. And the entire stock has a tendency to just vanish, so they’re weirdly in demand. Also, these old-fashioned canned fruits are the best toppings for shaved ice. The Chief told me about these mandarin oranges soaking in this toxically thick syrup!”

Young Waniguchi brutally licked her lips.

After opening the can, she flipped it upside down and shook it to add her own extra topping to the convenience store shaved ice. Then she added some highly carbonated cider. It was a brute force strategy where she used her youth to protect her against all the sugar. And what had happened to melting it a bit in the microwave?

Waniguchi began mixing the giant shaved ice using the thick plastic straw and spoon the store had provided.

“So how is that girl doing?”

“She’s stopped making any noise, but I think she’s still alive. I removed anything she could use to kill herself.”

“Are you sure? Did you remove her teeth? She could bite her tongue or tear out a thick artery with those.”

“Didn’t we have this discussion already? Just like sticking her head in the sink to drown herself, the odds of her trying it are too low to worry about.”

But she still did go check on Ibotanokikouji’s new friend.

Inoue set her incomplete artwork down on the newspaper laid out on the table, removed her gloves, and rubbed moisturizer on her fingers. The way she scowled at the sound of crunching shaved ice, she may have been concerned some water droplets would end up on her art.

But Inoue’s silent glare only motivated Waniguchi to pour even more cider on and gulp down the half-liquefied shaved ice. She must have forgotten all about the canned mandarin oranges because she started choking, earning her an even harsher glare from the art club girl.

The two of them walked down the long hallway.

The mood changed the instant they opened the door.

Inoue frowned a bit at the hot, humid air that wafted out. It was like arriving in a stranger’s room. And that wasn’t entirely inaccurate. A certain girl had been trapped in there for a week now, so her scent would naturally have started to take over.

A weak groan came from the room.

In a girl’s voice.

“Uh…”

That was Hanano Choubi.

The room was structured like a prefabricated bath, but it had no window, the shower hose had been removed along with any other equipment that could be used for suicide, and the faucet had been wrapped tight with wire to keep it from turning. The tile floor was damp from the humidity and the long-unused electrical outlet was covered in dust. Her hand was handcuffed to the pipe on the wall.

Waniguchi put a hand on her hip.

“Why are we going easy on her? If we really want to lay on the pressure, we should shut off water to the toilet too.”

“Do you want to clean up after that? When we’re having so much trouble with corpse disposal already?”

Violence was not the only card capable of tearing down someone’s psyche and making them obey you like a robot. Pain was just one of the cards that made people’s circumstances impossible to bear. If you dumped them in an environment their sensibilities refused to accept and removed all avenues of escape, their internal logic would easily collapse.

For example…

A week had passed since July 7. For that entire time, she hadn’t been able to take a bath, change her clothes, or even change her underwear. For a teenage girl, that alone would feel impossible to bear.

They didn’t need to torture her or even lay a finger on her.

In these circumstances, keeping her clothes on actually increased the discomfort.

Those two had caused more than their fair share of suffering on the dark side, so they understood this well.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that perfume you sprayed yourself with back there,” said Inoue.

Hanano groaned and her shoulders shook.

“But it was really obvious because it didn’t fit your plain look at all. That stuff was too grownup and expensive for you. Just so you know, I broke it all down with a special biological solvent I have, so not even a trained dog could have followed your trail.”

“And that goes for those toys the Hound Dogs use too,” added Waniguchi with a “kee hee hee” of laughter.

Her expression said she loved shattering people’s hopes.

“That was the only trick she tried,” whispered Inoue. “Kaede said she might make for a teammate with some interesting skills, but what do you think?”

“Who can say. I bet she wasn’t looking past the girl’s appearance. She can’t get enough of the terrified mouse type. But it’s not my decision. And I never said I would always obey every one of the Chief’s orders.”

There was no panic or irritation in Inoue and Waniguchi’s voices.

They didn’t think Hanano would really be their teammate.

If they could win her over before the support organization was back, then she would be. If that didn’t work, they would kill her. They were assuming they would end up killing her and they could just stop working if a miracle did occur.

They had no real pressing reason to keep Hanano alive.

Nor would they gain anything by cruelling torturing her.

They didn’t even need to attack Mugino to eliminate that threat – going into hiding would work just as well. Then they could add onto the frozen bank account to gradually tighten their grip around Mugino’s throat. If the others on the dark side realized they had a chance to attack, those others would do the dirty work for them. They didn’t even need to get Hanano to reveal any of Mugino’s personal information or the location of her hideouts.

In fact, they were hoping to kill her and throw her out as soon as possible, so any excess injuries to the future corpse could turn into unwanted evidence.

But all of that was based on a logical analysis of the situation.

None of that meant much when to someone with a short temper who wouldn’t want to leave an enemy prisoner alone after one of their own was killed. Plus, what if they spared Hanano now and she betrayed Kaede?

“If she won’t listen, why not just strangle her?”

Chained Hanano’s shoulders jumped.

The 12-year-old girl may have been enjoying the effect her words were having on the older girl. She smiled belligerently and kept going.

“Constrict her carotid artery and she’ll be out in less than 10 seconds, but get the windpipe and she’ll suffer a lot longer. You can make her experience the fear of drowning. Do it just right and her stomach will go nuts too.”

“No. You’d enjoy it too much and end up crushing her neckbone.”

“I mean, yeah, but you’re pissed too, aren’t you?”

“Kaede does not want revenge.”

“Again with the Chief.”

“You say that, but you will obey her here, won’t you?”

Hanano’s gaze bounced back and forth like a tennis umpire. Probably because her life was on the line here. She looked truly pitiful.

Then again, this conversation was primarily being used to lay the pressure on her.

This Item had its own support organization, but those convenient workers had been called away for an emergency task. That meant they could not be relied on to dispose of a body, so killing was best avoided.

Kaede had gone out of her way to supply this secret hideout. Think of it like an article of clothing their sweetheart bought them. These girls wanted to avoid stinking up the place with a corpse.

“When do you think those underlings will be back?” asked Waniguchi.

“Who knows.”

“God, a hostage that doesn’t make us a single yen is such a waste of space. How long are we going to keep feeding her? I guess this demonstrates how necessary the support organization is.”

“Are they all that necessary, though?” Inoue rejected that conclusion while whispering down toward the floor. “You say we can’t kill her because you don’t want the stench and rotten corpse juices all over our hideout, right? I can’t stop the actual progression of decomposition, but none of the particles that cause the smell can escape if I strip her corpse naked and coat her in a thick layer of varnish or paint. It’s like packing food in rubber or plastic. We can leave the solidified paint doll in a corner of the room and wait until either the support organization returns or we have the money to pay an expert in cleaning up decomposing corpses.”

A few concerned noises escaped Hanano’s mouth. She had thought the humiliation would at least end when she died, but apparently not.

But she could not bring herself to speak in full words.

Whatever she said, she feared expressing any kind of clear will would send her in an even more devastating direction.

“Can you do that, art club?” asked Waniguchi.

“With Kaede’s permission.”

“If this girl poses any threat at all to the Chief, we should do it right away.”

“It might sadden Kaede, so we should wait for now.”

That was the line between them.

Inoue and Waniguchi glanced toward the door at the same moment.

Ibotanokikouji was not there. She was meditating like she always did. Which in her case meant holding a selfie photoshoot in front of the large mirror while using herself as a dress up doll. It sounded silly, but she had slipped out of Tokiwadai’s strict student dorm for this. She was very serious about it. If she was ever interrupted, she would get after them quite severely, so they had to be careful.

Finally, Waniguchi cracked her neck.

“Chief doesn’t seem too interested in what we’re up to.”

“I do not want to do anything without her express permission. I do not want her mad at me.”

“Yeah, your crocodile tears never work on her for some reason. Even though they’re so shocking even I’ll stop my fist when I see them.”

“Hee hee. That’s what makes her so interesting. She is the only person in the 3D world I can’t fool.”

Of course, violence was Waniguchi’s job. She would clench her fist and destroy someone’s joints in the same way some people would grab the vacuum after spotting some dust or a stain on the floor.

That said…

(The quality of an artist’s work depends on their motivation and mood. It’s so much easier with us athletic types because we’ll do what you say as long as you punch us and give us an order.)

“Hm,” groaned Waniguchi.

She stared at Hanano.

Smiling to try and smooth over an awkward silence was said to be a reflex for the Japanese. Hanano was no exception. It had nothing to do with whether or not she was happy and, in this case, it may have been more of a defense mechanism to avoid angering her captors.

The Colosseum executioner nodded.

Inoue didn’t even have time to stop her.

The little executioner needlessly slammed her fist into the center of the hostage’s face.

Hanano’s choking and sobbing sounded somehow wet. Her breathing may have been clogged by her own blood.

“Are you trying to anger me?” asked Inoue.

“My bad. That ‘you don’t dare touch me’ look of hers pissed me off☆ Does she think she’s some VIP just cause the Chief likes her?”

“Did it have to be her nose? The blood splattered on the wall and the floor. This is going to be a pain to clean up.”

“That’s your main issue? I get the feeling you’re even more pissed off than I am. Cause she’s stealing time you could’ve spent with the Chief.”

Waniguchi casually apologized while leaving the room being used as a cell.

Inoue put her hands on her hips.

“You just returned from the convenience store, right? Did you do a check around the entrance?”

“Just because there are only so many ways in doesn’t mean they’re going to go for the front door. Not even I want to be anywhere near all those traps.”

“Kaede put together those traps, but I worked hard to hide them. Hee hee. Which means it was a joint effort, doesn’t it? In an old war, they apparently painted explosives to look just like coal or rubble and placed them around enemy territory to incite a panic.”

“Damn perfectionist.”

“I guarantee you that no one will notice the high-low mix Kaede and I made.”

“So will they go for the rear entrance? Or they might look for another path we didn’t even consider. Or dig their own hole, I suppose.”

===Part 6===

“So we’ll be going straight for the front door.”

Frenda grinned in the darkness while holding a multitool knife shaped like a pair of pliers.

The darkness was not due to nightfall.

The abandoned railway tunnel was in District 11. Instead of passing through a mountain, this tunnel sloped down below the surface of the city. The hemispherical entrance was covered by a chain-link fence to keep people from wandering in, but that was easily bypassed.

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, Kinuhata Saiai.

Frenda Seivelun stayed a step ahead of the other three to lead the way.

Takitsubo tilted her expressionless head.

“You can tell where the traps are?”

“In the end, I’m impressed by your courage if you followed me this far without trusting I could.” Frenda used her tool to cut a colored cord. “Broadly speaking, there are two types of trap: the high-tech electronic ones and the low-tech primitive ones.”

“Primitive like a pitfall?”

“Right. Those go back into BCE times, but the technique was really refined in Vietnam. You only need a shovel to make them and they don’t use any explosives or metal to be detected, so they’re still even more frightening than landmines.”

Takitsubo may have meant her example as a joke, but Frenda took it entirely seriously as she worked.

“Both types have their pros and their cons. High-tech traps using invisible lasers and ultrasound seem convenient at first glance, but they’re easily exposed using special cameras and sensors. For that matter, using electricity at all means they’ll produce a faint magnetic field. You know how sending out sonar all the time would be suicide for a submarine? It’s the same idea. …On the other hand, low-tech mines made from wood and glass are primitive, but they’ll slip right past a metal detector, which means you can’t let your guard down. Of course, they have the flaw of being vulnerable to moisture and impacts, so they easily malfunction.”

“Hm. So super which type is better?”

“There’s no definitive answer. So the optimal trap usage is to have a mixture of both types.”

Frenda moved aside a plastic bottle that had been given a metal cap. A smaller sealed bottle was submerged in the liquid within, so it was likely a detergent bomb made from two substances that were dangerous when mixed. But if Frenda hadn’t moved it, it would have looked like any other trash forgotten and buried in here.

“It’s called using a ‘high-low mix’, although I believe that term was originally used in reference to aircraft. But in the end, if you know from the beginning they’ll be using that strategy, you have nothing to fear.”

“You say that, but if you miss just one of them, we go boom,” said Mugino. “Not that it’s guaranteed to be an explosion.”

“In the end, I can sniff them out,” replied Frenda, using duct tape to seal the lid of a bug cage stuffed full of ants that likely were not native to Japan. “I wonder if this was a rush job for them. I can smell the paint and turpentine they used for the camouflage. Now, I’m not about to place my full trust in a hint left by the enemy, but I doubt this is some kind of strategy. In the end, they were overconfident and made a careless mistake. I bet they didn’t notice the smell because they’ve been surrounded by it for so long – that’s a mistake pros make all the time.”

Minefields were simple but highly effective.

Unlike a two-way fight, they let you defeat the enemy without taking any damage yourself.

But all the effort put into setting up the traps would lead to an assumption that the enemy would never make it past them all and make a direct attack.

If you had the skills necessary to get past the traps, then a frontal assault would function as a surprise attack.

“Takitsubo. In the end, I could use some water,” said Frenda because both her hands were full.

“Yes, yes. You mean this bottle with a straw in it?”

“Grab me a mackerel can too.”

“Are you sure you need that?”

While Frenda ate her fish, she began working less and less until she finally had no more work to do. They had crossed the dense field of traps. Frenda herself actually grew more cautious in case this was a trick to get her to lower her guard, but she never did find anything more.

“We’re almost to the Nightjar,” said Mugino, staring up ahead. “They were probably afraid of getting caught in their own traps, so they only set them up near the distant tunnel entrance.”

While the tunnel was abandoned, it still had power and the fluorescent lights for workers remained lit. Of course, this was the enemy’s home base, so it was possible those lights could be shut off at any moment. They kept their phones at the ready in case they needed them for light, but a large and extremely pointy silhouette was visible even without any extra light.

That was the Nightjar luxury train.

It was also the smart shelter the Enemy Item used when they were being pursued and needed a place to hide.

They heard a sound of straining metal.

Kinuhata immediately rushed out in front of Frenda and was blasted backwards by an explosive sound. Frenda quickly got down on the ground, her eyes wide.

“Eh? Eh?”

“Cough, there’s super something there! Be careful!!”

Something with eight-legs lurked in the shadows.

Several of them, in fact.

The drum-like bodies were likely based on the security robots that patrolled Academy City. The eight legs were abnormally long for those bodies and a .50-caliber machinegun had been forcibly attached to the side. Kinuhata had been knocked back despite her nitrogen shield.

Mugino clicked her tongue and launched her Meltdowner.

She also moved to protect Takitsubo.

“Tch. I thought the thick tunnel blocked any signals from getting in!”

“Signals can still travel inside the tunnel, so these could be remotely controlled from the train.”

That said, they were right next to the high-voltage railway power line, which would interfere with any control signals. It was best to assume these were specialized for autonomous combat.

However…

“They have cameras, so the enemy will know we’re here. This is a race against time now! Frenda, don’t let the enclosed tunnel scare you – it’s time for your bombs! And Takitsubo!!”

“I know,” whispered Takitsubo, pulling something from her track suit pocket.

It looked like a mechanical pencil lead case, but it contained an unsettling white powder.

“''I will use it today.'' If I had just used Body Crystal and recorded Hanano’s AIM Diffusion Field the first time, none of this would have happened. I put her life at risk because I didn’t want to shorten my own lifespan. So I won’t let the Enemy Item escape this tunnel no matter what they try.”

She was essentially saying she would chemically shorten her life.

It was a matter of chemistry, so one plus one would always equal two. There was no room for a miraculous result of three or four. She was implicitly saying she was fine with that. She was saying Hanano Choubi held that much value for her.

Kinuhata got up, clenched her teeth, used her arms to guard, and forcibly held back the machinegun fire while she marched forward and silenced one 8-legged drum with her fist.

“Is Takitsubo-san’s power that super great?”

“In the end, it’s not so much great as it is cheating! I wouldn’t want her as my enemy for a different reason than Mugino!!”

“Don’t call me a cheater. I’m always faithful.”

Takitsubo gave a somewhat off-kilter comment among the explosive gunfire while she licked up the powder she had sprinkled on the back of her hand.

Their enemy had no real reason to keep Hanano alive.

This was a race against time, so they would have a hard time searching through each of the more than 10 train cars while remaining alert for surprise attacks and counterattacks. Ordinarily, it would be downright impossible. But that was where Takitsubo’s AIM Stalker came in handy. One look at the area and she could accurately locate any esper – from Level 0 to Level 5 – by the faint power they emitted. And once she had “recorded” an esper’s power, she could track them even if they fled the solar system.

The fact that the enemy was reliant on traps and unmanned weapons meant their support organization had been recalled. The only people in that long train would be the Enemy Item’s three survivors and their hostage, Hanano.

So Takitsubo only had to identify which cars she sensed people inside.

“It’s not too late.”

Takitsubo forced out the words while covered in a disconcerting amount of perspiration.

If they looked inside an occupied car and found Hanano, they could protect her. If they didn’t find her, everyone inside was an enemy. If all three enemies were together, then blowing up that car would eliminate the threat and rescue the hostage all at once.

“If I can locate the people here, Mugino or Frenda can blow down the train’s wall, and we can rescue Hanano!!”

Takitsubo’s power would set it all in motion, so she didn’t hesitate to use the Body Crystal despite the risk to her.

''However…

“…?”

“Takitsubo?”

The faintest furrowing of the brow on Takitsubo’s otherwise expressionless face caught Frenda’s attention while she used an explosive resembling correction tape to burn right through one of the 8-legged drums.

The track suit girl had frozen in place.

“''She’s not here,''” she said.

“What? Who’s not?”

“''I’m not sensing anyone. This train is deserted''!!”

===Part 7===

“Did you hit the switch?”

“I did.”

Still handcuffed to the pipe, Hanano Choubi blankly watched Waniguchi Nokoba and Inoue Laspezia converse in the bathroom where the bathtub and sink’s faucets were locked down with wires.

The confusion must have been plain on her face. Or maybe Waniguchi was simply feeling the relief of finishing a job. Either way, she answered the question Hanano hadn’t asked out loud.

“Your friends have failed.”

“…”

“This isn’t any of our five hideouts. Those dumbasses ''attacked the wrong place'', so we got to watch them through an ultrasound-transmitted camera while remotely activating a trap to fill the entire tunnel with poison gas.”

“When we know they’re looking for us, why wouldn’t we go even deeper into hiding?”

“Who knows if this will actually kill them, but there’s no way they’ll arrive in time to rescue you.”

Hanano’s pupils shrank.

Amused by that reaction, Inoue and Waniguchi continued their conversation.

“Besides, did they really expect a bunch of girls to live somewhere like that? We certainly couldn’t bring Kaede there. Abandoned tunnels are a treasure trove of bugs and rats.”

“Ugh, my thigh is itchy all over again just thinking about it!! I’m only ever living at the top of a skyscraper where there aren’t any mosquitos or flies. And with all the cargo stored in District 11, you can’t find convenience stores anywhere. That’s a dealbreaker for me since I need to resupply once every three hours or I go crazy.”

Inoue noticed something and pulled her phone from her skirt pocket.

She checked an email and looked up.

“This says the support organization has finished their other job. They should be back soon.”

“So what was that other job anyway?”

“The battery’s low,” murmured Inoue while staring at her phone. There was a dusty old power outlet at the bottom of the wall, but she hadn’t brought a power cable in here with her. “Apparently they don’t care if we know now that it’s over. It turns out some moron tried to attack the Board Chairman’s Windowless Building.”

“Damn, I wish that’d worked. Without that shithead at the top, the Chief and I could create our own private love paradise.”

“Sounds like a hell I would do anything in my power to stop.”

The return of the support organizations meant the return of the corpse disposal infrastructure. Which truly eliminated all reason to keep Hanano alive.

“So. With that restriction gone, how should we kill her?”

“You have the worst taste.” Inoue sighed. “What if Kaede hears you beforehand?”

“Nice joke. If she really cared, she’d have stopped meditating and joined us. Besides, she’ll be happy as long as she can surround herself in death. And once she’s bored with that, we can use this girl to ''frame'' our enemy. You knew from the get-go we needed to kill her, didn’t you? It’s like the rest of you keep ordering more food but refuse to eat the bell peppers, so I get to eat them all myself. Think of me as the saint of volunteer work who completes all the tasks no one else wants to do.”

The small girl chuckled.

She bent over and leaned toward Hanano.

“I still can’t figure out what such a weak person is doing on the dark side. It takes a pretty dumb person to not follow the most beautiful of rules: survival of the fittest. But not even that rule applies to the dark side. This is a much simpler and purer world.”

“(Survival of the strongest, you mean? That sounds arrogant, but you’re really just trying to make yourself look powerful because you’re afraid of being bullied if people see you as weak, aren’t you? Oh, Hiyoko-chan. Don’t think I didn’t notice that your workout regimen with those rubber balls ''has nothing at all to do with your power''.)”

“I heard every word of that, you Kyoto girl who somehow can’t pass a history test. And use my ring name.”

The way the 12-year-old blushed and cleared her throat was quite cute, but she was also an expert in crushing and destroying people. She wasn’t about to go easy on anyone.

(Kaede isn’t coming to save her. And after she went to the trouble of taking her in.)

Inoue noted that, but she made no attempt to stop Waniguchi.

That was because ''this happened all the time.

“I have no interest in violence, so can I wait outside until you’re done?” asked Inoue.

“Ehh!? I’m a performer, you know!? I need an audience to really get into it!! Even when I’m punching the sandbag at the gym, there are at least people around! If you’re going to leave, at least call the Chief in here.”

“You must be joking. I can’t let Kaede see this.”

Just before she left, Inoue’s eyebrows twitched. There was something about Hanano. No, it was the lack of any kind of reaction that Inoue found unusual. She should have struggled in any way she could. Sure, she was handcuffed to the pipe, but she would be killed if she did nothing at all. Would she really give up and accept that fate?

Inoue sensed something from the girl’s apparent lack of concern.

The first to take a step forward was plain and whispering Inoue, not short-tempered Waniguchi. The silver-haired art club girl grabbed the chest of Hanano’s clothing and jerked her hand forward. Hanano’s short-sleeved sailor uniform audibly tore, revealing her chest.

Her modest chest was covered by a plain bra.

Something hung at her chest: a cylinder about the size of a AAA battery.

''That was a fuse.

The device was used to ensure a destructive explosive would detonate at the desired time. However, the fuse alone was no more powerful than a firecracker.

But it seemed unlikely she would have that hidden away for no reason. If it was her secret prize, it had to be worth entrusting her life in.

“Eh?”

Inoue was speechless. But she did not doubt the reality before her eyes. Her small nose detected a scent other than sweat staining Hanano’s bra.

“''Liquid explosive''!!??”

Meanwhile…

“You gave me an entire week to work with.”

Hanano managed a weak but unmistakable smile.

When she had asked Frenda to tell her where Mugino’s mines were located, Frenda had told her to find them herself. She had found that heartless at the time, but now she knew better.

You didn’t reveal your teammates’ secrets, even as a joke. If you couldn’t manage that, you could never earn the trust of your team.

Which led to only one possible conclusion: ''this was the best option available to her.

The triumphant girl spoke with no attempt made to cover the chest exposed by her torn sailor uniform.

“If you want to be villains, you really should have stripped off all my clothing.”

===Part 8===

''Kaboooooom!!!

Enemy Item’s hideout exploded so violently it was visible from the outside.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun had emerged from the abandoned railway tunnel.

Poison gas was a bad match for Item. Mugino could simply use her firepower to burn the gas – that is, forcibly oxidize it to rewrite the chemical formula – and neutralize it. Frenda could use her explosives in the enclosed tunnel to push all the contaminated air outside. Finally, Kinuhata could protect herself with the thick gas barrier created by her Offense Armor.

But they didn’t feel like they had outsmarted their enemy.

“Get the van moving!! Hurry!”

Mugino shouted and the van’s tires screeched.

She was shouting this command to a driver from the support organization. His presence meant the situation had advanced to the next phase.

The delinquent driver first merged onto a large highway.

“Wh-where exactly do you want to go!?”

“''You can see that smoke in the distance, can’t you?'' Get there as fast as possible!!”

Frenda was desperate because she already knew what this had to be. As an explosives expert, the deep noise was enough for her to identify the type of explosive used.

The young driver’s eyes widened.

“The light’s red.”

“So what!? Don’t let your foot off the gas!! Run the light!!!”

They plowed right through the large intersection at full speed, just barely avoiding a yellow sportscar. A flurry of horns honked at them, but they ignored it.

But this couldn’t last forever.

They crossed a few district borders, but they hit some congestion upon entering District 15.

A few sirens blended together in the distance.

“I can’t get you any further!! It looks like Anti-Skill is directing traffic up ahead…”

“Tch!!”

The girls didn’t bother listening any further and hopped out of the van.

Even now, a blimp floated leisurely by overhead. Its screen read, “A fire in a building along a major road in this area is causing traffic delays. If you are nearby, please watch out for falling objects. For a detailed map of the affected area, please check the traffic management center or the railroad company’s website.”

In the distance, they saw orange light and black smoke rising into the night sky. Firetrucks and ambulances were gathered at the base of the building.

All four of them had to be thinking the same thing: why did it have to be ''here'' of all places?

Outside the “keep out” tape, the press and personal phones were filming the scene.

That made it difficult for anyone on the dark side to approach. But quite a few things were flying through the area, even outside the taped-off area.

There was sharp shards of glass, scorched wreckage of what had once been furniture, and a book that looked like it had been chewed up by a fierce dog.

The book contained Umisuna Seiru’s makeup techniques.

Who was it that had so happily embraced that prize up after discovering it at the parasol market?

Silence fell over all four of them.

Their rescue of Hanano Choubi had failed. But this explosion had revealed Enemy Item’s location. More than that, it had probably killed some of them.

But that meant nothing.

Why hadn’t Hanano considered that part?

Frenda recalled an earlier conversation with the girl.

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

''“Thanks.”

Yes.

It had been meant as a reward.

''“Without your help, we couldn’t have gotten that data from the insurance company. I doubt Mugino would have given up, but she would’ve relied on brute force to get the job done.”

''“Ha…ah ha ha…”

She had disguised herself as the insurance company’s general manager and skillfully retrieved the data.

So Frenda had wanted to give her a reward to welcome her into Item. She had thought the nervous newcomer might relax some if she felt like she had done something for the group as a whole.

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

''“U-um, there is actually…”

The response Hanano had given had been a dangerous one: a liquid explosive.

But Frenda had decided that was something you might need to get along in the dark side.

Had that been a mistake?

At the time, Hanano had looked so relieved.

And yet…

''“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

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

Frenda stared silently at the embers and smoke for a while.

She stared at that overwhelming reality.

She had failed to do anything.

She had plenty more friends, but what did that matter? She had a lengthy list of addresses in her phone, giving her connections to various industries from the light and the dark, but could any of that fill the emptiness she felt now?

The death of just a single person brought so much sorrow.

Needless to say, nothing else could replace her. It wasn’t a simple matter of arithmetic.

Hanano Choubi wasn’t meant to die.

That might sound odd for Item, who killed other members of the dark side all the time, but Frenda refused to accept that argument.

''Keep fighting,'' she thought.

''It doesn’t matter how pathetic or unsightly it is.

''The villains of Item aren’t meant to have a noble death, you idiot.

Finally, the blonde girl said something no one else there would understand.

“In the end, how was this your last resort? There had to be other options to try, like injuring yourself badly enough the enemy would panic and feel the need to take you to a normal hospital.”

That timid girl must have been pushed to her absolute limits.

She hadn’t wanted to die without accomplishing anything, so she had at least wanted to take them down with her.

Frenda thought that was a foolish decision.

But she couldn’t let Hanano’s courage go to waste. That friend had paid with her life for this hint. That smoke and fire couldn’t be hidden by any dark side tricks.

That was their new starting point. If they used that, they could resume the hunt no matter where the enemy tried to run.

(Damn that girl.)

Frenda’s mind was boiling.

She repeated much the same words, but directed at someone else.

(Damn those girls!!)

She didn’t care about the money.

There was no hostage anymore.

The girls’ objective had changed yet again.

In other words…

Frenda Seivelun bit her lip for a moment. And then…

“You’re dead, counterfeit Iteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!”

Villains were selfish.

They didn’t reflect on their actions, they spoke of payback and debts when they usually rejected the obligations of the righteous world, and they thoroughly criticized and punished other people for their actions. When something went wrong, they found someone else to blame before considering their own mistakes.

But none of that mattered at the moment.

Who cares about Academy City’s #6? What did the Dark Side’s Bane matter?

They would throw out their own goodness if letting their morals restrict their actions would allow their target to escape. If they couldn’t reach the enemy as things were, they would throw it all out. The wolf would break free of all its bonds, race through the night, and tear out the fat pig’s throat with its fangs.

They would choose to become wild animals.

The enraged girl’s howl rang through the night.

The foolish sacrifice had lost their final shield. They no longer had any bargaining chip capable of stopping Item.

The hunt had begun.

===Between the Lines 3===

It happened all of sudden while she was changing clothes.

“Pant, pant.”

It interrupted the selfie photoshoot she called medication.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the curvy girl with a braid in her fluffy blonde hair, held a hand to her head and leaned against the wall like she had bumped into it from the side. That was enough for the wall to collapse like wet cardboard, so she had to quickly catch herself.

The power was out.

A ceiling board had fallen and several wires dangle down with intermittent sparks spilling out. That gave her some light to go on in the darkness.

“Inoue-chan, Waniguchi-chan?”

She had hit her head, so it ached now. The voice that spilled from her mouth was so horribly hoarse she barely recognized it.

What had happened?

An explosion?

She wobbled on her feet as she searched her pocket, but she couldn’t find her phone. She was disinclined to get down and crawl through the dark searching for it. First, she needed to find out what happened.

It didn’t appear to have been a gas explosion from the bathroom or kitchen.

She called her teammates’ names while searching for them.

Her first guess was the room holding the hostage.

She smelled something like fireworks before she even got close. That plus a smoky smell. It looked like the door had been blasted outwards from within. But instead of the bent door lying on the floor, its splinters were stabbing into the opposite wall.

“Please answer me. Inoue-…”

She trailed off.

She could barely see the floor in the dark, so she ended up kicking something. It was about the size of a soccer ball, but heavier.

It was a human head.

Inoue Laspezia’s.

It was burnt beyond recognition and Ibotanokikouji held a hand over her mouth upon seeing it. When she looked away, she saw something hanging on the wall. It reminded her of a coat on a hangar, but that was no coat. It was skewered by a rainstorm of sharp metal scraps and partially embedded in the wall. It took her a second to recognize the motionless object as…a burnt human body.

“Wanagu-”

The name was cut off by the need to swallow the vomit threatening to climb her throat.

The hostage had done something to trigger an explosion.

Emotions could come later. She had to think about what needed to be done now. This explosion would have been visible from the outside. Anti-Skill, the press, and even online news reporters who were little more than gawkers would be rushing here before long. And Mugino’s team would follow this very obvious signal.

Ibotanokikouji’s Item had now lost three members.

She was the only one left.

In that sense, this last-ditch suicide attack had been very successful.

Now wasn’t the time to argue about individual power.

She could never have run the Colosseum and its 80 billion in profits if she let her emotions take control at times like this. Her opponent here wasn’t just a Level 5, but that Level 5’s entire team. That meant they could cover for each other’s vulnerabilities and blind spots. She had to assume she gained nothing from a direct confrontation.

Ibotanokikouji reigned supreme only as a criminal.

As seen in how she ran the Colosseum and how she abducted Hanano, her general policy was to hide herself in the crowds so she could remain invisible.

So in this case…

“I need to run away.”

She made the decision instantly.

This had nothing to do with how strong or weak her power was. Waiting here for an entire group of enemies was out of the question.

She needed to slip away for now.

She could consider how to kill them later.

“I need to escape to safety and gather my strength. And gather people as well.”

''Once she made a decision, she was quick to take action.

She grabbed a bent oil lighter originally meant to light aroma candles. At the very least, she needed to gather up and burn or otherwise dispose of the documents, the evidence, the phone she had lost and given up on finding, and anything else incriminating. She left the corpses and burnt wreckage alone while grabbing her Tokiwadai summer uniform and the suitcase containing 80 billion yen. Then she left the destroyed hideout.

It was a room in a District 15 luxury apartment.

Specifically, ''it was the room on the floor directly below Mugino’s hideout.

(We already had a room soundproofed to use as a cell, so keeping a hostage here was no problem. And we could spy on their conversations using a device that reads the minute vibrations in the pillar running between the two floors.)

“Since the blast broke though the ceiling, did this destroy their hideout too?”

She went straight to the elevator, saw it was already rising from the ground floor, and changed direction. She stepped out onto the emergency stairs, descended just one floor, and pressed the elevator button from there.

The rising elevator would not react to the down button, so she could slip past Anti-Skill, the firefighters, or whoever else was coming up from below.

She boarded the elevator that did arrive and rode it down to the ground floor.

That brought her to the bottom of Fifteen Bells, but the outside was awash with flashing red lights. She had no intention of being seen by the cameras of the press and onlookers gathered just outside the “keep out” tape. She instead left through the back staff entrance.

“You’re dead, counterfeit Iteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!”

She heard a shout from the crowd, but she kept her face impassive.

She poured all of her strength into her facial muscles.

They hadn’t noticed her yet, so the Tokiwadai girl slipped away from the explosion site with her suitcase in tow.

She didn’t risk using her power.

She could have ''manipulated the crowd on a subconscious level'' if she wanted, but she preferred to avoid giving herself away with any unnecessary actions.

Ordinary behavior was the ultimate camouflage.

This wasn’t over yet.

The rules hadn’t changed: the name Item went to whoever won in the very end.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter2|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter4}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3

2023-03-17T05:43:13Z

JDMP: Typo corrected from 'where' to 'were'. Corrected Context - "....where the little birds someone had fed were relaxing on the windowsill."

{{Incomplete|parts=4|tparts=10}}
==Chapter 3: A Certain Display of Courage, A Secret Reward==

===Part 1===

Dun, dun, dun, duuun!! Welcome to the Giant Croc Hell Dungeon, a life-size escape game!!!

Can you solve all the puzzles in the sunken underground mall of terror and escape back to the surface!?

“In – the – first – place!”

The mood was ruined in record time.

Frenda Seivelun was submerged up to her hips while wearing a fairly revealing swimsuit and another blonde girl was floating in a plastic inner tube small enough to be blown up by mouth. The 7-year-old who adored that inner tube was Frenda’s sister. But since almost all Academy City students lived in school dorms, it wasn’t unusual for family members to live apart.

It was July 14 at 2 PM.

The younger sister happily slapped her hands against the water below the cold fluorescent lighting. As her sister, Frenda was glad she had gotten over her summer cold.

The 7-year-old’s classes had ended after 4th period today, so she had gone here for the afternoon. But it was a mystery why her older sister, whose address and occupation were both unknown, could join her to play at this time of day.

“Academy City is such a strange place. How can they turn an entire underground labyrinth into a pool?”

“In the end, it’s a serious thing. Some kind of disaster response training.”

It was a summer urban flooding response program. They were running a largescale stress test in case a flash flood happened to fill an underground mall, but for most of the students, it might as well have been a temporary pool. And from elementary school to college, students could always get excited about playing in the water. Especially during the summer.

The event also provided a variety of business opportunities. The tablet in Frenda’s hand was one example. By viewing the area around them through its camera, it would augment the scene and even provide quiz-style codes and hints to search out and find.

Bikini Frenda waded through the hip-height water.

“Oh, this code is about cutting the right wire. Hey. In the end, what do you get when you mix yellow and blue?”

“Green!”

(Wait? In the end, is this using the primary colors of light or of color?)

It was a super simple question that even the 7-year-old could answer, but Frenda still suspected it was a trick question. Was that a sign of being a little ''too'' into the escape game?

One of AR’s best features was how different services could coexist at the same location. A service would use a location but not occupy it. The swimsuit couple that passed by while viewing a single screen appeared to be enjoying a mountain stream trivia quiz game. The four elementary-aged boys who each had a game system had formed an adventure party to explore the depths of an underwater cave.

Frenda rubbed her little sister’s head and operated the tablet with her other hand.

“Let’s see, we can’t get the thick rubber harpoon until we find a way to get past the electric lock on its box, so next we should solve the transformer puzzle and restore the power. No, in the end, that won’t work. It looks like we’d electrocute ourselves and get a game over if we electrified the flooded section while we’re in it. So do we have to put this entire area on hold? Is there some way to drain the water? Or is there a plastic diving suit that would protect us from the electric shock?”

“Frenda Onee-chan,” said the inner tube girl floating next to her.

At her age, she wanted to splash water on people and swim around when she was at a pool, so she wasn’t all that interested in solving some grand puzzle and cautiously advancing through a dungeon.

“In the first place, where did you buy that swimsuit?”

“What, has your mental carbonation run out already, princess? In the end, you were the one who said you wanted to do the limited-time croc escape.”

Frenda was mostly doing this for a practical test of her new summer eyeliner that claimed it didn’t run even when wet. But that had to remain a secret because the 7-year-old would have begged to wear the makeup too if Frenda mentioned it.

Anyway, about her swimsuit.

“Really, I just bought a random swimsuit at a District 15 shop. It’s called Shocking Beach and it’s the latest product from Mystery Beach. In the end, bikinis have replaced one pieces as the in thing this year. Specifically, the kind where you wear a normal bikini over a decorative thong.”

“Mhh.”

Frenda’s lazy answer didn’t receive quite the response she expected.

The younger sister was only 7, so she was wearing a cat one piece. It had been on sale for only a few thousand yen at an ordinary department store, but fashion wasn’t about the price tag. Frenda was confident in saying there was no better selection for that girl.

But the puffed-out cheeks suggested the princess was displeased.

The world’s cutest little sister frowned and explained.

“In the first place, I don’t like that your swimsuit has a brand and a name. It reminds me of those sneakers the boys show off because they’re supposed to make you run faster.”

“Eh? In the end, this is nothing like that. This isn’t a high-speed racing swimsuit, so it’s not going to change how fast I swim. In fact, with all the gaps in this, I couldn’t swim very well in it at all. The water’s current and viscosity would probably pull it right off of me. Being a grownup is such a pain. I envy you.”

“Hmph!! Now you’re looking down me. I want to wear a swimsuit like yours! In the first place, I want to grow up as soon as possible!!”

“Oh, shut up. In the end, you need to understand that I can’t wear a cat swimsuit like that anymore. It’s so childish I’d die.”

“Childish!? Die!! And I thought it was a little bit grownup because it isn’t a school swimsuit… In the first place, why do you get to be the grownup one!?”

“Because that’s how it works. In the end, you have the upper hand because you can wear that cat swimsuit and I can’t.”

“Hm?”

“And since you can wear either one, you should focus on the one only you’re allowed to wear. Kyah! Sister, you’re so dazzlingly beautiful and cute I can’t look right at you!”

“Ehh? You’ll make me blush if you keep singing my praises like that.”

The inner tube girl held her hands to her cheeks and wiggled. The way she smiled and did that reminded Frenda of a toy that did a wiggling dance in response to sound. Takitsubo had a habit of visiting a general store in rundown District 19 and her tastes were predictably unusual.

Complimenting while taking something away was one of Frenda’s standard big sister tactics for controlling little kids. If you complimented them and compromised, they would get a big head and, if you scolded them and confiscated something, they were guaranteed to rebel, so it could be tricky to get right. Those other tactics wouldn’t make her the perfect big sister who could get the girl to eat the green peas she so disliked.

“Hm. In the first place, I’m feeling kind of chilly.”

“In the end, what do you want to do? Head on up to the surface? It should be plenty hot there at 2 in the afternoon in the middle of the summer.”

They were playing an escape game where they moved around on their own, but you could also save your location to pause the game and leave. That way a larger demographic could enjoy the game with ease. The summer urban flooding response program lasted more than the one day.

“But you’re right. In the end, I could go for a drink and some sugar. If we get some hot sweets, would you prefer pancakes or some chocolate fondue?”

“Hmph! I don’t like it when you use grownup words like fondue.”

Frenda was pretty sure that was just French.

Then again, that cute but silly little sister would probably make a fuss about French things as a whole being too grownup.

“In the first place, I don’t like people who say sweets when they mean dessert.”

“Oh, that complaint I didn’t see coming.”

“Onee-chan…am I childish for wanting a hanetsuki taiyaki?”

“In the end, that makes you a classy grownup.”

That this was enough to cheer her up showed just how much of a child she was.

The thick waterproof shutters had been shut before flooding the underground mall, so all the shops there were closed. The vending machines had their power shut off to prevent any short circuiting, so they had to head all the way up to the surface to buy a drink. That may have been the one major flaw.

“Sigh. I can’t wait for summer break, but in the first place, I don’t want to do the homework or go exercise in the park. The one you do with the radio.”

“Fair warning: I won’t be helping you there, my sister. Don’t come crying to me when August 31 rolls around.”

“Mgyahhhhh!?”

After Frenda stuck a pin the map and finished saving their progress, she attached the tablet to the hook on the side of her bikini bottom and grabbed the decorative cord on the outer edge of her sister’s small inner tube. Dragging her back toward the stairs to the surface was enough for the little sister to shriek with delight.

(Hanano Choubi.)

Frenda thought to herself while towing her swimsuit sister in her inner tube.

The chill of the water dropped another level.

(In the end, I don’t even know if she’s still alive, but who knows what she’ll tell the enemy after they beat her up. Given the very real risk of a surprise attack, abandoning our hideout and escaping is worth considering.)

Worth considering

Did that mean there were other options to consider it against?

After the sisters left the water and climbed the stairs while holding hands, the little sister looked up and spoke to Frenda.

“Onee-chan, is something troubling you?”

“Hm? In the end, what makes you think that?”

“We got a rare chance to play in the water, but you don’t seem to be having much fun.”

Frenda thought about that for a bit.

That her wounds had healed was obvious enough in that swimsuit, but Hanano wasn’t so lucky. She was still suffering. Or in the worst case, she was already gone.

Also…

“In the end, here’s a question for you. Going to the pool is fun. I won’t deny that. But what if that means abandoning a friend to her problems?”

“Then you need to solve those problems so you can all go to the pool together!! Because you can’t enjoy the pool to its fullest otherwise!!”

“I see,” said Frenda before falling silent again.

She thought while holding the hand of her sister, who refused to remove the inner tube around her hips even after leaving the water.

“I went as far as buying the latest swimsuit, but I’m still too preoccupied to have fun. In the end, that must mean I already consider that newbie a friend.”

Frenda Seivelun could make friends with anyone, but she knew it was difficult for any one person people to stand out above the rest. In that sense, her emotions were thin and dry.

That meant something else about this was bothering her.

She considered that while approaching the bright exit with her sister.

(For one, her puppyish behavior doesn’t really fit in the dark side. In the end, does she feel more like a little sister than a colleague?)

===Part 2===

Fifteen Bells, District 15. Lower levels.

“Super good morning.”

“You seem sleepy. It’s already 3 in the afternoon. That’s snack time, Kinuhata.”

Takitsubo Rikou replied while adjusting the shoulder of her pink track jacket which must have slipped out of place as she moved.

“Oh, it’s only 3? I super shouldn’t have left that theater yet. Yawwwn. Ugh, the movies where they were intentionally trying to make a silly C movie are the worst. Real C movies are great because they were trying to make something good but things went wrong.”

If Kinuhata Saiai wasn’t even aware where the sun was in the sky, it was probably best not to ask her how long she had been in that windowless movie theater. Takitsubo had heard the girl liked movies, but this made it sound like she had been in the theater more than her bedroom at the apartment.

But Takitsubo’s thoughts were interrupted by…

“That apartment feels so gloomy right now. I’m staying close enough to super come running once I’m summoned by phone, but it’s honestly super easier to be out of the apartment. I’m not even sure what has Mugino-san so angry.”

“You were staying away on purpose.”

“I’m super ashamed to admit it. They super have showers at the spas and internet cafes and I can get my sleep when a movie turns out to be bad.”

Expressionless Takitsubo blinked twice.

No matter what happened, she always kept to her usual routine from when she woke up in the morning to when she went to bed at night, so the idea of making herself scarce for the time being hadn’t even occurred to her.

“With Hanano gone, aren’t you guaranteed your spot on Item?”

“I super don’t want to win that way. And I wouldn’t mind if I ended up in the support organization. It’s not like being a super elite of the delinquent world gets you anything special. So as long as I’m super guaranteed an ID and the basic necessities, I’m happy.” Kinuhata breathed a disinterested sigh. “But not if the person who holds the team together is super on edge all the time. If this place isn’t safe, I’d prefer to super leave and find the bare minimum elsewhere.”

Kinuhata didn’t need her home to be in Item. That was why she had started an illicit part-time job before all this had happened.

“She can’t help it,” replied Takitsubo, leaning against a fancy pillar in the mall of luxury shops. “Hanano is gone.”

That put a puzzled look on Kinuhata’s face.

She frowned and chose her words carefully.

“I thought Mugino-san super doesn’t value human life? Why would the loss of a single teammate super affect her like this?”

Financially, they had suffered a loss.

The suitcase filled with 80 billion yen worth of money cards had gotten away from them and they hadn’t received payment for the job from the voice on the phone either. And on top of it all, they had lost one of their team.

“I mean, I get that maybe it hurt her pride to be beaten by a group super calling themselves Item.”

“It’s not about that. Mugino is a kind person who cares deeply about her teammates.”

This time, Kinuhata’s thoughts ground to a complete halt.

Her mind refused to function, so her mouth flapped wordlessly. It took several seconds before she finally got some words out.

“Um, super what? Are we talking about the same tyrant queen here? Was there a movie version that was different???”

“I mean the real Mugino,” insisted Takitsubo. “Kinuhata, why do you think I joined the dark side?”

“Well…hm? That is strange now that I think about it. You can super keep to a normal schedule without anyone getting after you about it, can’t you? That’s super rare on the dark side. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who had to make a run for it after super killing a teacher that pissed her off.”

“I was arrested on false charges.”

She opened up so readily.

Everyone in the dark side had a reason for being there.

“My AIM Stalker is an unusual power, so some lab apparently wanted to gain custody over me. It was probably a project related to this dangerous Body Crystal drug and they wanted to keep it all a secret. I think the plan was to frame me for a crime to get me thrown in prison and then make me disappear once interest in me faded.”

“…”

A legal abduction to facilitate an experiment.

That was a strange phenomenon that could happen when the right person viewed a list of names and pointed at the one they wanted.

Kinuhata herself had been imprisoned and experimented on against her will in the Dark May Project.

Academy City really was shit.

“But Mugino saved me. The case against me was dismissed, but the reason why was never revealed. So I don’t actually know what firepower-obsessed Mugino did.”

Takitsubo smiled thinly as she explained this.

It was the smile of a girl revealing a small admiration.

“She said she wanted an esper who could support her since Meltdowner is too powerful and I don’t think she was lying about that. But if that was really ''all'' she wanted, she only needed to put me in a tiny cage in the corner of the room and give me food and water. Or if looking after a human was too burdensome and risky, there are specialized ‘pet sitters’ you can pay to do it for you. This is a city where ''people really will do things like that'' if they feel it’s necessary. But Mugino let me choose what clothes I wanted to wear, fed me whatever food I wanted to eat, gave me a room to sleep in, and – most importantly – gave me freedom and safety. I don’t care what anyone says – even Mugino herself – I think that came from a kindness in her that sets aside things like logic or efficiency.”

“So you think she’s super on edge because Hanano-san disappeared? That super doesn’t sound like the Mugino-san I’ve seen.”

“Aren’t you much the same? You don’t feel awkward in the apartment because of Mugino. When you’re there, you feel Hanano’s absence more starkly. Isn’t that what you wanted to avoid? Otherwise, you would never badmouth movies. Or fall asleep during them. I bet that was because you couldn’t focus on what you were watching.”

“…”

Strangely, Takitsubo’s words hit her right where it hurt.

What signals had she picked up coming from Kinuhata? She may have known more about Kinuhata than Kinuhata herself.

It was true. If Kinuhata had dealt with the two enemies in the library, then they couldn’t have gone after Hanano.

“Hanano is a part of Item now,” said Takitsubo. “And so are you for being so bothered by her absence. People who can care about others think everyone feels that way, but the dark side is where the people without those ordinary feelings end up. So the way you and Mugino are feeling shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

“Is that super so?” said Kinuhata as she changed direction.

She approached the elevator hall.

“Hanano-san was captured to super help you escape the Colosseum, right?”

“Yes.” Takitsubo nodded. “That gives me a reason to save her.”

“If I had been the one who didn’t fall from the library ceiling, ''I would super be in Hanano-san’s position now.'' I would have played my bodyguard role like normal and got super captured in the same way.”

Kinuhata clicked her tongue.

At times, the dark side had a way of highlighting the irony of fate.

“Damn, that super gives me a reason to fight too.”

“We all have one. No, we don’t even need one. When you get down to it, the question is whether or not you want to risk your own life to save her. I do. I can’t leave Hanano there.”

They boarded the elevator.

A palm scan and the press of a button brought them straight to their top floor hideout.

Kinuhata felt the ascent of the elevator as she watched the LCD floor number display and asked the other girl a question.

“I’ll super give you what you want here, Takitsubo-san. L-let’s just say I’m willing to let you talk me into it just this once. But super what if Mugino-san is against a rescue attempt?”

“Item generally acts on Mugino’s decisions, so I don’t think there is a way of dissenting outside of explaining how I feel.”

Takitsubo stopped there for a moment.

Until…

“But I don’t think that will be an issue.”

The elevator doors opened.

They opened the apartment entrance beyond and walked in.

“I see.”

Kinuhata put a hand on her hip and spoke with exasperation in her voice.

And a hint of amusement.

“''She’s super serious about this, huh?''”

The living room wall was entirely covered.

Documents and notes concerning the Enemy Item were pasted all across it.

The library that had been used as a Colosseum stage.

The people capable of secretly renting out the public facility, any suspicious payments they received, or any blackmail material.

Possible people who could have acquired and supplied that material.

Their personal information.

Especially anything that could be used to threaten them.

Which targets had a checkered past?

Etc., etc., etc.

The living room was large enough for an indoor game of tennis, but the entire wall was covered like a walking path covered by autumn leaves. It included the special camera equipment, the DJ who was clearly no amateur, the dark web setup, and the audience gathered at the library. Including the important and unimportant, there had to be at least a few thousand notes there in all.

But that must not have felt like enough because the lonely work was still underway.

All as a means of tracking down the enemy.

“…”

Mugino Shizuri did not even look their way. She showed no interest in the freedom and liberation of the midsummer shopping district outside and she continued her work while staring at the wall with the irritation written plain on her face. Mugino was known for being self-centered – for caring more about her nail polish than the foolish enemy’s cries for mercy – but now she had deep ''bags'' under her eyes. That was a sign of just how serious she was taking this. How long had it been since she slept? Kinuhata couldn’t say since she had been avoiding the apartment, but Mugino may have been doing this ever since their failure on July 7. That would mean a full week with no real sleep or rest.

Colored yarn extended in all directions from the known information – the library – creating something like a spider web. People, groups, money, buildings, information, equipment, fighting forces – any online information the slightest bit related had been printed out, cut out, and pasted up on the wall. The colored yarn visualized the relationships of interest, friends, enemies, superiors, subordinates, and group affiliations. It was all meant to build a giant web capable of snaring the unseen targets. The suitcase and the 80 billion were technically up there, but they were mostly buried by other notes.

That must not have been her priority any longer.

A few photographs of familiar faces were pasted at the edge of the spiderweb.

Mugino may have found the photos online, but they were the four members of the Enemy Item. The photos were fairly grainy, so she had probably found photos of other people where those four happened to appear in a corner or something.

They were pasted up there like it was nothing, but it was a miracle the spiderweb had managed to capture them at all. Tracking down those elusive girls had to have taken an unhealthy amount of effort and persistence. Mugino was known for vaporizing anything that pissed her off, but she had managed to restrain the part of her that always responded with thoughtless rage.

And.

There was also a photograph of missing Hanano Choubi’s face.

It came from the group selfie Frenda had taken as camouflage while tailing the Colosseum contestant.

Since that was pasted on the wall too, Mugino couldn’t be taking it lightly. In fact, she may have been the real center of the spiderweb, not the library.

Mugino would not let that girl become an unreachable memory.

She was the one who had ordered the girl to take Takitsubo and escape.

It would be one thing if Hanano had screwed up or run off without doing her job, but this was the result of carrying out Mugino’s order.

Mugino had to have her thoughts about Hanano for remaining faithful to the end despite being on the dark side.

She had kept her promise.

So it was only natural to risk your own life to repay the favor.

Takitsubo elbowed Kinuhata in the side and winked.

“See? I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You super win this one.”

Then they heard the front door open without the doorbell ringing.

Someone entered the apartment.

“Sorry. In the end, I know I’m way late. It took forever to buy up all the mackerel cans at the store.”

“You’re last, Frenda? Then you’re buying everyone dinner.”

It had been so long since Mugino spoke.

She may have forgotten how to do so over the past few days, so it came out as a low growl as she glared at the wall. Frenda complained through a cheerful smile.

“Eh? You aren’t even going to ask why I’m late? I had my own preparations to complete.”

That was true.

Frenda Seivelun was carrying so many bags you would think she had run away from home. First, she had a large suitcase in each hand. Then she wore a long mountain climber’s backpack on her back. But that must not have been enough because she had a sling bag worn diagonally across her front. It was July, shortly before summer break, so it was a miracle she hadn’t been taken in for questioning by Anti-Skill or Judgment while wandering around Academy City’s largest shopping district with all that luggage.

And she would have been in serious trouble if she had been taken in for questioning.

She lay down one of the suitcases and inserted a small key. It opened up like a pop-up book, revealing explosives in a variety of shapes and colors. Kinuhata didn’t know what they were all called and she doubted she would understand if Frenda explained what they all were. Since she had gone out of her way to bring them in from outside the hideout, they probably weren’t something that could be safely stored here.

She had gone around collecting them all for this.

Frenda winked.

“In the end, we need to pull out all the stops, right? If I’m going to save a friend, I’m going to give it my all.”

They wanted money, but what for?

As long as they didn’t lose sight of that, those girls would not lose their way.

What was a mere 80 billion worth?

If they couldn’t smile together with everyone they had accepted as a teammate, it wasn’t worth a damn thing.

===Part 3===

Tokiwadai Middle School was a conspicuous location even for the School Garden, a special area in District 7.

A curvy girl with a decorative braid in her fluffy blonde hair held her hands together in a polite greeting.

“How do you do?”

“Hello, ''Ibotanokikouji''-senpai. Aren’t you running late? I thought your last class today was swimming.”

They exchanged greetings like it was nothing, but the short-haired girl in front of her was in fact one of the seven Level 5s. People like that walking the halls on a daily basis was one reason Tokiwadai was a den of monsters.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, leader of a brutal dark side team, suppressed a soft sigh.

(Really, the weird thing is for elites like the Level 5s to be lurking in filthy back alleys during the day. As far as Academy City’s hierarchy is concerned, anyway.)

“I will be fine. Changing quickly is one of my talents, so don’t worry.”

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace in Tokiwadai, so I’m not sure I trust your idea of ‘quickly’. You should still probably hurry.”

Ibotanokikouji agreed with that assessment.

Tokiwadai Middle School was like a breathable aquarium.

The teachers and students all moved so maddeningly slowly as they walked down the hall or ate their lunch.

And she had to move just as slowly or everyone would see her as an aberration from the norm.

Like they did the Level 5 girl in front of her who chose to live true to herself.

“I assure you I will be fine. By the way, Misaka-sama, have you ever met the #6 Level 5?”

“I haven’t.” The girl shrugged. “It’s not like the Level 5s have some special community where we all get along. My arguments with the little one are famous, aren’t they? Or not, I don’t really know.”

The other Level 5, Mental Out, could reproduce just about any psychological power, so for better or for worse, this girl was the only one in Tokiwadai who could call her “the little one”. Which did make it seem like those two had some kind of special bond.

She casually shrugged again.

“There are only seven of us, but that doesn’t mean much. We haven’t all become friends and exchanged email addresses or anything. I don’t even know all their names and powers.”

“''What if I told you I was the #6''?”

“''Oh, really''?”

After that exchange, they parted with a smile.

Ibotanokikouji turned a corner in the hallway, and…

“Phew.”

Even the bright midsummer sun felt somehow cool inside Tokiwadai. It was a carefree world free of crime where the little birds someone had fed were relaxing on the windowsill.

Ibotanokikouji knew it was careless to attend a swimming class when an enemy dark side team wanted her dead.

Tokiwadai was a safe zone in every possible way. It was physically isolated, no information could leak out, and it was involved in Academy City politics.

But it took away everything except for safety, so staying there too long was stifling.

She felt staying here was like locking yourself up in prison for safety.

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace” was a good way of putting it.

Since she was attending Tokiwadai, Ibotanokikouji obviously was not short on money. She was soaking neck deep in the dark side anyway because she feared she would become cut off from the world at large like Urashima Tarou if she did not leave on occasion. Or to put it another way, she always wanted to be at the leading edge of the world. No matter how rotten the truth was, it helped her adjust the hands of her old watch that fell out of sync so easily.

(The dark side has a bad habit of drawing a solid line between themselves and the rest of the city.)

She raised both arms to stretch her back.

The girls in the hallway were moving carefully but somehow hurriedly just before the break ended, but all of a sudden they parted to the sides of the hallway.

''Her power was best suited for killing, but with a bit of creativity, it could also do things like this.

She walked right down the center of the hallway.

(The two worlds are geographically connected and function like two sides of the same coin. This sunlit field is within reach. I haven’t been reborn in another world or anything.)

Mugino’s team would have seen the Tokiwadai uniform in the library and they had to be working feverishly to track her down and rescue the hostage, but they must have assumed their enemy would not be attending school at the predetermined time each day.

She had sacrificed her freedom and bound herself here, so she needed it to cut off all pursuit, both physically and psychologically.

She glanced through a classroom door to check the clock on the wall, but she did not make her way to the locker room. She preferred a deserted location, so she set her sights on the landing of the stairs leading up to the roof. That some cleaning supplies had been left out but no one had reported it meant people barely ever came this way.

Ibotanokikouji nodded.

A sharp sound of splitting air scattered from her feet. Since barely anyone went up to the roof, a “closed for cleaning” sign had been left lying on the landing instead of being put away properly, but it hopped up like she had kicked it. She easily caught it in one hand when it arrived at eye level.

She set it up on the stairs below, transforming the landing up to the roof into her own private territory.

(Of course, ''if I have to, I can always have them subconsciously avoid the stairs.'')

“Now, then.”

She didn’t have much time, so she removed her uniform while operating her phone.

This was why she couldn’t use the locker room in the busy time before swimming class.

She attached an eraser-sized signal spoofing device to the phone’s bottom connector and manually input a number not recorded in the address book. She had to be clever since Tokiwadai had that electrical esper, that psychological esper, and so many more.

“Yes, I can talk now. But I need time to store my uniform, underwear, and valuables in the locker room, lock the locker, and reach the pool on time, so you have 5 minutes for your report.”

“Do they really allow private phones at that fancy school?”

“It won’t be a problem as long as none of you call me in the middle of class.”

She had called the art club girl named Inoue Laspezia.

Her plain, whispered voice was even harder to make out coming from the device.

“And a lot of the girls here don’t have one. Have you heard of love letters? They still write them on paper here. With a spritz of perfume on the stationery, of course.”

“At a girl’s school?”

“The rules in the student handbook never say a word about banning relationships with other students. Although it’s possible the teachers just didn’t think that one through.”

“Whatever. I don’t have anything to do but wait, so I was trying to figure out what to cook today.”

“Do forgive me. The school provides our lunches, so I won’t be able to eat your bento.”

“Don’t worry about it. I found some good eel, so I’m planning to make some jellied eel broth.”

“Eh? But today isn’t even your day to cook.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Jellied eel broth… Just a second. You aren’t planning to serve just that one dish for dinner, are you? Whenever you try to make a Kyoto dish, you always boil it down well past being a stew. Remember when you suddenly said you wanted to make Kyoto-style ramen the other day and ended up toiling over that huge pot for 8 hours? You always insist Waniguchi-chan doesn’t go to the convenience store to tide herself over, so she was so hungry she started rolling on the floor and begging you to let us eat even if it wasn’t perfect.”

“I will always wait as long as it takes. I will wait and wait even if it boils down beyond recognition.”

Ibotanokikouji stared into the distance, thinking she had better get home early today.

But anyway. She unzipped her skirt, leaving her in only her underwear and mentally listed out the things she wanted to check with her dark side teammate.

(We can wear whatever underwear we want, but here I am with matching white for the top and bottom. I’m so like the other girls here it makes me want to die.)

“How are things with the rest of you?” she asked.

“No real issues yet, but Waniguchi is on the verge of losing control, just as you feared. She says she wants to get back at them for what they did to our teammate, but that’s only an excuse. She really just can’t bear having to restrain herself from destroying someone who is at her mercy. …Then again, there are a number of legitimate reasons, like revenge and getting that girl to tell us where all the enemy’s hideouts are.”

Ibotanokikouji went on to remove her underwear on a stairway landing with no walls separating it from the rest of the school.

She held her phone between shoulder and cheek, grabbed the racing-style Tokiwadai swimsuit, and spread it out between her hands.

“You haven’t ''started'' without me, have you?”

“Not really. I don’t need you getting after me again, Kaede.”

“That’s a good girl. I will reward you later. I know this is an unusual situation, but we don’t gain anything by letting that get to us. Bear with it. We can all ‘welcome’ our cute newcomer together.”

“…”

Did that silence come from jealousy? But it was cute how Inoue still obeyed.

Ibotanokikouji continued the conversation with her phone held between shoulder and cheek and one leg lifted to put on the swimsuit. The angle of her head messed with her vision, so she had trouble staying balanced.

Hanano Choubi, was it?

“I still think we should have killed her then and there,” said Inoue.

“What’s this? Jealous? I chose to take her in because she’s cute.”

“That’s a bad habit of yours. And ultimately, you either don’t get along or they can’t keep the dark side’s secrets, so we have to kill them and clean up afterwards.”

Inoue sounded legitimately exasperated.

“You really need to understand that we are the only ones who can get along with someone as tricky as you. Because with both people and things, you prefer the ones ''with the presence of death about them'', don’t you?”

“Hee hee. If you’re going to react this cutely, I’m going to do it even more.”

There were two teams and the winner could officially call themselves Item.

That much was true, but there was no real reason to take the risk of searching out the enemy team’s personal information or hideouts. If all they wanted to do was lay the pressure on Mugino Shizuri’s team, they only needed to throw some of their Colosseum money at the adult world. It wouldn’t be immediate, but the damage would slowly but surely accumulate. The frozen bank account was one example. By the time the bubbles were visible on the surface, the bottom of the pot was already boiling away.

So they needed to preserve this situation.

It was crucial they kept themselves in a position where they could make unilateral attacks. If they got greedy and made a mistake, they might lose everything.

“I miss you,” said Inoue.

“Yes, yes. Just wait a while longer. I plan to head straight home today.”

“Thank you. I will have a sea bream hotpot ready for you. First, I slice it thinner than sashimi, then quickly heat it with some turnip…”

“Kyoto seasoning scares me.”

Generally, when a curvier girl attempted to put on a one piece swimsuit, pulling up the shoulder straps alone wasn’t enough to get the chest up. Ibotanokikouji pushed her large chest inside the swimsuit to fix that and finally took the phone from between her shoulder and cheek.

“The system will be back to normal either today or tomorrow. We will wait until then before working together to win over Hanano-chan. If she joins us, we have a new teammate.”

“And if she doesn’t, we kill her and dispose of her body?”

“Oh, you. You aren’t hoping for that outcome, are you?”

No response.

Ibotanokikouji seriously hoped she wouldn’t try the “she was resisting so I had no choice but to kill her” trick.

“I will do whatever you want of me, Kaede. Even if I am bored out of my mind.”

“If you’re bored, why not finally handwash your 2D body pillow covers and hang them up to dry?”

“Bff!?”

Inoue must not have been able to ignore that one because she gave a highly unusual response over the phone.

“And how can you be bored out there where your options are endless?”

Ibotanokikouji tugged on the shoulder strap with her thumb and let it snap back into place.

And she winked.

“You have it so much better than me, suffocating in this luxurious fish tank.”

===Part 4===

Mugino started with their primary assumption.

The living room wall behind her was covered by the “spiderweb” that only she could make sense of.

The enemy wasn’t here, but the battle had already begun.

“Hanano Choubi is almost certainly still alive.”

“What are you basing that on? I would super like to believe it, but I feel like optimism and wishful thinking are clouding your judgment.”

“Let me rephrase that: most likely, they want to kill her, but can’t.”

“?”

“It’s a simple issue of job allocation.”

Mugino made it sound obvious, but then she noticed the confusion on the other three’s faces.

She changed tack.

“Frenda, you arrived at the apartment with a big pile of explosives earlier, didn’t you?”

“What about it? I don’t want to hear a single word about it only being chemical fertilizer. I pulled out all the stops and even dug out the potassium perchlorate and pentaerythrite this time. Napalm, white phosphorous, thermobaric – I’ve got it all. In the end, I’m a one-girl chemical fireworks show of blood and death!!”

“''Why did you bring it yourself instead of asking the support organization?''”

Time froze for Frenda Seivelun.

She knew the answer now.

Mugino sighed.

“I’m sure you had other reasons, like not trusting them with those delicate explosives and not wanting to tell them about your hiding spots. But aside from that, you couldn’t even contact them, could you?”

Takitsubo glanced at the colorful spiderweb on the wall behind Mugino.

Mugino nodded before continuing.

“I would much prefer to leave all this research to them. Numbers are the fastest way of gathering intelligence. But that wasn’t an option, so I’m doing it myself.”

It wasn’t that they had run out of money or been abandoned. Mugino’s terrifying reputation was too powerful for that. Anyone who took the rules too lightly was guaranteed to die. Everyone who dealt with her understood that down to the marrow.

So…

“You super said it was about job allocation, didn’t you? In other words, something big is super going on, so none of the teams can gather the personnel needed to support them?”

“Kouzaku Mitori.”

Mugino pointed back over her shoulder to a photo on the wall.

It was the black-haired girl with the Liquid Shadow power who had guarded the insurance company general manager.

“She said she was preparing to attack the Windowless Building and it turns out she wasn’t bluffing. And I honestly respect that,” noted Mugino.

But that was a side issue.

“So all the villains have had their support organizations gathered up for investigation and defense related to that. No one on the dark side can easily dispose of a body right now.”

“Yeah. In the end, covering up the smell is really tricky once it starts to decompose.” Frenda shrugged in annoyance. “Those thugs on the support organizations wouldn’t have much to do otherwise. In Academy City, there’s legal precedent for the particles that cause the scent of human death being used as evidence of a crime, so no one wants to let the decomposition begin in their own hideout.”

The city did have decomposition experts who could cause even those particles to break down and excellent cleaners who could thoroughly remove the particles from the floor and wallpaper, but there weren’t many of them, which made them conspicuous.

That was bad for anyone who wanted to stay hidden.

And since the dark side’s standard(?) corpse disposal infrastructure had ceased to function, the few experts out there would be getting a rush of requests to deal with the ''already existing'' corpses. It was best to assume they were too overwhelmed to get in touch with.

“Which means I’m not very worried about Hanano Choubi being killed right now.”

If the problem was that serious, it might seem like they would want to call in a Level 5 like Mugino or a Level 4 like Kinuhata instead of the support organizations, but no one bothered to ask why that hadn’t happened.

Needless to say, if word got out that the situation was that bad, the standard(?) dark side member would use the emergency to demand excessive payment or even plot a coup of their own.

In other words, the people at the top were too concerned to open up the possibility of their pet dog biting them too.

“Mugino. Do you think she really can destroy the Windowless Building?”

“If anyone could destroy that thing, I’d have already done it,” replied Mugino like it was nothing.

She respected the attempt, but she never said it was realistic. Academy City was a shitty place that loved to shatter those kinds of hopes. All while pretending they were the good guys.

Since Kouzaku Mitori’s photo was on the wall and Mugino had an accurate idea of how likely her attack on the Windowless Building was, Mugino must have known their higher ups would be attacked but hadn’t bothered saying anything to them. She had also known Kouzaku’s plan was sure to end in failure, but she hadn’t bothered to warn her.

That was because the sooner this attack on the Board of Directors was solved, the sooner the dark side could return to normal, the sooner the corpse disposal infrastructure could recover, and the sooner Hanano’s life would be at risk.

Item was fighting the bad guys and risking their lives to save a friend.

But even with all that, they still weren’t heroes.

Nor did they want to be known as heroes.

This was evil cannibalizing itself.

“By my prediction, the anti-Kouzaku focus will end tonight at the latest. Then, with the incident over, the dark side will return to normal. So we need to attack that fake Enemy Item’s hideout and kill them all before then.”

It was just like Mugino to not mention saving Hanano there.

They had the enemy’s tail in their grasp, but they did not strike quite yet. If they screwed this up, the enemy would notice, go further into hiding with their hostage, and never return to the surface. So Mugino wanted to focus on gathering as much information as possible for as long as possible to increase the odds of success for their one and only chance.

Takitsubo smiled a little.

“What do we know about those four?”

“Only three really matter because I killed one back on the 7th.”

Mugino next pointed at the four photos she had tracked down and were pasted on the outer edge of the spiderweb.

When two groups clashed, it was important to know how many people and how much funding the enemy had. And in Academy City’s case, it also helped to know as much as you could about the esper powers and next-generation weapons they had available.

Mugino had of course spent a lot of time on this part.

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

“Age: 14. Sex: Female. The center of Enemy Item. A legit member of the upper class who attends Tokiwadai Middle School, but the veracity of her claim to being the #6 remains unknown. All that information is locked down too much to get at, but the rumors I’ve heard say Tokiwadai only has two Level 5s. Her power seemed to use wind or shockwaves, but it’s too soon to say for sure. She might have been holding back on her power while we were watching.

“She is a latent sadist who decided to experience the city’s night to distract herself from her oppressive upper class life. The obsession with earning a fortune without her parents’ help is probably a stereotypical rebellious phase. The way she shows no restraint with such a strong power suggests she is not a murder virgin.

“Like I said, details on her self-proclaimed #6 position are unknown.

“Still, the Dark Side’s Bane title may mean her job is to punish other villains.

“This goes without saying, but she’s the most dangerous one.

“Redirect her toward me if it all possible, but if you can’t, then don’t hesitate to run away. For now, we’ll assume she is the #6. You have my authorization to run away during this mission. You should assume contacting her on your own will cost you your life.”

“Hanayama Kamitsu.

“Age: 18. Sex: Female. She was a Level 0, but she called herself the courier and plowed through any pursuers using her Dragon Motor, a kick scooter modified to use a linear engine or jet engine. On the surface, she was a faithful courier, but she was definitely a peeping tom who loved to watch from a distance as the recipient was ruined by whatever she delivered to them. The quick-dried mummy accident in that one District 7 apartment was apparently her doing.

“I’m using the past tense because I killed her on the 7th. She won’t play a role here except for any friends or acquaintances who might hold a grudge, so you can forget the information about her personally.

“The Dragon Motor is mostly a mystery. Has it been mass-produced? If so, can anyone other than her operate it? Who knows. But we can’t deny the possibility, so we need to assume her ghost will return to haunt us in that way.”

“Inoue Laspezia.

“Age: 15. Sex: Female. Known as the modeler. On the art club and makes money counterfeiting various kinds of evidence. Like a hacker, she seems like a support specialist who uses tricks more than direct combat. In addition to creating counterfeit evidence, she also accepts jobs to destroy existing evidence. That’s a good way to earn people’s trust aside from killing.

“I can barely find a bad word about the girl either in the official Anti-Skill records or on the dark side. Almost no one has any complaints with her counterfeit evidence and the vast majority say they saved her. She might be the type who ended up here because she was a little too good at lying.”

“Waniguchi Nokoba.

“Age: 12. Sex: Female. That apparently isn’t her real name, but I couldn’t track down what her name really is. She’s small, but she’s an expert at MMA and has already killed a few people in unofficial matches at her age. Which earned her cheers from the audience, of course. In the Colosseum, she was apparently the executioner who punished anyone who broke the rules. Simply put, she’s just a combat-obsessed freak. It looked like she sought out the dark side herself because she found all the rules and regulations of the official matches too restrictive.

“She goes by a number of titles: the Executioner, the Steel Crusher, the Human Scrapper, the Death Game Queen – you get the picture.

“Since she doesn’t use any next-generation weapons, her ability to break her opponent’s spine and crush them into a giant meatball must come from her esper power.

“Leverage Struggle.

“It apparently lets her increase the force of leverage. It’s probably Level 3 or 4. She focuses on grappling since she’s a meathead, but she could make more creative use of it with some advice from the other members.”

Mugino let out a long breath after getting through all that.

Frenda shrugged.

Mugino had learned a lot, but they still only had the general outlines. Too much remained unknown: was Ibotanokikouji the #6 or not? Would Hanayama’s technology reappear after she had been retired to the graveyard? They didn’t even know Waniguchi’s real name.

And in cases like this, they couldn’t just suspect every little bit of information they had to be on the safe side. A detective who focused on all the details and prepared for the worst even without any definitive evidence would be crushed under the pressure of all the suspicion on the dark side where everything was a muddled mixture of truth and lies.

“In the end, should we find a vulnerable Judgment member and come up with something to threaten them with? Hiring a hacker and making an attack from outside would be even better. Why go to all this trouble when we could just get the data directly from the Bank?”

“In the past, Meltdowner was enough no matter who attacked us.”

Hadn’t Ibotanokikouji said their superiors had given Mugino’s team jobs they could win to give them a taste of victory? And once they had sunk beyond the point of no return, the higher ups could make use of them however they liked.

''She had a point,'' thought Mugino with a slight smile.

And…

“If this goes well, the biggest problem is Ibotanokikouji Kaede at the top. The next biggest would be Waniguchi Nokoba with her deadly martial arts. But we can’t ignore Inoue Laspezia and her ability to frame anyone for just about anything. She could end up being a dark horse. …After all, we don’t even know what her Level is. Is she a Level 0, or has she just not used her power since her job is to counterfeit evidence? They might be saving her as a last resort.”

“If they didn’t have a hostage, you could blow up their hideout from outside, Mugino.”

Takitsubo normally stared blankly into the distance, but now she gave a shocking idea. She may have been pissed too – it just didn’t show on the surface. Partially from the talk of framing people and counterfeiting evidence, but mostly about Hanano who had been captured in order to protect Takitsubo.

Kinuhata cracked her neck.

“Then let’s super think about how we’ll rescue the hostage. That’s our top priority and running away super isn’t going to help. Mugino-san, do you super know where Enemy Item’s base is?”

‘Technically speaking, they have five bases. But four are definitely abandoned, so we can ignore them. The cleaning maids have been in and out, but there was no response. Those bitches must have taken Hanano here – District 11’s abandoned railway tunnel.”

“What? In the end, are you saying those villains are a bunch of slugs who chose to live in filthy concrete ruins covered in graffiti!? When they have a suitcase filled with 80 billion yen!?”

“They did buy a retired luxury train, secretly stick it in the tunnel, and convert it into a hideout. I’m sure it was meant for technical research, but it wasn’t much use given the limited land in Academy City. Anyway, they’re living comfortably there. Any of the city’s train nerds would kill to be in their position. The Nightjar’s restaurant had three Bichelin stars, which means they have the nicest industrial kitchen you could ask for. It should also have a cocktail lounge and a pool car. The track was removed from the abandoned section, but the tunnel itself has power since laying out new power lines would have been too expensive.”

Mugino shrugged.

“But I imagine the real draw for them was the thick tunnel walls and the high-voltage train lines. They have a smart shelter where they don’t have to worry about being discovered from their phone signals, satellite images, or anything in between. Also, a nap room in a luxury beauty salon or a really nice private room in a university hospital aren’t great choices for hiding with a noisy hostage. They could apply violence to keep her silent, but the fear that produces is a double-edged sword. She might just get desperate. And remember that the corpse disposal infrastructure is down, so they can’t kill her even if they want to. As long as they have to hold onto her, they’ll stay to the tunnel.”

It meant a lot to know the location.

But a tunnel was a troublesome location. It had limited entrances and exits, so the enemy was bound to lay out tons of dangerous traps. And while they could blast a hole in the wall of an ordinary building with Meltdowner and make a surprise attack through there, it wasn’t so easy with a thick tunnel.

“You super can’t shoot through that?”

“I can, but the blast would be powerful enough to bring the entire tunnel down.”

Just like with a large arching dam, a tunnel not made with the shield method was not as sturdy as all the thick concrete made it look. Given the total amount of dirt bearing down on the ceiling, the columns were unbelievably skinny and unreliable, so it took some almost artistically creative load balancing to make it work. If that was thrown off, it could all collapse like a house of cards. And that wasn’t an option when you wanted to rescue a hostage, not kill everyone.

“If all the super traps are in the way, I could charge right on in with my Offense Armor. That would clear out all the stationary traps and give you a path.”

“That sounds great, but in the end, could the walls survive all those explosives going off?” Frenda breathed an exasperated sigh. “In the end, I want a map of the tunnel. If that line has been abandoned, the security level for that data should have dropped, right? Do you have that, Mugino?”

“Of course.”

Mugino unfurled two pieces of paper larger than picnic blankets. One was a map of the abandoned railway tunnel. The other was a diagram of the Nightjar train.

“But these are the official plans. This won’t include any of the modifications the Enemy Item made, so be careful.”

“In the end, it’s better than nothing.”

“Hee hee.”

Takitsubo held a hand over her mouth as she laughed.

Mugino gave her a funny look.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t expect you to tell us to ‘be careful’.”

If most people said something like that, they might end up reduced to charcoal.

But not so with Takitsubo.

She could rely on her own instincts to safely cross the minefield that was Mugino Shizuri.

“Tch.”

That was Mugino’s only real response.

She even looked away awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Frenda was busy analyzing. She crawled along the floor like a dog, sticking her butt up despite her short skirt, and even licking her lips.

“In the end, any modifications they made will be built on top of the original structure. No matter how much they change it, the foundation doesn’t lie.”

“You can super tell?”

“All those notes Mugino has on the wall give us enough to know the personalities and habits of each Enemy Item member. And they can’t pull traps out of thin air. Unlike guns and knives, the finished product isn’t packaged up and sold by the arms industry. Mugino, you’ve been tracking down their past actions, right? In the end, how much of your pride did you sacrifice for that?”

“I only went as far as collecting their receipts from the communal trash dump near their hideout.”

“You sure do you love your friends, huh? So in the end, I’ll look into what kinds of traps they could build with that list of materials.”

===Part 5===

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Part 9===

===Between the Lines 3===

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2

2023-03-15T12:14:12Z

JDMP: Removed 'been' from a sentence. context- "......would have been cost her her life."

==Chapter 2: >>Colosseum.==

===Part 1===

July 7, 9 AM

“Hooray for laziness…”

“Mugino.”

Mugino Shizuri was still lying in her large bed well after students and workers alike had gotten going. And for some reason, Takitsubo was in bed with her.

The negligee girl sleepily rubbed her eye.

“Why are you in here?”

“There weren’t enough beds.”

Takitsubo’s blank expression was as unchanged as her outfit. She wore her track suit at home, when going out, and even when sleeping.

“With two extra members all of a sudden, the room allotments are a mess. And right when we can’t access our money. You said we wouldn’t be able to buy new furniture for a while, remember?”

“…”

Maybe she had said that.

That didn’t seem like reason enough to climb into bed with her, but this could be solved by making beds for the two newcomers from a sofa or yoga mat or something.

“And didn’t you say you were going for an early morning jog before it got too hot? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this is the third time I’ve woken you. The sun is already pretty high in the sky.”

Sure enough, she heard a clattering noise from the various small items Takitsubo had in her pink track jacket’s pocket. Rolling over like that had to hurt, making it hard to sleep.

“Ugh, but I’m still tired. Besides, it’s already too late to jog today. It’s not the end of the world, so I can start jogging tomorrow.”

“Last night, you said to make you get up even if I had to spank you. Here, I recorded you saying it on this voice recorder. So what will it be? Do I have to spank you?”

“Curse my past self for being so thorough.”

The negligee girl made a highly unscientific complaint and crawled out of bed. She opened the bedroom door and entered the large living room just in time to see something green swaying in front of her.

They were in an apartment, but Frenda Seivelun was crossing the living room carrying a giant bamboo over her shoulder. But not because she had a new pet panda.

“Tanabata, it’s Tanabata☆”

The apartment’s decorative plants, tropical fish tank, and such were managed by a rental company and were replaced quite frequently, but Frenda had still stuck the bottom of some bamboo into a giant pot of moth orchids.

And some red, blue, and green decorations were attached among the bamboo leaves.

This wasn’t a school or shopping district, so it seemed unlikely individuals had attached all of those tanzaku. Frenda was apparently confusing the Tanabata bamboo with a Christmas tree.

There were far fewer tanzaku than other decorations and one of them said the following:

''Don’t let anyone on Item get hurt.

''Oh, and I want money, status, fame, time off, popularity, and friends!! As much as I can get!!!

:::''-Frenda Seivelun

Mugino held a hand to her drowsy head and sighed.

“What are you doing? This is supposed to be a city of science.”

“Mugino, what do you do with that afterwards? I doubt you can put it out with the normal trash.”

Why would she know the rules of some silly superstition?

After taking a shower, Mugino changed into a tank top and long bike shorts to exercise in. Her sneakers were an expensive shock-absorbing model. Then she grabbed her music player…no, today she went for her folding handheld 3D game console. Frenda had said it worked too. The movement of jogging seemed like it would dislodge wireless earphones, so she decided the wired type was safer. She wasn’t picky about sound quality, but she had gotten the kind with pure gold wires anyway.

Takitsubo was the indoorsy type despite wearing a track suit year round, so she had no intention of joining Mugino. She was staring at the canine pet robots bumping into each other and having a turf war. Frenda was…what was she doing? She was at the table with a notebook open and looked delighted. It may have been the finance book (for managing their evil team). And yet she was the one wasting money on decorations like that bamboo.

Mugino ended up riding the elevator down to ground level on her own.

The lower floors contained a shopping mall full of luxury brand shops. As soon as she walked out of the automatic door and lost the blessing of the air conditioning, an invisible wave of heat radiating from the pavement hit her right in the face.

“This summer heat really makes me hate my own legs. Yet another thing I can blame on eating bread. Really, the wheat culture is to blame. The Japanese digestive system wasn’t made for Western food.”

The Fifteen Bells complex was something like a small amusement park, so jogging the perimeter made for a decent distance. Mugino decided to expand the area she covered in something like a spiral after one lap.

She put her earphones in.

One she got started, jogging was easy enough.

Mugino was an expert at being lazy, but she had more than enough stamina.

And as she jogged, it became very clear that today was July 7, Tanabata. Event advertisement flags were set up like streetlights on either side of the major street and the weather forecast provided by the large screen on the belly of a blimp also had a predicted arrival time for some meteor shower or another.

Four or five high school girls were sticking quite close together on the sidewalk. But rather than some girl-on-girl flirting, one of them appeared to have a cooling power. Mugino was jealous. That girl had to be like a seaside restaurant – popular in the summer but forgotten in the winter.

As Mugino passed them, the earphones attached to the folding game console did not play a fitness rhythm or the voice of an automatic advice mode.

It played some data recorded as videos.

''“The Colosseum? We’ve been pursuing it too, but no luck so far. Several times now, one of our people goes missing and turns up a few days later as a pummeled corpse. These are people who can’t return to their dorm and have nowhere left to turn. How do you get such a valuable insurance policy on someone like that? My name is Komaba Ritoku. Contact me if you learn anything. I’ll buy any data you have with cash. I want to settle the score myself if possible.”

''“Sorry, young lady. I appreciate the Musashino Milk, but I really don’t know anything about the Colosseum. For better or for worse, I’m keeping my hands off that one. I’ve told my entire team to do the same, so I couldn’t tell you what’s going on there now. What’s that? You thought Big Spider was led by a guy called Kurozuma? …It’s probably best if you go on believing that.”

“I can’t concentrate on this while running. …Mostly because it’s too damn hot.”

The fundamental problem was Mugino oversleeping.

She knew nothing was going to come of this, but she still replayed the footage several times, focusing on the people’s breathing and word choices to try and see if they were lying.

(Their quality is about as low as it gets, but they do have numbers. And because they’re weak, they know how to take advantage of their location. That means they’ll be monitoring every last nook and cranny of the back alleys. So if those Skill Out teams haven’t seen anything, where could the Colosseum be holding their deadly matches? And if it’s true they use a different location each time, do they follow some kind of pattern?)

They had hit a decent obstacle even for Mugino.

For one thing, this kind of investigation and pursuit wasn’t supposed to be Item’s job. They preferred jobs where they were given their target’s location on a map.

Mugino turned a corner while glancing over at a luxury department store bag abandoned in the gap between two shrubs growing on the side of the road.

Then someone caught up to her from behind. No, the person came up alongside her.

“Super good morning.”

It was Kinuhata Saiai.

The external voice triggered the earphones’ accident prevention feature, automatically lowering the volume.

Kinuhata was not out of breath as she ran. Mugino wanted to stay in the shade of the roadside trees or pass through the cool mist shower to fight the summer heat, but Kinuhata stole that position.

Kinuhata had already jogged several laps more than Mugino and she looked like she could keep going just fine. Mugino and Frenda were decent fighters, but in a pure fistfight, this small girl had to be even better. But that didn’t really matter. The dark side was especially irritating because ''you needed more than that''.

Mugino removed one of her earphones without slowing her pace.

“What, are you taking an early morning jog too?”

“Early?” Kinuhata checked how high the sun was in the sky and released an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been watching movies at the theater at the bottom of our building. Seven in a row. I started yesterday, so I’m super stiff and thought I should loosen up before getting some sleep.”

“Movies, huh? Don’t we have a home theater system in our room?”

“It’s super nice, I’ll admit, but it’s just not the same as a real movie theater. Also, I thought that theater was the fashionable kind that panders to couples, but whoever selects its lineup knows what they’re doing. Especially late at night when it plays lots of super minor B and C movies that you can’t even find on streaming sites. After you freed me, I took a look around, but you super don’t see many theaters showing South American zombie horror flicks. Yeah, a big jungle chainsaw and tequila Molotov cocktails are super perfect for a tropical city where civilization has collapsed after a widescale blackout!!”

“Why do you like movies so much?”

“There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment when I was confined in that lab. I think they were super scared we’d kill someone if we had any toys. All they did was gather the subjects in a white room and super project the movie on a screen meant for presentations, but it stuck with me. …Of course, super who knows what kind of subliminal messages and ultra-low frequency sounds they were including in those.”

That explained it.

Those people imprisoned children, tested risky drugs on them, and gave them brainwashing movies as their only form of entertainment. The fact that she wasn’t disturbed by this proved to Mugino that she really was part of the dark side. Her only real thought was “sounds about right”. In dark side terms, she gave it 50 points. So exactly average.

Even the dangerous people who caused enough trouble to get expelled from school wanted nothing to do with the dark side. You couldn’t let every little thing surprise you.

“Wait? So when we went down to receive data on this job…?”

“Yes. As you’ve super guessed already, that was my first time in a real movie theater, something I’d always wanted to see. It was super weird doing it to see the data we would need to kill some super idiot, though.”

“Sorry about that.”

Kinuhata sounded blue, but Mugino’s response had no real emotion behind it.

Was that experience like fulfilling your lifelong dream of visiting Italy and being served awful pasta on the plane trip there?

“And did you find a new ''part-time job'' too?”

Kinuhata fell silent.

Mugino fanned her face with a hand while focusing on the rhythm of her jogging.

“It’s not an accusation. You’re allowed to have a side job. I believe Frenda heads out on forensics jobs sometimes.”

“Forensics? Oh, she’s a super expert with bombs, isn’t she?”

“It’s less about the explosives and more about the chemistry knowledge. Of course, she isn’t helping investigations trying to hunt down the bad guy. It’s more like she helps people know who to take revenge on for killing their buddy.”

Their conversation continued as they jogged.

“But if you are going to make drop-offs, you can’t leave the bag in such an obvious location. You’ll get complaints if the goods don’t reach their destination because someone else found it and took it away. By which I mean the client will send someone after you to reclaim their payment.”

“I think this client super wanted it to be found. They want to update the outdated criminal infrastructure. So they super want an accident with some convincing item.”

“I see.”

The dark side had its own etiquette.

They were all criminals who broke national laws and city regulations, but they could be picky about such things.

“''Super more importantly, what about Hanano Choubi-san?''”

“''Her investigation should be done soon.''”

===Part 2===

District 7.

A large outdoor space was lined with what looked like long shipping containers, but they were actually model rooms for a variety of different styles of studio apartment. But these were meant for landlords and building managers, not for residents. The rooms were created with hive construction. The rooms themselves were made whole in a single factory using a special industrial 3D printer. A jungle-gym-like framework of beams was created first and then the boxy rooms could be inserted like drawers to create an entire apartment building. If the suicide or murder of a resident threatened to lower the value, the entire room could be removed and swapped out for a new one, so hive construction was gathering a lot of attention in Academy City for the possibility of removing some of the risk from real estate.

However.

There was one sample room where it wasn’t clear which construction company had the key to its lock.

“I’m baaack.”

After inserting two keys and opening the front door, Hanano Choubi found a few chairs, a wall-sized mirror, lighting equipment, an industrial dryer, and more. It looked something like a beauty parlor, but some might have recognized it as closer to a TV studio’s dressing room, where a stylist worked. In other words, you could sleep there if you wanted, but it didn’t look lived in.

Also, a mountain of plastic clothing cases was stacked up by the wall.

Wigs, hair extensions, color contacts, false eyelashes, double eyelid gel, mouthpieces, foundation, etc. There was even a selection of implants, artificial bones, silicone artificial breast bags, and other things that should need surgery to make use of.

In the back was a tanning machine like the ones seen at a tanning salon and hyperbaric oxygen capsules used to manipulate blood oxygen to alter the ''swelling'' of the skin, but she didn’t need either of those this time.

“Nyan, nyan, nya-nyan, nyahhn.”

Maybe she wanted to be the feline type because Hanano nyan-ed a popular song as she entered the fake sample room and reached for the top of her head. She ''removed'' her long hair as simply as she might a hat.

By removing her eyebrows and eyelashes, she revealed her base face. The smooth face reflected in the mirror reminded her of a doll before it was processed.

“Now, then.”

The mirror covered an entire wall, but not all of it was usable. A lot of its surface was covered by notes and photos. Those provided data on her target.

“Age: 52. Sex: Male. Hair: black and a bit greasy. See photo for distribution of gray. Skin: Asian with lots of blue base grease. Eyes: black with a hint of brown. Oh, and the skin is only lightly tanned and with minor dust mite allergy symptoms. Should I adjust the skin to be a bit rougher?”

Hanano’s specialty was disguise and infiltration.

The quality of her disguise was dependent on the amount of data she had on her target. This time, she had spent an entire week gathering that data herself, so she was confident she could give herself the same fingerprints, teeth shape, eyes, blood type, and scent as him. Once she was in disguise, not even the target’s parents or a police dog would notice anything was amiss.

And like in this case, sex and age were no obstacle.

After applying some makeup, she looked into the mirror to see an old man who would look at home in a fancy suit. The process wasn’t complete, so her face had swollen out to the appropriate size, but everything below remained that of a girl.

“Oops.”

Hanano Choubi’s fingers touched a rectangular box on the table, but she quickly pulled her hand back. She may have subconsciously wanted some refreshing menthol since it was summer, but these were flavored cigarettes. This target was a nonsmoker, so the smell of nicotine or tar would stand out. If she had carelessly smoked one, she would have had to start over from the beginning. That had been much too close.

(I can buy some scentless tablets later on.)

“Language: standard Japanese with a hint of an Aichi accent. Dry eyes and symptoms of neck and shoulder stiffness. Places his weight on his right leg when standing and dislikes having people stand on his left side. Holds his chopsticks wrong and mouth breaths when he loses his cool. Also…here we go. His handwriting is, um, angular but sloppy. Wow, I don’t know about his schooling, but his parents must not have raised him right. He doesn’t just confuse ‘to’ and ‘too’, but ‘two’ as well.”

Her voice grew lower and deeper as she spoke.

Her weight and body type had already been transformed.

Throw out your morals and rely on technology and anyone could transform, no supernatural powers necessary.

From head to toe, she had become the broad-shouldered ''insurance company general manager'' and spoke with the deep voice to match.

“Sigh. If only I had a friend who would do Magical Powered Kanamin cosplay with me.”

===Part 3===

It was a simple matter.

“I asked around the sketchy people who know the back alleys, but none of them had any information on the Colosseum. That leaves the insurance company general manager as our only source of hints. We have his story, but it isn’t enough. Hanano, can you disguise yourself as him, infiltrate the company headquarters, and check the central server to see who the pricey payouts were made for and who received them? Hacking in from outside is apparently too difficult.”

They didn’t just threaten the general manger – who had already been treated to torture at the hands of two girls – and have him go because he was covered in bandages. A mummy (old) would stand out too much. And as an outsider, they couldn’t predict when he would get too scared and stop. Send someone like that to the enemy base and they tended to think they had escaped and the plan fell apart. Unfortunately, the cleanup afterwards generally meant brute force via long-range attack.

“This van is so much smaller. And my body is so stiff.”

Mugino complained from the back seat of the boxy minivan.

A three-blade wind turbine was spinning nearby, but they didn’t feel remotely cool. That rotation was from the quality of the bearings, not the strength of the wind.

She missed the larger vehicle. They could still use Item’s resources, but they couldn’t replace anything that was lost. They needed a new source of funding and fast.

“They’re doing fireworks!”

Frenda leaned out the window and stared into the distance.

Was a school out for its anniversary? Or maybe they had the day off because the air conditioner was broken and the school couldn’t keep the kids inside in this summer heat. Regardless, a bunch of small children were out in the blazing heat launching parachute-equipped fireworks in some kind of competition. If advance notice was given that children would be launching fireworks, a drum-shaped security robot with a special firefighting attachment would watch over the event, but Item was too far away to see it.

The other girls in the van were speaking too.

“Frenda-san, it’s super weird that you can detect the scent of explosives from this far away. Or that it excites you so much, for that matter.”

“Heh heh☆”

“Frenda, I don’t think that was a compliment. Kinuhata is disturbed by it,” said Takitsubo.

They were in District 3.

Even for Academy City, the district had a lot of office buildings for famous corporations.

Since the children were playing here, their local park may have been taken over by bullies.

The insurance company headquarters – a giant skyscraper – was also visible from here. Item was keeping enough distance that the company’s security team wouldn’t get suspicious.

“So, Mugino, are you sure the newbie can do this? We’re talking about a company full of old men. In the end, couldn’t I get in a lot easier making full use of my cuteness?”

“That’s worked in the past, but if we have a disguise expert, we might as well use her.”

“In the end, is this when I’m supposed to groan in frustration and complain that my job is being taken from me?”

“Mugino is worried about you, Frenda. She doesn’t like you doing those risky honeytrap missions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t let them lay a single finger on me when I’m controlling them! In the end, the trick to luring them in is to make sure they just barely can’t see what they want.”

Frenda pouted her lips. What it was she knew was probably something only she could know. And she seemed to be ignoring the Level 0 newcomer and glaring more at the track suit girl who had taken up the position of the wife who knew everything about Mugino.

“Uhh.”

The ''elderly general manager'' was starting to get nervous and even whined like a small animal with the deep old man voice. Everyone watching had their brains rattled and had to question their understanding of the world.

She(?) put a small earphone in her right ear.

“Wh-whether this works or not, a lot of people are going to see me. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned, but won’t the real general manager be arrested for misconduct?”

“So what if he is?”

He was an immoral grownup who had refused to call Anti-Skill when he knew people were dying and even defrauded his own company to protect himself. He was a perfect example of Academy City’s shittiness. They hadn’t killed him since he had told them what they wanted to know, but they were under no obligation to protect him either.

“Speaking of him, didn’t he mention having a family?” asked Mugino. “We should probably tell him to get a divorce right away if he cares about his wife and kids. If they only get divorced after he’s arrested, his family might share the legal liability for the damages he owes.”

“If that’s the kindest option you can think of, it says a lot about the dark side,” complained Hanano.

Mugino gave an irritated look to the overly cheerful summer sunshine.

“It’s 11 AM. The perfect time for an executive to show up at the office.”

A real executive would arrive in a chauffeured black luxury car, but Item had destroyed that car last week. Unproductive VIPs needed to use their car as a status symbol to feel pride in something, so it wouldn’t be out of place for him to take the train or walk when a replacement hadn’t arrived yet.

The summery scent of mosquito-repelling incense wafted over.

The incense itself and the ceramic pig it came from were both made by Frenda, so it was extremely effective.

“Hanano, you’ll be masquerading as the general manager to get inside the building. You’ll just walk right on past the receptionist out front. What then?”

“I use his executive key card on the reader in front of the elevator that leads to the upper floors and take that straight to the central server room which is normally off limits. That means I need to be the only one to board the elevator on the first floor.”

“Good. Leave the security cameras to us.”

Mugino took out a computer smaller than a makeup bag and shoved it into Hanano Choubi’s hands.

“Physically connect this to the central server and the program inside will extract all the necessary data automatically. You don’t need to do anything more than that, but don’t let the receptionist notice you’re hiding this.”

“''Of course not. Who do you think I am?''”

Hanano Choubi had the old man’s voice and attitude down perfectly. Mugino saw her off and then returned to the van.

The van was full of small monitors. They displayed grainy footage from a variety of angles. Needless to say, that footage came from the insurance company’s security cameras.

“In the end, how did we hack into this?”

“We couldn’t reach the central server located inside the building, but the security camera footage is gathered together and sent out to the security company along a single thick line. The insurance company doesn’t have a security room of its own, you see. So we messed with that. Now we can monitor all this footage without anyone noticing and without leaving a trace. Of course, that was all done by the support organization in their work jumpsuits, so I don’t know the details.”

“Oh, is that Hanano-san super there?”

Kinuhata pointed at one of the monitors.

Sure enough, it showed one of the automatic doors opening and a broad-shouldered old man entering the reception lobby. Like any top-rate corporate building, the first floor was all about showing off, so it was given a tropical look. It was full of green and even had a waterway. The arrogant general manager hadn’t been dropped off by his car like usual, so the receptionist and security team looked a little confused as they greeted him.

Takitsubo tilted her head while staring blankly.

“Have they figured it out?”

“I super don’t know.”

“In the end, he ''took some time off without permission'', but he’s also a general manager who lives in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to ask too many questions and learn he was on a trip with a mistress or something, so will any of the ordinary employees be willing to directly ask him where he was? Damn, the security cameras can’t pick up their voices.”

Disguised Hanano raised a hand in greeting before walking through one of the security gates that resembled the ticket gates at a train station.

A tearful voice reached them through the small microphone hidden on her suit rather than through the security cameras.

That girl was smiling with the utmost confidence, but she was sobbing on the inside.

“(Stop speculating so much! I’m sure it seems fun when you’re just watching, but my life is on the line here. P-please don’t abandon me if this goes wrong. You won’t, will you!?)”

It didn’t matter if she aroused some suspicion as long as it wasn’t enough for someone to stop her. Although she was blatantly fidgeting while waiting in an elevator hall that looked like something from a luxury hotel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

“In the end, speaking aloud is only putting you at more risk. Are you doing it on purpose as some kind of challenge run?”

“Says someone who’s only watching!!”

But there wasn’t any real trouble.

The metal doors parted and the general manager entered the empty elevator with a pace quickened just enough that no one would find it unusual. After the door closed, “he” held a card up to the control panel.

A push of the button and the elevator began to rise. It had switched into a mode that wouldn’t stop on intermediate floors.

“Um, Mugino-san. Super what floor is the central server room on?”

“28.”

“Hanano won’t have anywhere to escape if the security team surrounds her,” noted Takitsubo.

“I really am going curse all four of you,” protested Hanano. “Who is that munching on popcorn right next to the mic!?”

The correct answer was cinephile Kinuhata Saiai who always wanted popcorn when she was staring at a screen, but there was no need to say so. Frenda had opened a mackerel can and was going at it with a fork.

The elevator stopped at one of the higher floors.

The doors parted to reveal the exact opposite of the gentle atmosphere of sunlight and greenery found in the lobby. First of all, there were no windows to speak of. The large floor was divided up by chain link fences and thick tempered glass walls and the entire place was taken up by computers larger than vending machines. It wasn’t clear what the divisions between areas and machines signified, but the place looked like a labyrinth. Hanano trembled, walked pigeon-toed, and held her shoulders (all with the old man look), so the temperature may have been well below standard room temperature.

“This is…the central server room.”

She could already see the server machines. They were everywhere here on the 28th floor. But she couldn’t actually touch them with the labyrinth of chain link fences and glass walls in the way. She would need to unlock the door in the fence to get through.

Of course, Hanano would have already prepared to do just that.

However…

“I-it won’t open?”

She had sounded nervous before, but now her tone of voice rose even further.

With no one else around, she didn’t bother hiding the hesitation in her wandering hands.

“I don’t believe it. How is this happening? The fence door in the central server room won’t open!!”

“What does that mean? Didn’t you spend an entire week checking over everything from the general manager’s fingerprints to his irises? Including every little idiosyncrasy he has?”

“That week was the problem. It looks like they change the door’s passcode each week, so his information from July 1 isn’t good anymore!”

“And…what does that mean?”

“Uhh,” groaned Hanano. Mugino had repeated the same words, but her ''sizzling'' displeasure had been hard to miss.

They couldn’t have Hanano remaining silent during a mission, so Mugino compromised by speaking first.

“Do you have any tricks you can use?”

“Sure, if there was an emergency. For example, in an earthquake powerful enough to possibly bring the building down, all the locks are set to automatically release to ensure no one is trapped.”

“''You don’t say?''”

Frenda had known Mugino long enough to put down her mackerel can, grab blankly-staring Takitsubo, and scoot away from Mugino. Kinuhata was still new to this, so she only tilted her head with her big tub of popcorn.

Hanano Choubi was also new, so she failed to see the danger of her comment.

“Don’t run away, Frenda. Use those goggles of yours.”

“Ugh. No stopping you, huh? Fine, fine. In the end, I’ll support you.”

That was all Mugino had to hear before she smiled thinly and took action.

She reached a hand out the car window.

And she fired Meltdowner at the very center of the distant skyscraper.

===Part 4===

“Gyahhhh!?”

Hanano Choubi forgot all about acting and screamed for real. Not that anyone would have found it unusual given the circumstances.

A sharp tremor shook the giant building vertically, the tempered glass shattered, all the fire alarms went off, and a recorded female voice urged everyone to evacuate.

The blast hadn’t hit this floor, but her life was still at risk. The building was made of tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, but it might as well have been a shaky suspension bridge. Mugino could have brought the entire skyscraper down with ease if she wanted to.

“What!? What did you just do!?”

“You said the locks would release in an emergency, right? So I figured it would be faster to make our own. Don’t worry. I had Frenda monitoring the electromagnetism produced by human bodies, so I only took out a big conference room no one was using. One less budget item for them to worry about, really.”

(This building isn’t part of the dark side. Cause a scene like this and the Dark Side’s Bane will notice. Once that #6 is after us, we’ll vanish ''without a trace'' in some back alley or another!!)

The diligent small animal of a girl slumped her shoulders when she belatedly realized she had become the kind of person who put her guard up when she saw a hero.

Meanwhile, Mugino Shizuri’s voice couldn’t have been more carefree.

Which probably meant she was the kind of person who could slaughter people while perfectly relaxed.

“Get a move on, Hanano. Or is the door still not open? How many more times do I have to blast that building? Should I target a load-bearing column next? Or maybe the base isolators? Give the word and they’re gone☆”

“No need, no need! The door’s open! That worked fine, so thank you for the very useful support!!”

(That kaiju girl!!)

Hanano shouted tearfully and opened the unlocked fence door. She pulled the miniature computer from her pocket, connected a cable to it, and connected the other end to one of the server machines. The computer would do the rest.

It made quiet sounds like scratching fingernails.

The bar on the screen gradually filled up from left to right. Alphanumeric text – likely filenames – flashed by, but there was no point in trying to read them.

A wired connection was best when dealing with so much data. Copying the files was nerve-racking enough without knowing the wireless connection could break at any moment.

“Yikes, yikes, hurry up, yikes… W-will this really tell us who received the insurance payouts when the Colosseum participants died?”

“It will, but they might have used a fake name or fake ID. Or maybe they used a throwaway go-between like the one who withdraws the money in a bank transfer scam. Anything that would leave a trail will have been faked.”

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? Is this all a waste of time?”

“This is well worth our time,” Mugino Shizuri readily assured her.

Hanano tilted her head (in old man mode), but…

“The big bosses at the top will be well-protected, but not so with the participants who end up as corpses anyway. But we’re not interested in the corpses or the criminals. ''We’re looking for the people with a high-value policy and are still alive.'' We should probably narrow it down to teenage students, a policy of at least a hundred million, and an expedited contract less than a month old. Once we have their identity, we can do this the old-fashioned way: tail them and let them lead us right to the Colosseum.”

The bar on the screen filled up and the number below reached 100%.

Hanano Choubi yanked out the cable, stuck the miniature computer in her pocket, and returned to the elevator.

“Oh, no! The elevator’s stopped because of the disaster!”

“Ah ha ha. Then it’s time for 28 stories’ worth of stairs. Should make for some good exercise.”

(Really and truly curse that terrain-obliterating god of destruction!!)

But she had no other option here, so she gave up, opened the metal door, stuck her head out into the emergency stairs, and heard hurried footsteps climbing from below. This was an above-the-board company, so were those security officer batons she heard thunking at their hips? If they realized who she was and ganged up on her, she felt certain they would beat her to death.

“Check each floor to ensure no one was left behind. Make sure every last employee, guest, and contracted janitor is safe! Teams A and B, follow me and inspect the stairs!! …Hm? Hey! Is someone up th-”

“''Wahh!!''”

While shouting, she flipped the luxury suit inside out like a stage magician’s handkerchief, wiped both hands on her face makeup to rearrange it, and transformed herself into a muscular young man on the security team. In mere seconds.

She could only prepare one emergency costume change, so the standard option was either a security guard or a firefighter depending on where she was infiltrating.

“Reporting for duty!”

“R-right. I don’t recognize you. Which team are you on? Anyway, you came from up above, right? Continue on down and join another team. Any other team! Right now, we need every single person assisting the evacuation!!”

“Roger that!!”

Muscular and handsome Hanano Choubi shouted something that seemed right and then ran down the stairs.

A predetermined plan ''alone'' was not enough to fool people. Going with the flow and adlibbing could be surprisingly useful. Of course, you would run into trouble if you relied entirely on adlibbing.

And no living thing would run around quite as actively as a cornered chicken.

“Ugh, those 28 floors are going to have me sweating… That’s like descending a small mountain. Let’s hope my makeup doesn’t come off.”

“Hanano, we’re still monitoring you via the cameras after your face change, so don’t worry. And if you want a shortcut down, keep your eye on the wall to your right.”

She didn’t even have time to look that way.

The concrete wall broke through from the outside and a slender hand appeared. Kinuhata Saiai had quickly and powerfully climbed 28 floors up the building’s wall and now she grabbed Security Guard Hanano Choubi by the collar.

“Wait, but, hey, what are you doing!?”

“It was super you who told us not to abandon you if things went wrong.”

Then the two of them dove down from that high floor.

“Gyehhhhhhhhh!?”

“Don’t worry. My Offense Armor will act as a cushion, so we won’t die when we super hit the ground.”

===Part 5===

“Finally. It’s already midday. How did it take you that long to escape one little building?”

“Huff, puff. Sh-she really is in full dominatrix mode, isn’t she?”

Mugino held out a hand in a “give it here” gesture. Hanano wiped the makeup from her face to return to her puppyish self before handing the miniature computer to Mugino. She was irritated and wanted to look cool by tossing it over, but after going through all that, she was terrified of dropping and breaking it.

Mugino looked satisfied as she accepted the computer.

“After grabbing some lunch, we can check inside this and start tracking one of the participants.”

“Shouldn’t we be running away? I can see the building from here and- wow, there’s a giant hole in the center.”

After yanking Hanano inside the van, Item left.

“Um, wait. Are you really asking me to change inside this cramped van? I have to strip down while the rest of you watch!?”

“Don’t worry, Hanano. I’m rooting for you.”

“You, busty track suit girl! What part of me were you looking at when you made that pitying comment!?”

Hanano tearfully complained, but she must not have wanted to remain in the security uniform that smelled like male sweat (because she had designed it to do so). The rustling of cloth filled the van for a while.

Anyway, next on the agenda was lunch.

Frenda knew how to access a wealth of information on her phone and she learned of a good restaurant frequented by District 3’s elite office workers. After driving to the center of the district, they left the van behind and walked the rest of the way.

Frenda spotted something on the way.

“Neat. In the end, of course a salaryman district would have miniskirt ladies handing out cans of beer.”

“That sign calls them ‘bargirls’. What does that mean?”

Takitsubo tilted her blankly staring head.

The bargirls were apparently advertising a new seasonal craft beer. But none of the officer workers in suits could drink beer in the middle of the day, so it seemed like they would have a hard time selling every can. Mugino though they would have better luck in District 5 with all its college students ready to party on Tanabata.

Mugino had also wondered what hidden gem of a restaurant Frenda had discovered, but it was a fairly large Chinese restaurant that shared a giant building with an electronics store.

“It’s normal. It’s so normal I’m about ready to punch Frenda.”

“No one here has time to wait in a long line, so anyplace that gets super lots of five star ratings will be one with a super lot of seating and decent enough food. This place is as super big as a parking garage.”

The five girls found a seat at a table in the back.

Was it a dark side habit to prefer the seat closest to the emergency exit? Or if that wasn’t available, one by a window.

“I’m going to get the vegetable gyoza meal with no garlic. It’s a good basic dish to super test the quality of the cooking. What about you, Takitsubo-san?”

“This.”

“Oh! In the end, they’re already serving the chilled noodles! I’ll get that too but with sesame sauce!!”

“It sure is summer. And I hate it.”

Mugino never passed up a chance to complain about wheat and she apparently went for the rice dishes as a result. She ordered the seafood fried rice with ankake sauce. Based on the photo in the menu, it had something extremely greasy poured on top. It had to be a giant mass of calories. The day she had slim legs was still a long way off. Although anyone foolish enough to say that aloud would have an instant 50% reduction in weight when their upper half was vaporized.

The restaurant was meant to get office workers in and out during their limited lunch break, so the young part-timer in a mini China dress had their order out in no time. Takitsubo stared blankly at the food.

“They’re gyozas, but they’re green. Kinuhata, you should eat more meat.”

“I don’t need your criticism. What are you – a super old man?”

“But you won’t grow otherwise.”

“''Are you picking a goddamn fight with me while you waste your own super boobs by covering them up with that lame-ass track suit''!?”

The growing girl who channeled the #1 when she got mad had to be calmed by friendly Frenda.

“Whew…”

Hanano’s body was demanding something unhealthy after the exhaustion of the previous job, so she nervously pulled in her bowl of stir-fried meat and vegetables that looked heavily seasoned. On the dark side, you could get your hands on a variety of pills or even a mysterious stamp that made sounds quite colorful when you placed it below your tongue, but this was the limit of unhealthy that petty bourgeoisie was willing to go for.

“Today’s Tanabata, isn’t it? Oh, this ordinary free ice water is soaking into my soul.”

“Which one is Tanabata again? The one with the pandas and lots of firecrackers?”

“Takitsubo-san, I think you’re super confusing it with Chinese New Year.”

Kinuhata looked kind of smug, but you wouldn’t see pandas on the streets of China even when celebrating the lunar new year. What Asian movie had she seen?

“Hanano, you should put this shichimi togarashi on your stir fry. You’re in the mood for something strong, aren’t you?” suggested Takitsubo.

“That sounds good, but it would make fixing my face harder, so I’ll pass. Spicy foods making your lips swell isn’t just a thing from gag manga. They have that lip cream full of capsaicin to give you fuller lips, remember?”

“Hanano.”

“Stop recommending it to me because you think that sounds funny!”

All of their food was good. But only good. The secret to the flavor was probably tubs of dashi from a factory in District 4. If this place was getting five star ratings, perhaps office workers thought it was a virtue to have no sense of adventure.

That was the opposite of Item’s way of life.

Mugino pulled out the miniature computer.

“Frenda.”

“Just one, okay!? Please, Takitsubo! In the end, a bite of my almond jelly for one of your sesame dumplings isn’t a bad trade at all, so pleeeeease! Oh, what did you want, Mugino?”

“You’ve been watching the Colosseum online, right? When does today’s match begin?”

“Hmm? The morning event should be over already. In the end, the next soonest would be the one that starts at 8 this evening. I remember the time because I tended to watch the killing while eating dinner in my room.”

“That’s super primetime. Are the managers intentionally aiming for mealtime when people are relaxing with their families?”

“Ugh.” Hanano paled and shrank down in her seat, but that was nothing as far as dark side tastes went . Mugino didn’t seem interested in that part at all.

“Damn, and it’s only 1 in the afternoon. Then there’s no point in pursuing one of the living contestants now. We can take our time and begin our pursuit at around 5.”

===Part 6===

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frenda smiled a little while lying on her side.

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

“Thanks.”

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

Frenda gave a mischievous smile and slowly narrowed her eyes.

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

“Ha…ah ha ha…”

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

Frenda winked while still lying in bed.

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

“U-um, there is actually…”

Hanano scooted toward Frenda and whispered in her ear.

Frenda looked confused.

“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

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

“If that’s what you want.”

The blonde girl didn’t take much convincing.

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

“Excuse me. Is Hanano-san in here?”

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

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

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’re super going to District 7?”

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

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

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

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

“Bamboo leaf ice cream.”

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

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

The five members of Item walked through the evening city.

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

They had located their target, though.

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

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

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

They could locate the enemy base starting from here.

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

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

Their target was about 15m away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No response.

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

And Mugino Shizuri was entranced by something there.

Her shoulders were even trembling.

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

“Mugino…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mugino.”

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

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

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

Once they knew the trick, the rest was easy.

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

“Did the braid girl go in here?”

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

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

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

Every single spot here was a shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hanano nervously checked one of the shops.

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

“Hanano.”

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

Mugino scoffed at the entire scene around them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino narrowed her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

Kinuhata took a look around.

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

“What are you, a mother-in-law?”

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

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

And the track suit girl noticed something else.

“Mugino.”

The air was abuzz with energy.

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

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

Something was happening below.

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

An explosion of noise pushed up from there.

Cheering voices and booming music swirled up at them.

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

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

Some kind of plate was spinning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino looked down from the railing in disgust.

“Is the Colosseum always like this?”

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

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

Less imaginative Kinuhata and Takitsubo were more carefree.

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

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

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

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

Mugino grinned.

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

===Part 7===

The Colosseum was a very important event for them.

They didn’t all gather together for every single event, but they still made sure to make an appearance on site as ''the management''.

However, those four girls were not in the ring or in the stands. They were in a separate monitor room, built from a back room of the library full of book repair equipment. They used that room to keep tabs on the situation in the arena and online.

Of course, they weren’t upstanding members of society, so they had brought camping chairs and a camping table in for themselves. The table was piled high with chips, popcorn, fried chicken, fries, and more. For drinks, there were sodas and iced coffee. They preferred to bring their own rather than order it from a catering company. That made it feel more like doing yaminabe at a girls-only sleepover, which was a lot more fun.

“Uhh…”

A small 12-year-old girl with pale skin and shoulder-length black hair groaned while staring at all the monitors. Waniguchi Nokoba was a mixed martial artist and she wore a ring costume that looked like a racing swimsuit made even more revealing. She raised her small hands and stretched her back without getting up from her chair.

However, her hands just about crushed the rubber balls she held.

“I wanna fight too!! We worked so hard to get that white tiger for today and I wanna fight it!!”

“You’re our ''executioner'' who swiftly eliminates anyone who violates any rules regarding the match or the gambling, so you need to stay put as long as things run smoothly. It’s better this way, so try and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, a curvy girl wearing a ''Tokiwadai Middle School'' summer uniform and with a few braids in her fluffy blonde hair, breathed an exasperated sigh, but the martial arts girl ignored her.

Despite her young appearance, Waniguchi bared her teeth and spat back.

“Damn, I thought I’d be seeing lots of action in this position, but these dark side morons are all too scared to disobey. ''You’re criminals – why the hell are you following the rules''? I’m starting to wish I’d entered as a contestant instead.”

“But then you would just win every match,” commented a tanned track girl named Hanayama Kamitsu.

“We wouldn’t make much money from the gambling side then, would we?” sighed Ibotanokikouji. “Waniguchi-chan, why are you so irritable today?”

“Her thigh,” whispered a silver-haired girl named Inoue Laspezia.

That got a response out of Waniguchi herself rather than Ibotanokikouji.

“Ah!? I’ve got another mosquito bite… No wonder I’ve been so mad today. This is why I hate the ground. Too many bugs. Hey, where’d the bug spray go!?”

“It’s too late for that if you’re already bitten. Come here. I will rub the anti-itch cream on for you,” said Ibotanokikouji.

“Yay!” rejoiced Waniguchi as she walked over, but she was interrupted by something else.

The silver-haired girl had been working in silence, but now she sat right in Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“…Inoue Laspezia.”

“Yes?”

The silver-haired girl was still engrossed in the intricate work she was performing with her gloved hands, so she replied with just the one Kyoto-accented word. She didn’t even look up.

As the only one here immune to the lily’s allure, the track girl kept her distance.

Furious at having her special seat taken, Tiny Tyrant Waniguchi clung to Ibotanokikouji’s side, but then she noticed something else. Ibotanokikouji had a small DVD player open in addition to all of the management monitors. It was probably an item sold cheap at a discount store.

“Hey, Chief, what’s that? A horror movie?”

“One of the worst I’ve ever seen, but one of the stuntmen died in an accident during filming. If you watch carefully in slow motion, you can see him being crushed by the machinery in the background. Hee hee. I bet all those sophisticated teachers would faint if they saw this.”

In cases like this, the movie would either be banned from the online stores or the offending footage would be removed in a mystery update, so if you wanted to add it to your collection, you needed one of the limited first-edition physical copies. Because that would never be altered.

“Boo. If you want to see a corpse, just send me into the ring. I’d give you plenty of bloodshed.”

“Probably so, but I don’t need a close up of the corpse.”

Ibotanokikouji smiled thinly while operating her phone. She lovingly chewed on Inoue’s ear while she worked.

She pulled up her own personal map app which was linked to her photo album. But in her case, the map displayed a tour of famous suicide spots around Academy City.

“I want to decorate myself with other people’s deaths. I want to sleep wrapped in a blanket of their misfortune. Hee hee. So it doesn’t need to be anything exciting. Brand-name clothing isn’t for showing off. It looks best when ''you wear it casually''. You can make diamonds by pressurizing human corpses, but there is no need to go around loudly advertising that fact. True class is found in doing things so discreetly the amateurs never notice what you have. The money we make with the Colosseum is the same.”

“Boo.”

Hanayama Kamitsu, the tanned girl with wavy shoulder-length black hair and a track athlete’s tank top and shorts, made no attempt to join the other three. She thought these things were nice to look at, but she had no desire to be a part of it herself. In her opinion, lesbian relationships were beautiful enough when things were going well, but they got nasty quick when things went bad. And on the dark side, the result would be a lot worse than for a band when a relationship between two members fell apart.

She normally wore something a little less revealing, so her hands wandered restlessly across the visible tan lines on the upper and lower halves of her body. She finally reached for a plastic item rather than one the chilled drinks in the cooler.

Waniguchi’s face lit up while still clinging to Ibotanokikouji’s side.

“Oh, is that an e-cigarette? I’ve always wanted to try one of those!”

“It’s a portable oxygen tank. It’s flavorless.”

As a track girl, Hanayama wanted as much oxygen inside her as she could get. Or rather, she got antsy when she couldn’t get it. She held the plastic device in the corner of her mouth, the blue LED at the end flashed, and she breathed in the compressed oxygen coming from the refillable cartridge.

“Anyway, did you see the news? That general manager was arrested. Something about attacking his own company. You really shouldn’t mug for the camera in a minute-long video just because you’re lonely and want some likes. They were playing it on all the talk shows.”

“So what? That’s not a problem for us as long as we can regularly withdraw the contestants’ insurance money. Even if they take emergency measures, that’s an adult corporation, right? They take forever to do anything, so we can still get today’s payouts. Besides, there are still plenty more insurance companies in Academy City. Not to mention executives we can blackmail.”

“Hm,” was all the response track girl Hanayama gave.

They were technically colleagues (of a sort), but they had never actually met directly to give him instructions. Even if the general manager sang like a canary, he didn’t know the girls’ real names. He had been disposable, so they didn’t care what happened to him.

To change the subject, Hanayama spoke to a different girl: the slender silver-haired girl seated in Ibotanokikouji’s lap with her eyes lowered to the delicate work she was doing. Overall, she was a squirrel-like person. But it upset her if you said she looked like a racoon, so it was worth being careful.

“Hey, Inoue. What nasty method will you be using this time?”

“…It’s nothing special.”

Inoue Laspezia wore an apron and a beret over a summer school uniform. She kept her eyes on her working hands and responded with a Kyoto accent.

Her hobby was figurines, her special skill was handicrafts, and she belonged to the art club. She didn’t even look Hanayama’s way as she made some precise movements of a thin-tipped paintbrush wet with the special iron material – that is, human blood – she had mixed to just the right color on her paper palette.

She never seemed interested in anything, but she refused to give up her spot on Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“There was a murder in the area, so I’m just counterfeiting the murder weapon. It’s a razor with the appropriate fingerprints and blood on it. One of the big ones a barber would have. I had all the necessary materials in stock, so it doesn’t cost me anything.”

“Yikes. Remind me to never piss off a modeler.”

Tanned Hanayama grinned.

It didn’t matter if the evidence was real or not. The general manager likely had no recollection of what they had threatened him over. But what if the public and the justice system believed it? Even if the charges were false – no, especially when the charges were false – no one wanted to lose everything over it.

And once they started down that route, it would take over their life.

The rules of the world didn’t let you choose when you wanted to stop.

An adult important enough to have no qualms at all about oppressing the children would know exactly what happened the instant they took just one step off the edge of the cliff.

Ibotanokikouji had come up with the plan and ordered her to do it, but even she seemed exasperated.

She tightly hugged the silver-haired girl sitting in her lap.

“Oh, Inoue-chan. You’re such a perfectionist once you set your mind to something. Wouldn’t you have a much easier time sticking out your very cute butt on the train to make some false molestation accusations?”

“How would that work? Our targets always have a driver who takes them wherever they need to go.”

Inoue must have finished her work because she sealed the evidence razor in a plastic bag. She completed the work calmly and expressionlessly. That gave them one more trump card they could use to frame someone.

Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. A honeytrap was probably beyond that whispering, downcast girl. …Except with the minority who were into the plain, obedient type.

“How’s this for a conclusion?” Waniguchi rubbed her cheek against Ibotanokikouji from the side. “The arrested general manager on the TV isn’t a problem for us. And we’re prepared to find us a new wallet. So we won’t throw out everything we’ve built up and we won’t go into hiding. We’ll continue running the Colosseum like normal.”

“Agreed,” said all four girls together.

But anyone capable of reading the room would have noticed they didn’t say it at the exact same time. The other three girls waited to see how Ibotanokikouji Kaede reacted before joining in.

And that secret center of attention whispered with the silver-haired girl still seated in her lap.

With a soft smile on her lips.

“Don’t worry. We are ''Item'' and we will be taking allll the profits of death for ourselves☆”

===Part 8===

Up above the ceiling, Mugino Shizuri and Takitsubo Rikou exchanged a glance.

“Mugino.”

“Did that bitch just say Item?”

Their recording of the general manager had said much the same thing, but this time it came straight from the villains themselves.

Item was of course the name of Mugino’s team. If these people were body doubles in case of emergency or a group using the name to get work in the dark side, they should have been disguised as and acting like Mugino and the others, but they weren’t.

Whatever their reasons, those girls had used the Item name in a private room where they assumed no one else was listening in. That meant this wasn’t an act. It was real.

Meanwhile, Frenda was worried about something else: the clothing of the central girl.

“Isn’t that a ''Tokiwadai'' uniform? How does a rich girl from that school end up in the dark side?”

“Having money super doesn’t prevent you from making mistakes. Aren’t all of you in super similar situations?”

If that girl actually was a Tokiwadai student, then she was a real piece of work.

The girls lounging on the floor below continued their conversation.

“Anyway, Waniguchi-chan, here’s some extra for this month.”

“Oh, thanks a bunch!”

The central girl tossed over something she held between two fingers.

The object spinning through the air was a plastic-looking card. It flew back around like a boomerang and Waniguchi nimbly caught it.

“It’s only the 7th. How did you manage to spend a month’s worth of pay that fast? You are being paid a proper wage, so you need to stop wasting so much money.”

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede. You’d be perfect if you wouldn’t get on my case about money.”

The small martial arts girl pouted her lips and rubbed her cheek against the Tokiwadai girl while giving the card she held a quick kiss.

That was apparently how their Item(?) received payments.

“''A money card?''” Mugino muttered under her breath up above the ceiling.

“Those are the prepaid cards you can super use with music players and online stores, right? You buy them at a convenience store and super input the number into your computer or phone.”

Mugino responded to Kinuhata’s explanation with a finger on her chin.

“They don’t ordinarily go above 10 thousand yen on a card, but there are premium ones with bigger amounts. Like 5 or 10 million on a card. Although I think those are really only meant to buy brand-name bags online or to make donations to net idols on video sites.”

But it was clever.

Prepaid cards were a lot lighter than cash or gold. They also couldn’t be frozen without warning like a bank account. Unlike a diamond, it didn’t matter if they were handled a bit roughly and got scratched up. And since cash could be converted into cards, they were also useful for money laundering. They could then be converted back into cash either via the internet or at a pawnshop.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo pointed elsewhere.

The central girl – Ibotanokikouji Kaede? – had a suitcase near her. It looked cheap, but a closer inspection showed the lock had been replaced with a much nicer one. Not only was the new lock much tougher, but it appeared to include a sensor that would transmit its location over the internet if the lock was forced open.

(So converting their money into cards wasn’t just to launder it. They also don’t trust the banks to hold it.)

There were no standard methods in the dark side. It wasn’t perfect, but you could get a general picture of who someone was by the methods they used for these things.

Mugino considered this for a bit.

“If that case is packed full of 10 million yen cards with some room left for cushioning, then I’m guessing it holds around 80 billion.”

“Hapyah!?”

When she heard that amount, Hanano Choubi the Chicken yelped without thinking.

The Tokiwadai girl didn’t even bother looking up.

She simply held her palm upwards while still seated in her camping chair with Inoue in her lap.

“''There.''”

The entire ceiling collapsed.

Mugino didn’t even have enough time to click her tongue.

The building materials sank down like an antlion pit and the girls were dragged to the lower floor with nothing to grab ahold of.

Mugino gave up on righting herself as she fell and focused on landing without her legs giving out below her. Even with the intruders before her, Ibotanokikouji did not get up.

She did, however, pick Inoue up from her lap and set her down next to her.

“How do you do, ill-bred thieves☆”

“You think a lot yourself for a witch who converts human lives into money.”

“My, my, my. Aren’t you brimming with confidence, Level 5. Have you never bothered to question why it is you find victory wherever you go?”

Ibotanokikouji’s confidence was not broken by being called a witch.

If anything, she seemed to appreciate the insult.

“Your superiors have selected jobs they know a pathetic beginner like you can complete in order to give you a taste for success. You see the same process with drugs and gambling – all of life’s vices tend to work that way. But the free ride ends here. It is now time to take you for everything you are worth. You have reached the point where it all goes downhill.”

“You’re going to reduced to charcoal soon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Poor thing. You should really try to use your head for once. You are convinced that ''you can do anything as long as you have Meltdowner,'' but I am saying that very idea is a falsehood this city’s adults have placed in your head.”

She giggled.

Still seated in her camping chair, she peeled Waniguchi away from her side.

“Do you really believe you can survive anything as long as you have your pride as one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s? Do you really think this city’s darkness is that shallow?”

It was Frenda who stared at her confident smile in disbelief.

That girl knew who they were to an extent. And yet she still looked confident while opposing ''the'' Mugino Shizuri.

Mugino did not hesitate, of course.

They only wanted the suitcase, not to hurt the villains or get some kind of information out of them.

She held out her palm and launched a brutal beam straight at the enemy.

But.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner bent at a sharp angle and blasted through a wall.

“Wha-?” said Frenda, her face entirely pale.

She may have received more of a shock than Mugino.

Mugino herself narrowed her eyes.

“You…”

“No, I did not use electricity.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede hadn’t even gotten out of her chair.

She giggled in an elegant but wicked way.

“''I am Academy City’s #6.''”

She stated it plainly.

She called herself a Level 5. She called herself the esper known as the Dark Side’s Bane.

“It is time you learned that the outdated superiority of the seven Level 5s is a thing of the past. There are compatibility issues to worry about too. And on that note, recall that I am known as the Dark Side’s Bane.”

“Th-that can’t be true.”

Frenda believed in the brand name of Item’s – of Mugino Shizuri’s – strength.

She believed in the rarity of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

So she could only reach one conclusion.

“In the end, Level 5s aren’t just going to appear everywhere we go!! You claim you’re the mysterious Dark Side’s Bane? A-anyone could come out and say they’re the #6! It’s just a number!”

“Oh, dear. You really are ignorant of the dark side’s depths, aren’t you? There really are Level 5s just about everywhere you go here. Really, you could say the dark side is their true home. ''The top two'' go without saying, as does the ''mystery beam shooter'' in front of us here. As for the ''electric one'' and the ''psychological one''…it’s hard to say. I am reluctant to say they belong to the dark side, but given the projects they’re involved in, I would say they each have one foot in the dark side. My, my. That means your last hope of being right is ''that guts idiot''. Are you sure you want to build up your standards and values atop someone as absurd as him?”

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

Frenda Seivelun was left speechless.

Ibotanokikouji had a point.

What if the Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane was also neck deep in the illicit and illegal?

Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of shitty outcome you would expect in Academy City?

Besides, Academy City’s Level system was entirely based on how useful an esper was for important fields of research. So with the Level 5s at the top, it was only natural the corrupt adults of the dark side would be all over them no matter the Level 5’s own morals or personality. So they might even be tricked into getting involved.

Ibotanokikouji’s laughter seemed to rule this place.

Her eyes were directly on Level 5 Mugino Shizuri.

“You want to argue the point, but you can’t deny the possibility, can you? How much do the stories you have heard about the #6 really matter? How sure can you be that the gender and age you have pictured in your head is correct? ''Do you think any of the information you think you know will help you here and now''? This is not a rumor, a vague report, or a strange legend. I am here right before you and I am calling myself the #6.”

“Don’t get a big head just cause you’re standing on the same field as me, worm.”

Mugino snapped back in a rage, but she also maintained some rationality deep in her mind.

In other words…

(I couldn’t see it, but she did break through the ceiling. What kind of power does she have?)

Then a voice called down from the broken ceiling.

Apparently not all five of them had fallen.

“Mugino!”

“Stay up there, Takitsubo! Hanano, you’re still up in the ceiling too, right!? Get Takitsubo out of here!! Do whatever it takes to protect her! Got that!?”

Mugino heard some panicked stammering, but it was growing more distant. Hanano was scared but doing as she was told. She was the kind of chicken who got moving when she felt cornered, not the kind that froze up.

Takitsubo’s AIM stalker was a convenient power, but she didn’t need to be on the front line for it to work. She could read the enemy’s location from safety and send the information over via phone.

That left Mugino, Frenda, and Kinuhata here.

Conveniently, only their vanguard had fallen from the ceiling. Had they been lucky or had the enemy been unlucky? Either way, that sort of omen held a surprising amount of power in the world of villains.

“This is like a bad joke.” Kinuhata sounded annoyed. “She’s the #6 Level 5 ''and'' a super Tokiwadai student?”

“My, my. You seem surprised to find an elite in the shadows.”

Ibotanokikouji’s expression said she found it puzzling why Kinuhata would question it.

She brought a finger to her chin and cutely tilted her head.

“Girls like me are given a sheltered upbringing cut off from the outside world. Make no noise when you walk, when you eat, or when you laugh. Were they trying to raise a ninja? When your very existence is forced into an unnatural state, it distorts something inside you. And so something must be done to put the hands of the clock back in their proper place. Which means learning the truth of the world, no matter how ugly it might be. And it must be done on a regular basis. Otherwise that luxury hand-wound watch will again fall out of sync with the rest of the world.”

“You’ll go this far to super learn how the real world works?”

“Try to appreciate just how restrictive a life one must live to need all this to avoid being torn apart by the distortion within. This is the problem with you cheap digital watches. You cannot understand the pain of a truly upper class upbringing.”

She sighed in apparent disappointment.

She was not killing to protect herself during a war, nor was she stealing because she was poor and starving.

But she was killing people all the same.

Human cruelty was most noticeable ''during peacetime'' when there were no excuses to fall back on.

“Hee hee.”

The Tokiwadai girl softly laughed and directed her graceful hand toward the ceiling.

“By the way, I did not expect you to have a fifth. But did you really think we would sit around long enough for them to escape?”

“Did you think ''we'' would sit around?”

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai took a step forward.

Frenda pulled several egg-shaped explosives from her short skirt and stuck them with fuses smaller than cigarettes.

“In the end, did you think we would give you time to attack Takitsubo and Hanano? You could’ve avoided this if you had just handed over the money, but I’ll admit it’s pretty funny you would prefer getting blown up!!”

Mugino noticed something in the middle of Frenda’s shouting. She surreptitiously pulled her phone from her pocket and found an email there: “Focus on the suitcase. You’re our strongest, so you go after it.”

Mugino had wondered where all Frenda’s confidence had come from when she had been so scared of the #6 announcement earlier, but she was only shouting to keep the enemy from hearing the vibration of Mugino’s silenced phone.

The next thing Mugino noticed was that the suitcase in question had vanished. It had been taken by…presumably the art club girl who had vanished along with it.

Mugino and the others no longer cared about the job the voice on the phone had brought them.

They didn’t even need to win the prize money in the bloody Colosseum.

It was all there in the suitcase.

Stealing the 80 billion in money cards was their top priority.

“Sh!!”

Mugino fired her first Meltdowner blast straight past Frenda and Kinuhata’s shoulders. The enemy had already bent one of her beams. Since she still didn’t know what that power was, she didn’t think this one attack would defeat that enemy. The beam was only meant to blind this mysterious other Item(?) while the original Item could exchange their thoughts under the cover of the blast and dust cloud.

“Leave the case to me!!”

“Super will do. This comes down to a compatibility issue with your power, right? We’ll defeat her here if we can, but we’ll at least slow her down while trying to work out what her power is and any other idiosyncrasies she has.”

Mugino tackled through a door and nearly rolled out into the hallway.

She spotted a summer uniform skirt fluttering up ahead. She saw a girl dragging the suitcase a long way down the hallway. She was nearly just a dot from Mugino’s perspective.

(I’d love to just blast her from here, but that would require a concentrated line of destruction skinnier than dried pasta. I wouldn’t want to vaporize the suitcase full of all that money.)

“I’ll just have to get closer!!”

Once she had a plan, she was quick to act on it.

She dashed down the library hallway.

The gloomy girl running up ahead looked back just once before pulling something like a remote from her skirt pocket and pressing the button with her thumb. Mugino heard shouting voices coming from beyond the wall to her side. A pair of double doors were broken down nearby and a bloody wild animal stepped into the hallway.

It was 3m long and weighed more than 250kg.

The white tiger’s cage must have opened.

“Shut up and stay out of this!!!”

Mugino slammed her palm into it. She didn’t even use her power. A vibration of the air rattled a nearby window and the impact propagated from the white tiger’s nose down to the tip of its tail. The blow to the face silenced the 3m beast in a single blow.

A Judgment-looking girl who had somehow ended up a Colosseum contestant was slumped on the floor.

“Y-you saved me? Thank-”

“Outta the way, you ♂♀〒#!!”

After paralyzing the girl with a shout, Mugino continued running down the hallway.

The silver-haired art club girl had escaped into the door at the very end of the long hallway.

That door led into a domed space. It covered the area of about four convenience stores. A round device in the center was covered in optical devices and surrounded by seats arranged in concentric circles.

Mugino glanced around the dark, windowless space.

(A planetarium?)

Was this inside the circular building she had seen alongside the library? But that didn’t really matter.

She could see the art club girl’s back from here. She must not have been able to move very fast while lugging that suitcase around. And Mugino was only interested in that luggage, so she was willing to shoot the girl in the back without warning as long as she wouldn’t hit the suitcase too.

(If I aim for her spine and concentrate the beam down to a line the width of dried pasta, I can kill her instantly with a single shot!)

But that isn’t what actually happened.

The gloomy silver-haired art club girl escaped outside through the emergency exit.

Because…

“Ah ha ha!! If you want to play tag, play with me, not Inoue!!!”

An explosive “roar!!!” came from the wall to Mugino’s side. It arrived so suddenly that Mugino didn’t have time to launch her Meltdowner. She clicked her tongue and rolled backwards.

A giant hunk of metal grazed her while producing a blast of wind.

The seats surrounding the planetarium device were arranged in neat concentric circles. They were a lot like movie theater seats, so they had to be bolted firmly to the floor.

They were all blown away like bowling pins.

A rough estimate said that attack had been deadlier than a freight train. It could have broken through the planetarium’s wall with ease.

The ear-splitting roar continued on and on.

It came from a tanned track girl with her wavy black hair cut to shoulder length.

She had just one leg on something like a skateboard with T-shaped handlebars attached. Was that called a kick scooter?

But the rear of the board, behind where her foot rested, was unusually large. That part alone was about 3m long, the tire was extra thick, and the enlarged cylinder looked a lot an unenclosed jet engine. Of course, it had to have a variety of different propulsion devices in addition to that most obvious one.

The dark side did not always rely on esper powers.

It also made use of next-generation weapons.

“Nice to meet you, colleague. I’m Hanayama Kamitsu of ''Item''. But you can call me the courier.”

“…”

“I’m the courier who delivers death. That might mean directly delivering violence or a bomb, but even when I deliver gold bars or a first aid kit to save someone’s life, it always leads to ruin in the end. That’s just who I am. So be careful when a villain offers you kindness. Ah ha ha. Even a child knows it’s a bad idea to trust a demon’s temptations.”

Only then did she notice Mugino wasn’t responding.

It looked like Hanayama hadn’t even imagined someone might be interested in something more than her “courier” title.

“Hm? Are you still caught up on the Item thing? Did you think only you could use the name? Were you imagining a little © afterwards whenever you said it? Don’t be silly. Academy City’s darkness is never going to kindly protect a villain’s rights!”

The tanned girl laughed as she bent her hips and leaned her upper body against the T-shaped handlebars.

It was the unpleasant laugh of someone who knew the truth.

“''Whichever team is more useful to the dark side as a whole gets to call themselves Item.'' That’s how the system works. Killers who do nothing but spend money aren’t going to cut it. You only destroy – you don’t produce anything. Meanwhile, we do our assigned jobs while also making our own profits, so I’d say we score just a biiiit higher than you.”

Her modified kick scooter gave a deep roar.

“So let’s play, imposter. Our Item will knock all the other candidates out of the running. This impractical proof-of-concept prototype can produce speeds of 1100km/h without leaving the ground. I’ll flatten you with my beloved ''Dragon Motor''!!”

Hanayama didn’t wait for Mugino to respond.

She opened the throttle and melted into streamlines.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. Ibotanokikouji Kaede and Waniguchi Nokoba.

Two against two.

“Oh?”

The first to speak was the small girl in a ring costume.

“You let your ace leave while your two substitute fighters deal with the Chief and me? You must be confident.”

“Waniguchi-san, should we do the usual?”

“Yes, please.”

They weren’t even given time to prepare.

Something blew across the room and all four walls were blown down. Even the wall behind Kinuhata and Frenda.

That meant the spaces divided by the walls were now connected.

This was now part of the Colosseum arena which was boiling with excitement after a shocking accident.

The crowd fell silent from panic, but it wasn’t long before a booming cheer erupted. All their voices joined to form a single powerful mass of noise. The leader girl tensed her brow in slight concentration.

Waniguchi casually grabbed a microphone ''that flew over to her on its own''.

“Yeehaw!! I know you’re upset about having your fight taken from you, but we have a much more exciting event for you. Get hyped because it’s time for a purge. Hey, hey, yo, yo! A round of applause for the executioner! This livestream is about to get a hell of a lot bloodierrrrrrrrrr!!!

“Outta the way, newbie!!” shouted Frenda.

Some objects fell from her skirt and ruptured. She wanted a vibration. Libraries contained a lot of paper, so they were made to be especially sensitive when detecting earthquakes and electrical fires.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede stuck out her tongue a bit.

“Tch, trying to trip the breaker? How boring. You did manage to stop the livestream, though. And unfortunately, we took up the audience’s phones to keep them from recording the valuable match and uploading it to a video site.”

“In the end, those are professional cameras on wheels, so they’re going to use a wired connection. And in a real TV studio, they’ll have some junior staff member in charge of cable management!”

Having a video of your killings revealed worldwide was about the worst case scenario for people who worked underground jobs, but they had just barely avoided that here. However, this had only triggered an emergency system meant to respond to an earthquake, so the room’s power would be back on in about 10 minutes if no further problems were detected.

“But we’ll still kill you.”

Waniguchi pounded her fists together in front of her flat chest.

The 12-year-old girl gave a belligerent smile as she announced her opponents’ deaths.

“It’ll be an on-site exclusive event now, but that just means we have to make it even more exciting!!”

Waniguchi didn’t hesitate to step forward.

This was probably her role on the team. While the vanguard kept the enemy busy with direct combat, the rear guard would keep their distance and do something else. That rear guard claimed to be the #6. Anything she did was bound to be deadly.

(I super don’t know what that will be, but we can’t give her time to use it!!)

Kinuhata took a powerful step forward of her own.

The two girls both broke into a run. They took the shortest route to close in on each other.

Waniguchi spread her arms.

“No tricks? I like your style. You’re no better than some hunk of rotting meat in the garbage, but you’re at least meat worthy of some respect!!”

Just then, mere moments before they clashed, Kinuhata flew unnaturally to the right. It was fortunate she had Offense Armor. An ordinary human could have been mangled by the blast that hit her.

That wasn’t Waniguchi’s doing and it wasn’t Ibotanokikouji’s power either.

''Her ally Frenda'' had used a bomb to knock her to the side.

A moment later, Waniguchi’s small hand tore through the air. It was less a straight punch and more of a spiraling motion to pull in everything around her hand. The attack missed its target and instead hit a bookcase, tearing it to pieces. She had to be using some kind of esper power. From the looks of that, she could tear a car in two with just the one arm.

“Are you stupid!? In the end, you need to fix your habit of relying on your tough shield to charge in and learn what you can about the enemy’s abilities! You’ll get yourself killed right away doing that on the dark side!!”

Frenda started to say more, but a large form loomed over her.

“Super watch out!!”

Kinuhata had fallen to the floor, but she threw over the heavy metal stand to some stage lighting, hitting Frenda hard enough to knock her away from ''something''.

“I’m pretty sure I can survive longer than someone who stands super still to give a lengthy explanation in the middle of a deadly battle!!”

“You, bgh. I save your life and this is how you repay me? In the end, are you in one hell of a rebellious phase?”

This was no time to be complaining.

A tremor ran through the floor.

Frenda was being targeted by a grizzly bear that stood more than 3 meters tall when up on its hind legs.

“The Colosseum is usually about espers, but this was our insurance in case the white tiger was too powerful and mauled all of today’s contestants. We hoped to distract the audience from the lack of a winner by pitting the two beasts against each other and having people bet on the outcome.”

Ibotanokikouji held a hand to her mouth and laughed with no cage or anything else between her and the enormous bear.

She wasn’t even using the circus tricks of keeping it back with a whip or with fire or making herself look big.

“In the end, does this mean her power is controlling animals!?”

“No, that super doesn’t make sense. How would that explain when she destroyed the ceiling or the walls!? And it was easy to overlook, but she made the microphone fly over super on its own.”

That was true.

However, Ibotanokikouji was in fact demonstrating multiple strange phenomena. She held her palm out toward the grizzly without even glancing its way and it came to a stop. That unpredictable ferocious beast could attack anyone if it was in a bad mood, but she controlled it like she had a remote control.

The agitated beast was freed from whatever bound it and it swung its forelegs toward Frenda since she was closest.

Waniguchi ignored that as she walked forward.

A soft crunching sound followed.

That beast could stand to a height of 3 meters and its muscles would stop a .45 caliber handgun shot, but the 12-year-old girl had grabbed it with her slender arms and crushed it.

Even the bloodthirsty audience was briefly ''shocked into silence.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………In the end, did that really just happen?”

She hadn’t used a physical blow. That had looked more like a joint lock.

Waniguchi smiled sweetly while drenched in bear blood. That smile contained the perfect combination of innocence and intimidation, making it extremely popular for some.

“Ugh, really? Chief, I know playing with animals is fun and all, but try not to interrupt my fight.”

“Hee hee. Sorry about that. Please do forgive me. I messed up my control a little.”

Frenda was stunned.

An explosive danced meaninglessly in her hand after she froze in her throwing stance.

Would this even affect that girl?

Explosives were a symbol of humanity’s technology and violence, but it felt so inadequate against that smile.

“Leverage Struggle.”

Waniguchi smiled belligerently as she pulled a thick pair of pliers from her pocket.

''She grabbed the wall with them and tore it right off with only one arm.

Just like a piece of heavy machinery demolishing a building.

“I’m not trying to hide my power. I’ve shown it off in the execution videos when someone violates the rules, after all. Scissors, crowbars, seesaws, and joint locks – if it uses leverage, I can use it as a weapon. Yeah, I can grab a concrete pillar as big around as your torso and bend it with my bare hands. Hell, I could do the same with one twice as thick.”

“Is this super idiot serious?”

With a splash, Kinuhata grabbed a bucket of machine oil and dumped it over her head. That was an odd thing to find in a library, but it was probably meant for the wheels of the heavy camera equipment. Or maybe it was a flammable weapon meant for use in the Colosseum.

“If super all you can do is amplify the power of joint locks that use leverage, then you can’t do a thing against a straight punch or kick. Simply put, ''you’re nothing to worry about as long as you don’t grab me.'' Why would you go out of your way to tell us that? There are super tons of ways of killing you.”

After hearing all that, Waniguchi’s face scrunched up.

She was trying very hard to hold back the tears. All of a sudden, she looked like a normal 12-year-old girl.

“Now, now, Waniguchi-chan. Don’t cry. This is why I told you not to reveal your power like that.”

“Sob. Chief.”

“And even if she is too slippery to grab with your bare hands, you can still hit and tear at her with those pliers. You can also try something trickier by using a seesaw to launch projectiles or yourself. It isn’t very smart to limit your options by focusing solely on barehanded joint locks.”

“You don’t need to attack me tooooooooo!!”

“There, there.”

The sadistic girl (who had made the 12-year-old cry for real) pulled Waniguchi into a comforting hug.

Concentration gathered in Kinuhata’s brow.

“You sure are confident. Do you think you can super win while protecting that idiot and fighting us essentially one-against-two? Let’s super hope you aren’t a meathead too.”

“Hee hee. Yes, ''you have a point.''”

Ibotanokikouji laughed like it had happened to slip out.

It was the amused laugh of a mother who had finally secured a house for her family with a 35-year loan and then learned her daughter was myopically planning to run away from home and live independently.

“But I will still emerge victorious. Can I fight while protecting the weak? Can I win one-against-two? ''Of course I can.'' When you are powerful, you can fight back against this unfair world. But I can’t blame you for being too weak to know that.”

“?”

The #6 held a finger to her lips and whispered sweetly.

“You are in luck. You are about to receive a special demonstration of what the Dark Side’s Bane can really do.”

She only needed a single instant to end the fight.

===Part 10===

The extraordinary engine roared. The din became a physical mass that erupted through the planetarium.

That was Hanayama Kamitsu’s modified kick scooter – the Dragon Motor.

But Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner was an extraordinary projectile weapon. It didn’t matter how quickly the enemy accelerated toward her. She had nothing to fear as long as she reduced them to charcoal before they reached her.

Or so she thought.

“Ha ha ha!!”

Hanayama slipped past.

In fact, that giant kick scooter was moving along the planetarium’s domed ceiling. It defied gravity like a rollercoaster.

“Tch. Quit using brute force to defy fluid dynamics!!”

“I’m moving at 1100km/h, remember? That’s why I need my own supply of oxygen. Ah ha ha!! Wah ha ha!! It’s actually a lot harder to keep it on the ground!!”

Even the tanned track girl’s cackling was distorted by her speed. The kick scooter made several passes above Mugino’s head during that one statement.

Bare skin could not survive at that speed, so she likely had some kind of gel generously applied over her entire body.

“Stupid spider girl!!”

“''Bingo''.”

Hanayama answered the insult with a laugh.

Several metallic clangs followed.

The kick scooter had just about melted into streamlines, but on the enormous rear portion, several mechanical arms spread out to the sides like a spider. Each arm had a sharp heavy metal blade attached to the end.

“Atomic number 92!! These burning swords of depleted uranium can cut through a tank!! Hee hee, you won’t even notice you’ve been cut. Ah ha ha, let’s play a game of human daruma otoshi☆”

The kick scooter moved from the curved dome to the floor and then charged straight toward Mugino. Following it by eye was superhuman enough, so not even Mugino had time to take careful aim. She calculated the length of the skinny arms and swords and then considered whether to dodge left or right.

“Tch!!”

She fired Meltdowner at her feet to leap upwards.

“Oh, you figured it out? There goes my promise to kill you before you noticed.”

Orange sparks scattered a moment later. The wreckage of the seats was sliced through like tofu or jelly even outside the range of the arms and swords.

There were wires.

“That’s why you were right to call me a spider girl.”

Mugino was still hanging in midair, but Hanayama had already made five circuits of the domed ceiling or floor.

Hanayama couldn’t directly contact Mugino in the brief moment she remained airborne, but…

“I won’t let you land. I’ll build a spiderweb of deadly wires. Making wires this thin out of depleted uranium isn’t easy, you know? Now curse your own body weight while I slice you up like tokoroten!!”

Mugino’s fall toward death was almost complete.

She twisted around in midair and launched a Meltdowner beam.

But it didn’t hit the kick scooter.

Her opponent was just too fast.

(Damn, a single straight line just isn’t enough. I need another option to deal with a target that keeps moving out of the way.)

“Ah ha ha!!”

Mugino was trapped within a vortex of laughter.

If she did her best to resist – such as by using the airborne wreckage of the seats or the metal railings as a foothold – she could probably earn herself a few more Meltdowner-powered jumps, but that was all. Once gravity dragged all of those footholds back to the floor, Mugino would fall too and be sliced apart by the wires.

The Dragon Motor continued to circle around her.

The wires were being strung up all over the planetarium and Mugino would be sliced and diced if she fell into them.

“Random shots aren’t going to reach me and they can’t break my wires either!! You can’t keep shooting those beams forever! Bye-bye, Level 5. The Item name is ours now!!!”

Immediately afterwards, part of the planetarium’s domed ceiling was noisily torn away. A mass larger than a refrigerator lost its support and fell, so Hanayama had to quickly turn the T-shaped handlebars. From the kick scooter’s perspective, it had been like the road collapsing up ahead. She escaped unharmed, but she was still thrown off her planned course.

“What just…?”

The track girl found the answer before finishing her question.

She saw holes. Big holes. Random shots had done the trick. Mugino’s Meltdowner had opened several holes of 2m or more in the domed ceiling. The dome itself could no longer support itself and thick cracks ran through it. Once those cracks covered the surface area of the dome, ordinary gravity took control and the walls tore away and fell.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you are if I don’t aim for you directly.”

Mugino used the final airborne foothold and a beam to make another leap. She grinned and aimed her palm in midair.

The girl known as a monster still had confidence to spare.

“You don’t have many options left once you’ve lost your road, courier. And didn’t you say it was hard to keep that thing on the ground?”

“You…bitch!!”

Hanayama swerved this way and that to avoid the “canyons” in the collapsing dome. But as her routes grew more limited, she ultimately had only one path she could take, which made it easy to predict her future location and fire Meltdowner there. Because if Hanayama had slowed down, she would have fallen from the ceiling.

She wasn’t even given a chance to scream.

The beam launched from Mugino’s palm erased the tanned girl and her modified kick scooter from existence.

There was no corpse, or even a single drop of blood, remaining.

===Part 11===

Mugino heard something sharply slicing through the air.

“Whoops.”

With the domed ceiling destroyed, the taut wires had lost their support. It was like a blade-sharp bowstring suddenly snapping. She would have felt pretty silly losing a limb or her head to this.

But this also meant she didn’t have to worry about being sliced apart when landing on the broken floor.

She had defeated Hanayama Kamitsu, courier of the enemy Item.

But that wasn’t why Mugino was here.

The silver-haired art club girl with the suitcase was nowhere to be found. She had escaped. This was a job for a more intelligence-oriented member, not a combat specialist like Mugino.

She pulled out her phone while focusing on things outside the crumbling planetarium.

She knew exactly who to call.

(I need the support organization to set up a perimeter around the library. Hopefully they can at least catch a glimpse of her. Then Takitsubo just has to register her AIM Diffusion Field to track her even if she tries to flee the solar system.)

“Hanano! Have you gotten Takitsubo to safety? I want her to use AIM Stalker, so tell her to take some Body-”

“'Oh, hello. I have your mysterious 5th member in my custody.''”

“Kh.”

Mugino scowled.

She recognized that voice, but it wasn’t who she had called. A call to Hanano Choubi’s phone had been answered by Ibotanokikouji Kaede’s voice, which could only mean one thing.

(She has the worst timing!)

“Please do not blame her for this. Hanano-chan did exactly as you asked. She suppressed her fear and fought tooth and nail to let Takitsubo-chan escape. You should really praise her for her admirable – if ineffective – efforts. But if she no longer has a place on your team now that she has failed you, I am more than willing to invite her to join mine. Hee hee. Sinfully cute, isn’t she?”

“Damn you.”

With a dull metal clang, someone tackled down the half-broken planetarium door. A battered-looking Kinuhata emerged. She was supporting Frenda with her shoulder, but was Frenda even conscious?

“Super sorry.”

Mugino didn’t have time to respond before those two collapsed limply forward.

Ibotanokikouji had to know the safest option was to say nothing at all, but that didn’t stop her.

“Just so you know, they scored surprisingly well escaping from that situation at all. Although my own indecisiveness is really to blame there. If I had been focused on them, they wouldn’t have lasted a second.”

Quiet laughter snuck in over the electronic device.

Ordinarily, this alone would have cost her her life.

“''I told you I am the Dark Side’s Bane, didn’t I''? You don’t seem to have the brainpower to understand what that means, so I hope this taught you the same lesson on a more instinctual level. This is my territory for hunting the likes of you. You cannot defeat me as long as you remain in this darkness. No matter what.”

“Shut the hell up, worm. That’s just a legend. Propaganda. Are you saying you would’ve self-destructed if we were heroes or schoolgirls from the sunny world?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

Those words seemed to take hold of the atmosphere.

Strange rules seemed to seep out from the cracks.

“None of you are anything more than prey, so when you gather together, you only end up devouring each other,” said Ibotanokikouji. “I am your bane – your predator – so your puny claws and fangs cannot reach me. There are no three-way deadlocks in the food chain. It is a pure top-to-bottom hierarchy.”

“…”

“We used a different insider at the insurance company for each match anyway, so that man was disposable to begin with. We can replace him at any time. Our only failure here is…well, that you are still alive must mean Hanayama-chan is dead. But we can overcome that too by negotiating with Hanano-chan and making her our new teammate. She’s a cute one, so I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to add her to my collection. Our four-girl structure will not be broken. Hee hee. Violence, starvation, sleep deprivation, itching, disgust, panic – there are any number of ways to remove someone’s will from their body. I can’t wait to see her cute attempts at resistance.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede kept going. She was not done speaking yet.

“A life for a life. That makes us even, doesn’t it?”

===Part 12===

The city was full of life that Tanabata night.

Colorful light decorated the night sky as fireworks were launched from somewhere.

The meteor shower would apparently be visible soon.

But Item returned straight to their hideout without speaking a word.

Their group of five was incomplete.

They knew that, but there was nothing they could do right away.

“Mugino…”

Takitsubo started to say something, but she stopped.

There was no need to say it out loud.

Mugino had decided it would be safest to give that girl a role so she could escape first with Takitsubo. This was the result. Did everything always have to backfire in the dark side?

The weakest link would always be targeted and bitten off first.

And no matter what their intentions, their wounds and exhaustion were just as real. If they had stayed in the library, they would have been captured too. They had also lost sight of their initial objective, so Mugino and the other three had been forced to return home.

A symbol of a certain girl’s presence could be found in the Fifteen Bells apartment. The bamboo that Frenda had forcibly stuck inside a moth orchid pot had a certain tanzaku blowing in the air conditioning.

''I want to be a part of Item! A useful part!!

''Please let me find some way to make myself worthwhile to them as thanks for taking me in.

:::''-Hanano Choubi

There was nothing else.

Only silence.

Even the violent Level 5 simply stared at the tanzaku for a while, not speaking a word.

Kinuhata and Frenda didn’t dare speak to the silent tyrant. They sensed a much greater rejection in this than in an enraged outburst.

“Mugino.”

But the track suit girl did quietly call out to her.

And with real force behind her voice.

Takitsubo had been with Mugino the longest, so she had to understand that girl’s violence better than anyone. But that was exactly why only she could safely pass between the countless landmines laid out there.

This was something that Mugino would never, ever say.

But it would reward the foolishly honest and kind newcomer who had arrived to bolster the team’s numbers and had faithfully protected Takitsubo from this dark world.

“This isn’t over yet. We can still rescue Hanano from that fake Item.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2

2023-03-15T10:16:04Z

JDMP: corrected a typo from Diamater to Diameter

==Chapter 2: >>Colosseum.==

===Part 1===

July 7, 9 AM

“Hooray for laziness…”

“Mugino.”

Mugino Shizuri was still lying in her large bed well after students and workers alike had gotten going. And for some reason, Takitsubo was in bed with her.

The negligee girl sleepily rubbed her eye.

“Why are you in here?”

“There weren’t enough beds.”

Takitsubo’s blank expression was as unchanged as her outfit. She wore her track suit at home, when going out, and even when sleeping.

“With two extra members all of a sudden, the room allotments are a mess. And right when we can’t access our money. You said we wouldn’t be able to buy new furniture for a while, remember?”

“…”

Maybe she had said that.

That didn’t seem like reason enough to climb into bed with her, but this could be solved by making beds for the two newcomers from a sofa or yoga mat or something.

“And didn’t you say you were going for an early morning jog before it got too hot? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this is the third time I’ve woken you. The sun is already pretty high in the sky.”

Sure enough, she heard a clattering noise from the various small items Takitsubo had in her pink track jacket’s pocket. Rolling over like that had to hurt, making it hard to sleep.

“Ugh, but I’m still tired. Besides, it’s already too late to jog today. It’s not the end of the world, so I can start jogging tomorrow.”

“Last night, you said to make you get up even if I had to spank you. Here, I recorded you saying it on this voice recorder. So what will it be? Do I have to spank you?”

“Curse my past self for being so thorough.”

The negligee girl made a highly unscientific complaint and crawled out of bed. She opened the bedroom door and entered the large living room just in time to see something green swaying in front of her.

They were in an apartment, but Frenda Seivelun was crossing the living room carrying a giant bamboo over her shoulder. But not because she had a new pet panda.

“Tanabata, it’s Tanabata☆”

The apartment’s decorative plants, tropical fish tank, and such were managed by a rental company and were replaced quite frequently, but Frenda had still stuck the bottom of some bamboo into a giant pot of moth orchids.

And some red, blue, and green decorations were attached among the bamboo leaves.

This wasn’t a school or shopping district, so it seemed unlikely individuals had attached all of those tanzaku. Frenda was apparently confusing the Tanabata bamboo with a Christmas tree.

There were far fewer tanzaku than other decorations and one of them said the following:

''Don’t let anyone on Item get hurt.

''Oh, and I want money, status, fame, time off, popularity, and friends!! As much as I can get!!!

:::''-Frenda Seivelun

Mugino held a hand to her drowsy head and sighed.

“What are you doing? This is supposed to be a city of science.”

“Mugino, what do you do with that afterwards? I doubt you can put it out with the normal trash.”

Why would she know the rules of some silly superstition?

After taking a shower, Mugino changed into a tank top and long bike shorts to exercise in. Her sneakers were an expensive shock-absorbing model. Then she grabbed her music player…no, today she went for her folding handheld 3D game console. Frenda had said it worked too. The movement of jogging seemed like it would dislodge wireless earphones, so she decided the wired type was safer. She wasn’t picky about sound quality, but she had gotten the kind with pure gold wires anyway.

Takitsubo was the indoorsy type despite wearing a track suit year round, so she had no intention of joining Mugino. She was staring at the canine pet robots bumping into each other and having a turf war. Frenda was…what was she doing? She was at the table with a notebook open and looked delighted. It may have been the finance book (for managing their evil team). And yet she was the one wasting money on decorations like that bamboo.

Mugino ended up riding the elevator down to ground level on her own.

The lower floors contained a shopping mall full of luxury brand shops. As soon as she walked out of the automatic door and lost the blessing of the air conditioning, an invisible wave of heat radiating from the pavement hit her right in the face.

“This summer heat really makes me hate my own legs. Yet another thing I can blame on eating bread. Really, the wheat culture is to blame. The Japanese digestive system wasn’t made for Western food.”

The Fifteen Bells complex was something like a small amusement park, so jogging the perimeter made for a decent distance. Mugino decided to expand the area she covered in something like a spiral after one lap.

She put her earphones in.

One she got started, jogging was easy enough.

Mugino was an expert at being lazy, but she had more than enough stamina.

And as she jogged, it became very clear that today was July 7, Tanabata. Event advertisement flags were set up like streetlights on either side of the major street and the weather forecast provided by the large screen on the belly of a blimp also had a predicted arrival time for some meteor shower or another.

Four or five high school girls were sticking quite close together on the sidewalk. But rather than some girl-on-girl flirting, one of them appeared to have a cooling power. Mugino was jealous. That girl had to be like a seaside restaurant – popular in the summer but forgotten in the winter.

As Mugino passed them, the earphones attached to the folding game console did not play a fitness rhythm or the voice of an automatic advice mode.

It played some data recorded as videos.

''“The Colosseum? We’ve been pursuing it too, but no luck so far. Several times now, one of our people goes missing and turns up a few days later as a pummeled corpse. These are people who can’t return to their dorm and have nowhere left to turn. How do you get such a valuable insurance policy on someone like that? My name is Komaba Ritoku. Contact me if you learn anything. I’ll buy any data you have with cash. I want to settle the score myself if possible.”

''“Sorry, young lady. I appreciate the Musashino Milk, but I really don’t know anything about the Colosseum. For better or for worse, I’m keeping my hands off that one. I’ve told my entire team to do the same, so I couldn’t tell you what’s going on there now. What’s that? You thought Big Spider was led by a guy called Kurozuma? …It’s probably best if you go on believing that.”

“I can’t concentrate on this while running. …Mostly because it’s too damn hot.”

The fundamental problem was Mugino oversleeping.

She knew nothing was going to come of this, but she still replayed the footage several times, focusing on the people’s breathing and word choices to try and see if they were lying.

(Their quality is about as low as it gets, but they do have numbers. And because they’re weak, they know how to take advantage of their location. That means they’ll be monitoring every last nook and cranny of the back alleys. So if those Skill Out teams haven’t seen anything, where could the Colosseum be holding their deadly matches? And if it’s true they use a different location each time, do they follow some kind of pattern?)

They had hit a decent obstacle even for Mugino.

For one thing, this kind of investigation and pursuit wasn’t supposed to be Item’s job. They preferred jobs where they were given their target’s location on a map.

Mugino turned a corner while glancing over at a luxury department store bag abandoned in the gap between two shrubs growing on the side of the road.

Then someone caught up to her from behind. No, the person came up alongside her.

“Super good morning.”

It was Kinuhata Saiai.

The external voice triggered the earphones’ accident prevention feature, automatically lowering the volume.

Kinuhata was not out of breath as she ran. Mugino wanted to stay in the shade of the roadside trees or pass through the cool mist shower to fight the summer heat, but Kinuhata stole that position.

Kinuhata had already jogged several laps more than Mugino and she looked like she could keep going just fine. Mugino and Frenda were decent fighters, but in a pure fistfight, this small girl had to be even better. But that didn’t really matter. The dark side was especially irritating because ''you needed more than that''.

Mugino removed one of her earphones without slowing her pace.

“What, are you taking an early morning jog too?”

“Early?” Kinuhata checked how high the sun was in the sky and released an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been watching movies at the theater at the bottom of our building. Seven in a row. I started yesterday, so I’m super stiff and thought I should loosen up before getting some sleep.”

“Movies, huh? Don’t we have a home theater system in our room?”

“It’s super nice, I’ll admit, but it’s just not the same as a real movie theater. Also, I thought that theater was the fashionable kind that panders to couples, but whoever selects its lineup knows what they’re doing. Especially late at night when it plays lots of super minor B and C movies that you can’t even find on streaming sites. After you freed me, I took a look around, but you super don’t see many theaters showing South American zombie horror flicks. Yeah, a big jungle chainsaw and tequila Molotov cocktails are super perfect for a tropical city where civilization has collapsed after a widescale blackout!!”

“Why do you like movies so much?”

“There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment when I was confined in that lab. I think they were super scared we’d kill someone if we had any toys. All they did was gather the subjects in a white room and super project the movie on a screen meant for presentations, but it stuck with me. …Of course, super who knows what kind of subliminal messages and ultra-low frequency sounds they were including in those.”

That explained it.

Those people imprisoned children, tested risky drugs on them, and gave them brainwashing movies as their only form of entertainment. The fact that she wasn’t disturbed by this proved to Mugino that she really was part of the dark side. Her only real thought was “sounds about right”. In dark side terms, she gave it 50 points. So exactly average.

Even the dangerous people who caused enough trouble to get expelled from school wanted nothing to do with the dark side. You couldn’t let every little thing surprise you.

“Wait? So when we went down to receive data on this job…?”

“Yes. As you’ve super guessed already, that was my first time in a real movie theater, something I’d always wanted to see. It was super weird doing it to see the data we would need to kill some super idiot, though.”

“Sorry about that.”

Kinuhata sounded blue, but Mugino’s response had no real emotion behind it.

Was that experience like fulfilling your lifelong dream of visiting Italy and being served awful pasta on the plane trip there?

“And did you find a new ''part-time job'' too?”

Kinuhata fell silent.

Mugino fanned her face with a hand while focusing on the rhythm of her jogging.

“It’s not an accusation. You’re allowed to have a side job. I believe Frenda heads out on forensics jobs sometimes.”

“Forensics? Oh, she’s a super expert with bombs, isn’t she?”

“It’s less about the explosives and more about the chemistry knowledge. Of course, she isn’t helping investigations trying to hunt down the bad guy. It’s more like she helps people know who to take revenge on for killing their buddy.”

Their conversation continued as they jogged.

“But if you are going to make drop-offs, you can’t leave the bag in such an obvious location. You’ll get complaints if the goods don’t reach their destination because someone else found it and took it away. By which I mean the client will send someone after you to reclaim their payment.”

“I think this client super wanted it to be found. They want to update the outdated criminal infrastructure. So they super want an accident with some convincing item.”

“I see.”

The dark side had its own etiquette.

They were all criminals who broke national laws and city regulations, but they could be picky about such things.

“''Super more importantly, what about Hanano Choubi-san?''”

“''Her investigation should be done soon.''”

===Part 2===

District 7.

A large outdoor space was lined with what looked like long shipping containers, but they were actually model rooms for a variety of different styles of studio apartment. But these were meant for landlords and building managers, not for residents. The rooms were created with hive construction. The rooms themselves were made whole in a single factory using a special industrial 3D printer. A jungle-gym-like framework of beams was created first and then the boxy rooms could be inserted like drawers to create an entire apartment building. If the suicide or murder of a resident threatened to lower the value, the entire room could be removed and swapped out for a new one, so hive construction was gathering a lot of attention in Academy City for the possibility of removing some of the risk from real estate.

However.

There was one sample room where it wasn’t clear which construction company had the key to its lock.

“I’m baaack.”

After inserting two keys and opening the front door, Hanano Choubi found a few chairs, a wall-sized mirror, lighting equipment, an industrial dryer, and more. It looked something like a beauty parlor, but some might have recognized it as closer to a TV studio’s dressing room, where a stylist worked. In other words, you could sleep there if you wanted, but it didn’t look lived in.

Also, a mountain of plastic clothing cases was stacked up by the wall.

Wigs, hair extensions, color contacts, false eyelashes, double eyelid gel, mouthpieces, foundation, etc. There was even a selection of implants, artificial bones, silicone artificial breast bags, and other things that should need surgery to make use of.

In the back was a tanning machine like the ones seen at a tanning salon and hyperbaric oxygen capsules used to manipulate blood oxygen to alter the ''swelling'' of the skin, but she didn’t need either of those this time.

“Nyan, nyan, nya-nyan, nyahhn.”

Maybe she wanted to be the feline type because Hanano nyan-ed a popular song as she entered the fake sample room and reached for the top of her head. She ''removed'' her long hair as simply as she might a hat.

By removing her eyebrows and eyelashes, she revealed her base face. The smooth face reflected in the mirror reminded her of a doll before it was processed.

“Now, then.”

The mirror covered an entire wall, but not all of it was usable. A lot of its surface was covered by notes and photos. Those provided data on her target.

“Age: 52. Sex: Male. Hair: black and a bit greasy. See photo for distribution of gray. Skin: Asian with lots of blue base grease. Eyes: black with a hint of brown. Oh, and the skin is only lightly tanned and with minor dust mite allergy symptoms. Should I adjust the skin to be a bit rougher?”

Hanano’s specialty was disguise and infiltration.

The quality of her disguise was dependent on the amount of data she had on her target. This time, she had spent an entire week gathering that data herself, so she was confident she could give herself the same fingerprints, teeth shape, eyes, blood type, and scent as him. Once she was in disguise, not even the target’s parents or a police dog would notice anything was amiss.

And like in this case, sex and age were no obstacle.

After applying some makeup, she looked into the mirror to see an old man who would look at home in a fancy suit. The process wasn’t complete, so her face had swollen out to the appropriate size, but everything below remained that of a girl.

“Oops.”

Hanano Choubi’s fingers touched a rectangular box on the table, but she quickly pulled her hand back. She may have subconsciously wanted some refreshing menthol since it was summer, but these were flavored cigarettes. This target was a nonsmoker, so the smell of nicotine or tar would stand out. If she had carelessly smoked one, she would have had to start over from the beginning. That had been much too close.

(I can buy some scentless tablets later on.)

“Language: standard Japanese with a hint of an Aichi accent. Dry eyes and symptoms of neck and shoulder stiffness. Places his weight on his right leg when standing and dislikes having people stand on his left side. Holds his chopsticks wrong and mouth breaths when he loses his cool. Also…here we go. His handwriting is, um, angular but sloppy. Wow, I don’t know about his schooling, but his parents must not have raised him right. He doesn’t just confuse ‘to’ and ‘too’, but ‘two’ as well.”

Her voice grew lower and deeper as she spoke.

Her weight and body type had already been transformed.

Throw out your morals and rely on technology and anyone could transform, no supernatural powers necessary.

From head to toe, she had become the broad-shouldered ''insurance company general manager'' and spoke with the deep voice to match.

“Sigh. If only I had a friend who would do Magical Powered Kanamin cosplay with me.”

===Part 3===

It was a simple matter.

“I asked around the sketchy people who know the back alleys, but none of them had any information on the Colosseum. That leaves the insurance company general manager as our only source of hints. We have his story, but it isn’t enough. Hanano, can you disguise yourself as him, infiltrate the company headquarters, and check the central server to see who the pricey payouts were made for and who received them? Hacking in from outside is apparently too difficult.”

They didn’t just threaten the general manger – who had already been treated to torture at the hands of two girls – and have him go because he was covered in bandages. A mummy (old) would stand out too much. And as an outsider, they couldn’t predict when he would get too scared and stop. Send someone like that to the enemy base and they tended to think they had escaped and the plan fell apart. Unfortunately, the cleanup afterwards generally meant brute force via long-range attack.

“This van is so much smaller. And my body is so stiff.”

Mugino complained from the back seat of the boxy minivan.

A three-blade wind turbine was spinning nearby, but they didn’t feel remotely cool. That rotation was from the quality of the bearings, not the strength of the wind.

She missed the larger vehicle. They could still use Item’s resources, but they couldn’t replace anything that was lost. They needed a new source of funding and fast.

“They’re doing fireworks!”

Frenda leaned out the window and stared into the distance.

Was a school out for its anniversary? Or maybe they had the day off because the air conditioner was broken and the school couldn’t keep the kids inside in this summer heat. Regardless, a bunch of small children were out in the blazing heat launching parachute-equipped fireworks in some kind of competition. If advance notice was given that children would be launching fireworks, a drum-shaped security robot with a special firefighting attachment would watch over the event, but Item was too far away to see it.

The other girls in the van were speaking too.

“Frenda-san, it’s super weird that you can detect the scent of explosives from this far away. Or that it excites you so much, for that matter.”

“Heh heh☆”

“Frenda, I don’t think that was a compliment. Kinuhata is disturbed by it,” said Takitsubo.

They were in District 3.

Even for Academy City, the district had a lot of office buildings for famous corporations.

Since the children were playing here, their local park may have been taken over by bullies.

The insurance company headquarters – a giant skyscraper – was also visible from here. Item was keeping enough distance that the company’s security team wouldn’t get suspicious.

“So, Mugino, are you sure the newbie can do this? We’re talking about a company full of old men. In the end, couldn’t I get in a lot easier making full use of my cuteness?”

“That’s worked in the past, but if we have a disguise expert, we might as well use her.”

“In the end, is this when I’m supposed to groan in frustration and complain that my job is being taken from me?”

“Mugino is worried about you, Frenda. She doesn’t like you doing those risky honeytrap missions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t let them lay a single finger on me when I’m controlling them! In the end, the trick to luring them in is to make sure they just barely can’t see what they want.”

Frenda pouted her lips. What it was she knew was probably something only she could know. And she seemed to be ignoring the Level 0 newcomer and glaring more at the track suit girl who had taken up the position of the wife who knew everything about Mugino.

“Uhh.”

The ''elderly general manager'' was starting to get nervous and even whined like a small animal with the deep old man voice. Everyone watching had their brains rattled and had to question their understanding of the world.

She(?) put a small earphone in her right ear.

“Wh-whether this works or not, a lot of people are going to see me. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned, but won’t the real general manager be arrested for misconduct?”

“So what if he is?”

He was an immoral grownup who had refused to call Anti-Skill when he knew people were dying and even defrauded his own company to protect himself. He was a perfect example of Academy City’s shittiness. They hadn’t killed him since he had told them what they wanted to know, but they were under no obligation to protect him either.

“Speaking of him, didn’t he mention having a family?” asked Mugino. “We should probably tell him to get a divorce right away if he cares about his wife and kids. If they only get divorced after he’s arrested, his family might share the legal liability for the damages he owes.”

“If that’s the kindest option you can think of, it says a lot about the dark side,” complained Hanano.

Mugino gave an irritated look to the overly cheerful summer sunshine.

“It’s 11 AM. The perfect time for an executive to show up at the office.”

A real executive would arrive in a chauffeured black luxury car, but Item had destroyed that car last week. Unproductive VIPs needed to use their car as a status symbol to feel pride in something, so it wouldn’t be out of place for him to take the train or walk when a replacement hadn’t arrived yet.

The summery scent of mosquito-repelling incense wafted over.

The incense itself and the ceramic pig it came from were both made by Frenda, so it was extremely effective.

“Hanano, you’ll be masquerading as the general manager to get inside the building. You’ll just walk right on past the receptionist out front. What then?”

“I use his executive key card on the reader in front of the elevator that leads to the upper floors and take that straight to the central server room which is normally off limits. That means I need to be the only one to board the elevator on the first floor.”

“Good. Leave the security cameras to us.”

Mugino took out a computer smaller than a makeup bag and shoved it into Hanano Choubi’s hands.

“Physically connect this to the central server and the program inside will extract all the necessary data automatically. You don’t need to do anything more than that, but don’t let the receptionist notice you’re hiding this.”

“''Of course not. Who do you think I am?''”

Hanano Choubi had the old man’s voice and attitude down perfectly. Mugino saw her off and then returned to the van.

The van was full of small monitors. They displayed grainy footage from a variety of angles. Needless to say, that footage came from the insurance company’s security cameras.

“In the end, how did we hack into this?”

“We couldn’t reach the central server located inside the building, but the security camera footage is gathered together and sent out to the security company along a single thick line. The insurance company doesn’t have a security room of its own, you see. So we messed with that. Now we can monitor all this footage without anyone noticing and without leaving a trace. Of course, that was all done by the support organization in their work jumpsuits, so I don’t know the details.”

“Oh, is that Hanano-san super there?”

Kinuhata pointed at one of the monitors.

Sure enough, it showed one of the automatic doors opening and a broad-shouldered old man entering the reception lobby. Like any top-rate corporate building, the first floor was all about showing off, so it was given a tropical look. It was full of green and even had a waterway. The arrogant general manager hadn’t been dropped off by his car like usual, so the receptionist and security team looked a little confused as they greeted him.

Takitsubo tilted her head while staring blankly.

“Have they figured it out?”

“I super don’t know.”

“In the end, he ''took some time off without permission'', but he’s also a general manager who lives in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to ask too many questions and learn he was on a trip with a mistress or something, so will any of the ordinary employees be willing to directly ask him where he was? Damn, the security cameras can’t pick up their voices.”

Disguised Hanano raised a hand in greeting before walking through one of the security gates that resembled the ticket gates at a train station.

A tearful voice reached them through the small microphone hidden on her suit rather than through the security cameras.

That girl was smiling with the utmost confidence, but she was sobbing on the inside.

“(Stop speculating so much! I’m sure it seems fun when you’re just watching, but my life is on the line here. P-please don’t abandon me if this goes wrong. You won’t, will you!?)”

It didn’t matter if she aroused some suspicion as long as it wasn’t enough for someone to stop her. Although she was blatantly fidgeting while waiting in an elevator hall that looked like something from a luxury hotel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

“In the end, speaking aloud is only putting you at more risk. Are you doing it on purpose as some kind of challenge run?”

“Says someone who’s only watching!!”

But there wasn’t any real trouble.

The metal doors parted and the general manager entered the empty elevator with a pace quickened just enough that no one would find it unusual. After the door closed, “he” held a card up to the control panel.

A push of the button and the elevator began to rise. It had switched into a mode that wouldn’t stop on intermediate floors.

“Um, Mugino-san. Super what floor is the central server room on?”

“28.”

“Hanano won’t have anywhere to escape if the security team surrounds her,” noted Takitsubo.

“I really am going curse all four of you,” protested Hanano. “Who is that munching on popcorn right next to the mic!?”

The correct answer was cinephile Kinuhata Saiai who always wanted popcorn when she was staring at a screen, but there was no need to say so. Frenda had opened a mackerel can and was going at it with a fork.

The elevator stopped at one of the higher floors.

The doors parted to reveal the exact opposite of the gentle atmosphere of sunlight and greenery found in the lobby. First of all, there were no windows to speak of. The large floor was divided up by chain link fences and thick tempered glass walls and the entire place was taken up by computers larger than vending machines. It wasn’t clear what the divisions between areas and machines signified, but the place looked like a labyrinth. Hanano trembled, walked pigeon-toed, and held her shoulders (all with the old man look), so the temperature may have been well below standard room temperature.

“This is…the central server room.”

She could already see the server machines. They were everywhere here on the 28th floor. But she couldn’t actually touch them with the labyrinth of chain link fences and glass walls in the way. She would need to unlock the door in the fence to get through.

Of course, Hanano would have already prepared to do just that.

However…

“I-it won’t open?”

She had sounded nervous before, but now her tone of voice rose even further.

With no one else around, she didn’t bother hiding the hesitation in her wandering hands.

“I don’t believe it. How is this happening? The fence door in the central server room won’t open!!”

“What does that mean? Didn’t you spend an entire week checking over everything from the general manager’s fingerprints to his irises? Including every little idiosyncrasy he has?”

“That week was the problem. It looks like they change the door’s passcode each week, so his information from July 1 isn’t good anymore!”

“And…what does that mean?”

“Uhh,” groaned Hanano. Mugino had repeated the same words, but her ''sizzling'' displeasure had been hard to miss.

They couldn’t have Hanano remaining silent during a mission, so Mugino compromised by speaking first.

“Do you have any tricks you can use?”

“Sure, if there was an emergency. For example, in an earthquake powerful enough to possibly bring the building down, all the locks are set to automatically release to ensure no one is trapped.”

“''You don’t say?''”

Frenda had known Mugino long enough to put down her mackerel can, grab blankly-staring Takitsubo, and scoot away from Mugino. Kinuhata was still new to this, so she only tilted her head with her big tub of popcorn.

Hanano Choubi was also new, so she failed to see the danger of her comment.

“Don’t run away, Frenda. Use those goggles of yours.”

“Ugh. No stopping you, huh? Fine, fine. In the end, I’ll support you.”

That was all Mugino had to hear before she smiled thinly and took action.

She reached a hand out the car window.

And she fired Meltdowner at the very center of the distant skyscraper.

===Part 4===

“Gyahhhh!?”

Hanano Choubi forgot all about acting and screamed for real. Not that anyone would have found it unusual given the circumstances.

A sharp tremor shook the giant building vertically, the tempered glass shattered, all the fire alarms went off, and a recorded female voice urged everyone to evacuate.

The blast hadn’t hit this floor, but her life was still at risk. The building was made of tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, but it might as well have been a shaky suspension bridge. Mugino could have brought the entire skyscraper down with ease if she wanted to.

“What!? What did you just do!?”

“You said the locks would release in an emergency, right? So I figured it would be faster to make our own. Don’t worry. I had Frenda monitoring the electromagnetism produced by human bodies, so I only took out a big conference room no one was using. One less budget item for them to worry about, really.”

(This building isn’t part of the dark side. Cause a scene like this and the Dark Side’s Bane will notice. Once that #6 is after us, we’ll vanish ''without a trace'' in some back alley or another!!)

The diligent small animal of a girl slumped her shoulders when she belatedly realized she had become the kind of person who put her guard up when she saw a hero.

Meanwhile, Mugino Shizuri’s voice couldn’t have been more carefree.

Which probably meant she was the kind of person who could slaughter people while perfectly relaxed.

“Get a move on, Hanano. Or is the door still not open? How many more times do I have to blast that building? Should I target a load-bearing column next? Or maybe the base isolators? Give the word and they’re gone☆”

“No need, no need! The door’s open! That worked fine, so thank you for the very useful support!!”

(That kaiju girl!!)

Hanano shouted tearfully and opened the unlocked fence door. She pulled the miniature computer from her pocket, connected a cable to it, and connected the other end to one of the server machines. The computer would do the rest.

It made quiet sounds like scratching fingernails.

The bar on the screen gradually filled up from left to right. Alphanumeric text – likely filenames – flashed by, but there was no point in trying to read them.

A wired connection was best when dealing with so much data. Copying the files was nerve-racking enough without knowing the wireless connection could break at any moment.

“Yikes, yikes, hurry up, yikes… W-will this really tell us who received the insurance payouts when the Colosseum participants died?”

“It will, but they might have used a fake name or fake ID. Or maybe they used a throwaway go-between like the one who withdraws the money in a bank transfer scam. Anything that would leave a trail will have been faked.”

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? Is this all a waste of time?”

“This is well worth our time,” Mugino Shizuri readily assured her.

Hanano tilted her head (in old man mode), but…

“The big bosses at the top will be well-protected, but not so with the participants who end up as corpses anyway. But we’re not interested in the corpses or the criminals. ''We’re looking for the people with a high-value policy and are still alive.'' We should probably narrow it down to teenage students, a policy of at least a hundred million, and an expedited contract less than a month old. Once we have their identity, we can do this the old-fashioned way: tail them and let them lead us right to the Colosseum.”

The bar on the screen filled up and the number below reached 100%.

Hanano Choubi yanked out the cable, stuck the miniature computer in her pocket, and returned to the elevator.

“Oh, no! The elevator’s stopped because of the disaster!”

“Ah ha ha. Then it’s time for 28 stories’ worth of stairs. Should make for some good exercise.”

(Really and truly curse that terrain-obliterating god of destruction!!)

But she had no other option here, so she gave up, opened the metal door, stuck her head out into the emergency stairs, and heard hurried footsteps climbing from below. This was an above-the-board company, so were those security officer batons she heard thunking at their hips? If they realized who she was and ganged up on her, she felt certain they would beat her to death.

“Check each floor to ensure no one was left behind. Make sure every last employee, guest, and contracted janitor is safe! Teams A and B, follow me and inspect the stairs!! …Hm? Hey! Is someone up th-”

“''Wahh!!''”

While shouting, she flipped the luxury suit inside out like a stage magician’s handkerchief, wiped both hands on her face makeup to rearrange it, and transformed herself into a muscular young man on the security team. In mere seconds.

She could only prepare one emergency costume change, so the standard option was either a security guard or a firefighter depending on where she was infiltrating.

“Reporting for duty!”

“R-right. I don’t recognize you. Which team are you on? Anyway, you came from up above, right? Continue on down and join another team. Any other team! Right now, we need every single person assisting the evacuation!!”

“Roger that!!”

Muscular and handsome Hanano Choubi shouted something that seemed right and then ran down the stairs.

A predetermined plan ''alone'' was not enough to fool people. Going with the flow and adlibbing could be surprisingly useful. Of course, you would run into trouble if you relied entirely on adlibbing.

And no living thing would run around quite as actively as a cornered chicken.

“Ugh, those 28 floors are going to have me sweating… That’s like descending a small mountain. Let’s hope my makeup doesn’t come off.”

“Hanano, we’re still monitoring you via the cameras after your face change, so don’t worry. And if you want a shortcut down, keep your eye on the wall to your right.”

She didn’t even have time to look that way.

The concrete wall broke through from the outside and a slender hand appeared. Kinuhata Saiai had quickly and powerfully climbed 28 floors up the building’s wall and now she grabbed Security Guard Hanano Choubi by the collar.

“Wait, but, hey, what are you doing!?”

“It was super you who told us not to abandon you if things went wrong.”

Then the two of them dove down from that high floor.

“Gyehhhhhhhhh!?”

“Don’t worry. My Offense Armor will act as a cushion, so we won’t die when we super hit the ground.”

===Part 5===

“Finally. It’s already midday. How did it take you that long to escape one little building?”

“Huff, puff. Sh-she really is in full dominatrix mode, isn’t she?”

Mugino held out a hand in a “give it here” gesture. Hanano wiped the makeup from her face to return to her puppyish self before handing the miniature computer to Mugino. She was irritated and wanted to look cool by tossing it over, but after going through all that, she was terrified of dropping and breaking it.

Mugino looked satisfied as she accepted the computer.

“After grabbing some lunch, we can check inside this and start tracking one of the participants.”

“Shouldn’t we be running away? I can see the building from here and- wow, there’s a giant hole in the center.”

After yanking Hanano inside the van, Item left.

“Um, wait. Are you really asking me to change inside this cramped van? I have to strip down while the rest of you watch!?”

“Don’t worry, Hanano. I’m rooting for you.”

“You, busty track suit girl! What part of me were you looking at when you made that pitying comment!?”

Hanano tearfully complained, but she must not have wanted to remain in the security uniform that smelled like male sweat (because she had designed it to do so). The rustling of cloth filled the van for a while.

Anyway, next on the agenda was lunch.

Frenda knew how to access a wealth of information on her phone and she learned of a good restaurant frequented by District 3’s elite office workers. After driving to the center of the district, they left the van behind and walked the rest of the way.

Frenda spotted something on the way.

“Neat. In the end, of course a salaryman district would have miniskirt ladies handing out cans of beer.”

“That sign calls them ‘bargirls’. What does that mean?”

Takitsubo tilted her blankly staring head.

The bargirls were apparently advertising a new seasonal craft beer. But none of the officer workers in suits could drink beer in the middle of the day, so it seemed like they would have a hard time selling every can. Mugino though they would have better luck in District 5 with all its college students ready to party on Tanabata.

Mugino had also wondered what hidden gem of a restaurant Frenda had discovered, but it was a fairly large Chinese restaurant that shared a giant building with an electronics store.

“It’s normal. It’s so normal I’m about ready to punch Frenda.”

“No one here has time to wait in a long line, so anyplace that gets super lots of five star ratings will be one with a super lot of seating and decent enough food. This place is as super big as a parking garage.”

The five girls found a seat at a table in the back.

Was it a dark side habit to prefer the seat closest to the emergency exit? Or if that wasn’t available, one by a window.

“I’m going to get the vegetable gyoza meal with no garlic. It’s a good basic dish to super test the quality of the cooking. What about you, Takitsubo-san?”

“This.”

“Oh! In the end, they’re already serving the chilled noodles! I’ll get that too but with sesame sauce!!”

“It sure is summer. And I hate it.”

Mugino never passed up a chance to complain about wheat and she apparently went for the rice dishes as a result. She ordered the seafood fried rice with ankake sauce. Based on the photo in the menu, it had something extremely greasy poured on top. It had to be a giant mass of calories. The day she had slim legs was still a long way off. Although anyone foolish enough to say that aloud would have an instant 50% reduction in weight when their upper half was vaporized.

The restaurant was meant to get office workers in and out during their limited lunch break, so the young part-timer in a mini China dress had their order out in no time. Takitsubo stared blankly at the food.

“They’re gyozas, but they’re green. Kinuhata, you should eat more meat.”

“I don’t need your criticism. What are you – a super old man?”

“But you won’t grow otherwise.”

“''Are you picking a goddamn fight with me while you waste your own super boobs by covering them up with that lame-ass track suit''!?”

The growing girl who channeled the #1 when she got mad had to be calmed by friendly Frenda.

“Whew…”

Hanano’s body was demanding something unhealthy after the exhaustion of the previous job, so she nervously pulled in her bowl of stir-fried meat and vegetables that looked heavily seasoned. On the dark side, you could get your hands on a variety of pills or even a mysterious stamp that made sounds quite colorful when you placed it below your tongue, but this was the limit of unhealthy that petty bourgeoisie was willing to go for.

“Today’s Tanabata, isn’t it? Oh, this ordinary free ice water is soaking into my soul.”

“Which one is Tanabata again? The one with the pandas and lots of firecrackers?”

“Takitsubo-san, I think you’re super confusing it with Chinese New Year.”

Kinuhata looked kind of smug, but you wouldn’t see pandas on the streets of China even when celebrating the lunar new year. What Asian movie had she seen?

“Hanano, you should put this shichimi togarashi on your stir fry. You’re in the mood for something strong, aren’t you?” suggested Takitsubo.

“That sounds good, but it would make fixing my face harder, so I’ll pass. Spicy foods making your lips swell isn’t just a thing from gag manga. They have that lip cream full of capsaicin to give you fuller lips, remember?”

“Hanano.”

“Stop recommending it to me because you think that sounds funny!”

All of their food was good. But only good. The secret to the flavor was probably tubs of dashi from a factory in District 4. If this place was getting five star ratings, perhaps office workers thought it was a virtue to have no sense of adventure.

That was the opposite of Item’s way of life.

Mugino pulled out the miniature computer.

“Frenda.”

“Just one, okay!? Please, Takitsubo! In the end, a bite of my almond jelly for one of your sesame dumplings isn’t a bad trade at all, so pleeeeease! Oh, what did you want, Mugino?”

“You’ve been watching the Colosseum online, right? When does today’s match begin?”

“Hmm? The morning event should be over already. In the end, the next soonest would be the one that starts at 8 this evening. I remember the time because I tended to watch the killing while eating dinner in my room.”

“That’s super primetime. Are the managers intentionally aiming for mealtime when people are relaxing with their families?”

“Ugh.” Hanano paled and shrank down in her seat, but that was nothing as far as dark side tastes went . Mugino didn’t seem interested in that part at all.

“Damn, and it’s only 1 in the afternoon. Then there’s no point in pursuing one of the living contestants now. We can take our time and begin our pursuit at around 5.”

===Part 6===

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frenda smiled a little while lying on her side.

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

“Thanks.”

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

Frenda gave a mischievous smile and slowly narrowed her eyes.

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

“Ha…ah ha ha…”

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

Frenda winked while still lying in bed.

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

“U-um, there is actually…”

Hanano scooted toward Frenda and whispered in her ear.

Frenda looked confused.

“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

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

“If that’s what you want.”

The blonde girl didn’t take much convincing.

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

“Excuse me. Is Hanano-san in here?”

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

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

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’re super going to District 7?”

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

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

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

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

“Bamboo leaf ice cream.”

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

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

The five members of Item walked through the evening city.

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

They had located their target, though.

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

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

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

They could locate the enemy base starting from here.

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

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

Their target was about 15m away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No response.

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

And Mugino Shizuri was entranced by something there.

Her shoulders were even trembling.

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

“Mugino…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mugino.”

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

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

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

Once they knew the trick, the rest was easy.

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

“Did the braid girl go in here?”

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

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

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

Every single spot here was a shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hanano nervously checked one of the shops.

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

“Hanano.”

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

Mugino scoffed at the entire scene around them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino narrowed her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

Kinuhata took a look around.

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

“What are you, a mother-in-law?”

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

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

And the track suit girl noticed something else.

“Mugino.”

The air was abuzz with energy.

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

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

Something was happening below.

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

An explosion of noise pushed up from there.

Cheering voices and booming music swirled up at them.

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

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

Some kind of plate was spinning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino looked down from the railing in disgust.

“Is the Colosseum always like this?”

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

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

Less imaginative Kinuhata and Takitsubo were more carefree.

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

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

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

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

Mugino grinned.

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

===Part 7===

The Colosseum was a very important event for them.

They didn’t all gather together for every single event, but they still made sure to make an appearance on site as ''the management''.

However, those four girls were not in the ring or in the stands. They were in a separate monitor room, built from a back room of the library full of book repair equipment. They used that room to keep tabs on the situation in the arena and online.

Of course, they weren’t upstanding members of society, so they had brought camping chairs and a camping table in for themselves. The table was piled high with chips, popcorn, fried chicken, fries, and more. For drinks, there were sodas and iced coffee. They preferred to bring their own rather than order it from a catering company. That made it feel more like doing yaminabe at a girls-only sleepover, which was a lot more fun.

“Uhh…”

A small 12-year-old girl with pale skin and shoulder-length black hair groaned while staring at all the monitors. Waniguchi Nokoba was a mixed martial artist and she wore a ring costume that looked like a racing swimsuit made even more revealing. She raised her small hands and stretched her back without getting up from her chair.

However, her hands just about crushed the rubber balls she held.

“I wanna fight too!! We worked so hard to get that white tiger for today and I wanna fight it!!”

“You’re our ''executioner'' who swiftly eliminates anyone who violates any rules regarding the match or the gambling, so you need to stay put as long as things run smoothly. It’s better this way, so try and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, a curvy girl wearing a ''Tokiwadai Middle School'' summer uniform and with a few braids in her fluffy blonde hair, breathed an exasperated sigh, but the martial arts girl ignored her.

Despite her young appearance, Waniguchi bared her teeth and spat back.

“Damn, I thought I’d be seeing lots of action in this position, but these dark side morons are all too scared to disobey. ''You’re criminals – why the hell are you following the rules''? I’m starting to wish I’d entered as a contestant instead.”

“But then you would just win every match,” commented a tanned track girl named Hanayama Kamitsu.

“We wouldn’t make much money from the gambling side then, would we?” sighed Ibotanokikouji. “Waniguchi-chan, why are you so irritable today?”

“Her thigh,” whispered a silver-haired girl named Inoue Laspezia.

That got a response out of Waniguchi herself rather than Ibotanokikouji.

“Ah!? I’ve got another mosquito bite… No wonder I’ve been so mad today. This is why I hate the ground. Too many bugs. Hey, where’d the bug spray go!?”

“It’s too late for that if you’re already bitten. Come here. I will rub the anti-itch cream on for you,” said Ibotanokikouji.

“Yay!” rejoiced Waniguchi as she walked over, but she was interrupted by something else.

The silver-haired girl had been working in silence, but now she sat right in Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“…Inoue Laspezia.”

“Yes?”

The silver-haired girl was still engrossed in the intricate work she was performing with her gloved hands, so she replied with just the one Kyoto-accented word. She didn’t even look up.

As the only one here immune to the lily’s allure, the track girl kept her distance.

Furious at having her special seat taken, Tiny Tyrant Waniguchi clung to Ibotanokikouji’s side, but then she noticed something else. Ibotanokikouji had a small DVD player open in addition to all of the management monitors. It was probably an item sold cheap at a discount store.

“Hey, Chief, what’s that? A horror movie?”

“One of the worst I’ve ever seen, but one of the stuntmen died in an accident during filming. If you watch carefully in slow motion, you can see him being crushed by the machinery in the background. Hee hee. I bet all those sophisticated teachers would faint if they saw this.”

In cases like this, the movie would either be banned from the online stores or the offending footage would be removed in a mystery update, so if you wanted to add it to your collection, you needed one of the limited first-edition physical copies. Because that would never be altered.

“Boo. If you want to see a corpse, just send me into the ring. I’d give you plenty of bloodshed.”

“Probably so, but I don’t need a close up of the corpse.”

Ibotanokikouji smiled thinly while operating her phone. She lovingly chewed on Inoue’s ear while she worked.

She pulled up her own personal map app which was linked to her photo album. But in her case, the map displayed a tour of famous suicide spots around Academy City.

“I want to decorate myself with other people’s deaths. I want to sleep wrapped in a blanket of their misfortune. Hee hee. So it doesn’t need to be anything exciting. Brand-name clothing isn’t for showing off. It looks best when ''you wear it casually''. You can make diamonds by pressurizing human corpses, but there is no need to go around loudly advertising that fact. True class is found in doing things so discreetly the amateurs never notice what you have. The money we make with the Colosseum is the same.”

“Boo.”

Hanayama Kamitsu, the tanned girl with wavy shoulder-length black hair and a track athlete’s tank top and shorts, made no attempt to join the other three. She thought these things were nice to look at, but she had no desire to be a part of it herself. In her opinion, lesbian relationships were beautiful enough when things were going well, but they got nasty quick when things went bad. And on the dark side, the result would be a lot worse than for a band when a relationship between two members fell apart.

She normally wore something a little less revealing, so her hands wandered restlessly across the visible tan lines on the upper and lower halves of her body. She finally reached for a plastic item rather than one the chilled drinks in the cooler.

Waniguchi’s face lit up while still clinging to Ibotanokikouji’s side.

“Oh, is that an e-cigarette? I’ve always wanted to try one of those!”

“It’s a portable oxygen tank. It’s flavorless.”

As a track girl, Hanayama wanted as much oxygen inside her as she could get. Or rather, she got antsy when she couldn’t get it. She held the plastic device in the corner of her mouth, the blue LED at the end flashed, and she breathed in the compressed oxygen coming from the refillable cartridge.

“Anyway, did you see the news? That general manager was arrested. Something about attacking his own company. You really shouldn’t mug for the camera in a minute-long video just because you’re lonely and want some likes. They were playing it on all the talk shows.”

“So what? That’s not a problem for us as long as we can regularly withdraw the contestants’ insurance money. Even if they take emergency measures, that’s an adult corporation, right? They take forever to do anything, so we can still get today’s payouts. Besides, there are still plenty more insurance companies in Academy City. Not to mention executives we can blackmail.”

“Hm,” was all the response track girl Hanayama gave.

They were technically colleagues (of a sort), but they had never actually met directly to give him instructions. Even if the general manager sang like a canary, he didn’t know the girls’ real names. He had been disposable, so they didn’t care what happened to him.

To change the subject, Hanayama spoke to a different girl: the slender silver-haired girl seated in Ibotanokikouji’s lap with her eyes lowered to the delicate work she was doing. Overall, she was a squirrel-like person. But it upset her if you said she looked like a racoon, so it was worth being careful.

“Hey, Inoue. What nasty method will you be using this time?”

“…It’s nothing special.”

Inoue Laspezia wore an apron and a beret over a summer school uniform. She kept her eyes on her working hands and responded with a Kyoto accent.

Her hobby was figurines, her special skill was handicrafts, and she belonged to the art club. She didn’t even look Hanayama’s way as she made some precise movements of a thin-tipped paintbrush wet with the special iron material – that is, human blood – she had mixed to just the right color on her paper palette.

She never seemed interested in anything, but she refused to give up her spot on Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“There was a murder in the area, so I’m just counterfeiting the murder weapon. It’s a razor with the appropriate fingerprints and blood on it. One of the big ones a barber would have. I had all the necessary materials in stock, so it doesn’t cost me anything.”

“Yikes. Remind me to never piss off a modeler.”

Tanned Hanayama grinned.

It didn’t matter if the evidence was real or not. The general manager likely had no recollection of what they had threatened him over. But what if the public and the justice system believed it? Even if the charges were false – no, especially when the charges were false – no one wanted to lose everything over it.

And once they started down that route, it would take over their life.

The rules of the world didn’t let you choose when you wanted to stop.

An adult important enough to have no qualms at all about oppressing the children would know exactly what happened the instant they took just one step off the edge of the cliff.

Ibotanokikouji had come up with the plan and ordered her to do it, but even she seemed exasperated.

She tightly hugged the silver-haired girl sitting in her lap.

“Oh, Inoue-chan. You’re such a perfectionist once you set your mind to something. Wouldn’t you have a much easier time sticking out your very cute butt on the train to make some false molestation accusations?”

“How would that work? Our targets always have a driver who takes them wherever they need to go.”

Inoue must have finished her work because she sealed the evidence razor in a plastic bag. She completed the work calmly and expressionlessly. That gave them one more trump card they could use to frame someone.

Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. A honeytrap was probably beyond that whispering, downcast girl. …Except with the minority who were into the plain, obedient type.

“How’s this for a conclusion?” Waniguchi rubbed her cheek against Ibotanokikouji from the side. “The arrested general manager on the TV isn’t a problem for us. And we’re prepared to find us a new wallet. So we won’t throw out everything we’ve built up and we won’t go into hiding. We’ll continue running the Colosseum like normal.”

“Agreed,” said all four girls together.

But anyone capable of reading the room would have noticed they didn’t say it at the exact same time. The other three girls waited to see how Ibotanokikouji Kaede reacted before joining in.

And that secret center of attention whispered with the silver-haired girl still seated in her lap.

With a soft smile on her lips.

“Don’t worry. We are ''Item'' and we will be taking allll the profits of death for ourselves☆”

===Part 8===

Up above the ceiling, Mugino Shizuri and Takitsubo Rikou exchanged a glance.

“Mugino.”

“Did that bitch just say Item?”

Their recording of the general manager had said much the same thing, but this time it came straight from the villains themselves.

Item was of course the name of Mugino’s team. If these people were body doubles in case of emergency or a group using the name to get work in the dark side, they should have been disguised as and acting like Mugino and the others, but they weren’t.

Whatever their reasons, those girls had used the Item name in a private room where they assumed no one else was listening in. That meant this wasn’t an act. It was real.

Meanwhile, Frenda was worried about something else: the clothing of the central girl.

“Isn’t that a ''Tokiwadai'' uniform? How does a rich girl from that school end up in the dark side?”

“Having money super doesn’t prevent you from making mistakes. Aren’t all of you in super similar situations?”

If that girl actually was a Tokiwadai student, then she was a real piece of work.

The girls lounging on the floor below continued their conversation.

“Anyway, Waniguchi-chan, here’s some extra for this month.”

“Oh, thanks a bunch!”

The central girl tossed over something she held between two fingers.

The object spinning through the air was a plastic-looking card. It flew back around like a boomerang and Waniguchi nimbly caught it.

“It’s only the 7th. How did you manage to spend a month’s worth of pay that fast? You are being paid a proper wage, so you need to stop wasting so much money.”

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede. You’d be perfect if you wouldn’t get on my case about money.”

The small martial arts girl pouted her lips and rubbed her cheek against the Tokiwadai girl while giving the card she held a quick kiss.

That was apparently how their Item(?) received payments.

“''A money card?''” Mugino muttered under her breath up above the ceiling.

“Those are the prepaid cards you can super use with music players and online stores, right? You buy them at a convenience store and super input the number into your computer or phone.”

Mugino responded to Kinuhata’s explanation with a finger on her chin.

“They don’t ordinarily go above 10 thousand yen on a card, but there are premium ones with bigger amounts. Like 5 or 10 million on a card. Although I think those are really only meant to buy brand-name bags online or to make donations to net idols on video sites.”

But it was clever.

Prepaid cards were a lot lighter than cash or gold. They also couldn’t be frozen without warning like a bank account. Unlike a diamond, it didn’t matter if they were handled a bit roughly and got scratched up. And since cash could be converted into cards, they were also useful for money laundering. They could then be converted back into cash either via the internet or at a pawnshop.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo pointed elsewhere.

The central girl – Ibotanokikouji Kaede? – had a suitcase near her. It looked cheap, but a closer inspection showed the lock had been replaced with a much nicer one. Not only was the new lock much tougher, but it appeared to include a sensor that would transmit its location over the internet if the lock was forced open.

(So converting their money into cards wasn’t just to launder it. They also don’t trust the banks to hold it.)

There were no standard methods in the dark side. It wasn’t perfect, but you could get a general picture of who someone was by the methods they used for these things.

Mugino considered this for a bit.

“If that case is packed full of 10 million yen cards with some room left for cushioning, then I’m guessing it holds around 80 billion.”

“Hapyah!?”

When she heard that amount, Hanano Choubi the Chicken yelped without thinking.

The Tokiwadai girl didn’t even bother looking up.

She simply held her palm upwards while still seated in her camping chair with Inoue in her lap.

“''There.''”

The entire ceiling collapsed.

Mugino didn’t even have enough time to click her tongue.

The building materials sank down like an antlion pit and the girls were dragged to the lower floor with nothing to grab ahold of.

Mugino gave up on righting herself as she fell and focused on landing without her legs giving out below her. Even with the intruders before her, Ibotanokikouji did not get up.

She did, however, pick Inoue up from her lap and set her down next to her.

“How do you do, ill-bred thieves☆”

“You think a lot yourself for a witch who converts human lives into money.”

“My, my, my. Aren’t you brimming with confidence, Level 5. Have you never bothered to question why it is you find victory wherever you go?”

Ibotanokikouji’s confidence was not broken by being called a witch.

If anything, she seemed to appreciate the insult.

“Your superiors have selected jobs they know a pathetic beginner like you can complete in order to give you a taste for success. You see the same process with drugs and gambling – all of life’s vices tend to work that way. But the free ride ends here. It is now time to take you for everything you are worth. You have reached the point where it all goes downhill.”

“You’re going to reduced to charcoal soon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Poor thing. You should really try to use your head for once. You are convinced that ''you can do anything as long as you have Meltdowner,'' but I am saying that very idea is a falsehood this city’s adults have placed in your head.”

She giggled.

Still seated in her camping chair, she peeled Waniguchi away from her side.

“Do you really believe you can survive anything as long as you have your pride as one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s? Do you really think this city’s darkness is that shallow?”

It was Frenda who stared at her confident smile in disbelief.

That girl knew who they were to an extent. And yet she still looked confident while opposing ''the'' Mugino Shizuri.

Mugino did not hesitate, of course.

They only wanted the suitcase, not to hurt the villains or get some kind of information out of them.

She held out her palm and launched a brutal beam straight at the enemy.

But.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner bent at a sharp angle and blasted through a wall.

“Wha-?” said Frenda, her face entirely pale.

She may have received more of a shock than Mugino.

Mugino herself narrowed her eyes.

“You…”

“No, I did not use electricity.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede hadn’t even gotten out of her chair.

She giggled in an elegant but wicked way.

“''I am Academy City’s #6.''”

She stated it plainly.

She called herself a Level 5. She called herself the esper known as the Dark Side’s Bane.

“It is time you learned that the outdated superiority of the seven Level 5s is a thing of the past. There are compatibility issues to worry about too. And on that note, recall that I am known as the Dark Side’s Bane.”

“Th-that can’t be true.”

Frenda believed in the brand name of Item’s – of Mugino Shizuri’s – strength.

She believed in the rarity of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

So she could only reach one conclusion.

“In the end, Level 5s aren’t just going to appear everywhere we go!! You claim you’re the mysterious Dark Side’s Bane? A-anyone could come out and say they’re the #6! It’s just a number!”

“Oh, dear. You really are ignorant of the dark side’s depths, aren’t you? There really are Level 5s just about everywhere you go here. Really, you could say the dark side is their true home. ''The top two'' go without saying, as does the ''mystery beam shooter'' in front of us here. As for the ''electric one'' and the ''psychological one''…it’s hard to say. I am reluctant to say they belong to the dark side, but given the projects they’re involved in, I would say they each have one foot in the dark side. My, my. That means your last hope of being right is ''that guts idiot''. Are you sure you want to build up your standards and values atop someone as absurd as him?”

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

Frenda Seivelun was left speechless.

Ibotanokikouji had a point.

What if the Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane was also neck deep in the illicit and illegal?

Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of shitty outcome you would expect in Academy City?

Besides, Academy City’s Level system was entirely based on how useful an esper was for important fields of research. So with the Level 5s at the top, it was only natural the corrupt adults of the dark side would be all over them no matter the Level 5’s own morals or personality. So they might even be tricked into getting involved.

Ibotanokikouji’s laughter seemed to rule this place.

Her eyes were directly on Level 5 Mugino Shizuri.

“You want to argue the point, but you can’t deny the possibility, can you? How much do the stories you have heard about the #6 really matter? How sure can you be that the gender and age you have pictured in your head is correct? ''Do you think any of the information you think you know will help you here and now''? This is not a rumor, a vague report, or a strange legend. I am here right before you and I am calling myself the #6.”

“Don’t get a big head just cause you’re standing on the same field as me, worm.”

Mugino snapped back in a rage, but she also maintained some rationality deep in her mind.

In other words…

(I couldn’t see it, but she did break through the ceiling. What kind of power does she have?)

Then a voice called down from the broken ceiling.

Apparently not all five of them had fallen.

“Mugino!”

“Stay up there, Takitsubo! Hanano, you’re still up in the ceiling too, right!? Get Takitsubo out of here!! Do whatever it takes to protect her! Got that!?”

Mugino heard some panicked stammering, but it was growing more distant. Hanano was scared but doing as she was told. She was the kind of chicken who got moving when she felt cornered, not the kind that froze up.

Takitsubo’s AIM stalker was a convenient power, but she didn’t need to be on the front line for it to work. She could read the enemy’s location from safety and send the information over via phone.

That left Mugino, Frenda, and Kinuhata here.

Conveniently, only their vanguard had fallen from the ceiling. Had they been lucky or had the enemy been unlucky? Either way, that sort of omen held a surprising amount of power in the world of villains.

“This is like a bad joke.” Kinuhata sounded annoyed. “She’s the #6 Level 5 ''and'' a super Tokiwadai student?”

“My, my. You seem surprised to find an elite in the shadows.”

Ibotanokikouji’s expression said she found it puzzling why Kinuhata would question it.

She brought a finger to her chin and cutely tilted her head.

“Girls like me are given a sheltered upbringing cut off from the outside world. Make no noise when you walk, when you eat, or when you laugh. Were they trying to raise a ninja? When your very existence is forced into an unnatural state, it distorts something inside you. And so something must be done to put the hands of the clock back in their proper place. Which means learning the truth of the world, no matter how ugly it might be. And it must be done on a regular basis. Otherwise that luxury hand-wound watch will again fall out of sync with the rest of the world.”

“You’ll go this far to super learn how the real world works?”

“Try to appreciate just how restrictive a life one must live to need all this to avoid being torn apart by the distortion within. This is the problem with you cheap digital watches. You cannot understand the pain of a truly upper class upbringing.”

She sighed in apparent disappointment.

She was not killing to protect herself during a war, nor was she stealing because she was poor and starving.

But she was killing people all the same.

Human cruelty was most noticeable ''during peacetime'' when there were no excuses to fall back on.

“Hee hee.”

The Tokiwadai girl softly laughed and directed her graceful hand toward the ceiling.

“By the way, I did not expect you to have a fifth. But did you really think we would sit around long enough for them to escape?”

“Did you think ''we'' would sit around?”

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai took a step forward.

Frenda pulled several egg-shaped explosives from her short skirt and stuck them with fuses smaller than cigarettes.

“In the end, did you think we would give you time to attack Takitsubo and Hanano? You could’ve avoided this if you had just handed over the money, but I’ll admit it’s pretty funny you would prefer getting blown up!!”

Mugino noticed something in the middle of Frenda’s shouting. She surreptitiously pulled her phone from her pocket and found an email there: “Focus on the suitcase. You’re our strongest, so you go after it.”

Mugino had wondered where all Frenda’s confidence had come from when she had been so scared of the #6 announcement earlier, but she was only shouting to keep the enemy from hearing the vibration of Mugino’s silenced phone.

The next thing Mugino noticed was that the suitcase in question had vanished. It had been taken by…presumably the art club girl who had vanished along with it.

Mugino and the others no longer cared about the job the voice on the phone had brought them.

They didn’t even need to win the prize money in the bloody Colosseum.

It was all there in the suitcase.

Stealing the 80 billion in money cards was their top priority.

“Sh!!”

Mugino fired her first Meltdowner blast straight past Frenda and Kinuhata’s shoulders. The enemy had already bent one of her beams. Since she still didn’t know what that power was, she didn’t think this one attack would defeat that enemy. The beam was only meant to blind this mysterious other Item(?) while the original Item could exchange their thoughts under the cover of the blast and dust cloud.

“Leave the case to me!!”

“Super will do. This comes down to a compatibility issue with your power, right? We’ll defeat her here if we can, but we’ll at least slow her down while trying to work out what her power is and any other idiosyncrasies she has.”

Mugino tackled through a door and nearly rolled out into the hallway.

She spotted a summer uniform skirt fluttering up ahead. She saw a girl dragging the suitcase a long way down the hallway. She was nearly just a dot from Mugino’s perspective.

(I’d love to just blast her from here, but that would require a concentrated line of destruction skinnier than dried pasta. I wouldn’t want to vaporize the suitcase full of all that money.)

“I’ll just have to get closer!!”

Once she had a plan, she was quick to act on it.

She dashed down the library hallway.

The gloomy girl running up ahead looked back just once before pulling something like a remote from her skirt pocket and pressing the button with her thumb. Mugino heard shouting voices coming from beyond the wall to her side. A pair of double doors were broken down nearby and a bloody wild animal stepped into the hallway.

It was 3m long and weighed more than 250kg.

The white tiger’s cage must have opened.

“Shut up and stay out of this!!!”

Mugino slammed her palm into it. She didn’t even use her power. A vibration of the air rattled a nearby window and the impact propagated from the white tiger’s nose down to the tip of its tail. The blow to the face silenced the 3m beast in a single blow.

A Judgment-looking girl who had somehow ended up a Colosseum contestant was slumped on the floor.

“Y-you saved me? Thank-”

“Outta the way, you ♂♀〒#!!”

After paralyzing the girl with a shout, Mugino continued running down the hallway.

The silver-haired art club girl had escaped into the door at the very end of the long hallway.

That door led into a domed space. It covered the area of about four convenience stores. A round device in the center was covered in optical devices and surrounded by seats arranged in concentric circles.

Mugino glanced around the dark, windowless space.

(A planetarium?)

Was this inside the circular building she had seen alongside the library? But that didn’t really matter.

She could see the art club girl’s back from here. She must not have been able to move very fast while lugging that suitcase around. And Mugino was only interested in that luggage, so she was willing to shoot the girl in the back without warning as long as she wouldn’t hit the suitcase too.

(If I aim for her spine and concentrate the beam down to a line the width of dried pasta, I can kill her instantly with a single shot!)

But that isn’t what actually happened.

The gloomy silver-haired art club girl escaped outside through the emergency exit.

Because…

“Ah ha ha!! If you want to play tag, play with me, not Inoue!!!”

An explosive “roar!!!” came from the wall to Mugino’s side. It arrived so suddenly that Mugino didn’t have time to launch her Meltdowner. She clicked her tongue and rolled backwards.

A giant hunk of metal grazed her while producing a blast of wind.

The seats surrounding the planetarium device were arranged in neat concentric circles. They were a lot like movie theater seats, so they had to be bolted firmly to the floor.

They were all blown away like bowling pins.

A rough estimate said that attack had been deadlier than a freight train. It could have broken through the planetarium’s wall with ease.

The ear-splitting roar continued on and on.

It came from a tanned track girl with her wavy black hair cut to shoulder length.

She had just one leg on something like a skateboard with T-shaped handlebars attached. Was that called a kick scooter?

But the rear of the board, behind where her foot rested, was unusually large. That part alone was about 3m long, the tire was extra thick, and the enlarged cylinder looked a lot an unenclosed jet engine. Of course, it had to have a variety of different propulsion devices in addition to that most obvious one.

The dark side did not always rely on esper powers.

It also made use of next-generation weapons.

“Nice to meet you, colleague. I’m Hanayama Kamitsu of ''Item''. But you can call me the courier.”

“…”

“I’m the courier who delivers death. That might mean directly delivering violence or a bomb, but even when I deliver gold bars or a first aid kit to save someone’s life, it always leads to ruin in the end. That’s just who I am. So be careful when a villain offers you kindness. Ah ha ha. Even a child knows it’s a bad idea to trust a demon’s temptations.”

Only then did she notice Mugino wasn’t responding.

It looked like Hanayama hadn’t even imagined someone might be interested in something more than her “courier” title.

“Hm? Are you still caught up on the Item thing? Did you think only you could use the name? Were you imagining a little © afterwards whenever you said it? Don’t be silly. Academy City’s darkness is never going to kindly protect a villain’s rights!”

The tanned girl laughed as she bent her hips and leaned her upper body against the T-shaped handlebars.

It was the unpleasant laugh of someone who knew the truth.

“''Whichever team is more useful to the dark side as a whole gets to call themselves Item.'' That’s how the system works. Killers who do nothing but spend money aren’t going to cut it. You only destroy – you don’t produce anything. Meanwhile, we do our assigned jobs while also making our own profits, so I’d say we score just a biiiit higher than you.”

Her modified kick scooter gave a deep roar.

“So let’s play, imposter. Our Item will knock all the other candidates out of the running. This impractical proof-of-concept prototype can produce speeds of 1100km/h without leaving the ground. I’ll flatten you with my beloved ''Dragon Motor''!!”

Hanayama didn’t wait for Mugino to respond.

She opened the throttle and melted into streamlines.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. Ibotanokikouji Kaede and Waniguchi Nokoba.

Two against two.

“Oh?”

The first to speak was the small girl in a ring costume.

“You let your ace leave while your two substitute fighters deal with the Chief and me? You must be confident.”

“Waniguchi-san, should we do the usual?”

“Yes, please.”

They weren’t even given time to prepare.

Something blew across the room and all four walls were blown down. Even the wall behind Kinuhata and Frenda.

That meant the spaces divided by the walls were now connected.

This was now part of the Colosseum arena which was boiling with excitement after a shocking accident.

The crowd fell silent from panic, but it wasn’t long before a booming cheer erupted. All their voices joined to form a single powerful mass of noise. The leader girl tensed her brow in slight concentration.

Waniguchi casually grabbed a microphone ''that flew over to her on its own''.

“Yeehaw!! I know you’re upset about having your fight taken from you, but we have a much more exciting event for you. Get hyped because it’s time for a purge. Hey, hey, yo, yo! A round of applause for the executioner! This livestream is about to get a hell of a lot bloodierrrrrrrrrr!!!

“Outta the way, newbie!!” shouted Frenda.

Some objects fell from her skirt and ruptured. She wanted a vibration. Libraries contained a lot of paper, so they were made to be especially sensitive when detecting earthquakes and electrical fires.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede stuck out her tongue a bit.

“Tch, trying to trip the breaker? How boring. You did manage to stop the livestream, though. And unfortunately, we took up the audience’s phones to keep them from recording the valuable match and uploading it to a video site.”

“In the end, those are professional cameras on wheels, so they’re going to use a wired connection. And in a real TV studio, they’ll have some junior staff member in charge of cable management!”

Having a video of your killings revealed worldwide was about the worst case scenario for people who worked underground jobs, but they had just barely avoided that here. However, this had only triggered an emergency system meant to respond to an earthquake, so the room’s power would be back on in about 10 minutes if no further problems were detected.

“But we’ll still kill you.”

Waniguchi pounded her fists together in front of her flat chest.

The 12-year-old girl gave a belligerent smile as she announced her opponents’ deaths.

“It’ll be an on-site exclusive event now, but that just means we have to make it even more exciting!!”

Waniguchi didn’t hesitate to step forward.

This was probably her role on the team. While the vanguard kept the enemy busy with direct combat, the rear guard would keep their distance and do something else. That rear guard claimed to be the #6. Anything she did was bound to be deadly.

(I super don’t know what that will be, but we can’t give her time to use it!!)

Kinuhata took a powerful step forward of her own.

The two girls both broke into a run. They took the shortest route to close in on each other.

Waniguchi spread her arms.

“No tricks? I like your style. You’re no better than some hunk of rotting meat in the garbage, but you’re at least meat worthy of some respect!!”

Just then, mere moments before they clashed, Kinuhata flew unnaturally to the right. It was fortunate she had Offense Armor. An ordinary human could have been mangled by the blast that hit her.

That wasn’t Waniguchi’s doing and it wasn’t Ibotanokikouji’s power either.

''Her ally Frenda'' had used a bomb to knock her to the side.

A moment later, Waniguchi’s small hand tore through the air. It was less a straight punch and more of a spiraling motion to pull in everything around her hand. The attack missed its target and instead hit a bookcase, tearing it to pieces. She had to be using some kind of esper power. From the looks of that, she could tear a car in two with just the one arm.

“Are you stupid!? In the end, you need to fix your habit of relying on your tough shield to charge in and learn what you can about the enemy’s abilities! You’ll get yourself killed right away doing that on the dark side!!”

Frenda started to say more, but a large form loomed over her.

“Super watch out!!”

Kinuhata had fallen to the floor, but she threw over the heavy metal stand to some stage lighting, hitting Frenda hard enough to knock her away from ''something''.

“I’m pretty sure I can survive longer than someone who stands super still to give a lengthy explanation in the middle of a deadly battle!!”

“You, bgh. I save your life and this is how you repay me? In the end, are you in one hell of a rebellious phase?”

This was no time to be complaining.

A tremor ran through the floor.

Frenda was being targeted by a grizzly bear that stood more than 3 meters tall when up on its hind legs.

“The Colosseum is usually about espers, but this was our insurance in case the white tiger was too powerful and mauled all of today’s contestants. We hoped to distract the audience from the lack of a winner by pitting the two beasts against each other and having people bet on the outcome.”

Ibotanokikouji held a hand to her mouth and laughed with no cage or anything else between her and the enormous bear.

She wasn’t even using the circus tricks of keeping it back with a whip or with fire or making herself look big.

“In the end, does this mean her power is controlling animals!?”

“No, that super doesn’t make sense. How would that explain when she destroyed the ceiling or the walls!? And it was easy to overlook, but she made the microphone fly over super on its own.”

That was true.

However, Ibotanokikouji was in fact demonstrating multiple strange phenomena. She held her palm out toward the grizzly without even glancing its way and it came to a stop. That unpredictable ferocious beast could attack anyone if it was in a bad mood, but she controlled it like she had a remote control.

The agitated beast was freed from whatever bound it and it swung its forelegs toward Frenda since she was closest.

Waniguchi ignored that as she walked forward.

A soft crunching sound followed.

That beast could stand to a height of 3 meters and its muscles would stop a .45 caliber handgun shot, but the 12-year-old girl had grabbed it with her slender arms and crushed it.

Even the bloodthirsty audience was briefly ''shocked into silence.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………In the end, did that really just happen?”

She hadn’t used a physical blow. That had looked more like a joint lock.

Waniguchi smiled sweetly while drenched in bear blood. That smile contained the perfect combination of innocence and intimidation, making it extremely popular for some.

“Ugh, really? Chief, I know playing with animals is fun and all, but try not to interrupt my fight.”

“Hee hee. Sorry about that. Please do forgive me. I messed up my control a little.”

Frenda was stunned.

An explosive danced meaninglessly in her hand after she froze in her throwing stance.

Would this even affect that girl?

Explosives were a symbol of humanity’s technology and violence, but it felt so inadequate against that smile.

“Leverage Struggle.”

Waniguchi smiled belligerently as she pulled a thick pair of pliers from her pocket.

''She grabbed the wall with them and tore it right off with only one arm.

Just like a piece of heavy machinery demolishing a building.

“I’m not trying to hide my power. I’ve shown it off in the execution videos when someone violates the rules, after all. Scissors, crowbars, seesaws, and joint locks – if it uses leverage, I can use it as a weapon. Yeah, I can grab a concrete pillar as big around as your torso and bend it with my bare hands. Hell, I could do the same with one twice as thick.”

“Is this super idiot serious?”

With a splash, Kinuhata grabbed a bucket of machine oil and dumped it over her head. That was an odd thing to find in a library, but it was probably meant for the wheels of the heavy camera equipment. Or maybe it was a flammable weapon meant for use in the Colosseum.

“If super all you can do is amplify the power of joint locks that use leverage, then you can’t do a thing against a straight punch or kick. Simply put, ''you’re nothing to worry about as long as you don’t grab me.'' Why would you go out of your way to tell us that? There are super tons of ways of killing you.”

After hearing all that, Waniguchi’s face scrunched up.

She was trying very hard to hold back the tears. All of a sudden, she looked like a normal 12-year-old girl.

“Now, now, Waniguchi-chan. Don’t cry. This is why I told you not to reveal your power like that.”

“Sob. Chief.”

“And even if she is too slippery to grab with your bare hands, you can still hit and tear at her with those pliers. You can also try something trickier by using a seesaw to launch projectiles or yourself. It isn’t very smart to limit your options by focusing solely on barehanded joint locks.”

“You don’t need to attack me tooooooooo!!”

“There, there.”

The sadistic girl (who had made the 12-year-old cry for real) pulled Waniguchi into a comforting hug.

Concentration gathered in Kinuhata’s brow.

“You sure are confident. Do you think you can super win while protecting that idiot and fighting us essentially one-against-two? Let’s super hope you aren’t a meathead too.”

“Hee hee. Yes, ''you have a point.''”

Ibotanokikouji laughed like it had happened to slip out.

It was the amused laugh of a mother who had finally secured a house for her family with a 35-year loan and then learned her daughter was myopically planning to run away from home and live independently.

“But I will still emerge victorious. Can I fight while protecting the weak? Can I win one-against-two? ''Of course I can.'' When you are powerful, you can fight back against this unfair world. But I can’t blame you for being too weak to know that.”

“?”

The #6 held a finger to her lips and whispered sweetly.

“You are in luck. You are about to receive a special demonstration of what the Dark Side’s Bane can really do.”

She only needed a single instant to end the fight.

===Part 10===

The extraordinary engine roared. The din became a physical mass that erupted through the planetarium.

That was Hanayama Kamitsu’s modified kick scooter – the Dragon Motor.

But Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner was an extraordinary projectile weapon. It didn’t matter how quickly the enemy accelerated toward her. She had nothing to fear as long as she reduced them to charcoal before they reached her.

Or so she thought.

“Ha ha ha!!”

Hanayama slipped past.

In fact, that giant kick scooter was moving along the planetarium’s domed ceiling. It defied gravity like a rollercoaster.

“Tch. Quit using brute force to defy fluid dynamics!!”

“I’m moving at 1100km/h, remember? That’s why I need my own supply of oxygen. Ah ha ha!! Wah ha ha!! It’s actually a lot harder to keep it on the ground!!”

Even the tanned track girl’s cackling was distorted by her speed. The kick scooter made several passes above Mugino’s head during that one statement.

Bare skin could not survive at that speed, so she likely had some kind of gel generously applied over her entire body.

“Stupid spider girl!!”

“''Bingo''.”

Hanayama answered the insult with a laugh.

Several metallic clangs followed.

The kick scooter had just about melted into streamlines, but on the enormous rear portion, several mechanical arms spread out to the sides like a spider. Each arm had a sharp heavy metal blade attached to the end.

“Atomic number 92!! These burning swords of depleted uranium can cut through a tank!! Hee hee, you won’t even notice you’ve been cut. Ah ha ha, let’s play a game of human daruma otoshi☆”

The kick scooter moved from the curved dome to the floor and then charged straight toward Mugino. Following it by eye was superhuman enough, so not even Mugino had time to take careful aim. She calculated the length of the skinny arms and swords and then considered whether to dodge left or right.

“Tch!!”

She fired Meltdowner at her feet to leap upwards.

“Oh, you figured it out? There goes my promise to kill you before you noticed.”

Orange sparks scattered a moment later. The wreckage of the seats was sliced through like tofu or jelly even outside the range of the arms and swords.

There were wires.

“That’s why you were right to call me a spider girl.”

Mugino was still hanging in midair, but Hanayama had already made five circuits of the domed ceiling or floor.

Hanayama couldn’t directly contact Mugino in the brief moment she remained airborne, but…

“I won’t let you land. I’ll build a spiderweb of deadly wires. Making wires this thin out of depleted uranium isn’t easy, you know? Now curse your own body weight while I slice you up like tokoroten!!”

Mugino’s fall toward death was almost complete.

She twisted around in midair and launched a Meltdowner beam.

But it didn’t hit the kick scooter.

Her opponent was just too fast.

(Damn, a single straight line just isn’t enough. I need another option to deal with a target that keeps moving out of the way.)

“Ah ha ha!!”

Mugino was trapped within a vortex of laughter.

If she did her best to resist – such as by using the airborne wreckage of the seats or the metal railings as a foothold – she could probably earn herself a few more Meltdowner-powered jumps, but that was all. Once gravity dragged all of those footholds back to the floor, Mugino would fall too and be sliced apart by the wires.

The Dragon Motor continued to circle around her.

The wires were being strung up all over the planetarium and Mugino would be sliced and diced if she fell into them.

“Random shots aren’t going to reach me and they can’t break my wires either!! You can’t keep shooting those beams forever! Bye-bye, Level 5. The Item name is ours now!!!”

Immediately afterwards, part of the planetarium’s domed ceiling was noisily torn away. A mass larger than a refrigerator lost its support and fell, so Hanayama had to quickly turn the T-shaped handlebars. From the kick scooter’s perspective, it had been like the road collapsing up ahead. She escaped unharmed, but she was still thrown off her planned course.

“What just…?”

The track girl found the answer before finishing her question.

She saw holes. Big holes. Random shots had done the trick. Mugino’s Meltdowner had opened several holes of 2m or more in the domed ceiling. The dome itself could no longer support itself and thick cracks ran through it. Once those cracks covered the surface area of the dome, ordinary gravity took control and the walls tore away and fell.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you are if I don’t aim for you directly.”

Mugino used the final airborne foothold and a beam to make another leap. She grinned and aimed her palm in midair.

The girl known as a monster still had confidence to spare.

“You don’t have many options left once you’ve lost your road, courier. And didn’t you say it was hard to keep that thing on the ground?”

“You…bitch!!”

Hanayama swerved this way and that to avoid the “canyons” in the collapsing dome. But as her routes grew more limited, she ultimately had only one path she could take, which made it easy to predict her future location and fire Meltdowner there. Because if Hanayama had slowed down, she would have fallen from the ceiling.

She wasn’t even given a chance to scream.

The beam launched from Mugino’s palm erased the tanned girl and her modified kick scooter from existence.

There was no corpse, or even a single drop of blood, remaining.

===Part 11===

Mugino heard something sharply slicing through the air.

“Whoops.”

With the domed ceiling destroyed, the taut wires had lost their support. It was like a blade-sharp bowstring suddenly snapping. She would have felt pretty silly losing a limb or her head to this.

But this also meant she didn’t have to worry about being sliced apart when landing on the broken floor.

She had defeated Hanayama Kamitsu, courier of the enemy Item.

But that wasn’t why Mugino was here.

The silver-haired art club girl with the suitcase was nowhere to be found. She had escaped. This was a job for a more intelligence-oriented member, not a combat specialist like Mugino.

She pulled out her phone while focusing on things outside the crumbling planetarium.

She knew exactly who to call.

(I need the support organization to set up a perimeter around the library. Hopefully they can at least catch a glimpse of her. Then Takitsubo just has to register her AIM Diffusion Field to track her even if she tries to flee the solar system.)

“Hanano! Have you gotten Takitsubo to safety? I want her to use AIM Stalker, so tell her to take some Body-”

“'Oh, hello. I have your mysterious 5th member in my custody.''”

“Kh.”

Mugino scowled.

She recognized that voice, but it wasn’t who she had called. A call to Hanano Choubi’s phone had been answered by Ibotanokikouji Kaede’s voice, which could only mean one thing.

(She has the worst timing!)

“Please do not blame her for this. Hanano-chan did exactly as you asked. She suppressed her fear and fought tooth and nail to let Takitsubo-chan escape. You should really praise her for her admirable – if ineffective – efforts. But if she no longer has a place on your team now that she has failed you, I am more than willing to invite her to join mine. Hee hee. Sinfully cute, isn’t she?”

“Damn you.”

With a dull metal clang, someone tackled down the half-broken planetarium door. A battered-looking Kinuhata emerged. She was supporting Frenda with her shoulder, but was Frenda even conscious?

“Super sorry.”

Mugino didn’t have time to respond before those two collapsed limply forward.

Ibotanokikouji had to know the safest option was to say nothing at all, but that didn’t stop her.

“Just so you know, they scored surprisingly well escaping from that situation at all. Although my own indecisiveness is really to blame there. If I had been focused on them, they wouldn’t have lasted a second.”

Quiet laughter snuck in over the electronic device.

Ordinarily, this alone would have been cost her her life.

“''I told you I am the Dark Side’s Bane, didn’t I''? You don’t seem to have the brainpower to understand what that means, so I hope this taught you the same lesson on a more instinctual level. This is my territory for hunting the likes of you. You cannot defeat me as long as you remain in this darkness. No matter what.”

“Shut the hell up, worm. That’s just a legend. Propaganda. Are you saying you would’ve self-destructed if we were heroes or schoolgirls from the sunny world?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

Those words seemed to take hold of the atmosphere.

Strange rules seemed to seep out from the cracks.

“None of you are anything more than prey, so when you gather together, you only end up devouring each other,” said Ibotanokikouji. “I am your bane – your predator – so your puny claws and fangs cannot reach me. There are no three-way deadlocks in the food chain. It is a pure top-to-bottom hierarchy.”

“…”

“We used a different insider at the insurance company for each match anyway, so that man was disposable to begin with. We can replace him at any time. Our only failure here is…well, that you are still alive must mean Hanayama-chan is dead. But we can overcome that too by negotiating with Hanano-chan and making her our new teammate. She’s a cute one, so I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to add her to my collection. Our four-girl structure will not be broken. Hee hee. Violence, starvation, sleep deprivation, itching, disgust, panic – there are any number of ways to remove someone’s will from their body. I can’t wait to see her cute attempts at resistance.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede kept going. She was not done speaking yet.

“A life for a life. That makes us even, doesn’t it?”

===Part 12===

The city was full of life that Tanabata night.

Colorful light decorated the night sky as fireworks were launched from somewhere.

The meteor shower would apparently be visible soon.

But Item returned straight to their hideout without speaking a word.

Their group of five was incomplete.

They knew that, but there was nothing they could do right away.

“Mugino…”

Takitsubo started to say something, but she stopped.

There was no need to say it out loud.

Mugino had decided it would be safest to give that girl a role so she could escape first with Takitsubo. This was the result. Did everything always have to backfire in the dark side?

The weakest link would always be targeted and bitten off first.

And no matter what their intentions, their wounds and exhaustion were just as real. If they had stayed in the library, they would have been captured too. They had also lost sight of their initial objective, so Mugino and the other three had been forced to return home.

A symbol of a certain girl’s presence could be found in the Fifteen Bells apartment. The bamboo that Frenda had forcibly stuck inside a moth orchid pot had a certain tanzaku blowing in the air conditioning.

''I want to be a part of Item! A useful part!!

''Please let me find some way to make myself worthwhile to them as thanks for taking me in.

:::''-Hanano Choubi

There was nothing else.

Only silence.

Even the violent Level 5 simply stared at the tanzaku for a while, not speaking a word.

Kinuhata and Frenda didn’t dare speak to the silent tyrant. They sensed a much greater rejection in this than in an enraged outburst.

“Mugino.”

But the track suit girl did quietly call out to her.

And with real force behind her voice.

Takitsubo had been with Mugino the longest, so she had to understand that girl’s violence better than anyone. But that was exactly why only she could safely pass between the countless landmines laid out there.

This was something that Mugino would never, ever say.

But it would reward the foolishly honest and kind newcomer who had arrived to bolster the team’s numbers and had faithfully protected Takitsubo from this dark world.

“This isn’t over yet. We can still rescue Hanano from that fake Item.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2

2023-03-15T10:14:37Z

JDMP: Corrected a typo- Dimeter to Diameter

==Chapter 2: >>Colosseum.==

===Part 1===

July 7, 9 AM

“Hooray for laziness…”

“Mugino.”

Mugino Shizuri was still lying in her large bed well after students and workers alike had gotten going. And for some reason, Takitsubo was in bed with her.

The negligee girl sleepily rubbed her eye.

“Why are you in here?”

“There weren’t enough beds.”

Takitsubo’s blank expression was as unchanged as her outfit. She wore her track suit at home, when going out, and even when sleeping.

“With two extra members all of a sudden, the room allotments are a mess. And right when we can’t access our money. You said we wouldn’t be able to buy new furniture for a while, remember?”

“…”

Maybe she had said that.

That didn’t seem like reason enough to climb into bed with her, but this could be solved by making beds for the two newcomers from a sofa or yoga mat or something.

“And didn’t you say you were going for an early morning jog before it got too hot? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this is the third time I’ve woken you. The sun is already pretty high in the sky.”

Sure enough, she heard a clattering noise from the various small items Takitsubo had in her pink track jacket’s pocket. Rolling over like that had to hurt, making it hard to sleep.

“Ugh, but I’m still tired. Besides, it’s already too late to jog today. It’s not the end of the world, so I can start jogging tomorrow.”

“Last night, you said to make you get up even if I had to spank you. Here, I recorded you saying it on this voice recorder. So what will it be? Do I have to spank you?”

“Curse my past self for being so thorough.”

The negligee girl made a highly unscientific complaint and crawled out of bed. She opened the bedroom door and entered the large living room just in time to see something green swaying in front of her.

They were in an apartment, but Frenda Seivelun was crossing the living room carrying a giant bamboo over her shoulder. But not because she had a new pet panda.

“Tanabata, it’s Tanabata☆”

The apartment’s decorative plants, tropical fish tank, and such were managed by a rental company and were replaced quite frequently, but Frenda had still stuck the bottom of some bamboo into a giant pot of moth orchids.

And some red, blue, and green decorations were attached among the bamboo leaves.

This wasn’t a school or shopping district, so it seemed unlikely individuals had attached all of those tanzaku. Frenda was apparently confusing the Tanabata bamboo with a Christmas tree.

There were far fewer tanzaku than other decorations and one of them said the following:

''Don’t let anyone on Item get hurt.

''Oh, and I want money, status, fame, time off, popularity, and friends!! As much as I can get!!!

:::''-Frenda Seivelun

Mugino held a hand to her drowsy head and sighed.

“What are you doing? This is supposed to be a city of science.”

“Mugino, what do you do with that afterwards? I doubt you can put it out with the normal trash.”

Why would she know the rules of some silly superstition?

After taking a shower, Mugino changed into a tank top and long bike shorts to exercise in. Her sneakers were an expensive shock-absorbing model. Then she grabbed her music player…no, today she went for her folding handheld 3D game console. Frenda had said it worked too. The movement of jogging seemed like it would dislodge wireless earphones, so she decided the wired type was safer. She wasn’t picky about sound quality, but she had gotten the kind with pure gold wires anyway.

Takitsubo was the indoorsy type despite wearing a track suit year round, so she had no intention of joining Mugino. She was staring at the canine pet robots bumping into each other and having a turf war. Frenda was…what was she doing? She was at the table with a notebook open and looked delighted. It may have been the finance book (for managing their evil team). And yet she was the one wasting money on decorations like that bamboo.

Mugino ended up riding the elevator down to ground level on her own.

The lower floors contained a shopping mall full of luxury brand shops. As soon as she walked out of the automatic door and lost the blessing of the air conditioning, an invisible wave of heat radiating from the pavement hit her right in the face.

“This summer heat really makes me hate my own legs. Yet another thing I can blame on eating bread. Really, the wheat culture is to blame. The Japanese digestive system wasn’t made for Western food.”

The Fifteen Bells complex was something like a small amusement park, so jogging the perimeter made for a decent distance. Mugino decided to expand the area she covered in something like a spiral after one lap.

She put her earphones in.

One she got started, jogging was easy enough.

Mugino was an expert at being lazy, but she had more than enough stamina.

And as she jogged, it became very clear that today was July 7, Tanabata. Event advertisement flags were set up like streetlights on either side of the major street and the weather forecast provided by the large screen on the belly of a blimp also had a predicted arrival time for some meteor shower or another.

Four or five high school girls were sticking quite close together on the sidewalk. But rather than some girl-on-girl flirting, one of them appeared to have a cooling power. Mugino was jealous. That girl had to be like a seaside restaurant – popular in the summer but forgotten in the winter.

As Mugino passed them, the earphones attached to the folding game console did not play a fitness rhythm or the voice of an automatic advice mode.

It played some data recorded as videos.

''“The Colosseum? We’ve been pursuing it too, but no luck so far. Several times now, one of our people goes missing and turns up a few days later as a pummeled corpse. These are people who can’t return to their dorm and have nowhere left to turn. How do you get such a valuable insurance policy on someone like that? My name is Komaba Ritoku. Contact me if you learn anything. I’ll buy any data you have with cash. I want to settle the score myself if possible.”

''“Sorry, young lady. I appreciate the Musashino Milk, but I really don’t know anything about the Colosseum. For better or for worse, I’m keeping my hands off that one. I’ve told my entire team to do the same, so I couldn’t tell you what’s going on there now. What’s that? You thought Big Spider was led by a guy called Kurozuma? …It’s probably best if you go on believing that.”

“I can’t concentrate on this while running. …Mostly because it’s too damn hot.”

The fundamental problem was Mugino oversleeping.

She knew nothing was going to come of this, but she still replayed the footage several times, focusing on the people’s breathing and word choices to try and see if they were lying.

(Their quality is about as low as it gets, but they do have numbers. And because they’re weak, they know how to take advantage of their location. That means they’ll be monitoring every last nook and cranny of the back alleys. So if those Skill Out teams haven’t seen anything, where could the Colosseum be holding their deadly matches? And if it’s true they use a different location each time, do they follow some kind of pattern?)

They had hit a decent obstacle even for Mugino.

For one thing, this kind of investigation and pursuit wasn’t supposed to be Item’s job. They preferred jobs where they were given their target’s location on a map.

Mugino turned a corner while glancing over at a luxury department store bag abandoned in the gap between two shrubs growing on the side of the road.

Then someone caught up to her from behind. No, the person came up alongside her.

“Super good morning.”

It was Kinuhata Saiai.

The external voice triggered the earphones’ accident prevention feature, automatically lowering the volume.

Kinuhata was not out of breath as she ran. Mugino wanted to stay in the shade of the roadside trees or pass through the cool mist shower to fight the summer heat, but Kinuhata stole that position.

Kinuhata had already jogged several laps more than Mugino and she looked like she could keep going just fine. Mugino and Frenda were decent fighters, but in a pure fistfight, this small girl had to be even better. But that didn’t really matter. The dark side was especially irritating because ''you needed more than that''.

Mugino removed one of her earphones without slowing her pace.

“What, are you taking an early morning jog too?”

“Early?” Kinuhata checked how high the sun was in the sky and released an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been watching movies at the theater at the bottom of our building. Seven in a row. I started yesterday, so I’m super stiff and thought I should loosen up before getting some sleep.”

“Movies, huh? Don’t we have a home theater system in our room?”

“It’s super nice, I’ll admit, but it’s just not the same as a real movie theater. Also, I thought that theater was the fashionable kind that panders to couples, but whoever selects its lineup knows what they’re doing. Especially late at night when it plays lots of super minor B and C movies that you can’t even find on streaming sites. After you freed me, I took a look around, but you super don’t see many theaters showing South American zombie horror flicks. Yeah, a big jungle chainsaw and tequila Molotov cocktails are super perfect for a tropical city where civilization has collapsed after a widescale blackout!!”

“Why do you like movies so much?”

“There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment when I was confined in that lab. I think they were super scared we’d kill someone if we had any toys. All they did was gather the subjects in a white room and super project the movie on a screen meant for presentations, but it stuck with me. …Of course, super who knows what kind of subliminal messages and ultra-low frequency sounds they were including in those.”

That explained it.

Those people imprisoned children, tested risky drugs on them, and gave them brainwashing movies as their only form of entertainment. The fact that she wasn’t disturbed by this proved to Mugino that she really was part of the dark side. Her only real thought was “sounds about right”. In dark side terms, she gave it 50 points. So exactly average.

Even the dangerous people who caused enough trouble to get expelled from school wanted nothing to do with the dark side. You couldn’t let every little thing surprise you.

“Wait? So when we went down to receive data on this job…?”

“Yes. As you’ve super guessed already, that was my first time in a real movie theater, something I’d always wanted to see. It was super weird doing it to see the data we would need to kill some super idiot, though.”

“Sorry about that.”

Kinuhata sounded blue, but Mugino’s response had no real emotion behind it.

Was that experience like fulfilling your lifelong dream of visiting Italy and being served awful pasta on the plane trip there?

“And did you find a new ''part-time job'' too?”

Kinuhata fell silent.

Mugino fanned her face with a hand while focusing on the rhythm of her jogging.

“It’s not an accusation. You’re allowed to have a side job. I believe Frenda heads out on forensics jobs sometimes.”

“Forensics? Oh, she’s a super expert with bombs, isn’t she?”

“It’s less about the explosives and more about the chemistry knowledge. Of course, she isn’t helping investigations trying to hunt down the bad guy. It’s more like she helps people know who to take revenge on for killing their buddy.”

Their conversation continued as they jogged.

“But if you are going to make drop-offs, you can’t leave the bag in such an obvious location. You’ll get complaints if the goods don’t reach their destination because someone else found it and took it away. By which I mean the client will send someone after you to reclaim their payment.”

“I think this client super wanted it to be found. They want to update the outdated criminal infrastructure. So they super want an accident with some convincing item.”

“I see.”

The dark side had its own etiquette.

They were all criminals who broke national laws and city regulations, but they could be picky about such things.

“''Super more importantly, what about Hanano Choubi-san?''”

“''Her investigation should be done soon.''”

===Part 2===

District 7.

A large outdoor space was lined with what looked like long shipping containers, but they were actually model rooms for a variety of different styles of studio apartment. But these were meant for landlords and building managers, not for residents. The rooms were created with hive construction. The rooms themselves were made whole in a single factory using a special industrial 3D printer. A jungle-gym-like framework of beams was created first and then the boxy rooms could be inserted like drawers to create an entire apartment building. If the suicide or murder of a resident threatened to lower the value, the entire room could be removed and swapped out for a new one, so hive construction was gathering a lot of attention in Academy City for the possibility of removing some of the risk from real estate.

However.

There was one sample room where it wasn’t clear which construction company had the key to its lock.

“I’m baaack.”

After inserting two keys and opening the front door, Hanano Choubi found a few chairs, a wall-sized mirror, lighting equipment, an industrial dryer, and more. It looked something like a beauty parlor, but some might have recognized it as closer to a TV studio’s dressing room, where a stylist worked. In other words, you could sleep there if you wanted, but it didn’t look lived in.

Also, a mountain of plastic clothing cases was stacked up by the wall.

Wigs, hair extensions, color contacts, false eyelashes, double eyelid gel, mouthpieces, foundation, etc. There was even a selection of implants, artificial bones, silicone artificial breast bags, and other things that should need surgery to make use of.

In the back was a tanning machine like the ones seen at a tanning salon and hyperbaric oxygen capsules used to manipulate blood oxygen to alter the ''swelling'' of the skin, but she didn’t need either of those this time.

“Nyan, nyan, nya-nyan, nyahhn.”

Maybe she wanted to be the feline type because Hanano nyan-ed a popular song as she entered the fake sample room and reached for the top of her head. She ''removed'' her long hair as simply as she might a hat.

By removing her eyebrows and eyelashes, she revealed her base face. The smooth face reflected in the mirror reminded her of a doll before it was processed.

“Now, then.”

The mirror covered an entire wall, but not all of it was usable. A lot of its surface was covered by notes and photos. Those provided data on her target.

“Age: 52. Sex: Male. Hair: black and a bit greasy. See photo for distribution of gray. Skin: Asian with lots of blue base grease. Eyes: black with a hint of brown. Oh, and the skin is only lightly tanned and with minor dust mite allergy symptoms. Should I adjust the skin to be a bit rougher?”

Hanano’s specialty was disguise and infiltration.

The quality of her disguise was dependent on the amount of data she had on her target. This time, she had spent an entire week gathering that data herself, so she was confident she could give herself the same fingerprints, teeth shape, eyes, blood type, and scent as him. Once she was in disguise, not even the target’s parents or a police dog would notice anything was amiss.

And like in this case, sex and age were no obstacle.

After applying some makeup, she looked into the mirror to see an old man who would look at home in a fancy suit. The process wasn’t complete, so her face had swollen out to the appropriate size, but everything below remained that of a girl.

“Oops.”

Hanano Choubi’s fingers touched a rectangular box on the table, but she quickly pulled her hand back. She may have subconsciously wanted some refreshing menthol since it was summer, but these were flavored cigarettes. This target was a nonsmoker, so the smell of nicotine or tar would stand out. If she had carelessly smoked one, she would have had to start over from the beginning. That had been much too close.

(I can buy some scentless tablets later on.)

“Language: standard Japanese with a hint of an Aichi accent. Dry eyes and symptoms of neck and shoulder stiffness. Places his weight on his right leg when standing and dislikes having people stand on his left side. Holds his chopsticks wrong and mouth breaths when he loses his cool. Also…here we go. His handwriting is, um, angular but sloppy. Wow, I don’t know about his schooling, but his parents must not have raised him right. He doesn’t just confuse ‘to’ and ‘too’, but ‘two’ as well.”

Her voice grew lower and deeper as she spoke.

Her weight and body type had already been transformed.

Throw out your morals and rely on technology and anyone could transform, no supernatural powers necessary.

From head to toe, she had become the broad-shouldered ''insurance company general manager'' and spoke with the deep voice to match.

“Sigh. If only I had a friend who would do Magical Powered Kanamin cosplay with me.”

===Part 3===

It was a simple matter.

“I asked around the sketchy people who know the back alleys, but none of them had any information on the Colosseum. That leaves the insurance company general manager as our only source of hints. We have his story, but it isn’t enough. Hanano, can you disguise yourself as him, infiltrate the company headquarters, and check the central server to see who the pricey payouts were made for and who received them? Hacking in from outside is apparently too difficult.”

They didn’t just threaten the general manger – who had already been treated to torture at the hands of two girls – and have him go because he was covered in bandages. A mummy (old) would stand out too much. And as an outsider, they couldn’t predict when he would get too scared and stop. Send someone like that to the enemy base and they tended to think they had escaped and the plan fell apart. Unfortunately, the cleanup afterwards generally meant brute force via long-range attack.

“This van is so much smaller. And my body is so stiff.”

Mugino complained from the back seat of the boxy minivan.

A three-blade wind turbine was spinning nearby, but they didn’t feel remotely cool. That rotation was from the quality of the bearings, not the strength of the wind.

She missed the larger vehicle. They could still use Item’s resources, but they couldn’t replace anything that was lost. They needed a new source of funding and fast.

“They’re doing fireworks!”

Frenda leaned out the window and stared into the distance.

Was a school out for its anniversary? Or maybe they had the day off because the air conditioner was broken and the school couldn’t keep the kids inside in this summer heat. Regardless, a bunch of small children were out in the blazing heat launching parachute-equipped fireworks in some kind of competition. If advance notice was given that children would be launching fireworks, a drum-shaped security robot with a special firefighting attachment would watch over the event, but Item was too far away to see it.

The other girls in the van were speaking too.

“Frenda-san, it’s super weird that you can detect the scent of explosives from this far away. Or that it excites you so much, for that matter.”

“Heh heh☆”

“Frenda, I don’t think that was a compliment. Kinuhata is disturbed by it,” said Takitsubo.

They were in District 3.

Even for Academy City, the district had a lot of office buildings for famous corporations.

Since the children were playing here, their local park may have been taken over by bullies.

The insurance company headquarters – a giant skyscraper – was also visible from here. Item was keeping enough distance that the company’s security team wouldn’t get suspicious.

“So, Mugino, are you sure the newbie can do this? We’re talking about a company full of old men. In the end, couldn’t I get in a lot easier making full use of my cuteness?”

“That’s worked in the past, but if we have a disguise expert, we might as well use her.”

“In the end, is this when I’m supposed to groan in frustration and complain that my job is being taken from me?”

“Mugino is worried about you, Frenda. She doesn’t like you doing those risky honeytrap missions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t let them lay a single finger on me when I’m controlling them! In the end, the trick to luring them in is to make sure they just barely can’t see what they want.”

Frenda pouted her lips. What it was she knew was probably something only she could know. And she seemed to be ignoring the Level 0 newcomer and glaring more at the track suit girl who had taken up the position of the wife who knew everything about Mugino.

“Uhh.”

The ''elderly general manager'' was starting to get nervous and even whined like a small animal with the deep old man voice. Everyone watching had their brains rattled and had to question their understanding of the world.

She(?) put a small earphone in her right ear.

“Wh-whether this works or not, a lot of people are going to see me. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned, but won’t the real general manager be arrested for misconduct?”

“So what if he is?”

He was an immoral grownup who had refused to call Anti-Skill when he knew people were dying and even defrauded his own company to protect himself. He was a perfect example of Academy City’s shittiness. They hadn’t killed him since he had told them what they wanted to know, but they were under no obligation to protect him either.

“Speaking of him, didn’t he mention having a family?” asked Mugino. “We should probably tell him to get a divorce right away if he cares about his wife and kids. If they only get divorced after he’s arrested, his family might share the legal liability for the damages he owes.”

“If that’s the kindest option you can think of, it says a lot about the dark side,” complained Hanano.

Mugino gave an irritated look to the overly cheerful summer sunshine.

“It’s 11 AM. The perfect time for an executive to show up at the office.”

A real executive would arrive in a chauffeured black luxury car, but Item had destroyed that car last week. Unproductive VIPs needed to use their car as a status symbol to feel pride in something, so it wouldn’t be out of place for him to take the train or walk when a replacement hadn’t arrived yet.

The summery scent of mosquito-repelling incense wafted over.

The incense itself and the ceramic pig it came from were both made by Frenda, so it was extremely effective.

“Hanano, you’ll be masquerading as the general manager to get inside the building. You’ll just walk right on past the receptionist out front. What then?”

“I use his executive key card on the reader in front of the elevator that leads to the upper floors and take that straight to the central server room which is normally off limits. That means I need to be the only one to board the elevator on the first floor.”

“Good. Leave the security cameras to us.”

Mugino took out a computer smaller than a makeup bag and shoved it into Hanano Choubi’s hands.

“Physically connect this to the central server and the program inside will extract all the necessary data automatically. You don’t need to do anything more than that, but don’t let the receptionist notice you’re hiding this.”

“''Of course not. Who do you think I am?''”

Hanano Choubi had the old man’s voice and attitude down perfectly. Mugino saw her off and then returned to the van.

The van was full of small monitors. They displayed grainy footage from a variety of angles. Needless to say, that footage came from the insurance company’s security cameras.

“In the end, how did we hack into this?”

“We couldn’t reach the central server located inside the building, but the security camera footage is gathered together and sent out to the security company along a single thick line. The insurance company doesn’t have a security room of its own, you see. So we messed with that. Now we can monitor all this footage without anyone noticing and without leaving a trace. Of course, that was all done by the support organization in their work jumpsuits, so I don’t know the details.”

“Oh, is that Hanano-san super there?”

Kinuhata pointed at one of the monitors.

Sure enough, it showed one of the automatic doors opening and a broad-shouldered old man entering the reception lobby. Like any top-rate corporate building, the first floor was all about showing off, so it was given a tropical look. It was full of green and even had a waterway. The arrogant general manager hadn’t been dropped off by his car like usual, so the receptionist and security team looked a little confused as they greeted him.

Takitsubo tilted her head while staring blankly.

“Have they figured it out?”

“I super don’t know.”

“In the end, he ''took some time off without permission'', but he’s also a general manager who lives in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to ask too many questions and learn he was on a trip with a mistress or something, so will any of the ordinary employees be willing to directly ask him where he was? Damn, the security cameras can’t pick up their voices.”

Disguised Hanano raised a hand in greeting before walking through one of the security gates that resembled the ticket gates at a train station.

A tearful voice reached them through the small microphone hidden on her suit rather than through the security cameras.

That girl was smiling with the utmost confidence, but she was sobbing on the inside.

“(Stop speculating so much! I’m sure it seems fun when you’re just watching, but my life is on the line here. P-please don’t abandon me if this goes wrong. You won’t, will you!?)”

It didn’t matter if she aroused some suspicion as long as it wasn’t enough for someone to stop her. Although she was blatantly fidgeting while waiting in an elevator hall that looked like something from a luxury hotel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

“In the end, speaking aloud is only putting you at more risk. Are you doing it on purpose as some kind of challenge run?”

“Says someone who’s only watching!!”

But there wasn’t any real trouble.

The metal doors parted and the general manager entered the empty elevator with a pace quickened just enough that no one would find it unusual. After the door closed, “he” held a card up to the control panel.

A push of the button and the elevator began to rise. It had switched into a mode that wouldn’t stop on intermediate floors.

“Um, Mugino-san. Super what floor is the central server room on?”

“28.”

“Hanano won’t have anywhere to escape if the security team surrounds her,” noted Takitsubo.

“I really am going curse all four of you,” protested Hanano. “Who is that munching on popcorn right next to the mic!?”

The correct answer was cinephile Kinuhata Saiai who always wanted popcorn when she was staring at a screen, but there was no need to say so. Frenda had opened a mackerel can and was going at it with a fork.

The elevator stopped at one of the higher floors.

The doors parted to reveal the exact opposite of the gentle atmosphere of sunlight and greenery found in the lobby. First of all, there were no windows to speak of. The large floor was divided up by chain link fences and thick tempered glass walls and the entire place was taken up by computers larger than vending machines. It wasn’t clear what the divisions between areas and machines signified, but the place looked like a labyrinth. Hanano trembled, walked pigeon-toed, and held her shoulders (all with the old man look), so the temperature may have been well below standard room temperature.

“This is…the central server room.”

She could already see the server machines. They were everywhere here on the 28th floor. But she couldn’t actually touch them with the labyrinth of chain link fences and glass walls in the way. She would need to unlock the door in the fence to get through.

Of course, Hanano would have already prepared to do just that.

However…

“I-it won’t open?”

She had sounded nervous before, but now her tone of voice rose even further.

With no one else around, she didn’t bother hiding the hesitation in her wandering hands.

“I don’t believe it. How is this happening? The fence door in the central server room won’t open!!”

“What does that mean? Didn’t you spend an entire week checking over everything from the general manager’s fingerprints to his irises? Including every little idiosyncrasy he has?”

“That week was the problem. It looks like they change the door’s passcode each week, so his information from July 1 isn’t good anymore!”

“And…what does that mean?”

“Uhh,” groaned Hanano. Mugino had repeated the same words, but her ''sizzling'' displeasure had been hard to miss.

They couldn’t have Hanano remaining silent during a mission, so Mugino compromised by speaking first.

“Do you have any tricks you can use?”

“Sure, if there was an emergency. For example, in an earthquake powerful enough to possibly bring the building down, all the locks are set to automatically release to ensure no one is trapped.”

“''You don’t say?''”

Frenda had known Mugino long enough to put down her mackerel can, grab blankly-staring Takitsubo, and scoot away from Mugino. Kinuhata was still new to this, so she only tilted her head with her big tub of popcorn.

Hanano Choubi was also new, so she failed to see the danger of her comment.

“Don’t run away, Frenda. Use those goggles of yours.”

“Ugh. No stopping you, huh? Fine, fine. In the end, I’ll support you.”

That was all Mugino had to hear before she smiled thinly and took action.

She reached a hand out the car window.

And she fired Meltdowner at the very center of the distant skyscraper.

===Part 4===

“Gyahhhh!?”

Hanano Choubi forgot all about acting and screamed for real. Not that anyone would have found it unusual given the circumstances.

A sharp tremor shook the giant building vertically, the tempered glass shattered, all the fire alarms went off, and a recorded female voice urged everyone to evacuate.

The blast hadn’t hit this floor, but her life was still at risk. The building was made of tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, but it might as well have been a shaky suspension bridge. Mugino could have brought the entire skyscraper down with ease if she wanted to.

“What!? What did you just do!?”

“You said the locks would release in an emergency, right? So I figured it would be faster to make our own. Don’t worry. I had Frenda monitoring the electromagnetism produced by human bodies, so I only took out a big conference room no one was using. One less budget item for them to worry about, really.”

(This building isn’t part of the dark side. Cause a scene like this and the Dark Side’s Bane will notice. Once that #6 is after us, we’ll vanish ''without a trace'' in some back alley or another!!)

The diligent small animal of a girl slumped her shoulders when she belatedly realized she had become the kind of person who put her guard up when she saw a hero.

Meanwhile, Mugino Shizuri’s voice couldn’t have been more carefree.

Which probably meant she was the kind of person who could slaughter people while perfectly relaxed.

“Get a move on, Hanano. Or is the door still not open? How many more times do I have to blast that building? Should I target a load-bearing column next? Or maybe the base isolators? Give the word and they’re gone☆”

“No need, no need! The door’s open! That worked fine, so thank you for the very useful support!!”

(That kaiju girl!!)

Hanano shouted tearfully and opened the unlocked fence door. She pulled the miniature computer from her pocket, connected a cable to it, and connected the other end to one of the server machines. The computer would do the rest.

It made quiet sounds like scratching fingernails.

The bar on the screen gradually filled up from left to right. Alphanumeric text – likely filenames – flashed by, but there was no point in trying to read them.

A wired connection was best when dealing with so much data. Copying the files was nerve-racking enough without knowing the wireless connection could break at any moment.

“Yikes, yikes, hurry up, yikes… W-will this really tell us who received the insurance payouts when the Colosseum participants died?”

“It will, but they might have used a fake name or fake ID. Or maybe they used a throwaway go-between like the one who withdraws the money in a bank transfer scam. Anything that would leave a trail will have been faked.”

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? Is this all a waste of time?”

“This is well worth our time,” Mugino Shizuri readily assured her.

Hanano tilted her head (in old man mode), but…

“The big bosses at the top will be well-protected, but not so with the participants who end up as corpses anyway. But we’re not interested in the corpses or the criminals. ''We’re looking for the people with a high-value policy and are still alive.'' We should probably narrow it down to teenage students, a policy of at least a hundred million, and an expedited contract less than a month old. Once we have their identity, we can do this the old-fashioned way: tail them and let them lead us right to the Colosseum.”

The bar on the screen filled up and the number below reached 100%.

Hanano Choubi yanked out the cable, stuck the miniature computer in her pocket, and returned to the elevator.

“Oh, no! The elevator’s stopped because of the disaster!”

“Ah ha ha. Then it’s time for 28 stories’ worth of stairs. Should make for some good exercise.”

(Really and truly curse that terrain-obliterating god of destruction!!)

But she had no other option here, so she gave up, opened the metal door, stuck her head out into the emergency stairs, and heard hurried footsteps climbing from below. This was an above-the-board company, so were those security officer batons she heard thunking at their hips? If they realized who she was and ganged up on her, she felt certain they would beat her to death.

“Check each floor to ensure no one was left behind. Make sure every last employee, guest, and contracted janitor is safe! Teams A and B, follow me and inspect the stairs!! …Hm? Hey! Is someone up th-”

“''Wahh!!''”

While shouting, she flipped the luxury suit inside out like a stage magician’s handkerchief, wiped both hands on her face makeup to rearrange it, and transformed herself into a muscular young man on the security team. In mere seconds.

She could only prepare one emergency costume change, so the standard option was either a security guard or a firefighter depending on where she was infiltrating.

“Reporting for duty!”

“R-right. I don’t recognize you. Which team are you on? Anyway, you came from up above, right? Continue on down and join another team. Any other team! Right now, we need every single person assisting the evacuation!!”

“Roger that!!”

Muscular and handsome Hanano Choubi shouted something that seemed right and then ran down the stairs.

A predetermined plan ''alone'' was not enough to fool people. Going with the flow and adlibbing could be surprisingly useful. Of course, you would run into trouble if you relied entirely on adlibbing.

And no living thing would run around quite as actively as a cornered chicken.

“Ugh, those 28 floors are going to have me sweating… That’s like descending a small mountain. Let’s hope my makeup doesn’t come off.”

“Hanano, we’re still monitoring you via the cameras after your face change, so don’t worry. And if you want a shortcut down, keep your eye on the wall to your right.”

She didn’t even have time to look that way.

The concrete wall broke through from the outside and a slender hand appeared. Kinuhata Saiai had quickly and powerfully climbed 28 floors up the building’s wall and now she grabbed Security Guard Hanano Choubi by the collar.

“Wait, but, hey, what are you doing!?”

“It was super you who told us not to abandon you if things went wrong.”

Then the two of them dove down from that high floor.

“Gyehhhhhhhhh!?”

“Don’t worry. My Offense Armor will act as a cushion, so we won’t die when we super hit the ground.”

===Part 5===

“Finally. It’s already midday. How did it take you that long to escape one little building?”

“Huff, puff. Sh-she really is in full dominatrix mode, isn’t she?”

Mugino held out a hand in a “give it here” gesture. Hanano wiped the makeup from her face to return to her puppyish self before handing the miniature computer to Mugino. She was irritated and wanted to look cool by tossing it over, but after going through all that, she was terrified of dropping and breaking it.

Mugino looked satisfied as she accepted the computer.

“After grabbing some lunch, we can check inside this and start tracking one of the participants.”

“Shouldn’t we be running away? I can see the building from here and- wow, there’s a giant hole in the center.”

After yanking Hanano inside the van, Item left.

“Um, wait. Are you really asking me to change inside this cramped van? I have to strip down while the rest of you watch!?”

“Don’t worry, Hanano. I’m rooting for you.”

“You, busty track suit girl! What part of me were you looking at when you made that pitying comment!?”

Hanano tearfully complained, but she must not have wanted to remain in the security uniform that smelled like male sweat (because she had designed it to do so). The rustling of cloth filled the van for a while.

Anyway, next on the agenda was lunch.

Frenda knew how to access a wealth of information on her phone and she learned of a good restaurant frequented by District 3’s elite office workers. After driving to the center of the district, they left the van behind and walked the rest of the way.

Frenda spotted something on the way.

“Neat. In the end, of course a salaryman district would have miniskirt ladies handing out cans of beer.”

“That sign calls them ‘bargirls’. What does that mean?”

Takitsubo tilted her blankly staring head.

The bargirls were apparently advertising a new seasonal craft beer. But none of the officer workers in suits could drink beer in the middle of the day, so it seemed like they would have a hard time selling every can. Mugino though they would have better luck in District 5 with all its college students ready to party on Tanabata.

Mugino had also wondered what hidden gem of a restaurant Frenda had discovered, but it was a fairly large Chinese restaurant that shared a giant building with an electronics store.

“It’s normal. It’s so normal I’m about ready to punch Frenda.”

“No one here has time to wait in a long line, so anyplace that gets super lots of five star ratings will be one with a super lot of seating and decent enough food. This place is as super big as a parking garage.”

The five girls found a seat at a table in the back.

Was it a dark side habit to prefer the seat closest to the emergency exit? Or if that wasn’t available, one by a window.

“I’m going to get the vegetable gyoza meal with no garlic. It’s a good basic dish to super test the quality of the cooking. What about you, Takitsubo-san?”

“This.”

“Oh! In the end, they’re already serving the chilled noodles! I’ll get that too but with sesame sauce!!”

“It sure is summer. And I hate it.”

Mugino never passed up a chance to complain about wheat and she apparently went for the rice dishes as a result. She ordered the seafood fried rice with ankake sauce. Based on the photo in the menu, it had something extremely greasy poured on top. It had to be a giant mass of calories. The day she had slim legs was still a long way off. Although anyone foolish enough to say that aloud would have an instant 50% reduction in weight when their upper half was vaporized.

The restaurant was meant to get office workers in and out during their limited lunch break, so the young part-timer in a mini China dress had their order out in no time. Takitsubo stared blankly at the food.

“They’re gyozas, but they’re green. Kinuhata, you should eat more meat.”

“I don’t need your criticism. What are you – a super old man?”

“But you won’t grow otherwise.”

“''Are you picking a goddamn fight with me while you waste your own super boobs by covering them up with that lame-ass track suit''!?”

The growing girl who channeled the #1 when she got mad had to be calmed by friendly Frenda.

“Whew…”

Hanano’s body was demanding something unhealthy after the exhaustion of the previous job, so she nervously pulled in her bowl of stir-fried meat and vegetables that looked heavily seasoned. On the dark side, you could get your hands on a variety of pills or even a mysterious stamp that made sounds quite colorful when you placed it below your tongue, but this was the limit of unhealthy that petty bourgeoisie was willing to go for.

“Today’s Tanabata, isn’t it? Oh, this ordinary free ice water is soaking into my soul.”

“Which one is Tanabata again? The one with the pandas and lots of firecrackers?”

“Takitsubo-san, I think you’re super confusing it with Chinese New Year.”

Kinuhata looked kind of smug, but you wouldn’t see pandas on the streets of China even when celebrating the lunar new year. What Asian movie had she seen?

“Hanano, you should put this shichimi togarashi on your stir fry. You’re in the mood for something strong, aren’t you?” suggested Takitsubo.

“That sounds good, but it would make fixing my face harder, so I’ll pass. Spicy foods making your lips swell isn’t just a thing from gag manga. They have that lip cream full of capsaicin to give you fuller lips, remember?”

“Hanano.”

“Stop recommending it to me because you think that sounds funny!”

All of their food was good. But only good. The secret to the flavor was probably tubs of dashi from a factory in District 4. If this place was getting five star ratings, perhaps office workers thought it was a virtue to have no sense of adventure.

That was the opposite of Item’s way of life.

Mugino pulled out the miniature computer.

“Frenda.”

“Just one, okay!? Please, Takitsubo! In the end, a bite of my almond jelly for one of your sesame dumplings isn’t a bad trade at all, so pleeeeease! Oh, what did you want, Mugino?”

“You’ve been watching the Colosseum online, right? When does today’s match begin?”

“Hmm? The morning event should be over already. In the end, the next soonest would be the one that starts at 8 this evening. I remember the time because I tended to watch the killing while eating dinner in my room.”

“That’s super primetime. Are the managers intentionally aiming for mealtime when people are relaxing with their families?”

“Ugh.” Hanano paled and shrank down in her seat, but that was nothing as far as dark side tastes went . Mugino didn’t seem interested in that part at all.

“Damn, and it’s only 1 in the afternoon. Then there’s no point in pursuing one of the living contestants now. We can take our time and begin our pursuit at around 5.”

===Part 6===

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frenda smiled a little while lying on her side.

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

“Thanks.”

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

Frenda gave a mischievous smile and slowly narrowed her eyes.

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

“Ha…ah ha ha…”

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

Frenda winked while still lying in bed.

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

“U-um, there is actually…”

Hanano scooted toward Frenda and whispered in her ear.

Frenda looked confused.

“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

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

“If that’s what you want.”

The blonde girl didn’t take much convincing.

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

“Excuse me. Is Hanano-san in here?”

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

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

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’re super going to District 7?”

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

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

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

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

“Bamboo leaf ice cream.”

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

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

The five members of Item walked through the evening city.

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

They had located their target, though.

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

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

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

They could locate the enemy base starting from here.

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

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

Their target was about 15m away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No response.

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

And Mugino Shizuri was entranced by something there.

Her shoulders were even trembling.

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

“Mugino…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mugino.”

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

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

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

Once they knew the trick, the rest was easy.

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

“Did the braid girl go in here?”

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

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

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

Every single spot here was a shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hanano nervously checked one of the shops.

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

“Hanano.”

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

Mugino scoffed at the entire scene around them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino narrowed her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

Kinuhata took a look around.

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

“What are you, a mother-in-law?”

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

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

And the track suit girl noticed something else.

“Mugino.”

The air was abuzz with energy.

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

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

Something was happening below.

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

An explosion of noise pushed up from there.

Cheering voices and booming music swirled up at them.

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

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

Some kind of plate was spinning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino looked down from the railing in disgust.

“Is the Colosseum always like this?”

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

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

Less imaginative Kinuhata and Takitsubo were more carefree.

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

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

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

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

Mugino grinned.

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

===Part 7===

The Colosseum was a very important event for them.

They didn’t all gather together for every single event, but they still made sure to make an appearance on site as ''the management''.

However, those four girls were not in the ring or in the stands. They were in a separate monitor room, built from a back room of the library full of book repair equipment. They used that room to keep tabs on the situation in the arena and online.

Of course, they weren’t upstanding members of society, so they had brought camping chairs and a camping table in for themselves. The table was piled high with chips, popcorn, fried chicken, fries, and more. For drinks, there were sodas and iced coffee. They preferred to bring their own rather than order it from a catering company. That made it feel more like doing yaminabe at a girls-only sleepover, which was a lot more fun.

“Uhh…”

A small 12-year-old girl with pale skin and shoulder-length black hair groaned while staring at all the monitors. Waniguchi Nokoba was a mixed martial artist and she wore a ring costume that looked like a racing swimsuit made even more revealing. She raised her small hands and stretched her back without getting up from her chair.

However, her hands just about crushed the rubber balls she held.

“I wanna fight too!! We worked so hard to get that white tiger for today and I wanna fight it!!”

“You’re our ''executioner'' who swiftly eliminates anyone who violates any rules regarding the match or the gambling, so you need to stay put as long as things run smoothly. It’s better this way, so try and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, a curvy girl wearing a ''Tokiwadai Middle School'' summer uniform and with a few braids in her fluffy blonde hair, breathed an exasperated sigh, but the martial arts girl ignored her.

Despite her young appearance, Waniguchi bared her teeth and spat back.

“Damn, I thought I’d be seeing lots of action in this position, but these dark side morons are all too scared to disobey. ''You’re criminals – why the hell are you following the rules''? I’m starting to wish I’d entered as a contestant instead.”

“But then you would just win every match,” commented a tanned track girl named Hanayama Kamitsu.

“We wouldn’t make much money from the gambling side then, would we?” sighed Ibotanokikouji. “Waniguchi-chan, why are you so irritable today?”

“Her thigh,” whispered a silver-haired girl named Inoue Laspezia.

That got a response out of Waniguchi herself rather than Ibotanokikouji.

“Ah!? I’ve got another mosquito bite… No wonder I’ve been so mad today. This is why I hate the ground. Too many bugs. Hey, where’d the bug spray go!?”

“It’s too late for that if you’re already bitten. Come here. I will rub the anti-itch cream on for you,” said Ibotanokikouji.

“Yay!” rejoiced Waniguchi as she walked over, but she was interrupted by something else.

The silver-haired girl had been working in silence, but now she sat right in Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“…Inoue Laspezia.”

“Yes?”

The silver-haired girl was still engrossed in the intricate work she was performing with her gloved hands, so she replied with just the one Kyoto-accented word. She didn’t even look up.

As the only one here immune to the lily’s allure, the track girl kept her distance.

Furious at having her special seat taken, Tiny Tyrant Waniguchi clung to Ibotanokikouji’s side, but then she noticed something else. Ibotanokikouji had a small DVD player open in addition to all of the management monitors. It was probably an item sold cheap at a discount store.

“Hey, Chief, what’s that? A horror movie?”

“One of the worst I’ve ever seen, but one of the stuntmen died in an accident during filming. If you watch carefully in slow motion, you can see him being crushed by the machinery in the background. Hee hee. I bet all those sophisticated teachers would faint if they saw this.”

In cases like this, the movie would either be banned from the online stores or the offending footage would be removed in a mystery update, so if you wanted to add it to your collection, you needed one of the limited first-edition physical copies. Because that would never be altered.

“Boo. If you want to see a corpse, just send me into the ring. I’d give you plenty of bloodshed.”

“Probably so, but I don’t need a close up of the corpse.”

Ibotanokikouji smiled thinly while operating her phone. She lovingly chewed on Inoue’s ear while she worked.

She pulled up her own personal map app which was linked to her photo album. But in her case, the map displayed a tour of famous suicide spots around Academy City.

“I want to decorate myself with other people’s deaths. I want to sleep wrapped in a blanket of their misfortune. Hee hee. So it doesn’t need to be anything exciting. Brand-name clothing isn’t for showing off. It looks best when ''you wear it casually''. You can make diamonds by pressurizing human corpses, but there is no need to go around loudly advertising that fact. True class is found in doing things so discreetly the amateurs never notice what you have. The money we make with the Colosseum is the same.”

“Boo.”

Hanayama Kamitsu, the tanned girl with wavy shoulder-length black hair and a track athlete’s tank top and shorts, made no attempt to join the other three. She thought these things were nice to look at, but she had no desire to be a part of it herself. In her opinion, lesbian relationships were beautiful enough when things were going well, but they got nasty quick when things went bad. And on the dark side, the result would be a lot worse than for a band when a relationship between two members fell apart.

She normally wore something a little less revealing, so her hands wandered restlessly across the visible tan lines on the upper and lower halves of her body. She finally reached for a plastic item rather than one the chilled drinks in the cooler.

Waniguchi’s face lit up while still clinging to Ibotanokikouji’s side.

“Oh, is that an e-cigarette? I’ve always wanted to try one of those!”

“It’s a portable oxygen tank. It’s flavorless.”

As a track girl, Hanayama wanted as much oxygen inside her as she could get. Or rather, she got antsy when she couldn’t get it. She held the plastic device in the corner of her mouth, the blue LED at the end flashed, and she breathed in the compressed oxygen coming from the refillable cartridge.

“Anyway, did you see the news? That general manager was arrested. Something about attacking his own company. You really shouldn’t mug for the camera in a minute-long video just because you’re lonely and want some likes. They were playing it on all the talk shows.”

“So what? That’s not a problem for us as long as we can regularly withdraw the contestants’ insurance money. Even if they take emergency measures, that’s an adult corporation, right? They take forever to do anything, so we can still get today’s payouts. Besides, there are still plenty more insurance companies in Academy City. Not to mention executives we can blackmail.”

“Hm,” was all the response track girl Hanayama gave.

They were technically colleagues (of a sort), but they had never actually met directly to give him instructions. Even if the general manager sang like a canary, he didn’t know the girls’ real names. He had been disposable, so they didn’t care what happened to him.

To change the subject, Hanayama spoke to a different girl: the slender silver-haired girl seated in Ibotanokikouji’s lap with her eyes lowered to the delicate work she was doing. Overall, she was a squirrel-like person. But it upset her if you said she looked like a racoon, so it was worth being careful.

“Hey, Inoue. What nasty method will you be using this time?”

“…It’s nothing special.”

Inoue Laspezia wore an apron and a beret over a summer school uniform. She kept her eyes on her working hands and responded with a Kyoto accent.

Her hobby was figurines, her special skill was handicrafts, and she belonged to the art club. She didn’t even look Hanayama’s way as she made some precise movements of a thin-tipped paintbrush wet with the special iron material – that is, human blood – she had mixed to just the right color on her paper palette.

She never seemed interested in anything, but she refused to give up her spot on Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“There was a murder in the area, so I’m just counterfeiting the murder weapon. It’s a razor with the appropriate fingerprints and blood on it. One of the big ones a barber would have. I had all the necessary materials in stock, so it doesn’t cost me anything.”

“Yikes. Remind me to never piss off a modeler.”

Tanned Hanayama grinned.

It didn’t matter if the evidence was real or not. The general manager likely had no recollection of what they had threatened him over. But what if the public and the justice system believed it? Even if the charges were false – no, especially when the charges were false – no one wanted to lose everything over it.

And once they started down that route, it would take over their life.

The rules of the world didn’t let you choose when you wanted to stop.

An adult important enough to have no qualms at all about oppressing the children would know exactly what happened the instant they took just one step off the edge of the cliff.

Ibotanokikouji had come up with the plan and ordered her to do it, but even she seemed exasperated.

She tightly hugged the silver-haired girl sitting in her lap.

“Oh, Inoue-chan. You’re such a perfectionist once you set your mind to something. Wouldn’t you have a much easier time sticking out your very cute butt on the train to make some false molestation accusations?”

“How would that work? Our targets always have a driver who takes them wherever they need to go.”

Inoue must have finished her work because she sealed the evidence razor in a plastic bag. She completed the work calmly and expressionlessly. That gave them one more trump card they could use to frame someone.

Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. A honeytrap was probably beyond that whispering, downcast girl. …Except with the minority who were into the plain, obedient type.

“How’s this for a conclusion?” Waniguchi rubbed her cheek against Ibotanokikouji from the side. “The arrested general manager on the TV isn’t a problem for us. And we’re prepared to find us a new wallet. So we won’t throw out everything we’ve built up and we won’t go into hiding. We’ll continue running the Colosseum like normal.”

“Agreed,” said all four girls together.

But anyone capable of reading the room would have noticed they didn’t say it at the exact same time. The other three girls waited to see how Ibotanokikouji Kaede reacted before joining in.

And that secret center of attention whispered with the silver-haired girl still seated in her lap.

With a soft smile on her lips.

“Don’t worry. We are ''Item'' and we will be taking allll the profits of death for ourselves☆”

===Part 8===

Up above the ceiling, Mugino Shizuri and Takitsubo Rikou exchanged a glance.

“Mugino.”

“Did that bitch just say Item?”

Their recording of the general manager had said much the same thing, but this time it came straight from the villains themselves.

Item was of course the name of Mugino’s team. If these people were body doubles in case of emergency or a group using the name to get work in the dark side, they should have been disguised as and acting like Mugino and the others, but they weren’t.

Whatever their reasons, those girls had used the Item name in a private room where they assumed no one else was listening in. That meant this wasn’t an act. It was real.

Meanwhile, Frenda was worried about something else: the clothing of the central girl.

“Isn’t that a ''Tokiwadai'' uniform? How does a rich girl from that school end up in the dark side?”

“Having money super doesn’t prevent you from making mistakes. Aren’t all of you in super similar situations?”

If that girl actually was a Tokiwadai student, then she was a real piece of work.

The girls lounging on the floor below continued their conversation.

“Anyway, Waniguchi-chan, here’s some extra for this month.”

“Oh, thanks a bunch!”

The central girl tossed over something she held between two fingers.

The object spinning through the air was a plastic-looking card. It flew back around like a boomerang and Waniguchi nimbly caught it.

“It’s only the 7th. How did you manage to spend a month’s worth of pay that fast? You are being paid a proper wage, so you need to stop wasting so much money.”

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede. You’d be perfect if you wouldn’t get on my case about money.”

The small martial arts girl pouted her lips and rubbed her cheek against the Tokiwadai girl while giving the card she held a quick kiss.

That was apparently how their Item(?) received payments.

“''A money card?''” Mugino muttered under her breath up above the ceiling.

“Those are the prepaid cards you can super use with music players and online stores, right? You buy them at a convenience store and super input the number into your computer or phone.”

Mugino responded to Kinuhata’s explanation with a finger on her chin.

“They don’t ordinarily go above 10 thousand yen on a card, but there are premium ones with bigger amounts. Like 5 or 10 million on a card. Although I think those are really only meant to buy brand-name bags online or to make donations to net idols on video sites.”

But it was clever.

Prepaid cards were a lot lighter than cash or gold. They also couldn’t be frozen without warning like a bank account. Unlike a diamond, it didn’t matter if they were handled a bit roughly and got scratched up. And since cash could be converted into cards, they were also useful for money laundering. They could then be converted back into cash either via the internet or at a pawnshop.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo pointed elsewhere.

The central girl – Ibotanokikouji Kaede? – had a suitcase near her. It looked cheap, but a closer inspection showed the lock had been replaced with a much nicer one. Not only was the new lock much tougher, but it appeared to include a sensor that would transmit its location over the internet if the lock was forced open.

(So converting their money into cards wasn’t just to launder it. They also don’t trust the banks to hold it.)

There were no standard methods in the dark side. It wasn’t perfect, but you could get a general picture of who someone was by the methods they used for these things.

Mugino considered this for a bit.

“If that case is packed full of 10 million yen cards with some room left for cushioning, then I’m guessing it holds around 80 billion.”

“Hapyah!?”

When she heard that amount, Hanano Choubi the Chicken yelped without thinking.

The Tokiwadai girl didn’t even bother looking up.

She simply held her palm upwards while still seated in her camping chair with Inoue in her lap.

“''There.''”

The entire ceiling collapsed.

Mugino didn’t even have enough time to click her tongue.

The building materials sank down like an antlion pit and the girls were dragged to the lower floor with nothing to grab ahold of.

Mugino gave up on righting herself as she fell and focused on landing without her legs giving out below her. Even with the intruders before her, Ibotanokikouji did not get up.

She did, however, pick Inoue up from her lap and set her down next to her.

“How do you do, ill-bred thieves☆”

“You think a lot yourself for a witch who converts human lives into money.”

“My, my, my. Aren’t you brimming with confidence, Level 5. Have you never bothered to question why it is you find victory wherever you go?”

Ibotanokikouji’s confidence was not broken by being called a witch.

If anything, she seemed to appreciate the insult.

“Your superiors have selected jobs they know a pathetic beginner like you can complete in order to give you a taste for success. You see the same process with drugs and gambling – all of life’s vices tend to work that way. But the free ride ends here. It is now time to take you for everything you are worth. You have reached the point where it all goes downhill.”

“You’re going to reduced to charcoal soon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Poor thing. You should really try to use your head for once. You are convinced that ''you can do anything as long as you have Meltdowner,'' but I am saying that very idea is a falsehood this city’s adults have placed in your head.”

She giggled.

Still seated in her camping chair, she peeled Waniguchi away from her side.

“Do you really believe you can survive anything as long as you have your pride as one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s? Do you really think this city’s darkness is that shallow?”

It was Frenda who stared at her confident smile in disbelief.

That girl knew who they were to an extent. And yet she still looked confident while opposing ''the'' Mugino Shizuri.

Mugino did not hesitate, of course.

They only wanted the suitcase, not to hurt the villains or get some kind of information out of them.

She held out her palm and launched a brutal beam straight at the enemy.

But.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner bent at a sharp angle and blasted through a wall.

“Wha-?” said Frenda, her face entirely pale.

She may have received more of a shock than Mugino.

Mugino herself narrowed her eyes.

“You…”

“No, I did not use electricity.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede hadn’t even gotten out of her chair.

She giggled in an elegant but wicked way.

“''I am Academy City’s #6.''”

She stated it plainly.

She called herself a Level 5. She called herself the esper known as the Dark Side’s Bane.

“It is time you learned that the outdated superiority of the seven Level 5s is a thing of the past. There are compatibility issues to worry about too. And on that note, recall that I am known as the Dark Side’s Bane.”

“Th-that can’t be true.”

Frenda believed in the brand name of Item’s – of Mugino Shizuri’s – strength.

She believed in the rarity of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

So she could only reach one conclusion.

“In the end, Level 5s aren’t just going to appear everywhere we go!! You claim you’re the mysterious Dark Side’s Bane? A-anyone could come out and say they’re the #6! It’s just a number!”

“Oh, dear. You really are ignorant of the dark side’s depths, aren’t you? There really are Level 5s just about everywhere you go here. Really, you could say the dark side is their true home. ''The top two'' go without saying, as does the ''mystery beam shooter'' in front of us here. As for the ''electric one'' and the ''psychological one''…it’s hard to say. I am reluctant to say they belong to the dark side, but given the projects they’re involved in, I would say they each have one foot in the dark side. My, my. That means your last hope of being right is ''that guts idiot''. Are you sure you want to build up your standards and values atop someone as absurd as him?”

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

Frenda Seivelun was left speechless.

Ibotanokikouji had a point.

What if the Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane was also neck deep in the illicit and illegal?

Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of shitty outcome you would expect in Academy City?

Besides, Academy City’s Level system was entirely based on how useful an esper was for important fields of research. So with the Level 5s at the top, it was only natural the corrupt adults of the dark side would be all over them no matter the Level 5’s own morals or personality. So they might even be tricked into getting involved.

Ibotanokikouji’s laughter seemed to rule this place.

Her eyes were directly on Level 5 Mugino Shizuri.

“You want to argue the point, but you can’t deny the possibility, can you? How much do the stories you have heard about the #6 really matter? How sure can you be that the gender and age you have pictured in your head is correct? ''Do you think any of the information you think you know will help you here and now''? This is not a rumor, a vague report, or a strange legend. I am here right before you and I am calling myself the #6.”

“Don’t get a big head just cause you’re standing on the same field as me, worm.”

Mugino snapped back in a rage, but she also maintained some rationality deep in her mind.

In other words…

(I couldn’t see it, but she did break through the ceiling. What kind of power does she have?)

Then a voice called down from the broken ceiling.

Apparently not all five of them had fallen.

“Mugino!”

“Stay up there, Takitsubo! Hanano, you’re still up in the ceiling too, right!? Get Takitsubo out of here!! Do whatever it takes to protect her! Got that!?”

Mugino heard some panicked stammering, but it was growing more distant. Hanano was scared but doing as she was told. She was the kind of chicken who got moving when she felt cornered, not the kind that froze up.

Takitsubo’s AIM stalker was a convenient power, but she didn’t need to be on the front line for it to work. She could read the enemy’s location from safety and send the information over via phone.

That left Mugino, Frenda, and Kinuhata here.

Conveniently, only their vanguard had fallen from the ceiling. Had they been lucky or had the enemy been unlucky? Either way, that sort of omen held a surprising amount of power in the world of villains.

“This is like a bad joke.” Kinuhata sounded annoyed. “She’s the #6 Level 5 ''and'' a super Tokiwadai student?”

“My, my. You seem surprised to find an elite in the shadows.”

Ibotanokikouji’s expression said she found it puzzling why Kinuhata would question it.

She brought a finger to her chin and cutely tilted her head.

“Girls like me are given a sheltered upbringing cut off from the outside world. Make no noise when you walk, when you eat, or when you laugh. Were they trying to raise a ninja? When your very existence is forced into an unnatural state, it distorts something inside you. And so something must be done to put the hands of the clock back in their proper place. Which means learning the truth of the world, no matter how ugly it might be. And it must be done on a regular basis. Otherwise that luxury hand-wound watch will again fall out of sync with the rest of the world.”

“You’ll go this far to super learn how the real world works?”

“Try to appreciate just how restrictive a life one must live to need all this to avoid being torn apart by the distortion within. This is the problem with you cheap digital watches. You cannot understand the pain of a truly upper class upbringing.”

She sighed in apparent disappointment.

She was not killing to protect herself during a war, nor was she stealing because she was poor and starving.

But she was killing people all the same.

Human cruelty was most noticeable ''during peacetime'' when there were no excuses to fall back on.

“Hee hee.”

The Tokiwadai girl softly laughed and directed her graceful hand toward the ceiling.

“By the way, I did not expect you to have a fifth. But did you really think we would sit around long enough for them to escape?”

“Did you think ''we'' would sit around?”

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai took a step forward.

Frenda pulled several egg-shaped explosives from her short skirt and stuck them with fuses smaller than cigarettes.

“In the end, did you think we would give you time to attack Takitsubo and Hanano? You could’ve avoided this if you had just handed over the money, but I’ll admit it’s pretty funny you would prefer getting blown up!!”

Mugino noticed something in the middle of Frenda’s shouting. She surreptitiously pulled her phone from her pocket and found an email there: “Focus on the suitcase. You’re our strongest, so you go after it.”

Mugino had wondered where all Frenda’s confidence had come from when she had been so scared of the #6 announcement earlier, but she was only shouting to keep the enemy from hearing the vibration of Mugino’s silenced phone.

The next thing Mugino noticed was that the suitcase in question had vanished. It had been taken by…presumably the art club girl who had vanished along with it.

Mugino and the others no longer cared about the job the voice on the phone had brought them.

They didn’t even need to win the prize money in the bloody Colosseum.

It was all there in the suitcase.

Stealing the 80 billion in money cards was their top priority.

“Sh!!”

Mugino fired her first Meltdowner blast straight past Frenda and Kinuhata’s shoulders. The enemy had already bent one of her beams. Since she still didn’t know what that power was, she didn’t think this one attack would defeat that enemy. The beam was only meant to blind this mysterious other Item(?) while the original Item could exchange their thoughts under the cover of the blast and dust cloud.

“Leave the case to me!!”

“Super will do. This comes down to a compatibility issue with your power, right? We’ll defeat her here if we can, but we’ll at least slow her down while trying to work out what her power is and any other idiosyncrasies she has.”

Mugino tackled through a door and nearly rolled out into the hallway.

She spotted a summer uniform skirt fluttering up ahead. She saw a girl dragging the suitcase a long way down the hallway. She was nearly just a dot from Mugino’s perspective.

(I’d love to just blast her from here, but that would require a concentrated line of destruction skinnier than dried pasta. I wouldn’t want to vaporize the suitcase full of all that money.)

“I’ll just have to get closer!!”

Once she had a plan, she was quick to act on it.

She dashed down the library hallway.

The gloomy girl running up ahead looked back just once before pulling something like a remote from her skirt pocket and pressing the button with her thumb. Mugino heard shouting voices coming from beyond the wall to her side. A pair of double doors were broken down nearby and a bloody wild animal stepped into the hallway.

It was 3m long and weighed more than 250kg.

The white tiger’s cage must have opened.

“Shut up and stay out of this!!!”

Mugino slammed her palm into it. She didn’t even use her power. A vibration of the air rattled a nearby window and the impact propagated from the white tiger’s nose down to the tip of its tail. The blow to the face silenced the 3m beast in a single blow.

A Judgment-looking girl who had somehow ended up a Colosseum contestant was slumped on the floor.

“Y-you saved me? Thank-”

“Outta the way, you ♂♀〒#!!”

After paralyzing the girl with a shout, Mugino continued running down the hallway.

The silver-haired art club girl had escaped into the door at the very end of the long hallway.

That door led into a domed space. It covered the area of about four convenience stores. A round device in the center was covered in optical devices and surrounded by seats arranged in concentric circles.

Mugino glanced around the dark, windowless space.

(A planetarium?)

Was this inside the circular building she had seen alongside the library? But that didn’t really matter.

She could see the art club girl’s back from here. She must not have been able to move very fast while lugging that suitcase around. And Mugino was only interested in that luggage, so she was willing to shoot the girl in the back without warning as long as she wouldn’t hit the suitcase too.

(If I aim for her spine and concentrate the beam down to a line the width of dried pasta, I can kill her instantly with a single shot!)

But that isn’t what actually happened.

The gloomy silver-haired art club girl escaped outside through the emergency exit.

Because…

“Ah ha ha!! If you want to play tag, play with me, not Inoue!!!”

An explosive “roar!!!” came from the wall to Mugino’s side. It arrived so suddenly that Mugino didn’t have time to launch her Meltdowner. She clicked her tongue and rolled backwards.

A giant hunk of metal grazed her while producing a blast of wind.

The seats surrounding the planetarium device were arranged in neat concentric circles. They were a lot like movie theater seats, so they had to be bolted firmly to the floor.

They were all blown away like bowling pins.

A rough estimate said that attack had been deadlier than a freight train. It could have broken through the planetarium’s wall with ease.

The ear-splitting roar continued on and on.

It came from a tanned track girl with her wavy black hair cut to shoulder length.

She had just one leg on something like a skateboard with T-shaped handlebars attached. Was that called a kick scooter?

But the rear of the board, behind where her foot rested, was unusually large. That part alone was about 3m long, the tire was extra thick, and the enlarged cylinder looked a lot an unenclosed jet engine. Of course, it had to have a variety of different propulsion devices in addition to that most obvious one.

The dark side did not always rely on esper powers.

It also made use of next-generation weapons.

“Nice to meet you, colleague. I’m Hanayama Kamitsu of ''Item''. But you can call me the courier.”

“…”

“I’m the courier who delivers death. That might mean directly delivering violence or a bomb, but even when I deliver gold bars or a first aid kit to save someone’s life, it always leads to ruin in the end. That’s just who I am. So be careful when a villain offers you kindness. Ah ha ha. Even a child knows it’s a bad idea to trust a demon’s temptations.”

Only then did she notice Mugino wasn’t responding.

It looked like Hanayama hadn’t even imagined someone might be interested in something more than her “courier” title.

“Hm? Are you still caught up on the Item thing? Did you think only you could use the name? Were you imagining a little © afterwards whenever you said it? Don’t be silly. Academy City’s darkness is never going to kindly protect a villain’s rights!”

The tanned girl laughed as she bent her hips and leaned her upper body against the T-shaped handlebars.

It was the unpleasant laugh of someone who knew the truth.

“''Whichever team is more useful to the dark side as a whole gets to call themselves Item.'' That’s how the system works. Killers who do nothing but spend money aren’t going to cut it. You only destroy – you don’t produce anything. Meanwhile, we do our assigned jobs while also making our own profits, so I’d say we score just a biiiit higher than you.”

Her modified kick scooter gave a deep roar.

“So let’s play, imposter. Our Item will knock all the other candidates out of the running. This impractical proof-of-concept prototype can produce speeds of 1100km/h without leaving the ground. I’ll flatten you with my beloved ''Dragon Motor''!!”

Hanayama didn’t wait for Mugino to respond.

She opened the throttle and melted into streamlines.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. Ibotanokikouji Kaede and Waniguchi Nokoba.

Two against two.

“Oh?”

The first to speak was the small girl in a ring costume.

“You let your ace leave while your two substitute fighters deal with the Chief and me? You must be confident.”

“Waniguchi-san, should we do the usual?”

“Yes, please.”

They weren’t even given time to prepare.

Something blew across the room and all four walls were blown down. Even the wall behind Kinuhata and Frenda.

That meant the spaces divided by the walls were now connected.

This was now part of the Colosseum arena which was boiling with excitement after a shocking accident.

The crowd fell silent from panic, but it wasn’t long before a booming cheer erupted. All their voices joined to form a single powerful mass of noise. The leader girl tensed her brow in slight concentration.

Waniguchi casually grabbed a microphone ''that flew over to her on its own''.

“Yeehaw!! I know you’re upset about having your fight taken from you, but we have a much more exciting event for you. Get hyped because it’s time for a purge. Hey, hey, yo, yo! A round of applause for the executioner! This livestream is about to get a hell of a lot bloodierrrrrrrrrr!!!

“Outta the way, newbie!!” shouted Frenda.

Some objects fell from her skirt and ruptured. She wanted a vibration. Libraries contained a lot of paper, so they were made to be especially sensitive when detecting earthquakes and electrical fires.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede stuck out her tongue a bit.

“Tch, trying to trip the breaker? How boring. You did manage to stop the livestream, though. And unfortunately, we took up the audience’s phones to keep them from recording the valuable match and uploading it to a video site.”

“In the end, those are professional cameras on wheels, so they’re going to use a wired connection. And in a real TV studio, they’ll have some junior staff member in charge of cable management!”

Having a video of your killings revealed worldwide was about the worst case scenario for people who worked underground jobs, but they had just barely avoided that here. However, this had only triggered an emergency system meant to respond to an earthquake, so the room’s power would be back on in about 10 minutes if no further problems were detected.

“But we’ll still kill you.”

Waniguchi pounded her fists together in front of her flat chest.

The 12-year-old girl gave a belligerent smile as she announced her opponents’ deaths.

“It’ll be an on-site exclusive event now, but that just means we have to make it even more exciting!!”

Waniguchi didn’t hesitate to step forward.

This was probably her role on the team. While the vanguard kept the enemy busy with direct combat, the rear guard would keep their distance and do something else. That rear guard claimed to be the #6. Anything she did was bound to be deadly.

(I super don’t know what that will be, but we can’t give her time to use it!!)

Kinuhata took a powerful step forward of her own.

The two girls both broke into a run. They took the shortest route to close in on each other.

Waniguchi spread her arms.

“No tricks? I like your style. You’re no better than some hunk of rotting meat in the garbage, but you’re at least meat worthy of some respect!!”

Just then, mere moments before they clashed, Kinuhata flew unnaturally to the right. It was fortunate she had Offense Armor. An ordinary human could have been mangled by the blast that hit her.

That wasn’t Waniguchi’s doing and it wasn’t Ibotanokikouji’s power either.

''Her ally Frenda'' had used a bomb to knock her to the side.

A moment later, Waniguchi’s small hand tore through the air. It was less a straight punch and more of a spiraling motion to pull in everything around her hand. The attack missed its target and instead hit a bookcase, tearing it to pieces. She had to be using some kind of esper power. From the looks of that, she could tear a car in two with just the one arm.

“Are you stupid!? In the end, you need to fix your habit of relying on your tough shield to charge in and learn what you can about the enemy’s abilities! You’ll get yourself killed right away doing that on the dark side!!”

Frenda started to say more, but a large form loomed over her.

“Super watch out!!”

Kinuhata had fallen to the floor, but she threw over the heavy metal stand to some stage lighting, hitting Frenda hard enough to knock her away from ''something''.

“I’m pretty sure I can survive longer than someone who stands super still to give a lengthy explanation in the middle of a deadly battle!!”

“You, bgh. I save your life and this is how you repay me? In the end, are you in one hell of a rebellious phase?”

This was no time to be complaining.

A tremor ran through the floor.

Frenda was being targeted by a grizzly bear that stood more than 3 meters tall when up on its hind legs.

“The Colosseum is usually about espers, but this was our insurance in case the white tiger was too powerful and mauled all of today’s contestants. We hoped to distract the audience from the lack of a winner by pitting the two beasts against each other and having people bet on the outcome.”

Ibotanokikouji held a hand to her mouth and laughed with no cage or anything else between her and the enormous bear.

She wasn’t even using the circus tricks of keeping it back with a whip or with fire or making herself look big.

“In the end, does this mean her power is controlling animals!?”

“No, that super doesn’t make sense. How would that explain when she destroyed the ceiling or the walls!? And it was easy to overlook, but she made the microphone fly over super on its own.”

That was true.

However, Ibotanokikouji was in fact demonstrating multiple strange phenomena. She held her palm out toward the grizzly without even glancing its way and it came to a stop. That unpredictable ferocious beast could attack anyone if it was in a bad mood, but she controlled it like she had a remote control.

The agitated beast was freed from whatever bound it and it swung its forelegs toward Frenda since she was closest.

Waniguchi ignored that as she walked forward.

A soft crunching sound followed.

That beast could stand to a height of 3 meters and its muscles would stop a .45 caliber handgun shot, but the 12-year-old girl had grabbed it with her slender arms and crushed it.

Even the bloodthirsty audience was briefly ''shocked into silence.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………In the end, did that really just happen?”

She hadn’t used a physical blow. That had looked more like a joint lock.

Waniguchi smiled sweetly while drenched in bear blood. That smile contained the perfect combination of innocence and intimidation, making it extremely popular for some.

“Ugh, really? Chief, I know playing with animals is fun and all, but try not to interrupt my fight.”

“Hee hee. Sorry about that. Please do forgive me. I messed up my control a little.”

Frenda was stunned.

An explosive danced meaninglessly in her hand after she froze in her throwing stance.

Would this even affect that girl?

Explosives were a symbol of humanity’s technology and violence, but it felt so inadequate against that smile.

“Leverage Struggle.”

Waniguchi smiled belligerently as she pulled a thick pair of pliers from her pocket.

''She grabbed the wall with them and tore it right off with only one arm.

Just like a piece of heavy machinery demolishing a building.

“I’m not trying to hide my power. I’ve shown it off in the execution videos when someone violates the rules, after all. Scissors, crowbars, seesaws, and joint locks – if it uses leverage, I can use it as a weapon. Yeah, I can grab a concrete pillar as big around as your torso and bend it with my bare hands. Hell, I could do the same with one twice as thick.”

“Is this super idiot serious?”

With a splash, Kinuhata grabbed a bucket of machine oil and dumped it over her head. That was an odd thing to find in a library, but it was probably meant for the wheels of the heavy camera equipment. Or maybe it was a flammable weapon meant for use in the Colosseum.

“If super all you can do is amplify the power of joint locks that use leverage, then you can’t do a thing against a straight punch or kick. Simply put, ''you’re nothing to worry about as long as you don’t grab me.'' Why would you go out of your way to tell us that? There are super tons of ways of killing you.”

After hearing all that, Waniguchi’s face scrunched up.

She was trying very hard to hold back the tears. All of a sudden, she looked like a normal 12-year-old girl.

“Now, now, Waniguchi-chan. Don’t cry. This is why I told you not to reveal your power like that.”

“Sob. Chief.”

“And even if she is too slippery to grab with your bare hands, you can still hit and tear at her with those pliers. You can also try something trickier by using a seesaw to launch projectiles or yourself. It isn’t very smart to limit your options by focusing solely on barehanded joint locks.”

“You don’t need to attack me tooooooooo!!”

“There, there.”

The sadistic girl (who had made the 12-year-old cry for real) pulled Waniguchi into a comforting hug.

Concentration gathered in Kinuhata’s brow.

“You sure are confident. Do you think you can super win while protecting that idiot and fighting us essentially one-against-two? Let’s super hope you aren’t a meathead too.”

“Hee hee. Yes, ''you have a point.''”

Ibotanokikouji laughed like it had happened to slip out.

It was the amused laugh of a mother who had finally secured a house for her family with a 35-year loan and then learned her daughter was myopically planning to run away from home and live independently.

“But I will still emerge victorious. Can I fight while protecting the weak? Can I win one-against-two? ''Of course I can.'' When you are powerful, you can fight back against this unfair world. But I can’t blame you for being too weak to know that.”

“?”

The #6 held a finger to her lips and whispered sweetly.

“You are in luck. You are about to receive a special demonstration of what the Dark Side’s Bane can really do.”

She only needed a single instant to end the fight.

===Part 10===

The extraordinary engine roared. The din became a physical mass that erupted through the planetarium.

That was Hanayama Kamitsu’s modified kick scooter – the Dragon Motor.

But Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner was an extraordinary projectile weapon. It didn’t matter how quickly the enemy accelerated toward her. She had nothing to fear as long as she reduced them to charcoal before they reached her.

Or so she thought.

“Ha ha ha!!”

Hanayama slipped past.

In fact, that giant kick scooter was moving along the planetarium’s domed ceiling. It defied gravity like a rollercoaster.

“Tch. Quit using brute force to defy fluid dynamics!!”

“I’m moving at 1100km/h, remember? That’s why I need my own supply of oxygen. Ah ha ha!! Wah ha ha!! It’s actually a lot harder to keep it on the ground!!”

Even the tanned track girl’s cackling was distorted by her speed. The kick scooter made several passes above Mugino’s head during that one statement.

Bare skin could not survive at that speed, so she likely had some kind of gel generously applied over her entire body.

“Stupid spider girl!!”

“''Bingo''.”

Hanayama answered the insult with a laugh.

Several metallic clangs followed.

The kick scooter had just about melted into streamlines, but on the enormous rear portion, several mechanical arms spread out to the sides like a spider. Each arm had a sharp heavy metal blade attached to the end.

“Atomic number 92!! These burning swords of depleted uranium can cut through a tank!! Hee hee, you won’t even notice you’ve been cut. Ah ha ha, let’s play a game of human daruma otoshi☆”

The kick scooter moved from the curved dome to the floor and then charged straight toward Mugino. Following it by eye was superhuman enough, so not even Mugino had time to take careful aim. She calculated the length of the skinny arms and swords and then considered whether to dodge left or right.

“Tch!!”

She fired Meltdowner at her feet to leap upwards.

“Oh, you figured it out? There goes my promise to kill you before you noticed.”

Orange sparks scattered a moment later. The wreckage of the seats was sliced through like tofu or jelly even outside the range of the arms and swords.

There were wires.

“That’s why you were right to call me a spider girl.”

Mugino was still hanging in midair, but Hanayama had already made five circuits of the domed ceiling or floor.

Hanayama couldn’t directly contact Mugino in the brief moment she remained airborne, but…

“I won’t let you land. I’ll build a spiderweb of deadly wires. Making wires this thin out of depleted uranium isn’t easy, you know? Now curse your own body weight while I slice you up like tokoroten!!”

Mugino’s fall toward death was almost complete.

She twisted around in midair and launched a Meltdowner beam.

But it didn’t hit the kick scooter.

Her opponent was just too fast.

(Damn, a single straight line just isn’t enough. I need another option to deal with a target that keeps moving out of the way.)

“Ah ha ha!!”

Mugino was trapped within a vortex of laughter.

If she did her best to resist – such as by using the airborne wreckage of the seats or the metal railings as a foothold – she could probably earn herself a few more Meltdowner-powered jumps, but that was all. Once gravity dragged all of those footholds back to the floor, Mugino would fall too and be sliced apart by the wires.

The Dragon Motor continued to circle around her.

The wires were being strung up all over the planetarium and Mugino would be sliced and diced if she fell into them.

“Random shots aren’t going to reach me and they can’t break my wires either!! You can’t keep shooting those beams forever! Bye-bye, Level 5. The Item name is ours now!!!”

Immediately afterwards, part of the planetarium’s domed ceiling was noisily torn away. A mass larger than a refrigerator lost its support and fell, so Hanayama had to quickly turn the T-shaped handlebars. From the kick scooter’s perspective, it had been like the road collapsing up ahead. She escaped unharmed, but she was still thrown off her planned course.

“What just…?”

The track girl found the answer before finishing her question.

She saw holes. Big holes. Random shots had done the trick. Mugino’s Meltdowner had opened several holes of 2m or more in the domed ceiling. The dome itself could no longer support itself and thick cracks ran through it. Once those cracks covered the surface area of the dome, ordinary gravity took control and the walls tore away and fell.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you are if I don’t aim for you directly.”

Mugino used the final airborne foothold and a beam to make another leap. She grinned and aimed her palm in midair.

The girl known as a monster still had confidence to spare.

“You don’t have many options left once you’ve lost your road, courier. And didn’t you say it was hard to keep that thing on the ground?”

“You…bitch!!”

Hanayama swerved this way and that to avoid the “canyons” in the collapsing dome. But as her routes grew more limited, she ultimately had only one path she could take, which made it easy to predict her future location and fire Meltdowner there. Because if Hanayama had slowed down, she would have fallen from the ceiling.

She wasn’t even given a chance to scream.

The beam launched from Mugino’s palm erased the tanned girl and her modified kick scooter from existence.

There was no corpse, or even a single drop of blood, remaining.

===Part 11===

Mugino heard something sharply slicing through the air.

“Whoops.”

With the domed ceiling destroyed, the taut wires had lost their support. It was like a blade-sharp bowstring suddenly snapping. She would have felt pretty silly losing a limb or her head to this.

But this also meant she didn’t have to worry about being sliced apart when landing on the broken floor.

She had defeated Hanayama Kamitsu, courier of the enemy Item.

But that wasn’t why Mugino was here.

The silver-haired art club girl with the suitcase was nowhere to be found. She had escaped. This was a job for a more intelligence-oriented member, not a combat specialist like Mugino.

She pulled out her phone while focusing on things outside the crumbling planetarium.

She knew exactly who to call.

(I need the support organization to set up a perimeter around the library. Hopefully they can at least catch a glimpse of her. Then Takitsubo just has to register her AIM Diffusion Field to track her even if she tries to flee the solar system.)

“Hanano! Have you gotten Takitsubo to safety? I want her to use AIM Stalker, so tell her to take some Body-”

“'Oh, hello. I have your mysterious 5th member in my custody.''”

“Kh.”

Mugino scowled.

She recognized that voice, but it wasn’t who she had called. A call to Hanano Choubi’s phone had been answered by Ibotanokikouji Kaede’s voice, which could only mean one thing.

(She has the worst timing!)

“Please do not blame her for this. Hanano-chan did exactly as you asked. She suppressed her fear and fought tooth and nail to let Takitsubo-chan escape. You should really praise her for her admirable – if ineffective – efforts. But if she no longer has a place on your team now that she has failed you, I am more than willing to invite her to join mine. Hee hee. Sinfully cute, isn’t she?”

“Damn you.”

With a dull metal clang, someone tackled down the half-broken planetarium door. A battered-looking Kinuhata emerged. She was supporting Frenda with her shoulder, but was Frenda even conscious?

“Super sorry.”

Mugino didn’t have time to respond before those two collapsed limply forward.

Ibotanokikouji had to know the safest option was to say nothing at all, but that didn’t stop her.

“Just so you know, they scored surprisingly well escaping from that situation at all. Although my own indecisiveness is really to blame there. If I had been focused on them, they wouldn’t have lasted a second.”

Quiet laughter snuck in over the electronic device.

Ordinarily, this alone would have been cost her her life.

“''I told you I am the Dark Side’s Bane, didn’t I''? You don’t seem to have the brainpower to understand what that means, so I hope this taught you the same lesson on a more instinctual level. This is my territory for hunting the likes of you. You cannot defeat me as long as you remain in this darkness. No matter what.”

“Shut the hell up, worm. That’s just a legend. Propaganda. Are you saying you would’ve self-destructed if we were heroes or schoolgirls from the sunny world?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

Those words seemed to take hold of the atmosphere.

Strange rules seemed to seep out from the cracks.

“None of you are anything more than prey, so when you gather together, you only end up devouring each other,” said Ibotanokikouji. “I am your bane – your predator – so your puny claws and fangs cannot reach me. There are no three-way deadlocks in the food chain. It is a pure top-to-bottom hierarchy.”

“…”

“We used a different insider at the insurance company for each match anyway, so that man was disposable to begin with. We can replace him at any time. Our only failure here is…well, that you are still alive must mean Hanayama-chan is dead. But we can overcome that too by negotiating with Hanano-chan and making her our new teammate. She’s a cute one, so I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to add her to my collection. Our four-girl structure will not be broken. Hee hee. Violence, starvation, sleep deprivation, itching, disgust, panic – there are any number of ways to remove someone’s will from their body. I can’t wait to see her cute attempts at resistance.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede kept going. She was not done speaking yet.

“A life for a life. That makes us even, doesn’t it?”

===Part 12===

The city was full of life that Tanabata night.

Colorful light decorated the night sky as fireworks were launched from somewhere.

The meteor shower would apparently be visible soon.

But Item returned straight to their hideout without speaking a word.

Their group of five was incomplete.

They knew that, but there was nothing they could do right away.

“Mugino…”

Takitsubo started to say something, but she stopped.

There was no need to say it out loud.

Mugino had decided it would be safest to give that girl a role so she could escape first with Takitsubo. This was the result. Did everything always have to backfire in the dark side?

The weakest link would always be targeted and bitten off first.

And no matter what their intentions, their wounds and exhaustion were just as real. If they had stayed in the library, they would have been captured too. They had also lost sight of their initial objective, so Mugino and the other three had been forced to return home.

A symbol of a certain girl’s presence could be found in the Fifteen Bells apartment. The bamboo that Frenda had forcibly stuck inside a moth orchid pot had a certain tanzaku blowing in the air conditioning.

''I want to be a part of Item! A useful part!!

''Please let me find some way to make myself worthwhile to them as thanks for taking me in.

:::''-Hanano Choubi

There was nothing else.

Only silence.

Even the violent Level 5 simply stared at the tanzaku for a while, not speaking a word.

Kinuhata and Frenda didn’t dare speak to the silent tyrant. They sensed a much greater rejection in this than in an enraged outburst.

“Mugino.”

But the track suit girl did quietly call out to her.

And with real force behind her voice.

Takitsubo had been with Mugino the longest, so she had to understand that girl’s violence better than anyone. But that was exactly why only she could safely pass between the countless landmines laid out there.

This was something that Mugino would never, ever say.

But it would reward the foolishly honest and kind newcomer who had arrived to bolster the team’s numbers and had faithfully protected Takitsubo from this dark world.

“This isn’t over yet. We can still rescue Hanano from that fake Item.”

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter1|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:Item_Chapter3}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter2

2023-03-15T10:08:02Z

JDMP: Did a typo correction from Latter to Ladder

==Chapter 2: >>Colosseum.==

===Part 1===

July 7, 9 AM

“Hooray for laziness…”

“Mugino.”

Mugino Shizuri was still lying in her large bed well after students and workers alike had gotten going. And for some reason, Takitsubo was in bed with her.

The negligee girl sleepily rubbed her eye.

“Why are you in here?”

“There weren’t enough beds.”

Takitsubo’s blank expression was as unchanged as her outfit. She wore her track suit at home, when going out, and even when sleeping.

“With two extra members all of a sudden, the room allotments are a mess. And right when we can’t access our money. You said we wouldn’t be able to buy new furniture for a while, remember?”

“…”

Maybe she had said that.

That didn’t seem like reason enough to climb into bed with her, but this could be solved by making beds for the two newcomers from a sofa or yoga mat or something.

“And didn’t you say you were going for an early morning jog before it got too hot? Maybe you haven’t noticed, but this is the third time I’ve woken you. The sun is already pretty high in the sky.”

Sure enough, she heard a clattering noise from the various small items Takitsubo had in her pink track jacket’s pocket. Rolling over like that had to hurt, making it hard to sleep.

“Ugh, but I’m still tired. Besides, it’s already too late to jog today. It’s not the end of the world, so I can start jogging tomorrow.”

“Last night, you said to make you get up even if I had to spank you. Here, I recorded you saying it on this voice recorder. So what will it be? Do I have to spank you?”

“Curse my past self for being so thorough.”

The negligee girl made a highly unscientific complaint and crawled out of bed. She opened the bedroom door and entered the large living room just in time to see something green swaying in front of her.

They were in an apartment, but Frenda Seivelun was crossing the living room carrying a giant bamboo over her shoulder. But not because she had a new pet panda.

“Tanabata, it’s Tanabata☆”

The apartment’s decorative plants, tropical fish tank, and such were managed by a rental company and were replaced quite frequently, but Frenda had still stuck the bottom of some bamboo into a giant pot of moth orchids.

And some red, blue, and green decorations were attached among the bamboo leaves.

This wasn’t a school or shopping district, so it seemed unlikely individuals had attached all of those tanzaku. Frenda was apparently confusing the Tanabata bamboo with a Christmas tree.

There were far fewer tanzaku than other decorations and one of them said the following:

''Don’t let anyone on Item get hurt.

''Oh, and I want money, status, fame, time off, popularity, and friends!! As much as I can get!!!

:::''-Frenda Seivelun

Mugino held a hand to her drowsy head and sighed.

“What are you doing? This is supposed to be a city of science.”

“Mugino, what do you do with that afterwards? I doubt you can put it out with the normal trash.”

Why would she know the rules of some silly superstition?

After taking a shower, Mugino changed into a tank top and long bike shorts to exercise in. Her sneakers were an expensive shock-absorbing model. Then she grabbed her music player…no, today she went for her folding handheld 3D game console. Frenda had said it worked too. The movement of jogging seemed like it would dislodge wireless earphones, so she decided the wired type was safer. She wasn’t picky about sound quality, but she had gotten the kind with pure gold wires anyway.

Takitsubo was the indoorsy type despite wearing a track suit year round, so she had no intention of joining Mugino. She was staring at the canine pet robots bumping into each other and having a turf war. Frenda was…what was she doing? She was at the table with a notebook open and looked delighted. It may have been the finance book (for managing their evil team). And yet she was the one wasting money on decorations like that bamboo.

Mugino ended up riding the elevator down to ground level on her own.

The lower floors contained a shopping mall full of luxury brand shops. As soon as she walked out of the automatic door and lost the blessing of the air conditioning, an invisible wave of heat radiating from the pavement hit her right in the face.

“This summer heat really makes me hate my own legs. Yet another thing I can blame on eating bread. Really, the wheat culture is to blame. The Japanese digestive system wasn’t made for Western food.”

The Fifteen Bells complex was something like a small amusement park, so jogging the perimeter made for a decent distance. Mugino decided to expand the area she covered in something like a spiral after one lap.

She put her earphones in.

One she got started, jogging was easy enough.

Mugino was an expert at being lazy, but she had more than enough stamina.

And as she jogged, it became very clear that today was July 7, Tanabata. Event advertisement flags were set up like streetlights on either side of the major street and the weather forecast provided by the large screen on the belly of a blimp also had a predicted arrival time for some meteor shower or another.

Four or five high school girls were sticking quite close together on the sidewalk. But rather than some girl-on-girl flirting, one of them appeared to have a cooling power. Mugino was jealous. That girl had to be like a seaside restaurant – popular in the summer but forgotten in the winter.

As Mugino passed them, the earphones attached to the folding game console did not play a fitness rhythm or the voice of an automatic advice mode.

It played some data recorded as videos.

''“The Colosseum? We’ve been pursuing it too, but no luck so far. Several times now, one of our people goes missing and turns up a few days later as a pummeled corpse. These are people who can’t return to their dorm and have nowhere left to turn. How do you get such a valuable insurance policy on someone like that? My name is Komaba Ritoku. Contact me if you learn anything. I’ll buy any data you have with cash. I want to settle the score myself if possible.”

''“Sorry, young lady. I appreciate the Musashino Milk, but I really don’t know anything about the Colosseum. For better or for worse, I’m keeping my hands off that one. I’ve told my entire team to do the same, so I couldn’t tell you what’s going on there now. What’s that? You thought Big Spider was led by a guy called Kurozuma? …It’s probably best if you go on believing that.”

“I can’t concentrate on this while running. …Mostly because it’s too damn hot.”

The fundamental problem was Mugino oversleeping.

She knew nothing was going to come of this, but she still replayed the footage several times, focusing on the people’s breathing and word choices to try and see if they were lying.

(Their quality is about as low as it gets, but they do have numbers. And because they’re weak, they know how to take advantage of their location. That means they’ll be monitoring every last nook and cranny of the back alleys. So if those Skill Out teams haven’t seen anything, where could the Colosseum be holding their deadly matches? And if it’s true they use a different location each time, do they follow some kind of pattern?)

They had hit a decent obstacle even for Mugino.

For one thing, this kind of investigation and pursuit wasn’t supposed to be Item’s job. They preferred jobs where they were given their target’s location on a map.

Mugino turned a corner while glancing over at a luxury department store bag abandoned in the gap between two shrubs growing on the side of the road.

Then someone caught up to her from behind. No, the person came up alongside her.

“Super good morning.”

It was Kinuhata Saiai.

The external voice triggered the earphones’ accident prevention feature, automatically lowering the volume.

Kinuhata was not out of breath as she ran. Mugino wanted to stay in the shade of the roadside trees or pass through the cool mist shower to fight the summer heat, but Kinuhata stole that position.

Kinuhata had already jogged several laps more than Mugino and she looked like she could keep going just fine. Mugino and Frenda were decent fighters, but in a pure fistfight, this small girl had to be even better. But that didn’t really matter. The dark side was especially irritating because ''you needed more than that''.

Mugino removed one of her earphones without slowing her pace.

“What, are you taking an early morning jog too?”

“Early?” Kinuhata checked how high the sun was in the sky and released an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been watching movies at the theater at the bottom of our building. Seven in a row. I started yesterday, so I’m super stiff and thought I should loosen up before getting some sleep.”

“Movies, huh? Don’t we have a home theater system in our room?”

“It’s super nice, I’ll admit, but it’s just not the same as a real movie theater. Also, I thought that theater was the fashionable kind that panders to couples, but whoever selects its lineup knows what they’re doing. Especially late at night when it plays lots of super minor B and C movies that you can’t even find on streaming sites. After you freed me, I took a look around, but you super don’t see many theaters showing South American zombie horror flicks. Yeah, a big jungle chainsaw and tequila Molotov cocktails are super perfect for a tropical city where civilization has collapsed after a widescale blackout!!”

“Why do you like movies so much?”

“There wasn’t much in the way of entertainment when I was confined in that lab. I think they were super scared we’d kill someone if we had any toys. All they did was gather the subjects in a white room and super project the movie on a screen meant for presentations, but it stuck with me. …Of course, super who knows what kind of subliminal messages and ultra-low frequency sounds they were including in those.”

That explained it.

Those people imprisoned children, tested risky drugs on them, and gave them brainwashing movies as their only form of entertainment. The fact that she wasn’t disturbed by this proved to Mugino that she really was part of the dark side. Her only real thought was “sounds about right”. In dark side terms, she gave it 50 points. So exactly average.

Even the dangerous people who caused enough trouble to get expelled from school wanted nothing to do with the dark side. You couldn’t let every little thing surprise you.

“Wait? So when we went down to receive data on this job…?”

“Yes. As you’ve super guessed already, that was my first time in a real movie theater, something I’d always wanted to see. It was super weird doing it to see the data we would need to kill some super idiot, though.”

“Sorry about that.”

Kinuhata sounded blue, but Mugino’s response had no real emotion behind it.

Was that experience like fulfilling your lifelong dream of visiting Italy and being served awful pasta on the plane trip there?

“And did you find a new ''part-time job'' too?”

Kinuhata fell silent.

Mugino fanned her face with a hand while focusing on the rhythm of her jogging.

“It’s not an accusation. You’re allowed to have a side job. I believe Frenda heads out on forensics jobs sometimes.”

“Forensics? Oh, she’s a super expert with bombs, isn’t she?”

“It’s less about the explosives and more about the chemistry knowledge. Of course, she isn’t helping investigations trying to hunt down the bad guy. It’s more like she helps people know who to take revenge on for killing their buddy.”

Their conversation continued as they jogged.

“But if you are going to make drop-offs, you can’t leave the bag in such an obvious location. You’ll get complaints if the goods don’t reach their destination because someone else found it and took it away. By which I mean the client will send someone after you to reclaim their payment.”

“I think this client super wanted it to be found. They want to update the outdated criminal infrastructure. So they super want an accident with some convincing item.”

“I see.”

The dark side had its own etiquette.

They were all criminals who broke national laws and city regulations, but they could be picky about such things.

“''Super more importantly, what about Hanano Choubi-san?''”

“''Her investigation should be done soon.''”

===Part 2===

District 7.

A large outdoor space was lined with what looked like long shipping containers, but they were actually model rooms for a variety of different styles of studio apartment. But these were meant for landlords and building managers, not for residents. The rooms were created with hive construction. The rooms themselves were made whole in a single factory using a special industrial 3D printer. A jungle-gym-like framework of beams was created first and then the boxy rooms could be inserted like drawers to create an entire apartment building. If the suicide or murder of a resident threatened to lower the value, the entire room could be removed and swapped out for a new one, so hive construction was gathering a lot of attention in Academy City for the possibility of removing some of the risk from real estate.

However.

There was one sample room where it wasn’t clear which construction company had the key to its lock.

“I’m baaack.”

After inserting two keys and opening the front door, Hanano Choubi found a few chairs, a wall-sized mirror, lighting equipment, an industrial dryer, and more. It looked something like a beauty parlor, but some might have recognized it as closer to a TV studio’s dressing room, where a stylist worked. In other words, you could sleep there if you wanted, but it didn’t look lived in.

Also, a mountain of plastic clothing cases was stacked up by the wall.

Wigs, hair extensions, color contacts, false eyelashes, double eyelid gel, mouthpieces, foundation, etc. There was even a selection of implants, artificial bones, silicone artificial breast bags, and other things that should need surgery to make use of.

In the back was a tanning machine like the ones seen at a tanning salon and hyperbaric oxygen capsules used to manipulate blood oxygen to alter the ''swelling'' of the skin, but she didn’t need either of those this time.

“Nyan, nyan, nya-nyan, nyahhn.”

Maybe she wanted to be the feline type because Hanano nyan-ed a popular song as she entered the fake sample room and reached for the top of her head. She ''removed'' her long hair as simply as she might a hat.

By removing her eyebrows and eyelashes, she revealed her base face. The smooth face reflected in the mirror reminded her of a doll before it was processed.

“Now, then.”

The mirror covered an entire wall, but not all of it was usable. A lot of its surface was covered by notes and photos. Those provided data on her target.

“Age: 52. Sex: Male. Hair: black and a bit greasy. See photo for distribution of gray. Skin: Asian with lots of blue base grease. Eyes: black with a hint of brown. Oh, and the skin is only lightly tanned and with minor dust mite allergy symptoms. Should I adjust the skin to be a bit rougher?”

Hanano’s specialty was disguise and infiltration.

The quality of her disguise was dependent on the amount of data she had on her target. This time, she had spent an entire week gathering that data herself, so she was confident she could give herself the same fingerprints, teeth shape, eyes, blood type, and scent as him. Once she was in disguise, not even the target’s parents or a police dog would notice anything was amiss.

And like in this case, sex and age were no obstacle.

After applying some makeup, she looked into the mirror to see an old man who would look at home in a fancy suit. The process wasn’t complete, so her face had swollen out to the appropriate size, but everything below remained that of a girl.

“Oops.”

Hanano Choubi’s fingers touched a rectangular box on the table, but she quickly pulled her hand back. She may have subconsciously wanted some refreshing menthol since it was summer, but these were flavored cigarettes. This target was a nonsmoker, so the smell of nicotine or tar would stand out. If she had carelessly smoked one, she would have had to start over from the beginning. That had been much too close.

(I can buy some scentless tablets later on.)

“Language: standard Japanese with a hint of an Aichi accent. Dry eyes and symptoms of neck and shoulder stiffness. Places his weight on his right leg when standing and dislikes having people stand on his left side. Holds his chopsticks wrong and mouth breaths when he loses his cool. Also…here we go. His handwriting is, um, angular but sloppy. Wow, I don’t know about his schooling, but his parents must not have raised him right. He doesn’t just confuse ‘to’ and ‘too’, but ‘two’ as well.”

Her voice grew lower and deeper as she spoke.

Her weight and body type had already been transformed.

Throw out your morals and rely on technology and anyone could transform, no supernatural powers necessary.

From head to toe, she had become the broad-shouldered ''insurance company general manager'' and spoke with the deep voice to match.

“Sigh. If only I had a friend who would do Magical Powered Kanamin cosplay with me.”

===Part 3===

It was a simple matter.

“I asked around the sketchy people who know the back alleys, but none of them had any information on the Colosseum. That leaves the insurance company general manager as our only source of hints. We have his story, but it isn’t enough. Hanano, can you disguise yourself as him, infiltrate the company headquarters, and check the central server to see who the pricey payouts were made for and who received them? Hacking in from outside is apparently too difficult.”

They didn’t just threaten the general manger – who had already been treated to torture at the hands of two girls – and have him go because he was covered in bandages. A mummy (old) would stand out too much. And as an outsider, they couldn’t predict when he would get too scared and stop. Send someone like that to the enemy base and they tended to think they had escaped and the plan fell apart. Unfortunately, the cleanup afterwards generally meant brute force via long-range attack.

“This van is so much smaller. And my body is so stiff.”

Mugino complained from the back seat of the boxy minivan.

A three-blade wind turbine was spinning nearby, but they didn’t feel remotely cool. That rotation was from the quality of the bearings, not the strength of the wind.

She missed the larger vehicle. They could still use Item’s resources, but they couldn’t replace anything that was lost. They needed a new source of funding and fast.

“They’re doing fireworks!”

Frenda leaned out the window and stared into the distance.

Was a school out for its anniversary? Or maybe they had the day off because the air conditioner was broken and the school couldn’t keep the kids inside in this summer heat. Regardless, a bunch of small children were out in the blazing heat launching parachute-equipped fireworks in some kind of competition. If advance notice was given that children would be launching fireworks, a drum-shaped security robot with a special firefighting attachment would watch over the event, but Item was too far away to see it.

The other girls in the van were speaking too.

“Frenda-san, it’s super weird that you can detect the scent of explosives from this far away. Or that it excites you so much, for that matter.”

“Heh heh☆”

“Frenda, I don’t think that was a compliment. Kinuhata is disturbed by it,” said Takitsubo.

They were in District 3.

Even for Academy City, the district had a lot of office buildings for famous corporations.

Since the children were playing here, their local park may have been taken over by bullies.

The insurance company headquarters – a giant skyscraper – was also visible from here. Item was keeping enough distance that the company’s security team wouldn’t get suspicious.

“So, Mugino, are you sure the newbie can do this? We’re talking about a company full of old men. In the end, couldn’t I get in a lot easier making full use of my cuteness?”

“That’s worked in the past, but if we have a disguise expert, we might as well use her.”

“In the end, is this when I’m supposed to groan in frustration and complain that my job is being taken from me?”

“Mugino is worried about you, Frenda. She doesn’t like you doing those risky honeytrap missions.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t let them lay a single finger on me when I’m controlling them! In the end, the trick to luring them in is to make sure they just barely can’t see what they want.”

Frenda pouted her lips. What it was she knew was probably something only she could know. And she seemed to be ignoring the Level 0 newcomer and glaring more at the track suit girl who had taken up the position of the wife who knew everything about Mugino.

“Uhh.”

The ''elderly general manager'' was starting to get nervous and even whined like a small animal with the deep old man voice. Everyone watching had their brains rattled and had to question their understanding of the world.

She(?) put a small earphone in her right ear.

“Wh-whether this works or not, a lot of people are going to see me. That’s fine as far as I’m concerned, but won’t the real general manager be arrested for misconduct?”

“So what if he is?”

He was an immoral grownup who had refused to call Anti-Skill when he knew people were dying and even defrauded his own company to protect himself. He was a perfect example of Academy City’s shittiness. They hadn’t killed him since he had told them what they wanted to know, but they were under no obligation to protect him either.

“Speaking of him, didn’t he mention having a family?” asked Mugino. “We should probably tell him to get a divorce right away if he cares about his wife and kids. If they only get divorced after he’s arrested, his family might share the legal liability for the damages he owes.”

“If that’s the kindest option you can think of, it says a lot about the dark side,” complained Hanano.

Mugino gave an irritated look to the overly cheerful summer sunshine.

“It’s 11 AM. The perfect time for an executive to show up at the office.”

A real executive would arrive in a chauffeured black luxury car, but Item had destroyed that car last week. Unproductive VIPs needed to use their car as a status symbol to feel pride in something, so it wouldn’t be out of place for him to take the train or walk when a replacement hadn’t arrived yet.

The summery scent of mosquito-repelling incense wafted over.

The incense itself and the ceramic pig it came from were both made by Frenda, so it was extremely effective.

“Hanano, you’ll be masquerading as the general manager to get inside the building. You’ll just walk right on past the receptionist out front. What then?”

“I use his executive key card on the reader in front of the elevator that leads to the upper floors and take that straight to the central server room which is normally off limits. That means I need to be the only one to board the elevator on the first floor.”

“Good. Leave the security cameras to us.”

Mugino took out a computer smaller than a makeup bag and shoved it into Hanano Choubi’s hands.

“Physically connect this to the central server and the program inside will extract all the necessary data automatically. You don’t need to do anything more than that, but don’t let the receptionist notice you’re hiding this.”

“''Of course not. Who do you think I am?''”

Hanano Choubi had the old man’s voice and attitude down perfectly. Mugino saw her off and then returned to the van.

The van was full of small monitors. They displayed grainy footage from a variety of angles. Needless to say, that footage came from the insurance company’s security cameras.

“In the end, how did we hack into this?”

“We couldn’t reach the central server located inside the building, but the security camera footage is gathered together and sent out to the security company along a single thick line. The insurance company doesn’t have a security room of its own, you see. So we messed with that. Now we can monitor all this footage without anyone noticing and without leaving a trace. Of course, that was all done by the support organization in their work jumpsuits, so I don’t know the details.”

“Oh, is that Hanano-san super there?”

Kinuhata pointed at one of the monitors.

Sure enough, it showed one of the automatic doors opening and a broad-shouldered old man entering the reception lobby. Like any top-rate corporate building, the first floor was all about showing off, so it was given a tropical look. It was full of green and even had a waterway. The arrogant general manager hadn’t been dropped off by his car like usual, so the receptionist and security team looked a little confused as they greeted him.

Takitsubo tilted her head while staring blankly.

“Have they figured it out?”

“I super don’t know.”

“In the end, he ''took some time off without permission'', but he’s also a general manager who lives in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to ask too many questions and learn he was on a trip with a mistress or something, so will any of the ordinary employees be willing to directly ask him where he was? Damn, the security cameras can’t pick up their voices.”

Disguised Hanano raised a hand in greeting before walking through one of the security gates that resembled the ticket gates at a train station.

A tearful voice reached them through the small microphone hidden on her suit rather than through the security cameras.

That girl was smiling with the utmost confidence, but she was sobbing on the inside.

“(Stop speculating so much! I’m sure it seems fun when you’re just watching, but my life is on the line here. P-please don’t abandon me if this goes wrong. You won’t, will you!?)”

It didn’t matter if she aroused some suspicion as long as it wasn’t enough for someone to stop her. Although she was blatantly fidgeting while waiting in an elevator hall that looked like something from a luxury hotel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.”

“In the end, speaking aloud is only putting you at more risk. Are you doing it on purpose as some kind of challenge run?”

“Says someone who’s only watching!!”

But there wasn’t any real trouble.

The metal doors parted and the general manager entered the empty elevator with a pace quickened just enough that no one would find it unusual. After the door closed, “he” held a card up to the control panel.

A push of the button and the elevator began to rise. It had switched into a mode that wouldn’t stop on intermediate floors.

“Um, Mugino-san. Super what floor is the central server room on?”

“28.”

“Hanano won’t have anywhere to escape if the security team surrounds her,” noted Takitsubo.

“I really am going curse all four of you,” protested Hanano. “Who is that munching on popcorn right next to the mic!?”

The correct answer was cinephile Kinuhata Saiai who always wanted popcorn when she was staring at a screen, but there was no need to say so. Frenda had opened a mackerel can and was going at it with a fork.

The elevator stopped at one of the higher floors.

The doors parted to reveal the exact opposite of the gentle atmosphere of sunlight and greenery found in the lobby. First of all, there were no windows to speak of. The large floor was divided up by chain link fences and thick tempered glass walls and the entire place was taken up by computers larger than vending machines. It wasn’t clear what the divisions between areas and machines signified, but the place looked like a labyrinth. Hanano trembled, walked pigeon-toed, and held her shoulders (all with the old man look), so the temperature may have been well below standard room temperature.

“This is…the central server room.”

She could already see the server machines. They were everywhere here on the 28th floor. But she couldn’t actually touch them with the labyrinth of chain link fences and glass walls in the way. She would need to unlock the door in the fence to get through.

Of course, Hanano would have already prepared to do just that.

However…

“I-it won’t open?”

She had sounded nervous before, but now her tone of voice rose even further.

With no one else around, she didn’t bother hiding the hesitation in her wandering hands.

“I don’t believe it. How is this happening? The fence door in the central server room won’t open!!”

“What does that mean? Didn’t you spend an entire week checking over everything from the general manager’s fingerprints to his irises? Including every little idiosyncrasy he has?”

“That week was the problem. It looks like they change the door’s passcode each week, so his information from July 1 isn’t good anymore!”

“And…what does that mean?”

“Uhh,” groaned Hanano. Mugino had repeated the same words, but her ''sizzling'' displeasure had been hard to miss.

They couldn’t have Hanano remaining silent during a mission, so Mugino compromised by speaking first.

“Do you have any tricks you can use?”

“Sure, if there was an emergency. For example, in an earthquake powerful enough to possibly bring the building down, all the locks are set to automatically release to ensure no one is trapped.”

“''You don’t say?''”

Frenda had known Mugino long enough to put down her mackerel can, grab blankly-staring Takitsubo, and scoot away from Mugino. Kinuhata was still new to this, so she only tilted her head with her big tub of popcorn.

Hanano Choubi was also new, so she failed to see the danger of her comment.

“Don’t run away, Frenda. Use those goggles of yours.”

“Ugh. No stopping you, huh? Fine, fine. In the end, I’ll support you.”

That was all Mugino had to hear before she smiled thinly and took action.

She reached a hand out the car window.

And she fired Meltdowner at the very center of the distant skyscraper.

===Part 4===

“Gyahhhh!?”

Hanano Choubi forgot all about acting and screamed for real. Not that anyone would have found it unusual given the circumstances.

A sharp tremor shook the giant building vertically, the tempered glass shattered, all the fire alarms went off, and a recorded female voice urged everyone to evacuate.

The blast hadn’t hit this floor, but her life was still at risk. The building was made of tens of thousands of tons of reinforced concrete, but it might as well have been a shaky suspension bridge. Mugino could have brought the entire skyscraper down with ease if she wanted to.

“What!? What did you just do!?”

“You said the locks would release in an emergency, right? So I figured it would be faster to make our own. Don’t worry. I had Frenda monitoring the electromagnetism produced by human bodies, so I only took out a big conference room no one was using. One less budget item for them to worry about, really.”

(This building isn’t part of the dark side. Cause a scene like this and the Dark Side’s Bane will notice. Once that #6 is after us, we’ll vanish ''without a trace'' in some back alley or another!!)

The diligent small animal of a girl slumped her shoulders when she belatedly realized she had become the kind of person who put her guard up when she saw a hero.

Meanwhile, Mugino Shizuri’s voice couldn’t have been more carefree.

Which probably meant she was the kind of person who could slaughter people while perfectly relaxed.

“Get a move on, Hanano. Or is the door still not open? How many more times do I have to blast that building? Should I target a load-bearing column next? Or maybe the base isolators? Give the word and they’re gone☆”

“No need, no need! The door’s open! That worked fine, so thank you for the very useful support!!”

(That kaiju girl!!)

Hanano shouted tearfully and opened the unlocked fence door. She pulled the miniature computer from her pocket, connected a cable to it, and connected the other end to one of the server machines. The computer would do the rest.

It made quiet sounds like scratching fingernails.

The bar on the screen gradually filled up from left to right. Alphanumeric text – likely filenames – flashed by, but there was no point in trying to read them.

A wired connection was best when dealing with so much data. Copying the files was nerve-racking enough without knowing the wireless connection could break at any moment.

“Yikes, yikes, hurry up, yikes… W-will this really tell us who received the insurance payouts when the Colosseum participants died?”

“It will, but they might have used a fake name or fake ID. Or maybe they used a throwaway go-between like the one who withdraws the money in a bank transfer scam. Anything that would leave a trail will have been faked.”

“Th-then what are we supposed to do? Is this all a waste of time?”

“This is well worth our time,” Mugino Shizuri readily assured her.

Hanano tilted her head (in old man mode), but…

“The big bosses at the top will be well-protected, but not so with the participants who end up as corpses anyway. But we’re not interested in the corpses or the criminals. ''We’re looking for the people with a high-value policy and are still alive.'' We should probably narrow it down to teenage students, a policy of at least a hundred million, and an expedited contract less than a month old. Once we have their identity, we can do this the old-fashioned way: tail them and let them lead us right to the Colosseum.”

The bar on the screen filled up and the number below reached 100%.

Hanano Choubi yanked out the cable, stuck the miniature computer in her pocket, and returned to the elevator.

“Oh, no! The elevator’s stopped because of the disaster!”

“Ah ha ha. Then it’s time for 28 stories’ worth of stairs. Should make for some good exercise.”

(Really and truly curse that terrain-obliterating god of destruction!!)

But she had no other option here, so she gave up, opened the metal door, stuck her head out into the emergency stairs, and heard hurried footsteps climbing from below. This was an above-the-board company, so were those security officer batons she heard thunking at their hips? If they realized who she was and ganged up on her, she felt certain they would beat her to death.

“Check each floor to ensure no one was left behind. Make sure every last employee, guest, and contracted janitor is safe! Teams A and B, follow me and inspect the stairs!! …Hm? Hey! Is someone up th-”

“''Wahh!!''”

While shouting, she flipped the luxury suit inside out like a stage magician’s handkerchief, wiped both hands on her face makeup to rearrange it, and transformed herself into a muscular young man on the security team. In mere seconds.

She could only prepare one emergency costume change, so the standard option was either a security guard or a firefighter depending on where she was infiltrating.

“Reporting for duty!”

“R-right. I don’t recognize you. Which team are you on? Anyway, you came from up above, right? Continue on down and join another team. Any other team! Right now, we need every single person assisting the evacuation!!”

“Roger that!!”

Muscular and handsome Hanano Choubi shouted something that seemed right and then ran down the stairs.

A predetermined plan ''alone'' was not enough to fool people. Going with the flow and adlibbing could be surprisingly useful. Of course, you would run into trouble if you relied entirely on adlibbing.

And no living thing would run around quite as actively as a cornered chicken.

“Ugh, those 28 floors are going to have me sweating… That’s like descending a small mountain. Let’s hope my makeup doesn’t come off.”

“Hanano, we’re still monitoring you via the cameras after your face change, so don’t worry. And if you want a shortcut down, keep your eye on the wall to your right.”

She didn’t even have time to look that way.

The concrete wall broke through from the outside and a slender hand appeared. Kinuhata Saiai had quickly and powerfully climbed 28 floors up the building’s wall and now she grabbed Security Guard Hanano Choubi by the collar.

“Wait, but, hey, what are you doing!?”

“It was super you who told us not to abandon you if things went wrong.”

Then the two of them dove down from that high floor.

“Gyehhhhhhhhh!?”

“Don’t worry. My Offense Armor will act as a cushion, so we won’t die when we super hit the ground.”

===Part 5===

“Finally. It’s already midday. How did it take you that long to escape one little building?”

“Huff, puff. Sh-she really is in full dominatrix mode, isn’t she?”

Mugino held out a hand in a “give it here” gesture. Hanano wiped the makeup from her face to return to her puppyish self before handing the miniature computer to Mugino. She was irritated and wanted to look cool by tossing it over, but after going through all that, she was terrified of dropping and breaking it.

Mugino looked satisfied as she accepted the computer.

“After grabbing some lunch, we can check inside this and start tracking one of the participants.”

“Shouldn’t we be running away? I can see the building from here and- wow, there’s a giant hole in the center.”

After yanking Hanano inside the van, Item left.

“Um, wait. Are you really asking me to change inside this cramped van? I have to strip down while the rest of you watch!?”

“Don’t worry, Hanano. I’m rooting for you.”

“You, busty track suit girl! What part of me were you looking at when you made that pitying comment!?”

Hanano tearfully complained, but she must not have wanted to remain in the security uniform that smelled like male sweat (because she had designed it to do so). The rustling of cloth filled the van for a while.

Anyway, next on the agenda was lunch.

Frenda knew how to access a wealth of information on her phone and she learned of a good restaurant frequented by District 3’s elite office workers. After driving to the center of the district, they left the van behind and walked the rest of the way.

Frenda spotted something on the way.

“Neat. In the end, of course a salaryman district would have miniskirt ladies handing out cans of beer.”

“That sign calls them ‘bargirls’. What does that mean?”

Takitsubo tilted her blankly staring head.

The bargirls were apparently advertising a new seasonal craft beer. But none of the officer workers in suits could drink beer in the middle of the day, so it seemed like they would have a hard time selling every can. Mugino though they would have better luck in District 5 with all its college students ready to party on Tanabata.

Mugino had also wondered what hidden gem of a restaurant Frenda had discovered, but it was a fairly large Chinese restaurant that shared a giant building with an electronics store.

“It’s normal. It’s so normal I’m about ready to punch Frenda.”

“No one here has time to wait in a long line, so anyplace that gets super lots of five star ratings will be one with a super lot of seating and decent enough food. This place is as super big as a parking garage.”

The five girls found a seat at a table in the back.

Was it a dark side habit to prefer the seat closest to the emergency exit? Or if that wasn’t available, one by a window.

“I’m going to get the vegetable gyoza meal with no garlic. It’s a good basic dish to super test the quality of the cooking. What about you, Takitsubo-san?”

“This.”

“Oh! In the end, they’re already serving the chilled noodles! I’ll get that too but with sesame sauce!!”

“It sure is summer. And I hate it.”

Mugino never passed up a chance to complain about wheat and she apparently went for the rice dishes as a result. She ordered the seafood fried rice with ankake sauce. Based on the photo in the menu, it had something extremely greasy poured on top. It had to be a giant mass of calories. The day she had slim legs was still a long way off. Although anyone foolish enough to say that aloud would have an instant 50% reduction in weight when their upper half was vaporized.

The restaurant was meant to get office workers in and out during their limited lunch break, so the young part-timer in a mini China dress had their order out in no time. Takitsubo stared blankly at the food.

“They’re gyozas, but they’re green. Kinuhata, you should eat more meat.”

“I don’t need your criticism. What are you – a super old man?”

“But you won’t grow otherwise.”

“''Are you picking a goddamn fight with me while you waste your own super boobs by covering them up with that lame-ass track suit''!?”

The growing girl who channeled the #1 when she got mad had to be calmed by friendly Frenda.

“Whew…”

Hanano’s body was demanding something unhealthy after the exhaustion of the previous job, so she nervously pulled in her bowl of stir-fried meat and vegetables that looked heavily seasoned. On the dark side, you could get your hands on a variety of pills or even a mysterious stamp that made sounds quite colorful when you placed it below your tongue, but this was the limit of unhealthy that petty bourgeoisie was willing to go for.

“Today’s Tanabata, isn’t it? Oh, this ordinary free ice water is soaking into my soul.”

“Which one is Tanabata again? The one with the pandas and lots of firecrackers?”

“Takitsubo-san, I think you’re super confusing it with Chinese New Year.”

Kinuhata looked kind of smug, but you wouldn’t see pandas on the streets of China even when celebrating the lunar new year. What Asian movie had she seen?

“Hanano, you should put this shichimi togarashi on your stir fry. You’re in the mood for something strong, aren’t you?” suggested Takitsubo.

“That sounds good, but it would make fixing my face harder, so I’ll pass. Spicy foods making your lips swell isn’t just a thing from gag manga. They have that lip cream full of capsaicin to give you fuller lips, remember?”

“Hanano.”

“Stop recommending it to me because you think that sounds funny!”

All of their food was good. But only good. The secret to the flavor was probably tubs of dashi from a factory in District 4. If this place was getting five star ratings, perhaps office workers thought it was a virtue to have no sense of adventure.

That was the opposite of Item’s way of life.

Mugino pulled out the miniature computer.

“Frenda.”

“Just one, okay!? Please, Takitsubo! In the end, a bite of my almond jelly for one of your sesame dumplings isn’t a bad trade at all, so pleeeeease! Oh, what did you want, Mugino?”

“You’ve been watching the Colosseum online, right? When does today’s match begin?”

“Hmm? The morning event should be over already. In the end, the next soonest would be the one that starts at 8 this evening. I remember the time because I tended to watch the killing while eating dinner in my room.”

“That’s super primetime. Are the managers intentionally aiming for mealtime when people are relaxing with their families?”

“Ugh.” Hanano paled and shrank down in her seat, but that was nothing as far as dark side tastes went . Mugino didn’t seem interested in that part at all.

“Damn, and it’s only 1 in the afternoon. Then there’s no point in pursuing one of the living contestants now. We can take our time and begin our pursuit at around 5.”

===Part 6===

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frenda smiled a little while lying on her side.

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

“Thanks.”

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

Frenda gave a mischievous smile and slowly narrowed her eyes.

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

“Ha…ah ha ha…”

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

Frenda winked while still lying in bed.

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

“U-um, there is actually…”

Hanano scooted toward Frenda and whispered in her ear.

Frenda looked confused.

“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

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

“If that’s what you want.”

The blonde girl didn’t take much convincing.

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

“Excuse me. Is Hanano-san in here?”

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

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

“Gyahhhhhhh!?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’re super going to District 7?”

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

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

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

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

“Bamboo leaf ice cream.”

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

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

The five members of Item walked through the evening city.

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

They had located their target, though.

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

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

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

They could locate the enemy base starting from here.

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

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

Their target was about 15m away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No response.

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

And Mugino Shizuri was entranced by something there.

Her shoulders were even trembling.

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

“Mugino…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mugino.”

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

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

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

Once they knew the trick, the rest was easy.

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

“Did the braid girl go in here?”

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

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

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

Every single spot here was a shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hanano nervously checked one of the shops.

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

“Hanano.”

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

Mugino scoffed at the entire scene around them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino narrowed her eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

Kinuhata took a look around.

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

“What are you, a mother-in-law?”

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

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

And the track suit girl noticed something else.

“Mugino.”

The air was abuzz with energy.

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

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

Something was happening below.

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

An explosion of noise pushed up from there.

Cheering voices and booming music swirled up at them.

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

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

Some kind of plate was spinning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mugino looked down from the railing in disgust.

“Is the Colosseum always like this?”

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

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

Less imaginative Kinuhata and Takitsubo were more carefree.

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

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

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

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

Mugino grinned.

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

===Part 7===

The Colosseum was a very important event for them.

They didn’t all gather together for every single event, but they still made sure to make an appearance on site as ''the management''.

However, those four girls were not in the ring or in the stands. They were in a separate monitor room, built from a back room of the library full of book repair equipment. They used that room to keep tabs on the situation in the arena and online.

Of course, they weren’t upstanding members of society, so they had brought camping chairs and a camping table in for themselves. The table was piled high with chips, popcorn, fried chicken, fries, and more. For drinks, there were sodas and iced coffee. They preferred to bring their own rather than order it from a catering company. That made it feel more like doing yaminabe at a girls-only sleepover, which was a lot more fun.

“Uhh…”

A small 12-year-old girl with pale skin and shoulder-length black hair groaned while staring at all the monitors. Waniguchi Nokoba was a mixed martial artist and she wore a ring costume that looked like a racing swimsuit made even more revealing. She raised her small hands and stretched her back without getting up from her chair.

However, her hands just about crushed the rubber balls she held.

“I wanna fight too!! We worked so hard to get that white tiger for today and I wanna fight it!!”

“You’re our ''executioner'' who swiftly eliminates anyone who violates any rules regarding the match or the gambling, so you need to stay put as long as things run smoothly. It’s better this way, so try and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, a curvy girl wearing a ''Tokiwadai Middle School'' summer uniform and with a few braids in her fluffy blonde hair, breathed an exasperated sigh, but the martial arts girl ignored her.

Despite her young appearance, Waniguchi bared her teeth and spat back.

“Damn, I thought I’d be seeing lots of action in this position, but these dark side morons are all too scared to disobey. ''You’re criminals – why the hell are you following the rules''? I’m starting to wish I’d entered as a contestant instead.”

“But then you would just win every match,” commented a tanned track girl named Hanayama Kamitsu.

“We wouldn’t make much money from the gambling side then, would we?” sighed Ibotanokikouji. “Waniguchi-chan, why are you so irritable today?”

“Her thigh,” whispered a silver-haired girl named Inoue Laspezia.

That got a response out of Waniguchi herself rather than Ibotanokikouji.

“Ah!? I’ve got another mosquito bite… No wonder I’ve been so mad today. This is why I hate the ground. Too many bugs. Hey, where’d the bug spray go!?”

“It’s too late for that if you’re already bitten. Come here. I will rub the anti-itch cream on for you,” said Ibotanokikouji.

“Yay!” rejoiced Waniguchi as she walked over, but she was interrupted by something else.

The silver-haired girl had been working in silence, but now she sat right in Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“…Inoue Laspezia.”

“Yes?”

The silver-haired girl was still engrossed in the intricate work she was performing with her gloved hands, so she replied with just the one Kyoto-accented word. She didn’t even look up.

As the only one here immune to the lily’s allure, the track girl kept her distance.

Furious at having her special seat taken, Tiny Tyrant Waniguchi clung to Ibotanokikouji’s side, but then she noticed something else. Ibotanokikouji had a small DVD player open in addition to all of the management monitors. It was probably an item sold cheap at a discount store.

“Hey, Chief, what’s that? A horror movie?”

“One of the worst I’ve ever seen, but one of the stuntmen died in an accident during filming. If you watch carefully in slow motion, you can see him being crushed by the machinery in the background. Hee hee. I bet all those sophisticated teachers would faint if they saw this.”

In cases like this, the movie would either be banned from the online stores or the offending footage would be removed in a mystery update, so if you wanted to add it to your collection, you needed one of the limited first-edition physical copies. Because that would never be altered.

“Boo. If you want to see a corpse, just send me into the ring. I’d give you plenty of bloodshed.”

“Probably so, but I don’t need a close up of the corpse.”

Ibotanokikouji smiled thinly while operating her phone. She lovingly chewed on Inoue’s ear while she worked.

She pulled up her own personal map app which was linked to her photo album. But in her case, the map displayed a tour of famous suicide spots around Academy City.

“I want to decorate myself with other people’s deaths. I want to sleep wrapped in a blanket of their misfortune. Hee hee. So it doesn’t need to be anything exciting. Brand-name clothing isn’t for showing off. It looks best when ''you wear it casually''. You can make diamonds by pressurizing human corpses, but there is no need to go around loudly advertising that fact. True class is found in doing things so discreetly the amateurs never notice what you have. The money we make with the Colosseum is the same.”

“Boo.”

Hanayama Kamitsu, the tanned girl with wavy shoulder-length black hair and a track athlete’s tank top and shorts, made no attempt to join the other three. She thought these things were nice to look at, but she had no desire to be a part of it herself. In her opinion, lesbian relationships were beautiful enough when things were going well, but they got nasty quick when things went bad. And on the dark side, the result would be a lot worse than for a band when a relationship between two members fell apart.

She normally wore something a little less revealing, so her hands wandered restlessly across the visible tan lines on the upper and lower halves of her body. She finally reached for a plastic item rather than one the chilled drinks in the cooler.

Waniguchi’s face lit up while still clinging to Ibotanokikouji’s side.

“Oh, is that an e-cigarette? I’ve always wanted to try one of those!”

“It’s a portable oxygen tank. It’s flavorless.”

As a track girl, Hanayama wanted as much oxygen inside her as she could get. Or rather, she got antsy when she couldn’t get it. She held the plastic device in the corner of her mouth, the blue LED at the end flashed, and she breathed in the compressed oxygen coming from the refillable cartridge.

“Anyway, did you see the news? That general manager was arrested. Something about attacking his own company. You really shouldn’t mug for the camera in a minute-long video just because you’re lonely and want some likes. They were playing it on all the talk shows.”

“So what? That’s not a problem for us as long as we can regularly withdraw the contestants’ insurance money. Even if they take emergency measures, that’s an adult corporation, right? They take forever to do anything, so we can still get today’s payouts. Besides, there are still plenty more insurance companies in Academy City. Not to mention executives we can blackmail.”

“Hm,” was all the response track girl Hanayama gave.

They were technically colleagues (of a sort), but they had never actually met directly to give him instructions. Even if the general manager sang like a canary, he didn’t know the girls’ real names. He had been disposable, so they didn’t care what happened to him.

To change the subject, Hanayama spoke to a different girl: the slender silver-haired girl seated in Ibotanokikouji’s lap with her eyes lowered to the delicate work she was doing. Overall, she was a squirrel-like person. But it upset her if you said she looked like a racoon, so it was worth being careful.

“Hey, Inoue. What nasty method will you be using this time?”

“…It’s nothing special.”

Inoue Laspezia wore an apron and a beret over a summer school uniform. She kept her eyes on her working hands and responded with a Kyoto accent.

Her hobby was figurines, her special skill was handicrafts, and she belonged to the art club. She didn’t even look Hanayama’s way as she made some precise movements of a thin-tipped paintbrush wet with the special iron material – that is, human blood – she had mixed to just the right color on her paper palette.

She never seemed interested in anything, but she refused to give up her spot on Ibotanokikouji’s lap.

“There was a murder in the area, so I’m just counterfeiting the murder weapon. It’s a razor with the appropriate fingerprints and blood on it. One of the big ones a barber would have. I had all the necessary materials in stock, so it doesn’t cost me anything.”

“Yikes. Remind me to never piss off a modeler.”

Tanned Hanayama grinned.

It didn’t matter if the evidence was real or not. The general manager likely had no recollection of what they had threatened him over. But what if the public and the justice system believed it? Even if the charges were false – no, especially when the charges were false – no one wanted to lose everything over it.

And once they started down that route, it would take over their life.

The rules of the world didn’t let you choose when you wanted to stop.

An adult important enough to have no qualms at all about oppressing the children would know exactly what happened the instant they took just one step off the edge of the cliff.

Ibotanokikouji had come up with the plan and ordered her to do it, but even she seemed exasperated.

She tightly hugged the silver-haired girl sitting in her lap.

“Oh, Inoue-chan. You’re such a perfectionist once you set your mind to something. Wouldn’t you have a much easier time sticking out your very cute butt on the train to make some false molestation accusations?”

“How would that work? Our targets always have a driver who takes them wherever they need to go.”

Inoue must have finished her work because she sealed the evidence razor in a plastic bag. She completed the work calmly and expressionlessly. That gave them one more trump card they could use to frame someone.

Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses. A honeytrap was probably beyond that whispering, downcast girl. …Except with the minority who were into the plain, obedient type.

“How’s this for a conclusion?” Waniguchi rubbed her cheek against Ibotanokikouji from the side. “The arrested general manager on the TV isn’t a problem for us. And we’re prepared to find us a new wallet. So we won’t throw out everything we’ve built up and we won’t go into hiding. We’ll continue running the Colosseum like normal.”

“Agreed,” said all four girls together.

But anyone capable of reading the room would have noticed they didn’t say it at the exact same time. The other three girls waited to see how Ibotanokikouji Kaede reacted before joining in.

And that secret center of attention whispered with the silver-haired girl still seated in her lap.

With a soft smile on her lips.

“Don’t worry. We are ''Item'' and we will be taking allll the profits of death for ourselves☆”

===Part 8===

Up above the ceiling, Mugino Shizuri and Takitsubo Rikou exchanged a glance.

“Mugino.”

“Did that bitch just say Item?”

Their recording of the general manager had said much the same thing, but this time it came straight from the villains themselves.

Item was of course the name of Mugino’s team. If these people were body doubles in case of emergency or a group using the name to get work in the dark side, they should have been disguised as and acting like Mugino and the others, but they weren’t.

Whatever their reasons, those girls had used the Item name in a private room where they assumed no one else was listening in. That meant this wasn’t an act. It was real.

Meanwhile, Frenda was worried about something else: the clothing of the central girl.

“Isn’t that a ''Tokiwadai'' uniform? How does a rich girl from that school end up in the dark side?”

“Having money super doesn’t prevent you from making mistakes. Aren’t all of you in super similar situations?”

If that girl actually was a Tokiwadai student, then she was a real piece of work.

The girls lounging on the floor below continued their conversation.

“Anyway, Waniguchi-chan, here’s some extra for this month.”

“Oh, thanks a bunch!”

The central girl tossed over something she held between two fingers.

The object spinning through the air was a plastic-looking card. It flew back around like a boomerang and Waniguchi nimbly caught it.

“It’s only the 7th. How did you manage to spend a month’s worth of pay that fast? You are being paid a proper wage, so you need to stop wasting so much money.”

“Ibotanokikouji Kaede. You’d be perfect if you wouldn’t get on my case about money.”

The small martial arts girl pouted her lips and rubbed her cheek against the Tokiwadai girl while giving the card she held a quick kiss.

That was apparently how their Item(?) received payments.

“''A money card?''” Mugino muttered under her breath up above the ceiling.

“Those are the prepaid cards you can super use with music players and online stores, right? You buy them at a convenience store and super input the number into your computer or phone.”

Mugino responded to Kinuhata’s explanation with a finger on her chin.

“They don’t ordinarily go above 10 thousand yen on a card, but there are premium ones with bigger amounts. Like 5 or 10 million on a card. Although I think those are really only meant to buy brand-name bags online or to make donations to net idols on video sites.”

But it was clever.

Prepaid cards were a lot lighter than cash or gold. They also couldn’t be frozen without warning like a bank account. Unlike a diamond, it didn’t matter if they were handled a bit roughly and got scratched up. And since cash could be converted into cards, they were also useful for money laundering. They could then be converted back into cash either via the internet or at a pawnshop.

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo pointed elsewhere.

The central girl – Ibotanokikouji Kaede? – had a suitcase near her. It looked cheap, but a closer inspection showed the lock had been replaced with a much nicer one. Not only was the new lock much tougher, but it appeared to include a sensor that would transmit its location over the internet if the lock was forced open.

(So converting their money into cards wasn’t just to launder it. They also don’t trust the banks to hold it.)

There were no standard methods in the dark side. It wasn’t perfect, but you could get a general picture of who someone was by the methods they used for these things.

Mugino considered this for a bit.

“If that case is packed full of 10 million yen cards with some room left for cushioning, then I’m guessing it holds around 80 billion.”

“Hapyah!?”

When she heard that amount, Hanano Choubi the Chicken yelped without thinking.

The Tokiwadai girl didn’t even bother looking up.

She simply held her palm upwards while still seated in her camping chair with Inoue in her lap.

“''There.''”

The entire ceiling collapsed.

Mugino didn’t even have enough time to click her tongue.

The building materials sank down like an antlion pit and the girls were dragged to the lower floor with nothing to grab ahold of.

Mugino gave up on righting herself as she fell and focused on landing without her legs giving out below her. Even with the intruders before her, Ibotanokikouji did not get up.

She did, however, pick Inoue up from her lap and set her down next to her.

“How do you do, ill-bred thieves☆”

“You think a lot yourself for a witch who converts human lives into money.”

“My, my, my. Aren’t you brimming with confidence, Level 5. Have you never bothered to question why it is you find victory wherever you go?”

Ibotanokikouji’s confidence was not broken by being called a witch.

If anything, she seemed to appreciate the insult.

“Your superiors have selected jobs they know a pathetic beginner like you can complete in order to give you a taste for success. You see the same process with drugs and gambling – all of life’s vices tend to work that way. But the free ride ends here. It is now time to take you for everything you are worth. You have reached the point where it all goes downhill.”

“You’re going to reduced to charcoal soon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Poor thing. You should really try to use your head for once. You are convinced that ''you can do anything as long as you have Meltdowner,'' but I am saying that very idea is a falsehood this city’s adults have placed in your head.”

She giggled.

Still seated in her camping chair, she peeled Waniguchi away from her side.

“Do you really believe you can survive anything as long as you have your pride as one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s? Do you really think this city’s darkness is that shallow?”

It was Frenda who stared at her confident smile in disbelief.

That girl knew who they were to an extent. And yet she still looked confident while opposing ''the'' Mugino Shizuri.

Mugino did not hesitate, of course.

They only wanted the suitcase, not to hurt the villains or get some kind of information out of them.

She held out her palm and launched a brutal beam straight at the enemy.

But.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner bent at a sharp angle and blasted through a wall.

“Wha-?” said Frenda, her face entirely pale.

She may have received more of a shock than Mugino.

Mugino herself narrowed her eyes.

“You…”

“No, I did not use electricity.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede hadn’t even gotten out of her chair.

She giggled in an elegant but wicked way.

“''I am Academy City’s #6.''”

She stated it plainly.

She called herself a Level 5. She called herself the esper known as the Dark Side’s Bane.

“It is time you learned that the outdated superiority of the seven Level 5s is a thing of the past. There are compatibility issues to worry about too. And on that note, recall that I am known as the Dark Side’s Bane.”

“Th-that can’t be true.”

Frenda believed in the brand name of Item’s – of Mugino Shizuri’s – strength.

She believed in the rarity of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

So she could only reach one conclusion.

“In the end, Level 5s aren’t just going to appear everywhere we go!! You claim you’re the mysterious Dark Side’s Bane? A-anyone could come out and say they’re the #6! It’s just a number!”

“Oh, dear. You really are ignorant of the dark side’s depths, aren’t you? There really are Level 5s just about everywhere you go here. Really, you could say the dark side is their true home. ''The top two'' go without saying, as does the ''mystery beam shooter'' in front of us here. As for the ''electric one'' and the ''psychological one''…it’s hard to say. I am reluctant to say they belong to the dark side, but given the projects they’re involved in, I would say they each have one foot in the dark side. My, my. That means your last hope of being right is ''that guts idiot''. Are you sure you want to build up your standards and values atop someone as absurd as him?”

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

Frenda Seivelun was left speechless.

Ibotanokikouji had a point.

What if the Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane was also neck deep in the illicit and illegal?

Wouldn’t that be exactly the kind of shitty outcome you would expect in Academy City?

Besides, Academy City’s Level system was entirely based on how useful an esper was for important fields of research. So with the Level 5s at the top, it was only natural the corrupt adults of the dark side would be all over them no matter the Level 5’s own morals or personality. So they might even be tricked into getting involved.

Ibotanokikouji’s laughter seemed to rule this place.

Her eyes were directly on Level 5 Mugino Shizuri.

“You want to argue the point, but you can’t deny the possibility, can you? How much do the stories you have heard about the #6 really matter? How sure can you be that the gender and age you have pictured in your head is correct? ''Do you think any of the information you think you know will help you here and now''? This is not a rumor, a vague report, or a strange legend. I am here right before you and I am calling myself the #6.”

“Don’t get a big head just cause you’re standing on the same field as me, worm.”

Mugino snapped back in a rage, but she also maintained some rationality deep in her mind.

In other words…

(I couldn’t see it, but she did break through the ceiling. What kind of power does she have?)

Then a voice called down from the broken ceiling.

Apparently not all five of them had fallen.

“Mugino!”

“Stay up there, Takitsubo! Hanano, you’re still up in the ceiling too, right!? Get Takitsubo out of here!! Do whatever it takes to protect her! Got that!?”

Mugino heard some panicked stammering, but it was growing more distant. Hanano was scared but doing as she was told. She was the kind of chicken who got moving when she felt cornered, not the kind that froze up.

Takitsubo’s AIM stalker was a convenient power, but she didn’t need to be on the front line for it to work. She could read the enemy’s location from safety and send the information over via phone.

That left Mugino, Frenda, and Kinuhata here.

Conveniently, only their vanguard had fallen from the ceiling. Had they been lucky or had the enemy been unlucky? Either way, that sort of omen held a surprising amount of power in the world of villains.

“This is like a bad joke.” Kinuhata sounded annoyed. “She’s the #6 Level 5 ''and'' a super Tokiwadai student?”

“My, my. You seem surprised to find an elite in the shadows.”

Ibotanokikouji’s expression said she found it puzzling why Kinuhata would question it.

She brought a finger to her chin and cutely tilted her head.

“Girls like me are given a sheltered upbringing cut off from the outside world. Make no noise when you walk, when you eat, or when you laugh. Were they trying to raise a ninja? When your very existence is forced into an unnatural state, it distorts something inside you. And so something must be done to put the hands of the clock back in their proper place. Which means learning the truth of the world, no matter how ugly it might be. And it must be done on a regular basis. Otherwise that luxury hand-wound watch will again fall out of sync with the rest of the world.”

“You’ll go this far to super learn how the real world works?”

“Try to appreciate just how restrictive a life one must live to need all this to avoid being torn apart by the distortion within. This is the problem with you cheap digital watches. You cannot understand the pain of a truly upper class upbringing.”

She sighed in apparent disappointment.

She was not killing to protect herself during a war, nor was she stealing because she was poor and starving.

But she was killing people all the same.

Human cruelty was most noticeable ''during peacetime'' when there were no excuses to fall back on.

“Hee hee.”

The Tokiwadai girl softly laughed and directed her graceful hand toward the ceiling.

“By the way, I did not expect you to have a fifth. But did you really think we would sit around long enough for them to escape?”

“Did you think ''we'' would sit around?”

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai took a step forward.

Frenda pulled several egg-shaped explosives from her short skirt and stuck them with fuses smaller than cigarettes.

“In the end, did you think we would give you time to attack Takitsubo and Hanano? You could’ve avoided this if you had just handed over the money, but I’ll admit it’s pretty funny you would prefer getting blown up!!”

Mugino noticed something in the middle of Frenda’s shouting. She surreptitiously pulled her phone from her pocket and found an email there: “Focus on the suitcase. You’re our strongest, so you go after it.”

Mugino had wondered where all Frenda’s confidence had come from when she had been so scared of the #6 announcement earlier, but she was only shouting to keep the enemy from hearing the vibration of Mugino’s silenced phone.

The next thing Mugino noticed was that the suitcase in question had vanished. It had been taken by…presumably the art club girl who had vanished along with it.

Mugino and the others no longer cared about the job the voice on the phone had brought them.

They didn’t even need to win the prize money in the bloody Colosseum.

It was all there in the suitcase.

Stealing the 80 billion in money cards was their top priority.

“Sh!!”

Mugino fired her first Meltdowner blast straight past Frenda and Kinuhata’s shoulders. The enemy had already bent one of her beams. Since she still didn’t know what that power was, she didn’t think this one attack would defeat that enemy. The beam was only meant to blind this mysterious other Item(?) while the original Item could exchange their thoughts under the cover of the blast and dust cloud.

“Leave the case to me!!”

“Super will do. This comes down to a compatibility issue with your power, right? We’ll defeat her here if we can, but we’ll at least slow her down while trying to work out what her power is and any other idiosyncrasies she has.”

Mugino tackled through a door and nearly rolled out into the hallway.

She spotted a summer uniform skirt fluttering up ahead. She saw a girl dragging the suitcase a long way down the hallway. She was nearly just a dot from Mugino’s perspective.

(I’d love to just blast her from here, but that would require a concentrated line of destruction skinnier than dried pasta. I wouldn’t want to vaporize the suitcase full of all that money.)

“I’ll just have to get closer!!”

Once she had a plan, she was quick to act on it.

She dashed down the library hallway.

The gloomy girl running up ahead looked back just once before pulling something like a remote from her skirt pocket and pressing the button with her thumb. Mugino heard shouting voices coming from beyond the wall to her side. A pair of double doors were broken down nearby and a bloody wild animal stepped into the hallway.

It was 3m long and weighed more than 250kg.

The white tiger’s cage must have opened.

“Shut up and stay out of this!!!”

Mugino slammed her palm into it. She didn’t even use her power. A vibration of the air rattled a nearby window and the impact propagated from the white tiger’s nose down to the tip of its tail. The blow to the face silenced the 3m beast in a single blow.

A Judgment-looking girl who had somehow ended up a Colosseum contestant was slumped on the floor.

“Y-you saved me? Thank-”

“Outta the way, you ♂♀〒#!!”

After paralyzing the girl with a shout, Mugino continued running down the hallway.

The silver-haired art club girl had escaped into the door at the very end of the long hallway.

That door led into a domed space. It covered the area of about four convenience stores. A round device in the center was covered in optical devices and surrounded by seats arranged in concentric circles.

Mugino glanced around the dark, windowless space.

(A planetarium?)

Was this inside the circular building she had seen alongside the library? But that didn’t really matter.

She could see the art club girl’s back from here. She must not have been able to move very fast while lugging that suitcase around. And Mugino was only interested in that luggage, so she was willing to shoot the girl in the back without warning as long as she wouldn’t hit the suitcase too.

(If I aim for her spine and concentrate the beam down to a line the width of dried pasta, I can kill her instantly with a single shot!)

But that isn’t what actually happened.

The gloomy silver-haired art club girl escaped outside through the emergency exit.

Because…

“Ah ha ha!! If you want to play tag, play with me, not Inoue!!!”

An explosive “roar!!!” came from the wall to Mugino’s side. It arrived so suddenly that Mugino didn’t have time to launch her Meltdowner. She clicked her tongue and rolled backwards.

A giant hunk of metal grazed her while producing a blast of wind.

The seats surrounding the planetarium device were arranged in neat concentric circles. They were a lot like movie theater seats, so they had to be bolted firmly to the floor.

They were all blown away like bowling pins.

A rough estimate said that attack had been deadlier than a freight train. It could have broken through the planetarium’s wall with ease.

The ear-splitting roar continued on and on.

It came from a tanned track girl with her wavy black hair cut to shoulder length.

She had just one leg on something like a skateboard with T-shaped handlebars attached. Was that called a kick scooter?

But the rear of the board, behind where her foot rested, was unusually large. That part alone was about 3m long, the tire was extra thick, and the enlarged cylinder looked a lot an unenclosed jet engine. Of course, it had to have a variety of different propulsion devices in addition to that most obvious one.

The dark side did not always rely on esper powers.

It also made use of next-generation weapons.

“Nice to meet you, colleague. I’m Hanayama Kamitsu of ''Item''. But you can call me the courier.”

“…”

“I’m the courier who delivers death. That might mean directly delivering violence or a bomb, but even when I deliver gold bars or a first aid kit to save someone’s life, it always leads to ruin in the end. That’s just who I am. So be careful when a villain offers you kindness. Ah ha ha. Even a child knows it’s a bad idea to trust a demon’s temptations.”

Only then did she notice Mugino wasn’t responding.

It looked like Hanayama hadn’t even imagined someone might be interested in something more than her “courier” title.

“Hm? Are you still caught up on the Item thing? Did you think only you could use the name? Were you imagining a little © afterwards whenever you said it? Don’t be silly. Academy City’s darkness is never going to kindly protect a villain’s rights!”

The tanned girl laughed as she bent her hips and leaned her upper body against the T-shaped handlebars.

It was the unpleasant laugh of someone who knew the truth.

“''Whichever team is more useful to the dark side as a whole gets to call themselves Item.'' That’s how the system works. Killers who do nothing but spend money aren’t going to cut it. You only destroy – you don’t produce anything. Meanwhile, we do our assigned jobs while also making our own profits, so I’d say we score just a biiiit higher than you.”

Her modified kick scooter gave a deep roar.

“So let’s play, imposter. Our Item will knock all the other candidates out of the running. This impractical proof-of-concept prototype can produce speeds of 1100km/h without leaving the ground. I’ll flatten you with my beloved ''Dragon Motor''!!”

Hanayama didn’t wait for Mugino to respond.

She opened the throttle and melted into streamlines.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. Ibotanokikouji Kaede and Waniguchi Nokoba.

Two against two.

“Oh?”

The first to speak was the small girl in a ring costume.

“You let your ace leave while your two substitute fighters deal with the Chief and me? You must be confident.”

“Waniguchi-san, should we do the usual?”

“Yes, please.”

They weren’t even given time to prepare.

Something blew across the room and all four walls were blown down. Even the wall behind Kinuhata and Frenda.

That meant the spaces divided by the walls were now connected.

This was now part of the Colosseum arena which was boiling with excitement after a shocking accident.

The crowd fell silent from panic, but it wasn’t long before a booming cheer erupted. All their voices joined to form a single powerful mass of noise. The leader girl tensed her brow in slight concentration.

Waniguchi casually grabbed a microphone ''that flew over to her on its own''.

“Yeehaw!! I know you’re upset about having your fight taken from you, but we have a much more exciting event for you. Get hyped because it’s time for a purge. Hey, hey, yo, yo! A round of applause for the executioner! This livestream is about to get a hell of a lot bloodierrrrrrrrrr!!!

“Outta the way, newbie!!” shouted Frenda.

Some objects fell from her skirt and ruptured. She wanted a vibration. Libraries contained a lot of paper, so they were made to be especially sensitive when detecting earthquakes and electrical fires.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede stuck out her tongue a bit.

“Tch, trying to trip the breaker? How boring. You did manage to stop the livestream, though. And unfortunately, we took up the audience’s phones to keep them from recording the valuable match and uploading it to a video site.”

“In the end, those are professional cameras on wheels, so they’re going to use a wired connection. And in a real TV studio, they’ll have some junior staff member in charge of cable management!”

Having a video of your killings revealed worldwide was about the worst case scenario for people who worked underground jobs, but they had just barely avoided that here. However, this had only triggered an emergency system meant to respond to an earthquake, so the room’s power would be back on in about 10 minutes if no further problems were detected.

“But we’ll still kill you.”

Waniguchi pounded her fists together in front of her flat chest.

The 12-year-old girl gave a belligerent smile as she announced her opponents’ deaths.

“It’ll be an on-site exclusive event now, but that just means we have to make it even more exciting!!”

Waniguchi didn’t hesitate to step forward.

This was probably her role on the team. While the vanguard kept the enemy busy with direct combat, the rear guard would keep their distance and do something else. That rear guard claimed to be the #6. Anything she did was bound to be deadly.

(I super don’t know what that will be, but we can’t give her time to use it!!)

Kinuhata took a powerful step forward of her own.

The two girls both broke into a run. They took the shortest route to close in on each other.

Waniguchi spread her arms.

“No tricks? I like your style. You’re no better than some hunk of rotting meat in the garbage, but you’re at least meat worthy of some respect!!”

Just then, mere moments before they clashed, Kinuhata flew unnaturally to the right. It was fortunate she had Offense Armor. An ordinary human could have been mangled by the blast that hit her.

That wasn’t Waniguchi’s doing and it wasn’t Ibotanokikouji’s power either.

''Her ally Frenda'' had used a bomb to knock her to the side.

A moment later, Waniguchi’s small hand tore through the air. It was less a straight punch and more of a spiraling motion to pull in everything around her hand. The attack missed its target and instead hit a bookcase, tearing it to pieces. She had to be using some kind of esper power. From the looks of that, she could tear a car in two with just the one arm.

“Are you stupid!? In the end, you need to fix your habit of relying on your tough shield to charge in and learn what you can about the enemy’s abilities! You’ll get yourself killed right away doing that on the dark side!!”

Frenda started to say more, but a large form loomed over her.

“Super watch out!!”

Kinuhata had fallen to the floor, but she threw over the heavy metal stand to some stage lighting, hitting Frenda hard enough to knock her away from ''something''.

“I’m pretty sure I can survive longer than someone who stands super still to give a lengthy explanation in the middle of a deadly battle!!”

“You, bgh. I save your life and this is how you repay me? In the end, are you in one hell of a rebellious phase?”

This was no time to be complaining.

A tremor ran through the floor.

Frenda was being targeted by a grizzly bear that stood more than 3 meters tall when up on its hind legs.

“The Colosseum is usually about espers, but this was our insurance in case the white tiger was too powerful and mauled all of today’s contestants. We hoped to distract the audience from the lack of a winner by pitting the two beasts against each other and having people bet on the outcome.”

Ibotanokikouji held a hand to her mouth and laughed with no cage or anything else between her and the enormous bear.

She wasn’t even using the circus tricks of keeping it back with a whip or with fire or making herself look big.

“In the end, does this mean her power is controlling animals!?”

“No, that super doesn’t make sense. How would that explain when she destroyed the ceiling or the walls!? And it was easy to overlook, but she made the microphone fly over super on its own.”

That was true.

However, Ibotanokikouji was in fact demonstrating multiple strange phenomena. She held her palm out toward the grizzly without even glancing its way and it came to a stop. That unpredictable ferocious beast could attack anyone if it was in a bad mood, but she controlled it like she had a remote control.

The agitated beast was freed from whatever bound it and it swung its forelegs toward Frenda since she was closest.

Waniguchi ignored that as she walked forward.

A soft crunching sound followed.

That beast could stand to a height of 3 meters and its muscles would stop a .45 caliber handgun shot, but the 12-year-old girl had grabbed it with her slender arms and crushed it.

Even the bloodthirsty audience was briefly ''shocked into silence.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………In the end, did that really just happen?”

She hadn’t used a physical blow. That had looked more like a joint lock.

Waniguchi smiled sweetly while drenched in bear blood. That smile contained the perfect combination of innocence and intimidation, making it extremely popular for some.

“Ugh, really? Chief, I know playing with animals is fun and all, but try not to interrupt my fight.”

“Hee hee. Sorry about that. Please do forgive me. I messed up my control a little.”

Frenda was stunned.

An explosive danced meaninglessly in her hand after she froze in her throwing stance.

Would this even affect that girl?

Explosives were a symbol of humanity’s technology and violence, but it felt so inadequate against that smile.

“Leverage Struggle.”

Waniguchi smiled belligerently as she pulled a thick pair of pliers from her pocket.

''She grabbed the wall with them and tore it right off with only one arm.

Just like a piece of heavy machinery demolishing a building.

“I’m not trying to hide my power. I’ve shown it off in the execution videos when someone violates the rules, after all. Scissors, crowbars, seesaws, and joint locks – if it uses leverage, I can use it as a weapon. Yeah, I can grab a concrete pillar as big around as your torso and bend it with my bare hands. Hell, I could do the same with one twice as thick.”

“Is this super idiot serious?”

With a splash, Kinuhata grabbed a bucket of machine oil and dumped it over her head. That was an odd thing to find in a library, but it was probably meant for the wheels of the heavy camera equipment. Or maybe it was a flammable weapon meant for use in the Colosseum.

“If super all you can do is amplify the power of joint locks that use leverage, then you can’t do a thing against a straight punch or kick. Simply put, ''you’re nothing to worry about as long as you don’t grab me.'' Why would you go out of your way to tell us that? There are super tons of ways of killing you.”

After hearing all that, Waniguchi’s face scrunched up.

She was trying very hard to hold back the tears. All of a sudden, she looked like a normal 12-year-old girl.

“Now, now, Waniguchi-chan. Don’t cry. This is why I told you not to reveal your power like that.”

“Sob. Chief.”

“And even if she is too slippery to grab with your bare hands, you can still hit and tear at her with those pliers. You can also try something trickier by using a seesaw to launch projectiles or yourself. It isn’t very smart to limit your options by focusing solely on barehanded joint locks.”

“You don’t need to attack me tooooooooo!!”

“There, there.”

The sadistic girl (who had made the 12-year-old cry for real) pulled Waniguchi into a comforting hug.

Concentration gathered in Kinuhata’s brow.

“You sure are confident. Do you think you can super win while protecting that idiot and fighting us essentially one-against-two? Let’s super hope you aren’t a meathead too.”

“Hee hee. Yes, ''you have a point.''”

Ibotanokikouji laughed like it had happened to slip out.

It was the amused laugh of a mother who had finally secured a house for her family with a 35-year loan and then learned her daughter was myopically planning to run away from home and live independently.

“But I will still emerge victorious. Can I fight while protecting the weak? Can I win one-against-two? ''Of course I can.'' When you are powerful, you can fight back against this unfair world. But I can’t blame you for being too weak to know that.”

“?”

The #6 held a finger to her lips and whispered sweetly.

“You are in luck. You are about to receive a special demonstration of what the Dark Side’s Bane can really do.”

She only needed a single instant to end the fight.

===Part 10===

The extraordinary engine roared. The din became a physical mass that erupted through the planetarium.

That was Hanayama Kamitsu’s modified kick scooter – the Dragon Motor.

But Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner was an extraordinary projectile weapon. It didn’t matter how quickly the enemy accelerated toward her. She had nothing to fear as long as she reduced them to charcoal before they reached her.

Or so she thought.

“Ha ha ha!!”

Hanayama slipped past.

In fact, that giant kick scooter was moving along the planetarium’s domed ceiling. It defied gravity like a rollercoaster.

“Tch. Quit using brute force to defy fluid dynamics!!”

“I’m moving at 1100km/h, remember? That’s why I need my own supply of oxygen. Ah ha ha!! Wah ha ha!! It’s actually a lot harder to keep it on the ground!!”

Even the tanned track girl’s cackling was distorted by her speed. The kick scooter made several passes above Mugino’s head during that one statement.

Bare skin could not survive at that speed, so she likely had some kind of gel generously applied over her entire body.

“Stupid spider girl!!”

“''Bingo''.”

Hanayama answered the insult with a laugh.

Several metallic clangs followed.

The kick scooter had just about melted into streamlines, but on the enormous rear portion, several mechanical arms spread out to the sides like a spider. Each arm had a sharp heavy metal blade attached to the end.

“Atomic number 92!! These burning swords of depleted uranium can cut through a tank!! Hee hee, you won’t even notice you’ve been cut. Ah ha ha, let’s play a game of human daruma otoshi☆”

The kick scooter moved from the curved dome to the floor and then charged straight toward Mugino. Following it by eye was superhuman enough, so not even Mugino had time to take careful aim. She calculated the length of the skinny arms and swords and then considered whether to dodge left or right.

“Tch!!”

She fired Meltdowner at her feet to leap upwards.

“Oh, you figured it out? There goes my promise to kill you before you noticed.”

Orange sparks scattered a moment later. The wreckage of the seats was sliced through like tofu or jelly even outside the range of the arms and swords.

There were wires.

“That’s why you were right to call me a spider girl.”

Mugino was still hanging in midair, but Hanayama had already made five circuits of the domed ceiling or floor.

Hanayama couldn’t directly contact Mugino in the brief moment she remained airborne, but…

“I won’t let you land. I’ll build a spiderweb of deadly wires. Making wires this thin out of depleted uranium isn’t easy, you know? Now curse your own body weight while I slice you up like tokoroten!!”

Mugino’s fall toward death was almost complete.

She twisted around in midair and launched a Meltdowner beam.

But it didn’t hit the kick scooter.

Her opponent was just too fast.

(Damn, a single straight line just isn’t enough. I need another option to deal with a target that keeps moving out of the way.)

“Ah ha ha!!”

Mugino was trapped within a vortex of laughter.

If she did her best to resist – such as by using the airborne wreckage of the seats or the metal railings as a foothold – she could probably earn herself a few more Meltdowner-powered jumps, but that was all. Once gravity dragged all of those footholds back to the floor, Mugino would fall too and be sliced apart by the wires.

The Dragon Motor continued to circle around her.

The wires were being strung up all over the planetarium and Mugino would be sliced and diced if she fell into them.

“Random shots aren’t going to reach me and they can’t break my wires either!! You can’t keep shooting those beams forever! Bye-bye, Level 5. The Item name is ours now!!!”

Immediately afterwards, part of the planetarium’s domed ceiling was noisily torn away. A mass larger than a refrigerator lost its support and fell, so Hanayama had to quickly turn the T-shaped handlebars. From the kick scooter’s perspective, it had been like the road collapsing up ahead. She escaped unharmed, but she was still thrown off her planned course.

“What just…?”

The track girl found the answer before finishing her question.

She saw holes. Big holes. Random shots had done the trick. Mugino’s Meltdowner had opened several holes of 2m or more in the domed ceiling. The dome itself could no longer support itself and thick cracks ran through it. Once those cracks covered the surface area of the dome, ordinary gravity took control and the walls tore away and fell.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you are if I don’t aim for you directly.”

Mugino used the final airborne foothold and a beam to make another leap. She grinned and aimed her palm in midair.

The girl known as a monster still had confidence to spare.

“You don’t have many options left once you’ve lost your road, courier. And didn’t you say it was hard to keep that thing on the ground?”

“You…bitch!!”

Hanayama swerved this way and that to avoid the “canyons” in the collapsing dome. But as her routes grew more limited, she ultimately had only one path she could take, which made it easy to predict her future location and fire Meltdowner there. Because if Hanayama had slowed down, she would have fallen from the ceiling.

She wasn’t even given a chance to scream.

The beam launched from Mugino’s palm erased the tanned girl and her modified kick scooter from existence.

There was no corpse, or even a single drop of blood, remaining.

===Part 11===

Mugino heard something sharply slicing through the air.

“Whoops.”

With the domed ceiling destroyed, the taut wires had lost their support. It was like a blade-sharp bowstring suddenly snapping. She would have felt pretty silly losing a limb or her head to this.

But this also meant she didn’t have to worry about being sliced apart when landing on the broken floor.

She had defeated Hanayama Kamitsu, courier of the enemy Item.

But that wasn’t why Mugino was here.

The silver-haired art club girl with the suitcase was nowhere to be found. She had escaped. This was a job for a more intelligence-oriented member, not a combat specialist like Mugino.

She pulled out her phone while focusing on things outside the crumbling planetarium.

She knew exactly who to call.

(I need the support organization to set up a perimeter around the library. Hopefully they can at least catch a glimpse of her. Then Takitsubo just has to register her AIM Diffusion Field to track her even if she tries to flee the solar system.)

“Hanano! Have you gotten Takitsubo to safety? I want her to use AIM Stalker, so tell her to take some Body-”

“'Oh, hello. I have your mysterious 5th member in my custody.''”

“Kh.”

Mugino scowled.

She recognized that voice, but it wasn’t who she had called. A call to Hanano Choubi’s phone had been answered by Ibotanokikouji Kaede’s voice, which could only mean one thing.

(She has the worst timing!)

“Please do not blame her for this. Hanano-chan did exactly as you asked. She suppressed her fear and fought tooth and nail to let Takitsubo-chan escape. You should really praise her for her admirable – if ineffective – efforts. But if she no longer has a place on your team now that she has failed you, I am more than willing to invite her to join mine. Hee hee. Sinfully cute, isn’t she?”

“Damn you.”

With a dull metal clang, someone tackled down the half-broken planetarium door. A battered-looking Kinuhata emerged. She was supporting Frenda with her shoulder, but was Frenda even conscious?

“Super sorry.”

Mugino didn’t have time to respond before those two collapsed limply forward.

Ibotanokikouji had to know the safest option was to say nothing at all, but that didn’t stop her.

“Just so you know, they scored surprisingly well escaping from that situation at all. Although my own indecisiveness is really to blame there. If I had been focused on them, they wouldn’t have lasted a second.”

Quiet laughter snuck in over the electronic device.

Ordinarily, this alone would have been cost her her life.

“''I told you I am the Dark Side’s Bane, didn’t I''? You don’t seem to have the brainpower to understand what that means, so I hope this taught you the same lesson on a more instinctual level. This is my territory for hunting the likes of you. You cannot defeat me as long as you remain in this darkness. No matter what.”

“Shut the hell up, worm. That’s just a legend. Propaganda. Are you saying you would’ve self-destructed if we were heroes or schoolgirls from the sunny world?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

Those words seemed to take hold of the atmosphere.

Strange rules seemed to seep out from the cracks.

“None of you are anything more than prey, so when you gather together, you only end up devouring each other,” said Ibotanokikouji. “I am your bane – your predator – so your puny claws and fangs cannot reach me. There are no three-way deadlocks in the food chain. It is a pure top-to-bottom hierarchy.”

“…”

“We used a different insider at the insurance company for each match anyway, so that man was disposable to begin with. We can replace him at any time. Our only failure here is…well, that you are still alive must mean Hanayama-chan is dead. But we can overcome that too by negotiating with Hanano-chan and making her our new teammate. She’s a cute one, so I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to add her to my collection. Our four-girl structure will not be broken. Hee hee. Violence, starvation, sleep deprivation, itching, disgust, panic – there are any number of ways to remove someone’s will from their body. I can’t wait to see her cute attempts at resistance.”

Ibotanokikouji Kaede kept going. She was not done speaking yet.

“A life for a life. That makes us even, doesn’t it?”

===Part 12===

The city was full of life that Tanabata night.

Colorful light decorated the night sky as fireworks were launched from somewhere.

The meteor shower would apparently be visible soon.

But Item returned straight to their hideout without speaking a word.

Their group of five was incomplete.

They knew that, but there was nothing they could do right away.

“Mugino…”

Takitsubo started to say something, but she stopped.

There was no need to say it out loud.

Mugino had decided it would be safest to give that girl a role so she could escape first with Takitsubo. This was the result. Did everything always have to backfire in the dark side?

The weakest link would always be targeted and bitten off first.

And no matter what their intentions, their wounds and exhaustion were just as real. If they had stayed in the library, they would have been captured too. They had also lost sight of their initial objective, so Mugino and the other three had been forced to return home.

A symbol of a certain girl’s presence could be found in the Fifteen Bells apartment. The bamboo that Frenda had forcibly stuck inside a moth orchid pot had a certain tanzaku blowing in the air conditioning.

''I want to be a part of Item! A useful part!!

''Please let me find some way to make myself worthwhile to them as thanks for taking me in.

:::''-Hanano Choubi

There was nothing else.

Only silence.

Even the violent Level 5 simply stared at the tanzaku for a while, not speaking a word.

Kinuhata and Frenda didn’t dare speak to the silent tyrant. They sensed a much greater rejection in this than in an enraged outburst.

“Mugino.”

But the track suit girl did quietly call out to her.

And with real force behind her voice.

Takitsubo had been with Mugino the longest, so she had to understand that girl’s violence better than anyone. But that was exactly why only she could safely pass between the countless landmines laid out there.

This was something that Mugino would never, ever say.

But it would reward the foolishly honest and kind newcomer who had arrived to bolster the team’s numbers and had faithfully protected Takitsubo from this dark world.

“This isn’t over yet. We can still rescue Hanano from that fake Item.”

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