Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item7 Prologue

The past can act as a weapon.

Particularly in this darkness.

==Prologue: The Academy City Bomber==

October 25.

In the dead of night.

The job was a simple one.

''An elimination.

Needless to say, the target was some piece of shit who ''couldn’t even'' follow the dark side’s rules. This wasn’t some poor innocent person, so they could relax and just have fun.

Which meant Battle Freak Mugino Shizuri had some other reason for being so irritated.

“This job is a race? Are you kidding me, Voice on the Phone!?”

“Whether it works or not, preparing for a kill comes with a risk of getting caught, so you had super better not be saying we don’t get paid if this doesn’t work out.”

Kinuhata Saiai was trying to sound like the responsible type, but she wasn’t actually the type to assess the risk herself like that. She generally went along on a job because the older girls were doing it. Despite appearances, she was the puppy type deep down.

Track suit girl Takitsubo Rikou hugged Kinuhata’s small body from behind for a bit of warmth.

“Is Frenda not coming? It’s past meetup time.”

“Let’s hope she didn’t run on ahead and get herself killed. She might’ve heard this job was a race and mistakenly assumed she would get the full reward herself if she killed the target alone.”

The irritated way Mugino said it didn’t make it sound like a joke.

On the dark side, it wasn’t unusual for people to just ''wind up dead'' for no real reason. In this world, you weren’t killed because of some critical mistake – you died because you failed to take sufficient precautions.

Mugino sighed and walked into the shadows.

Takitsubo and Kinuhata simply followed after their leader.

“No point in waiting for someone who’s this late. Let’s do it ourselves and then eat some nice food with that idiot’s late fee. Remind me: who’s our target?”

“Fuwaku Genyou. His specialty is pushing people toward death by loading them down with debt, making their significant other break up with them, eliminating any trust anyone had in them, etc. But he seems to have taken it too far and angered someone near the top. He’s apparently been killing a lot of ordinary people that weren’t part of his job.”

“Right, he’s the expert at pushing someone toward suicide without ever approaching them directly. In super other words, he’s an assassin who leaves no sign of foul play.”

“Everyone has their own limit, so he must spend more time gathering information than on actually guiding the target toward suicide. I don’t know how he gathers the personal information the target leaves scattered around where they live their lives, but he must create a detailed profile before pulling the trigger.”

If a psychiatrist was drawing up the plans for perfect crimes, then the world really was going to hell.

Although the dark side did view that kind of sanctuary as a blind spot to be exploited.

Mugino cut across the shadows.

“What do we need to watch out for?”

“Fuwaku Genyou will launch whatever kind of attack will work best on his target’s firmware, but he tends to use fire to cause enough financial pressure to push the target toward suicide. There have to be other ways to cause debt, but he has a strong tendency to ''make the target'' accidentally start a fire in their home or shop even when it isn’t necessary.”

“Why is Bomber-senpai super not here for this of all jobs? …And can you and those big boobs get off me already!?”

Kinuhata struggled and slipped out of Takitsubo’s arms.

Just like with summer homework, disposing of old clothing you don’t wear anymore, and cleaning the sink’s gross drain, it was tempting to procrastinate with an annoying job, but putting off a dark side job would only make it more annoying. It was best to nip those problems in the bud.

An intellectual psychiatrist must not have excited her battle freak blood because Item’s leader already looked bored.

“Takitsubo.”

“My research is complete.”

Villains’ strongholds – like the one they were on the way to attack – generally had certain traits in common.



1. The villain would be living there, so it had to be decently comfortable.

2. It had to be too well hidden for enemies to easily discover.

3. It had to be replaceable so it could be abandoned at a moment’s notice.

4. Any armor or traps were meant to buy enough time to make a safe escape.



However, there were individual differences in these conditions. There were cases like Item where they would intentionally choose clean luxury property because no one would expect a villain to be living there, but there were also villains who preferred to live in cardboard houses that were easily disposable.

They arrived in District 2, which specialized in cars, explosives, and military weapons.

Mugino looked out across the dark night.

“The remains of a vegetable ethanol supply plant? It’s a large place with plenty of buildings, but why would you choose an abandoned building overrun with weeds? Do they not find it dreary?”

“Mugino, everyone has their own ideal home. That hacker you killed before had stolen 1.5 trillion yen in crypto-assets from the military-industrial complex, yet he was living in the bathroom of a half-collapsed abandon apartment building. Based on the weird idea that he felt most at ease when everything he needed for life was within arm’s reach.”

This one seemed to be the type who found peace of mind in having plenty of cover to hide behind and countless exits to choose from. Did he play airsoft or online FPS matches for fun?

The place was huge and entirely abandoned.

A few boxy concrete buildings and several cylindrical tanks created a labyrinthine structure. There were chain-link fences set up on the grounds, but those had collapsed in places.

Takitsubo, as expressionless as ever, tugged on Mugino’s coat.

“Mugino, be careful when you use your power.”

“Huh? I know this place is for making fuel, but isn’t it abandoned?”

“It should be, but look.”

Takitsubo expressionlessly pointed at a metal pipe thicker around than her arm. Specifically, at the round meter sticking out from it.

The needle was all the way over at max.

It had not rusted in place that way. The tip of the needle was quivering even now.

“Did that idiot fill it with ethanol?”

“I don’t know why they would, but carelessly firing through the tanks or pipes here could trigger a big explosion. In addition to filling tanker trucks, it looks like the pipes connect directly to the large factory. If those are all full, there will be a lot of it.”

Could this be Fuwaku Genyou’s way of ensuring his safety?

It did make less precise attacks more difficult, but if an idiot with less tact launched an attack, the one who had set up the trap would be the first one caught in the explosion that turned the whole place into a burning crater.

“In that sense, this battlefield might be best suited for Kinuhata. Her nitrogen wall isn’t inflammable.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve super made your point.”

If she did nothing, Mugino would take the lead, so Kinuhata consciously stepped out ahead. When there was a risk of traps or ambush, it was best for her and her Offense Armor shield to stand out front.

But their tracker discovered something first.

As soon as Kinuhata stepped out into an open space – probably a parking lot for large tanker trucks and other work trucks – Takitsubo pointed past her shoulder with no change of expression.

“Mugino. There’s a body over there.”

“?”

Dead bodies had no presence to them, so Mugino was slow to react in the shadows.

“Did someone get the target ahead of us!?”

“No, that’s a young girl’s body. It isn’t Fuwaku Genyou. It looks like she used knives. There are a variety of blades scattered around her.”

Mugino had briefly wondered if it was Frenda, but apparently not.

Frenda Seivelun used bombs and martial arts, but she was no knife freak.

“Scattered, huh? A combat expert would only need their familiar weapon and a spare just in case. Even small knives weigh you down if you carry enough of them. Carrying a ton of them sounds amateurish to me.”

“There is a small button on the grip, so they may be the type to launch out using springs.”

“Did she think that looked cool after seeing it in a cheap movie? That works as insurance when you’re cornered, not as a main weapon that gets regular use. A gimmick knife like that has small moving parts that make them fragile, so even daily maintenance will gradually wear them out.”

“Super who do you think you are badmouthing the holy action movie?”

But if that wasn’t their target or Frenda, then who was it?

Some complete stranger had died here.

“In that case…''could it be a super colleague''?”

Tension ran through them.

Kinuhata immediately shoved Takitsubo behind a concrete wall, but that delayed Kinuhata’s own movement. Her small body was blasted several meters straight back. By a point impact. If Offense Armor wasn’t enough to suppress it, it had to be quite high caliber. The term “anti-tank” and the number “12.7mm” flashed through Mugino’s mind.

There was no gunshot. But the hit produced a sharp sound of impact like someone slamming their palm down against a tatami mat.

Takitsubo called out with her navel showing after her clothing pulled up while falling back behind cover. The coat wrapped around her waist had gotten tangled up, making her even more of a mess.

“Kinuhata.”

“…I’m super alive…”

“Reacting out in the open will get you shot again, so play dead there.”

“Then super don’t talk to me, you airhead!”

That said, their opponent seemed mildly surprised at failing to finish them off in a single shot.

A piece of asphalt flew near Mugino’s feet.

Leaving a bullet hole.

The aim clearly wasn’t as accurate as before.

Mugino reflexively moved to hide behind the closest cover before realizing it was a thick fuel pipe and clicking her tongue. She changed course for a rusty old truck, but there was no guarantee that wouldn’t explode either.

Orange sparks sharply scattered.

From the rear of the truck.

Right near the fuel tank. They still hadn’t heard anything like a gunshot, but…

(They must be at least 500m away. They might not even be on the plant’s grounds.)

“Oh, hell! Why does that jack-of-all-trades Frenda have to missing precisely when we could really use her help!?”

Mugino made call after call from behind cover until the idiot in question finally answered.

“Sorryyy, my hair just won’t set today. In the end, curly hair like mine tends to explode when it’s humid. Argh, I fix it and fix it, but it still springs back out.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m not kidding. It’s a big deal for the Academy City Bomber. Ow! How did this electric fuse get in my messy hair? I can’t make sure everything’s safe, so I really can’t go on a mission right now.”

Was Frenda taking advantage of the fact that she couldn’t be physically grabbed over the phone? But Mugino was adding a mental tally mark in the death column for this.

Anyway, Fuwaku Genyou was known for psychologically pushing people toward suicide without ever making a physical appearance, so it seemed unlikely he would be directly wielding a toy like a sniper rifle. His job had failed ''from the moment it could be perceived as a crime.

Damn that Voice on the Phone. This was why making it a race was a problem.

Their target wasn’t the only threat. Now they were stuck in a fight against some other dark side assassin!

In addition to the knives of various sizes strewn across the asphalt, Mugino noted an AED and a gas-operated injector resembling a handgun. If the abbreviation on the label was accurate, it contained adrenaline for the heart.

Mugino frowned.

(Is that the Looper who was killed? The one who feels serial killers get off easy with a single execution so they kill the killer and resuscitate them enough times to match their kill count plus one?)

That meant they were an engineer. This was the problem with these races. There were many different kinds of dark side specialist. When the ones who didn’t directly specialize in killing appeared on the front line with bullets and high-level esper powers whizzing by, their fate was all but sealed.

“The shot was from a good distance away.”

Takitsubo tilted her head and held a finger to her lips while observing the corpse from behind cover. She was analyzing it based on the direction the body had fallen, the amount of blood splattered on the hard ground, and so on. There had to be a lot more she wanted to investigate as a tracker, but she couldn’t approach the body and crouch down out in the open.

“I would estimate between 600 and 800 meters. The shooter must be using a fairly heavy bullet to aim accurately at that range. The bullet did not remain in the body, so it’s probably embedded in the ground to the northeast.”

“S-so is it a sniper?”

Kinuhata frowned while lying on the ground.

That was a type of criminal not found in Item.

…However, this was all just an estimation.

Using the bullet hole – that is, the marks the bullet left in the ground or human flesh – to determine the distance and direction of the shooter was a standard sniper countermeasure, but ''if the sniper wasn’t using lead or gunpowder'', the general-use data wouldn’t apply. And that kind of personal research project was far from uncommon with the dark side.

Mugino quietly moved from behind the rusted truck to the wall of the parking lot’s small guardroom, regrouping with Takitsubo who had moved there from her own cover.

They pressed their shoulders together, feeling each other’s warmth.

Mugino saw this as a bad sign. Her instincts told of danger. Anything that calmed her nerves regardless of the situation she found herself in could easily cost her her life in the middle of an illicit dark side job.

“Why would the bullet be embedded in the ground?”

“There are too many pipes here to get a horizontal line of fire. At this distance, they would need to shoot down from above.”

That analysis had to be accurate, but Takitsubo sounded skeptical.

“But the body had more than one wound. The flesh was torn away in areas nowhere near her vitals. I can’t imagine the sniper would hit her in the leg when aiming for her head or heart.”

“Look at the skin. See how the edges of the gruesome wounds are red and swollen? That’s a vital reaction. In other words, she was alive when she received those wounds. Shooting a dead body won’t cause any swelling.”

“So the sniper tormented her, blasting away as much of her body as possible without killing her…and then finally delivered the killing shot? With anti-tank bullets? Then are they the type to turn killing into a game?”

“A wasteful freak like that should have a lot of openings.”

“On the other hand, people who don’t operate on logic can be weirdly persistent, which can be a pain to deal with.”

A night breeze blew in, blowing through Mugino’s hair.

That may have been why she heard it.

The charming sound was reminiscent of the rustling of a woman’s dress.

And a moment later…



“''It’s no use.''”



They heard a voice.

It had definitely come from a mere five meters ahead. Mugino sprang into action, turning toward the female voice.

There was no one there.

And this was the wide-open remains of a parking lot. There was nowhere someone could even hide there!

And yet…

“Bh!?”

Just as Kinuhata was attempting a recovery, she was blasted backwards again. There was no gunshot. Yet the Level 4 was toppled backwards even though her Offense Armor could stop a handgun or submachine gun shot from head on. It made the same tatami-slapping sound of impact as before. She had been hit by a large caliber weapon.

(It must really be a 12.7mm anti-tank rifle, or something even bigger. Should we assume a vehicle-mounted 20mm autocannon?)

“Kinuhata.”

“No, Takitsubo!!”

Mugino snatched the wrist of the track suit girl who reflexively tried to run over and then pressed against the closest cover. Kinuhata weakly waved a hand from where she was lying out in the open. So she was at least still alive.



“''Did you think that would hide you? You don’t even know where I am.''”



Again, that voice by her ear.

Wait, by her ear? It was even closer than the previous 5m.

Before even turning around, Mugino aimed with her right palm and released Meltdowner. The night air was scorched and the concrete ground melted orange, but that was all. She didn’t sense any lives taken.

“Kh.”

And Takitsubo Rikou gulped.

''It’s no use.

She recognized that phrase. She also recognized the MO of a professional sniper wasting shots to slowly kill their target. There was only one person to whom both of those applied.



Yumiya Rakko.



She recognized those traits because that girl had been a target ''candidate'' who the Voice on the Phone had once asked them to assassinate, but Takitsubo had single-handedly refused the job because they had too little data on her. She didn’t know what the girl had done to anger the higher ups, but she was likely protected by a system different from Item if her data was kept so secret. So for better or for worse, she had real skill.

(It would probably be best not to use her name.)

Takitsubo quietly looked to the side of Mugino’s face as she glared into the distance.

(Knowing her name could easily cause a battle freak like Mugino to get obsessed with her. And Mugino isn’t the best against tricky types like this.)

Kinuhata, who should have been the safest one thanks to the thick wall of nitrogen surrounding her body, was still down and asked a flabbergasted question.

“Sh-she’s that close and we still can’t see her? Cough, super how the hell!? Is she hiding behind a big shield covered with meta-material?”

The fact that the technology itself existed made these things more complicated.

The world really was going to hell if the tech used to make sparkly children’s stickers was being used to develop military weaponry.

“Tch.”

Firing deadly Meltdowner blasts into empty air failed to get the sniper to act rashly. An expert sniper would know just how important targeting, aiming, and accuracy were. An attack that missed couldn’t do any damage, so blindly scattered blasts weren’t anything to fear.

…An expert at hiding her presence was approaching them using strange invisibility tech. Step by silent step.

Wielding an unidentified large-caliber sniper rifle.

They were at greater risk than if they had been plopped down in the center of a massive minefield.

“Wh- bweh, what do we do about this? I can’t shield Takitsubo-san with Offense Armor if I don’t know where the enemy is…”

“…”

“Retreat is always an option. This is an abandoned plant, remember? We can get out of here and then bring the entire place down from a distance. Mugino’s Meltdowner can do that! So…”

“She isn’t here,” declared Takitsubo.

Kinuhata, covered in a cold sweat, didn’t understand.

“Huh? But, she’s super-”

There was a rustling sound.

With no change in expression, the track suit girl had pulled something out from the weeds.

It was smaller than a waitress’s tray.

“''Is that a six-wheel drone?''”

Mugino quietly narrowed her eyes and Takitsubo nodded.

“Carrying a special parametric speaker. I would guess we are surrounded by three or four of them.”

This wasn’t all that unusual in Academy City.

Takitsubo explained while holding the drone to her chest.

“''Nonlinear acoustics.'' Multiple sound waves beyond the audible range collide at a single point to greatly change the wavelength in that one point, making it audible. It’s a technology used to create a voice whispering in your ear without anyone nearby. The acoustic equipment in the high-tech haunted houses of District 6’s amusement parks use it. The sniper didn’t approach us without being seen. She intentionally created sounds to make it sound that way: footsteps, breaths, rustling clothing, her voice… Meanwhile, she’s targeting us from safety much further back. If we try to flee from the pressure of the ‘invisible sniper’ right in front of us, we would be letting the real sniper guide us into a more vulnerable position. It would drive us out from behind cover where we’re safe.”

Who was this sniper? Mugino frowned. If she didn’t have a spotter or even a hound and was resorting to tricks using her own voice, she may have been quite the loner of a girl.

“Where exactly is she?”

“The opposite of the direction Kinuhata flew. At a distance of 750 meters. She can hide the gunshot and the launch direction, but the bullet’s kinetic energy tells the truth. And thanks to Kinuhata using her power to hold the bullet back, I can confirm the crushed bullet is made from tungsten alloy. Knowing the relative density is enough to calculate out the rest.”

Mugino aimed her palm to the south-southwest.

A bight beam shot out and her long skirt flapped around her legs.

It didn’t matter that the plant was full of vegetable ethanol. The ultra-hot bundle of electron beams was blasted diagonally upwards, grazing the thick pipe overhead. It was targeted at the point where the large, dark shadows of a cylindrical tank and a boxy concrete building intersected.

As soon as it was launched, there was a change in the air.

“I was hoping she would attack after we located her.”

“She must be the kind of sniper who immediately retreats. Her presence is gone.”

Takitsubo was in top form if she could accurately sense a presence at a distance of 750m.

Item would ordinarily hunt down and kill a colleague who bared her fangs against them, but this sniper was not the target of this job. Plus, the interference was blatantly the Voice on the Phone’s fault. It would be foolish indeed to let a valuable target escape while they chased after someone worth nothing dead.

“Kinuhata, can you get up? Fuwaku Genyou is our priority now. If you can move, then get searching.”

“Bweh. He’s the type that likes to have a lot of exits, right? After all that super noise, won’t he have already made his getaway?”

If that had happened, then they just had to search for clues where the target had gone and pursue him.

Mugino grabbed Kinuhata’s hand and helped her to her feet before walking across the parking lot full of trucks. Making her way toward the largest concrete building.

“Either way, I’m betting all these buildings are connected underground.”

“Hm? Super why would they bother?”

“Kinuhata, they wouldn’t want to be trapped in case of fire. Both as an escape route and as an explosion-resistant shelter, the company would want to develop underground. And they’re free to dig into their own land.”

Had Fuwaku Genyou wanted a labyrinth like that as a hideout?

The way ahead was pitch dark, covered in dreary concrete, and provided plenty of places to hide.

“What’s the super right answer in a case like this? Turn on our lights to look out for traps and ambushes? Or continue in the dark to avoid giving away our position?”

A dull “vrum!” sounded.

Mugino held multiple orbs of light in front of her.

That provided a light source and the Meltdowner shield could burn through any projectiles launched from the shadows.

She smoothly walked into the darkness.

Takitsubo hid behind Mugino’s back and pulled a pair of sunglasses from her pocket. They clashed terribly with the gentle blank-faced girl’s look.

“Super what are you doing? It’s pitch black down here.”

“Kinuhata. This is the enemy’s home turf.”

Kinuhata’s exasperated question received a serious response from the busty track suit girl.

“The lights being off doesn’t prove the power is out. If he turns all the lights on after our eyes adjust to the dark, it will blind us, so it’s safer to have one of us ready in case that happens.”

“…”

This was a serious threat to their lives.

Of course, the power might actually be out and preparing for every single hypothetical you could think up would simply leave you unable to do anything at all. There was no absolute right answer. Ultimately, you just had to trust your own instincts.

They peeked inside a few rooms in the labyrinthine underground space.

Each one was probably necessary in the manufacturing of ethanol fuel, but Mugino and Kinuhata couldn’t say what the rooms did. Only Takitsubo nodded in apparent understanding.

As they continued to find no sign of the enemy or any new information, the lack of stimuli caused their attention to flag. To refocus their minds, Mugino kicked lightly at Kinuhata’s calf as they walked and Kinuhata retaliated with a light punch to Mugino’s flank. Each time those fighters began flirting, Takitsubo drew their attention by poking them in the back. She discovered touching their bra hook was the most effective method.

Looking further down the passageway, they saw a door that looked different from the rest.

Located next to it was a stairway leading up. That room was positioned so anyone inside could immediately head outside.

It was likely the guardroom.

Takitsubo did not call Mugino’s name.

She signaled her with finger signs instead.

(Why do I sense someone inside? He should already have fled after all that noise.)

Unexpected prizes were rarely a pleasant thing on the dark side.

You could never survive in this world without suspecting anything that felt out of place.

If another colleague with the same target was lurking there, Mugino only needed to fire Meltdowner through the door, but she didn’t know that was who this was. In the worst case, it could be an ordinary person who lost their job and was searching for a new home, or even an innocent schoolgirl who had come here as a test of courage. Especially during ''an event like this''.

So Mugino and Kinuhata exchanged a glance, nodded, and kicked down the door despite the risks.

There were no rows of LCD monitors or even any desks and chairs. The abandoned guardroom only had the steel racks for monitors sitting empty.

Someone was leaning against the dusty racks.

“Fuwaku Genyou,” whispered Takitsubo as if seeking confirmation. “This is the expert assassin who uses suicide as a weapon.”

If this was the right person, then they could kill him.

To him, this was a strange intruder calling his name. Anyone who had spent any time at all on the dark side would know this was a life or death situation.

Yet he was slow to react.

“Ah, ahh…”

“?”

“Agh, bh.”

Mugino frowned in confusion.



A series of wet rupturing sounds burst out.



By the time he had collapsed to the floor, he wasn’t even human shaped anymore.

It felt a lot like a giant human-shaped water balloon had popped, sending the liquid within – the red liquid – cascading down.

This was probably a form of explosion.

Although from the outside it looked like all his blood vessels had boiled, all his skin had bubbled up, and he had exploded from within.

And Mugino wasn’t the type to flinch from gruesome corpses.

(Was it a liquefied explosive? More than 60% of the human body is water, so did someone have it permeate his cell fluid so they could detonate his entire body?)

It wouldn’t be impossible if you sprayed him with a highly flammable chemical.

It was an unusually cruel method of killing even for an explosive death. The death would be instantaneous either way, so it didn’t add any extra fear or pain for the victim. Why bother going to the trouble?

It was such poor taste.

Mugino held her phone to her ear.

“Frenda? …Was this your doing?”

“In the end, was what my doing?”

Apparently not.

It probably wasn’t the earlier sniper returning either. This was too different a type of death.

“Hello, hello.”

The voice was exceptionally cheerful. It didn’t seem mechanically altered either. An artificial voice had likely been created from samples, allowing an electronic device to read the desired text.

There was no human presence here anymore.

The three Item members were the only people in the cramped guardroom.

“I do apologize, Item, but this was a race. So I went ahead and took out the target.”

It wasn’t on the steel racks. Something was attached to the wall.

A tablet.

A rectangular light began to flash in the darkness to draw their attention.

Although it didn’t display a face or anything quite that obvious.

“…Who are you?”

“''The Academy City Bomber.''”

That response did not come from Frenda Seivelun.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who called herself that.

What a dangerous world this was.

“Hee hee. It’s called oshikatsu. Oshikatsu. Frenda Seivelun, in the end I’m your biggest fan☆ Ha ha. How was my impression?”

“Wait, but…”

“(Mugino, we gain nothing by pointing that out.)”

Takitsubo silently placed a hand over Mugino’s mouth.

Why in the world wasn’t Frenda here today of all days?

If the mysterious bomber found out after preparing all this, they might just cry.

“To be honest, I’m really not interested in the reward. Frenda Seivelun, I just wanted some way of grabbing your attention. So, well, consider this my way of introducing myself.”

“Mugino, Kinuhata.”

“''This is no more than an introduction. You’re my idol. There is so much I want to discuss with you, so let’s get in touch! Fwah ha ha! So, in the end, you’re gonna have a hard time getting rid of me''☆”

“Run. As fast as you can.”

Item charged out of the guardroom without hearing the bomber’s preview through to the end.

A moment later…



The entire building exploded.

The grounds of the vegetable ethanol supply plant were blown away at 7000m/s.

===Between the Lines 1===

“Quarterback, huh? They’re that North American biker gang, right?”



This carefree question was asked by an elderly man in a pricey Italian suit.

The bouquet he held naturally hid a shotgun.

He was the Mugino Family head.

…Stories of gangs and mafias causing trouble had become common of late. The Mugino Family was officially a grain production company that filled the stomachs of 1.4 billion people worldwide, but they were secretly a multinational gang with hundreds of thousands of soldiers in countries around the globe. The entire world was their turf, so they were busy getting involved in conflicts all over and putting out those fires.

So this may have been one such case.

As usual, Butler Mujinayama stood perfectly straight by his side.

“To be more precise, they hail from Texas.”

“Why the quiet smugness? Texas is huge, so even that’s not all that precise. It’s the second most populous state in America. C’mon, apologize to Texas.”

The old butler wasn’t listening.

“Our advance information has proven accurate. The police and media show no sign of acting. I managed to get a reporter from a small paper to speak using a bribe and it turns out the embassy is applying pressure. So much that even a lawless freelancer is feeling it.”

“Ha ha ha. That explains why Detective Sobasaka-chan was making such a fuss.”

The quality of reporters varied wildly and the freelancer in question here was the lowest of perverts who flaunted a media business card while spending all his time secretly recording the moans coming from love hotels and apartments owned by the rich. In all likelihood, grabbing him by the collar and giving him a good shaking would have been enough to get the information for free, but the tuxedo-wearing butler had standards.

“They’re a biker gang. And one that rides around with shotguns and submachine guns. That unconventional president doesn’t need an illegal group like that. If he needs any unspeakable killing done, he has plenty of official channels for it, like calling in those berets or the delta whatevers who are straight out of an FPS game.”

“According to Ooumigarasu’s intelligence, this has nothing to do with the administration. It seems more likely that an embassy worker is being threatened over something personal.”

This wasn’t isolated to the one embassy. In every country that biker gang visited, they would target whatever embassy had the most influence there and find a worker with a guilty conscience. And before arriving in the country, they would personally threaten that worker the same way a normal person would book a hotel room online. This allowed Quarterback to travel the world, spreading mayhem as they pleased without ever being arrested.

“And that’s why no one shows up when they cause such a scene here? Isn’t Tokyo supposed to be the capital of Japan?”



There was a clattering sound.



A steel beam still caught in what used to be a ceiling had fallen.

The place looked like a squashed cake box.

Or like a bombed building seen on a news site.

Nothing remained to help one imagine it used to be a small family-run motorcycle shop.

The only things left were a pile of scorched rubble and a boy who happened to escape unharmed because he was at his elementary school when the crime was committed. He was still a small child. If he exercised daily, watched his salt intake, and otherwise took care of his health, he could live for around a hundred more years, yet the light of hope had vanished from his eyes. His motionless head was tilted at an angle. His body was unharmed, but only his body. So that was no guarantee of happiness.

The elderly man slowly narrowed his eyes.

(They barge in as they like, steal what they like, and destroy what they like.)

Based on the bullet holes left in the partially-collapsed walls and the floor, the ruffians had used 12-gauge shotguns and .45 caliber submachine guns. In fact, they hadn’t even collected their empty cartridges or shot shells. Did the signs of explosions mean they had used grenades too? The building’s collapse was due to them ''having fun'' by spraying around the acetylene gas used for welding in motorcycle repair and customization.

They probably hadn’t worried about fingerprints or hairs either. Someone’s discarded gum had been melted to the burnt and battered floor. For a normal criminal, that would be devastating material evidence.

“They’re so sure of their safety.”

They could do all this with no fear. The police didn’t show up and close off the crime scene and the media didn’t rush in and report on the crime. The villains protected by a greater authority could send bullets raining down on whoever they liked.

They had no set goal. They would do what they liked as much as they liked until they felt like moving on to another country or region. They had repeated the pattern for at least five countries now. While saying they were going to circle the globe trashing every single developed nation.

So there was no way of knowing who they would target next.

It didn’t matter if someone was at work or eating a meal at the time. It happened whether they were at home or at school.

Out of the blue, some happy person would end up like ''this''.

“What are you going to do?”

The Mugino Family head kneeled in front of the lone boy.

He lowered himself to the boy’s eye level.

“Rushing to the hospital and praying for a successful surgery is one option. You could also begin a new life living with a relative or friend.”

“…”

The boy didn’t nod his head at either option presented to him.

Nothing he did would lead to those people’s arrest.

He could shout and scream, but the police wouldn’t show up and no one would help him.

He had the eyes of someone who had everything incinerated by unreasonable brutality.

The elderly man sighed softly.

He knew that look far, far, farrr too well. Anyone up to their necks in this world would.

Unpleasantly so.

He made another suggestion with a resigned air.

“''Then do you want to hunt down those villains with us''?”

For the first time, the boy reacted.

“That is one option, but it’s entirely meaningless. I don’t recommend it. Slaughtering them all will not improve your parents’ situation undergoing surgery in the hospital. It won’t fix your broken shop or bring back the stolen motorcycles. It accomplishes nothing. Revenge is meaningless. …The most it lets you do is spit on a pile of their bodies.”

“I don’t care…about the bikes.”

The boy sniffled his nose.

But he still managed to wipe away his tears and face forward.

He stared straight into the Mugino Family head’s face with rage and hatred in his eyes.

“I have to get back at them. So I’ll do it! That way this will never happen again and mom and dad can head home from the hospital without worrying. I won’t just ask you to do it. I’ll join you!!”

A dull, quiet sound followed.

It came from the Mugino Family head’s fist striking the small boy in the solar plexus.

There was no scream.

The elderly man had a shocking amount of experience in swiftly knocking people unconscious.

…Because he kept ending up in situations where ''this sort of thing'' was necessary.

His diorama hobby may have been a way of showing off that he could do things other than ''this sort of thing''. He enjoyed his peaceful time engrossing himself in that hobby, but deep down it was probably acted as a downer for him.

But he had only built up his skill in ''this sort of thing'' because it was necessary.

Because even if it was evil, criminal, and wrong…it could lead to this sort of hope.

“You won’t just ask us to do it? You’ll join us?”

The elderly man caught the young body and lay him down on the floor.

That was enough.

Hearing those words was plenty for him.

This boy should not stain his small hands with blood. The Mugino Family wouldn’t allow it. This boy shouldn’t sacrifice his 100 years’ of life in the name of death and crime ''just because of'' this obvious misfortune and tragedy. His life was precious. He shouldn’t throw it away because he felt he had no choice. That was unacceptable. The Mugino Family preserved its hidden side so it could deal with ''this sort of thing''.

They kept an eye on every level of human society, picked up on the voices being silenced in some corner of the world, and completed the jobs that the good and the just couldn’t do because they were bound by their own rules.

Butler Mujinayama sighed softly.

“Isn’t it fairly cruel to draw out his resolve and then reject it?”

“Don’t be stupid. If we went along with his selfish desire, this boy would become a friend of organized crime. He wouldn’t be able to open a bank account, sign a phone contract, find a job, rent a room, or get a passport. He might think that’s what he wants now, but life is long. We need to give him a path toward a brighter future.”

So this kind of job was handled by the ''specialists'' who were already unclean.

Besides, it wouldn’t be fair if only one side were pros.

This battle had to be fought by people who knew how it was done.

Isn’t that right, Quarterback?

I’m not forgetting that name.

“Can we track them?”

“They have done nothing to cover their tracks.”

“Then gather three or four teams. After they caused this much of a mess, it wouldn’t be any fun if we went all out from the start and they died immediately. Balance things out so those idiots can survive long enough to suffer. Use the ''usual pattern'' for punishment: give them a glimpse of hope before sending them plummeting to the deepest depths. I want to hear a chorus of that hysterical joke: ‘I’m sorry. My entire life was one big mistake.’ ”

“Do you need a director? Torture specialist Kusarihebi is in Argentina right now.”

“No need. I’ll plan it out myself. They seem to like attention, so I’ll break every breakable part of them and turn them into the kind of mutilated corpse that will go down in criminal history. I’ll teach those troublesome tourists all about the Japanese culture of ikezukuri. Using this ''bouquet''.”

“And the embassy worker? I suppose that goes without saying.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if we went all out from the start and they died immediately☆ …And by the end, there will be no exceptions. No matter where in human society they might try to hide, the great Spaceship Earth is a limited piece of land floating in the vacuum of space. Drag out every last person who played a role in this ridiculous affair.”

The Mugino Family did not call themselves the good guys.

The man who led the international criminal organization did not think of himself as a decent human being.

To be blunt, he saw himself as a hopeless villain.

''But there were things even a villain like him despised.

“Everyone living a normal life is a better person than us. You hurt some of them. I hope you’re ready, Quarterback. You demonstrated all the forms of cruelty your feeble minds could think of. Did you think the protection of a greater authority would keep you safe? Did you think you could do as you liked with no risk whatsoever? To be honest, small-time fools like you are the kind of criminal I hate most.”

“Good grief. The thing you hate most changes by the week. Or by the day sometimes.”

“Don’t make it sound like a cheap but delicious set meal. Rankings are constantly in flux. Besides, do you think these people are worth more than bell peppers?”

“Apologize to all the bell pepper farmers out there. Right this instant. This kind of talk is unacceptable for the head of the world’s largest grain production company which fills the bellies of 1.4 billion people worldwide.”



The Mugino head exited the trashed shop with his shotgun bouquet resting on his shoulder.

With many butlers and maids following in his wake,

A true battle meant risking your life.

That was how professional jobs worked.

He had taken on this dirty job for a young child, so failure was not an option.



“This is a war between organizations now. ''The King of Mugino'' is coming for you, Quarterback.”

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