Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item7 Chapter2

==Chapter 2: Inside and Outside==

===Part 1===

It was October 28.

The astronomy event continued to color Academy City.

In addition to enormous telescopes, camping tents and lanterns had been dragged out to the front of stores. Almost like unsold inventory was being slapped with a random brand label to try and get it sold. And even if they were also outdoor products, why were the fishing rods on sale too? Were you supposed to fish for the moon reflected in the lake surface?

The banners lining the streets included an advertisement for a Zodiac Temple escape room being held, but did an ancient Greek stone structure really count as astronomy?

The fuzzy boundary lines between these things may have been a feature of Academy City where the mystical and the occult had no home.

An airship floated gently through the blue sky, displaying the news on its large screen.

“Next up is today’s astronomy forecast. The Cepheus Meteor Shower has been the talk of the town, but we already have confirmation that the world space station will pass by in low orbit at the same location, obstructing any photographs or videos. However, removing that obstacle from your images with AI eliminates any academic value your photo or video might have had, so do be careful.”

A moment later, something happened with no warning whatsoever.



An explosion.



At the top floor of a multipurpose skyscraper in District 15, Academy City’s greatest shopping district.

The passersby came to a stop and looked up without much care. Some students even held their phones up.

This was someone else’s misfortune. The people who had always viewed the world through their small screens would soon have shards of glass and burning scrap metal pour down on them, leaving them writhing on the red-stained ground. Unlike the majority of people who panicked and fled indoors.

There was no longer a dividing line between the observers and the participants.

The bomber named Morning Call had truly bared their fangs now.

Mugino Shizuri herself had predicted it was Morning Call’s turn now.

They were undoubtedly targeting Item now.

And this wasn’t the first attack.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Ahh! Morning Call just blew away another of our secret bases! In the end, that’s the fifth one! Including the Cave Behind the Waterfall and the Five Star Villa!!”

“Kinu> And as soon as our luggage arrived ahead of us too. I think the Criminal Real Estate is going to get super mad and stop working with us soon. Even though we’re not the ones doing this.”



Thanks to this, Item had scattered.

Leading to a lot of activity on a social media service that didn’t leave any records, making it perfect for criminals.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> …In the end, we’re short on funds now. Should we do some part-time work?”

“Takitsubo Rikou> We have received a few job offers. As tailers and tunnelers and that sort of thing.”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Oh, a rich girl like Mugino will have a lot of experience with fine art. If she has an eye for it, maybe she could work as a stolen item appraiser?”

“Kinu> Do you super think we have time to waste on that? We have a bomber trying to kill us.”

“M> wtf why ru all typing evrything out”

“Takitsubo Rikou> The latest voice input has gotten really good, Mugino. I was wondering why you were so slow to respond, but are you typing it in by hand?”

“M> Oh, like this? Why not just call each other at this point? There’s no point in moving to another new hideout. If we end up standing out too much, it could give away Item’s existence.”



Any furniture and such they sent to a new place would only get blown up, so Item wasn’t meeting in person much lately.

Instead of setting up secret bases, they were each hiding out on their own.

The sketchy social media service now acted as the hideout linking them.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> So Morning Call isn’t even trying to hide it anymore. In the end, I miss when they were using those silent bombs.”

“M> They’ve blown up five hideouts now. Surely you’ve been able to gather some evidence by now. Do we really still need to keep running away?”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> In the end, I do know their methods now.”



A short blonde girl was standing in a part of the District 15 shopping area being redeveloped. Specifically, by an empty window on the 25th floor of a building awaiting demolition after all its offices and shops had been removed.

It was 2500m from the skyscraper with black smoke rising from it, placing it at the very edge of the district.

A large device was bolted to the concrete floor with metal spikes driven in using compressed gas. The bizarre precision machine was a bulky combination of a large stainless steel tube and a box.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> They call themselves a bomber, but they actually use a number of different methods. This time, they attacked using a stationary rocket launcher.”

“Takitsubo Rikou> Was it launched remotely?”

“M> Then just track the source of the launch signal.”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> In a giant shopping district packed full of surface antennae for phones? This isn’t a park full of weeds. They just have to send the detonation command signal from several antennae at once and I can’t tell which one they’re at.”

“Kinu> And that’s super what Morning Call is after, right?”



Exactly.

The short blonde girl had identified the launch site and rushed their as soon as Item’s hideout had been blown away by a rocket, but this was the result. The bomber wasn’t there.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> In the end, they aren’t setting up the launcher and immediately firing it. Morning Call is remotely sending the detonation signal from some safe position. So we can’t kill them by running toward the sound of the launch.”



Morning Call kept using the same trick.

If these attacks continued, it would soon become accepted fact throughout the darkness that Item was on the decline and could be safely attacked without any risk of reprisal. If things got that bad, the bomber wouldn’t even need to deliver the finishing blow. Item would be worn down by the endless supply of weaklings showing up to attack them. It was the same idea abused by “broken window manufacturers”. When idiots gathered in sufficient number, they could no longer sense the risk appropriately.

In the previous battle, Morning Call had realized it would be the height of folly to take on Item directly. So even if the bomber couldn’t deliver a single fatal blow, they could repeat this one effective attack over and over again. The bomber was wearing down Item until they made a mistake. And this would continue endlessly until that happened.



“M> I have zero intention of playing along with this silly marathon. What are we going to do about it?”

“Kinu> We aren’t going to find Morning Call by chasing after the sound of the launch, so we need to fundamentally change tack here.”

“Takitsubo Rikou> Well, we do have other options.”

===Part 2===

The room was dark.

A girl of around 15 sat inside.



Her eyes were covered as if to hide her identity in a newspaper or magazine photo, but they were being hidden by a smartphone. It was on its side and held on with rubber bands, so it appeared to function as simple VR goggles. It must have had an LCD screen on both sides because digital numbers were displayed along her eye line.

She wore a translucent raincoat. With a bikini showing through it.

Even though it was late October.

When manufacturing bombs, static electricity was the enemy.

Whether using acids or nitrogen compounds to produce explosives or soldering parts to an extremely precise semiconductor board, a single spark of static could ruin everything.

Of course, that problem could be eliminated with antistatic gloves and a raincoat, but the desire to remove as much clothing as possible while working was likely something of a jinx with no scientific foundation. They might find it silly themselves, but people would associate their past successes with meaningless habits and actions.

The girl spoke in the darkness.

“Now…I should have recovered 80% of what I lost.”

Bombs came in a variety of types and not all the processes in manufacturing them were delicate work.

At times, the bottoms of thick fire extinguisher were cut away, three of them were placed together end to end, and then welded together with a bright light.

After attaching the attitude control fins operated by servos and the cameras and sensors used for terminal guidance, the silhouette really began to take shape.

It looked just like a rocket or missile drawn on a small child’s drawing paper.

There was no real technical difference between the two.

It was a difference of use – for peaceful purposes or for killing.

“I still need more, though. I don’t have the numbers I want yet.”

After causing so many bombings that harmed plenty of ordinary people, Academy City’s higher ups weren’t going to just ignore it.

Some form of “purge” would begin soon.

The question was where that deadly weapon would be aimed.

Item was tasked with solving a variety of problems on the dark side, yet they had let Morning Call escape. And that had led to these ongoing bombings.

That meant Item was a part of this.

If Item hadn’t screwed up that night – if they hadn’t thoughtlessly provoked a dangerous bomber and then let her escape – none of this would have happened.

…By shifting the target of the hatred in that way, the bomber could easily avoid being the target of the purge.

Bombers were also experts at using bombs to manipulate individual and social psychology.

She grinned and shifted her focus to an Anti-Skill radio.

“Don’t let this be enough to trap you, my honey.”

===Part 3===

The School Garden, District 7.

Afterschool arrived just the same even for the most prestigious of schools.

It was evening.

The girls leaving the school building all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their horoscopes and planetariums were common topics of conversation, likely because of the astronomy event.

A gentle atmosphere surrounded it all.

One girl carrying a flat school bag and an instrument case was part of the same crowd, yet seemed somehow different.

Unlike the other girls who were gathered in small groups like water droplets on a window, she alone remained isolated.

She was Yumiya Rakko, a dark side sniper.

(Sighhhhhh… October is almost over. The year is coming to a close. When am I going to finally make some friends? I’m nothing but rotting garbage…)

Friendships formed naturally. A group of friends would gather around you without any conscious effort on your part.

The people who saw it that way already possessed a form of talent.

It was hard to tell because there weren’t any exams or report cards like there were for the subjects taught in school, but social skills were in fact a skill. You were never taught how to work at them or practice them, but they still influenced the quality of your school life more than anything else.

Her life was gray.

Even in this sweet-smelling school for high-class girls.

(No, no, this is an opportunity. Winter is about to start, which means winter sports! Our school has a skating rink, so if I do some figure skating and stand out beautifully twirling on the ice, I can make friends and become the center of our class, our year, and our schoo-)

“Yumiya Rakko.”

“!!”

It came out of nowhere.

She turned around in surprise to find someone already within five meters of her.

An expressionless track suit girl was leaning against the sort of brick wall found everywhere within the School Garden, staring over at Rakko. There was no anger, hatred, or any other emotion in her eyes.

(An outsider? But the School Garden is more strictly guarded than your average research lab.)

“How did you get this far inside? Did you have a mapper map it out for you? Including everything from the flow of people to the locations of the security cameras?”

“How do you think I did it?”

She remained emotionless.

Rakko decided this girl was trouble.

They were conversing, yet she couldn’t get any useful information out of her.

“Not even the dark side can get in easily. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

“…”

“The only reason I didn’t do this when Hanano was caught was because I decided the hostage would be at risk if I got too close and caused a stir. But things are different now. You have no shield, which gives me more options.”

Someone who could suppress their emotions during a deadly battle was truly dangerous.

It was highly unusual for Rakko to find she ''didn’t want to be friends with'' someone.

(Who in the world is Hanano? We are enemies. She gains nothing by letting me know the name of one of her people, so why mention that in front of me? Wait, am I caught in the middle of someone’s pursuit of revenge?)

She was already in the palm of someone’s hand.

That unpleasant sensation reached her from the track suit girl. Intensely.

“You are a dark side sniper and, because you’ve been playing around a little too much, you were fifth on this week’s list of assassination targets. Oh, I did refuse the job, so no hard feelings. I’m not here to demand anything in return for that either. I simply want the cooperation of someone from a category we lack.”

The noise of the crowd rapidly faded from around Rakko.

This was the School Garden, a special area jointly funded and constructed by five prestigious girls schools. Making an appearance here was not a good idea for a dark side member.

At least, ''not in a way that anyone would notice''.

“I don’t know who you are, but as another dark side pro you must know that our public lives are meant to act as cover but that doesn’t make them meaningless. It takes a fair amount of money and effort to maintain a safe and comfortable environment. Barging in and ruining all that…sounds like you’re asking to be killed.”

“If I couldn’t see you, I would probably be helpless.”

Tracker Takitsubo Rikou did not have any direct deadly power like Mugino. Nor did she have an unbreakable shield like Kinuhata. Ordinarily, she shouldn’t have been standing in front of a dark side sniper.

But she kept talking regardless.

“But I can see you and that changes things. As a pro you must know that a sniper’s luck has run out once her location is known. Do you really want to do this here and now?”

“I can remove myself from your sight quickly enough. Hell, I could even gouge out those silly eyes of yours to make sure you never see anything ever again.”

Takitsubo’s shoulders remained relaxed.

A quick motion of her fingers revealed she now held a glass container about the size of a tube of lipstick.

It only contained a small quantity of a clear, jelly-like substance.

The track suit girl whispered.

“Night rabbit fever.”

“…”

Rakko’s gaze sharpened further.

…That girl really was dark side through and through.

The track suit girl emotionlessly waved the glass container.

“I’ll take that to mean you’re aware that is ''a world-famous biological weapon'' that’s manufacture, storage, and use has been banned by international treaty. But this is Academy City, so it isn’t hard to get your hands on anything that can be scientifically created.”

“You’re bluffing…” quietly said Rakko.

And she focused on her uniform’s sleeve.

Her weapon used compressed gas, so it could kill that girl without making a noise.

“Compressed gas.”

“Kh.”

She saw right through it.

No…

“It can be chlorine or hydrogen peroxide, but by filling the glass container with gas to increase the pressure, even a single tiny crack will make it burst and scatter this particulate slime over a wide area. In an open outdoor space, a radius of 100m will be at risk in just a few seconds.”

Her empty hand – or the hand that had been empty – now held something.

It looked like a small perfume bottle, but its nozzle was even thinner than dried pasta. If the rubber stopper had a small safety valve, then compressed gas stored at high pressure and low temperature could be injected.

Rakko knew where all of Takitsubo’s vital points were – between the eyes, the thick arteries running from the heart to her limbs, etc. – but as easy as it would be to kill her, she couldn’t stop that glass container from shattering after it fell.

If Takitsubo was only now going to inject the compressed gas, would it be better to shatter it now?

No.

(I don’t know what’s already inside the glass container. She might have already injected the gas!)

“Like I said, you’re bluffing. The dark side might be lawless, but indiscriminately killing innocent people will still get you ''purged''.”

“I see. Are those the rules you operate under? Sounds simple enough.”

“Kh. You would be making an enemy of everyone in Academy City, dark side or not. Living as a villain takes some brains, so you wouldn’t be so reckless now!”

“Night rabbit fever’s genetic structure prevents it from spreading from person to person. Unlike the plague or the variant bird flu, the scope of the infection is easy enough to control.”

“Spreading a deadly microbe in a public location is over the line regardless! Because ''this city doesn’t actually care about people’s lives.'' You live in the darkness, so you must know it isn’t the deaths that will get you assassinated – it’s the harm you would do to Academy City’s clean brand name. So that’s only a clear gelatin or agar inside that container!!”

“''But your outside view as a sniper doesn’t give you any way of proving that convenient and optimistic speculation.''”

The corners of Rakko’s eyes twitched.

Bull’s eye.

She was a sniper, not an analyst or biologist.

And if that really was night rabbit fever, allowing the glass container to fall to the ground and shatter would cause devastating harm within the School Garden. Within ten days of infection, the victims would come down with headaches, high fevers, and ulcers across the body. Rakko had even heard of ulcers forming on the eyeballs. And this would all be happening to the peaceful princesses who were always laughing happily with a hand held elegantly over the mouth.

The risk was too great to make a gamble.

Of course, everyone would make a different choice when faced with a crisis and there was no single correct answer. They might not respond logically. Some people would make the gamble while fully aware of the risks. But that was not the type of person Rakko was.

And the other girl knew that.

(This is her first try, but she isn’t showing any hesitation at all. She’s dealing with vague ideas of psychology, yet she isn’t at all afraid of me acting on a whim. Which means it isn’t vague for her. Has she already built up a solid picture of my psychology?)

That girl really had thoroughly researched Rakko’s traits and weaknesses.

Physically speaking, Rakko could kill her three times over in a single second…but she couldn’t actually do it.

She had been checkmated before the fight even began.

Takitsubo’s eyes must have possessed a talent on par with Rakko’s as a skilled sniper.

Rakko sighed softly.

“What do you want from me? If you want me to kill some pain-in-the-ass, then you could have gone through the Voice on the Phone.”

“Oh, you have a Voice on the Phone too? Probably a different one from us, though.”

“?”

(Mine has done such a poor job of guarding my information I’ve decided to move to another team, though.)

“What I want is what’s in your head. You don’t need to do any physical work.”

What reason did Rakko have to believe that?

And then…



“Oh, hello, Yumiya-sama. How do you do? Are you on your way to the dorm?”



It came as a complete surprise.

From right next to her.

(Hawahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?)

“We were thinking of going to get some sweets together. Would you like to join us?”

A girl in the same uniform as Rakko’s had noticed her and greeted her for once.

And with the sharp senses of an information expert, the dark side tracker instantly shifted her focus in that direction.

(Ugh…but this is my chance!!)

Rakko consciously held her breath and ''smoothly'' moved all her joints. She placed the fluttering of her hair, the muscles below her skin, and the creaking of her bones under her control.

If Takitsubo looked away even for a second…

If Rakko could reach a blind spot…

Rakko could blend into the background so thoroughly not even a wild animal could detect her and never be spotted again.

Even if she was within three meters of her target.

A true sniper would have no trouble tricking a puny creature that had abandoned her instincts in the smart life of the big city.

If she could grab the wrist of the girl holding the glass container, she could fire a million bullets into her with her other hand.

(You barged into the School Garden – my territory – and even threatened the lives of my future friends, buddies, BFFs. You will pay for that crime by having bullets tear away all your excess flesh!!)

Rakko silently smiled and slid to the side.

And then she abandoned her principles.

Her voice escaped her lips.

Unintentionally.

“Ah.”

Their eyes met.

Takitsubo really had turned her head to the side. Her right eye was directed at the girl who had spoken to Rakko.

But ''at he same time''…

The track suit girl’s left eye rolled independently in its socket to pierce right into the center of Rakko’s face as she tried to vanish into the background. Like she was being pursued by a swiveling smart machinegun.

She couldn’t escape that lock.

(What…kind of world does this monster live in!?)

Item’s tracker didn’t do anything special.

She simply repeated herself.

“''Do you want to try this where I can see you''?”

“…You’ve made your point.”

Rakko then turned toward the girl who had spoken to her.

She smiled bright and bowed.

And provided a lie constructed in her head at Mach speed.

“I do apologize, Sazanami-sama. This girl was my upperclassman at my previous school and I have promised to show her around.”

“My, my. I had no idea. Some other time then. We must hang out next time, Yumiya-sama!”

Despite the disappointment in the girl’s voice, she left quickly enough. She found some other friends and joined up with them. And walked toward a sweet street lined with luxury cafes and bakeries.

Rakko breathed a deathly heavy sigh as she watched her go.

Her tiny back seemed to say not being able to join that schoolmate weighed far heavier on her than the fate of the world or her own life.

(Hawahh…)

Rakko held back the tears and turned toward Takitsubo.

Her words were dripping with hatred.

“Let’s get down to business. What do you want my help to do? You said this isn’t about blowing some pain-in-the-ass’s brains out.”

“Like I said, I want your opinion as a pro.”

“About what exactly?”

“An optimal sniping position.”

Takitsubo laid out the conditions.

“A distance of 3000-4000. Using homemade explosives, but you can think of them as roughly equivalent to a 120mm mortar. The launcher is fixed to the ground with stakes and the launch itself is controlled remotely. Thus, identifying the launch site based on the sound will not lead us to the bomber.”

“I’m going to assume tracing the source of the signal won’t work here. What else?”

“To eliminate this bomber, we need to predict where they will set up the launcher in advance. So I want your eyes and brains as a pro sniper. If we know where they will place the launcher in order to fire a rocket on our hideout, we can launch an attack of our own. Right?”

“Oh? What makes you think that?” interrupted Rakko.

Takitsubo expressionlessly tilted her head.

Eliminating Morning Call required predicting rather than reacting. That logic had to be correct. Or did Rakko think there was a way to find the bomber by reacting?

“You aren’t stupider than I could have imagined, are you?”

“Right back at you.” Rakko grinned. “Preparing a fixed rocket launcher and firing an explosive from long distance? It’s the same as mahjong tiles. ''You act like you’re looking for tiles that won’t help the enemy and discarding them to avoid playing into their hand, but you’re actually revealing everything one tile at a time.'' It’s a series of bluffs.”

“Oh, you play mahjong? You can find three other people to play with you?”

“~ ~ ~. I may be setting a new record for friendlessness each day, but I can still play all the mahjong I want alone against the computer!”

“That would explain why your idea didn’t seem much like mahjong. Did you start playing because it was one of the preinstalled games no one wants when you buy a new computer?”

“Well, I wanted it. I know it’s not the same as real mahjong played against other people, but it still gets me through the lonely nights when I want to die! When you don’t have friends, you take what you can get!!”

Why did that girl feel the need to pursue this so far?

If she understood Rakko’s psychology that well, she had to know how badly this hurt her!

Did that level of understanding not change the fact that an enemy was an enemy?

She needed to be more considerate.

“P-people find comfort in information they gather themselves. You can easily imagine the system behind it, you assume you know what will happen next, and you believe you have a complete understanding of the enemy’s mind. So it can be hard to notice that understanding was designed by the enemy and you’re following the path laid out for you. Everyone puts on an act during a serious match. (E-even if you are only playing against the program…) If you’re being misled by a mistaken reading of your opponent’s discards, you will get ron’d when you least expect it. …In fact, I hope that happens to you! Your ‘unlike you, I actually have friends’ aura pisses me off so much, you stupid friend-haver!! Sniff, wahhhhhhhh!!”

“But what would mean…”

===Part 4===

“Kinu> Can they really get away with doing all this in broad daylight…? These are technically dark side incidents, aren’t they? And it’s super being talked about on the news.”

“M> The news is calling it an accidental explosion after someone mishandled the acetylene gas being used for welding during construction. Who will think twice about seeing that on TV?”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> There aren’t any articles on the Underground News or the Death Aggregator about it, so we should still be good. In the end, dark side news showing up in places ''that shallow'' is the same as a death sentence. At the very least, it doesn’t look like the higher ups are getting after us for causing trouble.”



The short blonde girl was still in the part of District 15 being redeveloped.

By this time Anti-Skill would have worked out the launch site and be on their way, but the Academy City Bomber still hadn’t fully investigated the launcher. In case she needed to ''pay them a visit later'', she wanted to now which station’s evidence locker this stuff would be stored in.

“What a pain…”



“Kinu> What can you super learn from investigating the abandoned device? I thought we had moved past how the attack was made and onto where the remote commands are being sent from.”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Aren’t you at all curious? If they’re causing this much of a scene, they must be confident when it comes to money and influence. Morning Call might have a benefactor. Inspecting the parts can tell you a lot about a bomber, so we need to thoroughly-”

“Takitsubo Rikou> You’re in danger. Get out of there now.”



“?”

The strange interruption made the blonde girl tilt her head with her eyes still on her phone’s small screen.

People found comfort in information they gathered themselves.

But comfort designed by the enemy did not actually guarantee safety.

Academy City Bomber Morning Call only attacked using remotely-activated fixed rocket launchers.

…''But was that really true?

“!?”

There was a sound like a burner.

A 2m model airplane made of lightweight metal and plastic suddenly shot by the window. Did that qualify as a loyal wingman?

Bombs made by linking three fire extinguishers end to end were attached to its underside. Several of them were lined up side by side.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Oh, no. Was the UAV the real attack!?”

“Kinu> You mean Morning Call kept using fixed rocket launchers so we would adapt to that and leave us open to attack by a super drone?”



The short blonde girl immediately spun around and dashed toward the emergency stairs. At the exact same time, the UAV directed its nose toward her and launched several rockets in through the window.

Space itself seemed to expand as a disconcerting explosive noise filled the world.

The blonde girl literally rolled down the stairs. Causing a series of dull impacts. She continued down to the next floor with no landing at the midpoint. No gray dust poured down after her, but that was probably because the higher floor’s pillars were broken, bringing the ceiling down and fully crushing the entrance to the stairs.

(Oh, god. What happened to Anti-Skill!?)

The ceiling had only fallen near the stairs, so the blast wouldn’t have engulfed the entire floor. If it had, the skyscraper itself would have collapsed. But that was no guarantee all the Anti-Skill officers were unharmed. This criminal wasn’t one to be concerned about that.

And she didn’t have time for cursing.

She was still lying on the floor.

Her eyes met something else’s.

A dog’s.

The Siberian Husky was wearing clothing.

No, it only looked that way.

But there definitely were several colorful cords emerging from the bulletproof vest’s pocket. Those were connecting an explosive with a circuit board and a battery, they were tangled together with some trap wires, and it all formed a single loop.

This was a much older system then the detonator she had seen before.

And the old records had given a name for this weapon.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> A dog mine!?”

===Part 5===

The Academy City shopping district shook vertically.

“…Got her.”

A girl of around 15 fixed the zoom of the simple goggles made from a smartphone on its side, lifted it to her brow, and double-checked on the tablet screen resting in her lap.

She had killed her target.

“Ha ha ha. That’s all it took? I didn’t even get a chance to use my catapult bomb or my cluster bomb.”

She didn’t have any strong feelings on the matter.

This was going to happen sooner or later. It just so happened to be today.

That was all.

As with any type of criminal, there was no textbook for being a bomber. Which meant Morning Call’s bible had been Frenda Seivelun. It had taken a massive amount of effort just to learn that name. That ''Senpai'' had been like an elusive phantom. Morning Call had wanted to be like that. She had sifted through the records of past bombings, spotted the connections, used the slight remnants left at the bombing sites to estimate what kind of bomb had been used and how, and physically built the things she had constructed in her mind. She had mixed the explosive, manufactured the detonator fuse, and put together the circuit board. Mental fantasies weren’t enough to build an actual bomb, but each time she ran into a wall, she had invented her own replacements for the missing parts, filled in all the gaps, and constructed her image of Frenda Seivelun.

Whenever she was uncertain, she only had to look inside herself.

Her teacher had always answered the questions brought on by her own inadequacies.

At this point, she no longer needed to capture and bow her head to the Frenda Seivelun wandering outside. That would only hinder her now.

(Now that I’ve killed Frenda Seivelun, the remaining three hold no interest for me. Maybe I should place a bomb on a dam or industrial complex and send an anonymous threat to the higher ups. Telling them a crucial piece of infrastructure is about to go boom because Item screwed up. That should be enough to get the rest of Item purged☆)

A direct threat to the higher ups after all these high-profile bombings would be sure to make an enemy of Academy City as a whole. She would shoot to the top of the assassination list.

But Morning Call was an expert bomber.

She could easily fake her death in an explosion.

This wasn’t even the first time she had rewritten her identity to get a fresh start.

“Academy City Bomber Frenda Seivelun is no more. Now, who should I make my new Senpai?”

Morning Call started to stand up, but she heard a dull sound.

Someone was there.

Someone was peering into this room with a hand on the skyscraper’s window frame.



''It was Frenda Seivelun.



“Huh?” she said.

For a brief moment, Morning Call truly lost track of reality.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But the clock continued ticking all the same.

Frenda pulled something out from the top of her thigh high.

She tossed something over with her other hand.

More like passing a bag than sharply throwing a weapon.

Morning Call ended up following it with her eyes, but she realized a moment later what it was.

A clay-like bomb with an electric fuse attached.

She should have dived behind cover before checking what it was.

“~ ~ ~!!!!?”

===Part 6===

It exploded.

===Part 7===

“Pwah.”

A short blonde girl stood up at the site of the explosion.

She didn’t even seem fazed by the simple bomb exploding at close range.



“Takitsubo Rikou> Did Morning Call fall for our trap?”

“Kinu> You could say that.”



She reached toward the top of her head and pulled the blonde hair away.

Revealing a different girl.

“Ugh. I super thought I was going to die, even with Offense Armor.”

===Part 8===

The truth of the matter was Item had held a strategy meeting before launching their attack on Morning Call.



“M> We know for sure they’re after Frenda. So if we can keep them from doing that, their predictions will fall apart. For certain.”



They had also held this conversation before:

''“See, that nitrogen barrier of yours is far from perfect. In the end, you’re bleeding. Okay, fine.”

''“Why are you tearing a piece from your skirt? We chose that for you!”

''“I bought a few more of the same, so it’s fine. This one’s a spare.”

Which meant it wasn’t difficult to dress someone else up in ''the same clothes as Frenda.

Morning Call liked to set up a rocket launcher and then launch the explosive remotely. That meant they could ignore the possibility of being watched from close up.

By altering the details of her appearance with a fluffy blonde wig and such, someone else could pass off as Frenda from a distance.

And they had three reasons for choosing to swap out Kinuhata and Frenda.



1. Their heights were similar, making the disguise easier to pull off.

2. Offense Armor’s thick shield allowed her to survive a bomb blast, making her the safest option for a decoy.

3. Allowing the real Frenda to act freely was the perfect countermeasure against Morning Call.



While Morning Call was busy pursuing “the blonde girl”, the real Frenda was free to sneak up on them. After using her intuition as a bomber to track down Morning Call’s location, she had tossed in a clay-like bomb from close range. As payback for everything Morning Call had done.

===Part 9===

Jumping from skyscraper rooftop to rooftop, Kinuhata Saiai – blonde wig back on – spoke exasperatedly into her phone. The machine converted her voice into text.



“Kinu> She’s still on the move. I thought you super killed her in a surprise attack, Frenda-san?”

“M> Dammit, Frenda, what is this sloppy work!? If she escapes again, it’ll be Morning Call’s turn again!!”

“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> In the end, Mugino, you’d go nuts if I did kill her right away! I left a treat for your battle freak side, so close in on her already.”



She was soaring through the evening sky.

Kinuhata had something like a powered suit surrounding her thanks to Offense Armor, but not even full use of her boosted leg strength was enough to close in on Morning Call. She couldn’t catch up. That girl had to be ''boosting herself'' in some way too. Each time she swung her arms and legs, the light of an explosion flashed like the muzzle flashes of a machinegun.

(She isn’t going to super start flying is she? Using rocket technology or something.)



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Okay, I was willing to accept the rockets and drone bombing. But in the end, that dog mine was over the line. How can you blow up an innocent pup like that? Does she have no standards as a bomber!?”



A small shape flew sharply in from another direction.

Another blonde girl arrived, jumping from skyscraper rooftop to rooftop.

Frenda Seivelun.

The true Academy City Bomber.



“Perfect Cutie Frenda-tan> Hey, wait! ''When you’re me,'' you need to pay more attention to your skirt, Kinuhata! You’re flashing your underwear to the entire shopping district from way up in the air!”

“Kinu> Why would you choose to wear this frilly stuff, Frenda-san? I want to super tear this awful skirt to pieces.”



Kinuhata couldn’t wait for Frenda to catch up.

She was going to arrive sooner.

Taking in a quick breath, she clenched her right fist.

Just as Morning Call tried to change direction after noticing Frenda running in from another direction, Kinuhata took a powerful step forward.

Morning Call sensed the wind pressure and turned toward Kinuhata.

She had noticed the coming attack, but what could she do? Even if she guarded with her arms, Kinuhata’s fist would break those arms and smash her skull.

She still used no esper power. Instead of keeping it in reserve, she was probably just a Level 0.

“You damn gloomy smartypants bomber. All you’re good at is sneaking around harassing people. But you’re super mine now that you’re in punching range!!”

In the corner Kinuhata’s vision, Frenda’s mouth formed a small triangle, but Kinuhata didn’t have time to worry about any collateral damage here.

A fist boosted by Offense Armor thrust straight out. A direct hit from that killer fist could easily break through a pillar of reinforced concrete as big around as Kinuhata’s torso.

Morning Call moved to the side.

She slid aside with impossible speed, dodging Kinuhata’s boosted punch.

The sound of rubber shoe soles burning from friction arrived a moment later.

And a scent reminiscent of fireworks.

That meant it was a combination of explosives and martial arts.

(This bomber freak really is Frenda-san’s super biggest fan, isn’t she!?)

Kinuhata didn’t have time to be gasping.

By the time Kinuhata noticed Morning Call holding her palm out toward her, she had already tossed several explosives smaller than ping pong balls.

She didn’t seem afraid of being caught in the blast.

They detonated right away.

Protected by Offense Armor, Kinuhata was blasted diagonally upwards.

Takitsubo watched her flight.

Kinuhata’s small body had already flown past the edge of the skyscraper. It was only a matter of time before she was grasped by the unseen hand of gravity. She wouldn’t die when she hit the ground thanks to Offense Armor, but she would have a hard time returning to the fight anytime soon. The vertical distance was too great.

The figure that broke through the explosive smoke while ducked low was Mugino.

She already had deadly light gathered in the palms of her hands.

“They’re just bombs. Throw as many of them my way you want, my Meltdowner while blast right through them and kill you!!”

“Do you really believe that?”

Something exploded on a different building and something flew this way like a long throw in baseball. It was the thick water tank attached to that building’s rooftop. Its great mass crashed into this roof.

Mugino’s world shook.

And a mere meter in front of her…

“Uh!?”

It exploded, scattering orange-heated metal all around.

She might be the #4 Level 5 and she might be Meltdowner, but if she burned through that object, there would be radiant heat and molten metal dumped on her head.

A direct hit from that wouldn’t be enough to kill Mugino, but the only way to escape self-destructing would be to destroy the roof below her feet and jump down to the floor below.

“…”

Morning Call took a quick look around and noticed the track suit girl had vanished.

That was the tracker who couldn’t directly fight.

She must have decided standing in harm’s way here wouldn’t improve the situation for her side. Or maybe this was a plan to apply psychological pressure to Morning Call by hinting at an enemy in an unknown location. Like with a sniper or mines.

It wasn’t a bad plan, but it was far from decisive.

That left just one more.

“A pleasure to meet you, Senpai.”

“In the end, I don’t even know your name.”

“And ''I don’t actually know if Frenda Seivelun is your real name.''”

The simple goggles made from a smartphone’s LCD screen covering the girl’s face muffled her laughter.

She displayed a zero and a dash on the digital display to wink.

“Plus, names and faces don’t really matter. It all comes down to how much you can boost your own skills by reaching a deeper understanding of that person. In that sense, I don’t even need you to live in the same era as you. Plenty of researchers out there right now motivate their studies with their admiration of Newton or Einstein.”

“In the end, is that why?”

“Yes.”

The raincoat and bikini bomber nodded like a small child.

And made an announcement.

“I have absorbed plenty from Frenda Seivelun. I’ve decided I don’t need any more. Because too much of a margin of error has grown between the Senpai in my mind and the Frenda Seivelun walking out in the real world. This boring, imperfect version of you will only reduce the value of your name. Learning from you would only hinder my progress. If you will only introduce noise, I should eliminate you.”

“In the end, I’m not some perfect idol you invented in your fantasies,” spat the fluffy blonde girl, pulling several objects from her short skirt.

It came down to just two.



The Academy City Bombers.

Frenda Seivelun and Morning Call.

===Part 10===

What did it mean to use explosives?

What phenomenon was triggered by detonating a bomb?

Bombs didn’t just scatter their blast in all directions.

Properly controlled, their destructive force could be concentrated on a single point to pierce thick armor or fanned out to slaughter more soldiers in a single blast.

So detonating an explosive at close range wouldn’t necessarily kill the bomber as well.

No Academy City Bomber would let something like that happen.

Thus…

“!!”

“!?”

Frenda Seivelun and Morning Call formed afterimages when viewed by ordinary human eyes. They were simply moving that fast.

Side to side.

Both of them repeatedly and irregularly slid over short intervals, securing enough mobility to have easily dodged every bullet of a submachine gun if one were being fired from directly ahead. They used the movements of their limbs in sync with the small blasts concentrated in one direction to move at speeds beyond the limits of their muscles.

It would have been easy to use this full force to throw punches or kicks, but their own bodies would have been destroyed by the speed.

(Seeing she went out of her way to make those goggles out of a dual-side phone, I thought she was just some tasteless freak who enjoys being called Morning Call. But…)

“Tch! In the end, you aren’t just some cheap bomber who ''only knows how to blow things up''!!”

“I learned it all from you, Senpai. I learned how guns that leave a single open hole as a path out for the explosive force and engines that trap gasoline and convert it into rotation are both products of explosions!”

Frenda swung her right arm horizontally to send an orange blast sweeping out like a sword. Morning Call jumped three meters straight up and dropped her heel, sending a blast down toward Frenda’s head like a guillotine. Frenda fell back as if repelled by that attack, her feet digging into the rooftop to bring her to a stop.

“Shaped charge, self-forging.”

When Morning Call swung her right hand to the side, a rough-hewn steel sword was already extending from it.

“Acceleration, attitude control!”

She used the force of an explosive to cut sharply in and strike.

Orange sparks flew.

Frenda held a small shield in her hands. Like a bulldozer blade, the steel shield could stab sharply into and tear pieces from a target.

Explosions could produce more than destruction. At times, they could induce movement or creation.

''What did it mean to use explosives?

This was the answer.



It was the same as humanity obtaining fire.

A bomber was someone who controlled the entirety of human civilization and wielded it as a weapon.



Kinuhata had thought she could defeat that civilization with a bit of strength and had paid for her mistake by taking a dive off the skyscraper’s roof.

Mugino had been cautious of that civilization’s knowledge and been pinned down by overwhelming force.

A mere esper lacked the power to surpass all the knowledge and technology accumulated by humanity over millennia.

Morning Call had a grin on her lips.

She wore simple VR goggles made by tilting a smartphone on its side and attaching it to her head with rubber bands.

She used her eye movements to operate the detonation control app displayed over the real scenery and she prepared her next attack.

“An uncivilized ape that can’t open her eyes and learn about the world around her would be dead three times over by now.”

Ultimately, only a bomber could take on a bomber.

That was true, but did Frenda really think she had reached that level?

Morning Call couldn’t believe it.

It looked like they were evenly matched, but Frenda had her hands full simply keeping up. Morning Call wasn’t yet at her limit, so she continued to secretly toss explosives around whenever she threw a punch or kick, setting them up for later.

“You’re keeping up well enough, but I’ve already learned everything there is to know about Frenda Seivelun. You are the old and dusty remains of my former Senpai. Struggle as you might, the real you can never surpass the towering wall that I am.”

“…”

A line of red blood dripped from Frenda’s temple to her cheek.

Even if none of the blasts and fragments directly hit them, the rapid pressure changes could still injure and kill. Every unexpected thing and delayed calculation opened the gap between the two bombers until one would live while the other died.

Frenda was already in the palm of her hand.

“Technology is cumulative. None of it is inherently better, worse, more advanced, or behind the times. You only have Frenda Seivelun, while I have Frenda Seivelun and my own technology, so you have no way of defeating me. It goes without saying who wins between precisely 100% and at least 101%, right?”

Dull metallic sounds came from Frenda and Morning Call simultaneously.

There was no need to stick with their makeshift sword and shield.

Bombers used “fire”. They wielded all of human civilization as a weapon, so insisting on a single weapon would only limit their options.

The uncreative were the first to be eliminated in the world of bombers.

They both gave a roar and ran along the shortest route to each other.

“Ohhh!”

Just as Frenda’s skirt fluttered, a great mass was launched overhead by an explosive. It was a cluster bomb that split into 24 bomblets that were blasted out to evenly fill the space around it.

“Ohhhhhhh!”

Morning Call pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it overhead, using its blats to eliminate some of the bomblets and securing a safe zone for herself.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Frenda twirled a metal tube in her hand, using it to direct an explosive force and launch a lead bullet at great speed.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Morning Call detonated an explosive at her feet, tearing up the rooftop itself, turning it into a thick shield.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Frenda used an explosive to boost her leg strength and jump straight over that shield standing taller than a prison wall. In midair, she targeted Morning Call with a bomb.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

Morning Call remotely detonated an explosive buried in rubble that had crumbled atop it, sending a scattershot blast toward the blonde girl.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”

Several explosions coincided and exploded in quick succession.

(Got her!!)

A sneer formed on the lips below the simple goggles hiding Morning Call’s eyes.

They were using the same sort of power, but Frenda couldn’t keep up with the calculations. That gave Morning Call an advantage and the margin of error had just passed a threshold. A catapult bomb’s explosive force propelled a large quantity of gravel to speeds greater than a handgun, shredding Frenda’s body.

Or it should have.

“!?”

But a moment later, Morning Call detonated an explosive to slide rapidly to the right.

A sharp cut ran across her cheek.

(What the-?)

“Is it really so surprising? In the end, assuming victory without checking the body for a pulse or breathing is a common pitfall for second-rate bombers who like to blow people away with big explosions.”

She was alive.

Frenda Seivelun was looking down at Morning Call from atop the concrete shield jutting up vertically. The look in her eyes was icy. She was still alive.

It made no sense.

That had been a finishing blow. The battle wasn’t supposed to keep going. Yet a part of the battle Morning Call hadn’t needed to calculate out had arrived.

Each new second expanded the margin of error compared to the complete victory she had imagined.

Confused, the simple goggles girl sent out a series of explosively-boosted punches. At the same time, she released the small explosives she held, placing them in the midair positions she wanted.

Frenda had no way of dodging this speed and timing.

A punch to her vitals would knock her out.

Even if she blocked, she would have no way of avoiding the explosives positioned in the air. While Frenda tensed to endure the blow of the punch, Morning Call could pull back her fist and detonate the midair bombs to tear Frenda to mincemeat.

That was her plan.

She had calculated out the correct answer, so it was strange things weren’t playing out according to those values.

“…”

Morning Call tossed out an additional explosive. To fix the mistake.

The concrete shield audibly crumbled, but Frenda’s body wasn’t there. She easily landed on the skyscraper rooftop.

She wouldn’t die.

Why not? It didn’t add up.

When had Frenda become immortal?

This had nothing to do with being a bomber.

The girl who should have been dead grinned and whispered a term.

A term that didn’t seem relevant to the current situation.

“Tetra-ethylnipolita.”

“?”

“In the end, if you really had created a perfect model of me and made it a part of yourself, then why did you start using that explosive?”

This wasn’t simple curiosity.

Frenda’s voice contained obvious scorn.

When you could simply write “10”, it was a waste of time to express it as “1x10” instead. Frenda sounded like she was watching a fool go to the trouble of writing it out as “1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1”.

“In the end, the world’s bombers never use that because it’s inefficient. Sure, you can create plenty of substitute explosive by combining expired smokeless powder with a certain powerful acid, but no one is going to waste that much smokeless powder in this day and age. The logistics linking supply and demand have evolved beyond that point. That ‘alchemy of explosives’ is based on the assumption a lot of it is going to waste. It isn’t so convenient it ignores the conservation of mass.”

An explosive detonated with a “bang!!”

Frenda didn’t dodge to either side. The spear-like shockwave sent out by Morning Call shot right past her Senpai’s ear.

That had been aimed so it would hit when Frenda tried to dodge out of the way.

Morning Call’s plans weren’t working.

“In the end, I would never use that cheap substitute in one of my bombs.”

Morning Call tossed several more bombs overhead.

They didn’t simply fall back down.

Small parachutes opened. They would hang in the air, throwing off the timing for intercepting them, before the bombs sharply attacked directly below them. But Frenda pulled missiles from her miniskirt and accurately shot each and every one down.

“In the end, you are Morning Call. You are a completely different bomber from me. You aren’t Frenda Seivelun.”

She didn’t hesitate.

She smiled thinly while accurately manipulating SAMs the size of coffee cans.

“You thought you had perfectly modeled me and absorbed everything I know? Don’t make me laugh. In the end, you don’t even understand a tenth of what there is to know about the Academy City Bomber.”

“''Damn you''…”

“In the end, you don’t know a damn thing about me.”

Something passed its limit.

The back of the girl’s raincoat burst.

Bombs continued to explode, forming giant glowing wings extending from her back. A lot like rocket boosters.

“You aren’t prepared to ''fly'', though, are you? Control the explosions precisely enough and you can turn yourself into a hot-air balloon, an airplane, a helicopter, or a rocket.”

“Sorry, but that kind of bomber is five generations out of date. I’m sure you’re doing your best to be clever, but I already made my own personal aircraft. At the start of August, I think it was.”

“Kh. This ends here! You used-up old hag…”

“You see bright and shining Frenda-chan as an old hag? How low is your strike zone?”

“I don’t need precise calculations! If I slice diagonally through this entire building, I can slam you into the ground and kill you for sure!!”

That was certainly true.

But Frenda was still smiling.

“Here’s the thing.”

The “thud” was a perfectly ordinary noise.

It was the sound of a heavy chunk of concrete being swung down. No technology necessary.

The concrete struck Morning Call in the back of the head.

Courtesy of Takitsubo.

“Gah?”

“Bombs aren’t everything in the real world. In the end, we are Item.”

They had spent so long fighting back and forth with so many different types of bombs, but there were other ways.

The means were not the ends.

If one side killed the other, they won. Those were the rules.

“A blunt object. I was defeated…by such primitive means?”

This too was an option.

But the raincoat girl hadn’t prepared it.

Morning Call had been too focused on bombs too fully become Frenda Seivelun.

“Gah, ah, ah, ahh, ahhhhhhhhh!!!!”

“Frenda,” called Takitsubo.

She had already stepped aside.

The girl holding a hand to her half-crushed head gave a roar. Were her simple goggles glitching, or was it her brain that was broken? She ignored all else and swung her glowing wings of constant explosions to cut through the entire skyscraper and kill Frenda and Takitsubo.

But a second beforehand.

The Academy City Bomber twirled a tube in her hand and directed its end toward Morning Call.

Like it was a magic wand.

But this tube was filled with gunpowder and a lead bullet.

She had received assistance from a teammate, but she hadn’t said a word about losing at her own specialty.

===Part 11===

They had killed her.

Revenge was meaningless. That standard line was found everywhere in children’s books and fairy tales, but those on the dark side knew revenge was far from the worst thing. The truly empty victories were the ones that ended in killing a genius criminal freak who was motivated by their own madness rather than personal interest or a grudge.

Kinuhata sighed.

“Super what do we do now? Now that the bomber isn’t a threat, I’d love to take some time to sit back and relax.”

“No, not yet. Just to be safe, let’s check what Morning Call has on her. To gather information. I doubt there’s anything, but she is a bomber. In the end, if she set up a bunch of time bombs somewhere, the city could start blowing up before long. And unlike the kitchen timer bombs seen in movies, real ones can count down for days. In an old war, there were bombs intentionally set to wait for 20 days before detonating. So once the people were confident the threat had passed, the recovering city would be bombed all over again, wearing at the people’s nerves.”

“Time bombs made with cup noodles super aren’t just a thing in the movies.”

Snipers and bombers were similar in that they killed while remaining hidden, but this was the annoying part of bombers. Frenda and Takitsubo argued over their methods as they investigated the gruesome corpse’s swimsuit.

Mugino picked up the simple VR goggles.

She removed the smartphone from the plastic case attached to the rubber bands.

Whether it used a fingerprint or facial recognition, that physical sort of security meant nothing here. They had the owner’s dead body right here, so aiming the stolen phone at her face and pressing her finger against it were enough to unlock it.

The plethora of unfamiliar icons were likely the bomber’s personal programs, not apps bought from the store. This was what happened when those Academy City intellectuals thoughtlessly suggested everyone learned to code. Maybe they were for detonation control and maybe they were for drone control, but carelessly messing with them without knowing how they worked could possibly blow something up in some district or another. The phone could even blow up in Mugino’s hands. Although that would be preferable to having an elementary school or hospital somewhere blow up.

Takitsubo peered at the screen from the side.

“It would be safest to start by checking the basic apps that are installed by default. Of those, I would check…her personal contact list and the calendar listing her plans.”

“If those are her own program given the super top-level icon of something else, couldn’t the phone blow up as soon as you touch them? Maybe it brings up a prompt for a long password and detonates the phone if you can’t enter it in ten seconds.”

“Oh, like a front door with home security installed?” offhandedly suggested Frenda.

Most people’s home security didn’t explode, but she didn’t seem to care.

“In the end, you can avoid that by checking the apps that are already running. Even if it isn’t displayed right now, the camera, the map, and other apps you use regularly will be running in the background. If she was using the app herself, we know it can’t be a trap. And since she left it open, it won’t ask for the password again☆”

“Mugino. Start by checking the bomber’s addresses and schedule.”

“I get the feeling a freak like her wouldn’t have any friends…”

But Mugino’s guess was wrong.

After selecting one of the app screens from the listed tabs and looking at the phone, the #4 frowned in confusion.

One app contained a list of addresses.

“''Quarterback''?”

A call arrived with perfect timing.

From that Quarterback number.

They were the one who had called the phone, but they started with a terrifyingly deep voice.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Oh, are those phone scams common outside the city now? If you’re trying to work out my identity from how I respond, it’s not going to work, so give up, grandfather. So what, were you fighting this Quarterback person outside the city?”

The “eh?” in response sounded terribly silly.

The elderly male voice was a familiar one.

Mugino had heard nothing about the Mugino Family head operating under the name Quarterback, so it was more likely he had stolen that Quarterback person’s phone.

“Wait, Shizuri? Why do you have this phone?”

Explaining would be a huge pain in the ass.

“Is this super why she didn’t use social media to communicate?”

“I think so, Kinuhata. Academy City social media isn’t compatible with the low-tech phones outside the city.”

This greatly changed the nature of the incident.

Quarterback was a biker gang from North America, which meant they were from outside Academy City. That was an entirely different category from the personally-motivated bombings with no focus on profit. It felt like building a jigsaw puzzle the size of a tatami mat and suddenly finding a pile of pieces from a different puzzle entirely.

Takitsubo expressionlessly gathered the disparate information together.

“So Morning Call, a bomber causing serial bombings in Academy City, was linked with Quarterback, a biker gang causing trouble outside the city.”

“Why would she bother?” asked Mugino.

Takitsubo shrugged.

Apparently there were things even Item’s tracker didn’t know.

“Wait…she super wasn’t spreading damage through Academy City for some job from outside the city, was she?”

“Morning Call herself was motivated by her obsession with Frenda, so I doubt the bombings had anything to do with Quarterback. Frenda and the biker gang wouldn’t know each other.”

Frenda had once been thrown outside of Academy City due to a mess related to the Mugino Family.

However, she had no recollection of opposing a criminal organization by the name of Quarterback while outside. They were a North American biker gang, so they wouldn’t have much connection to Japan anyway.

Mugino snorted and then sighed.

“It’s also unlikely Quarterback was causing trouble as a job from Morning Call. What would a bomber gain from an attack on a Tokyo motorcycle shop?”

“Then in the end…we should assume they were connected in some other way?”

Frenda sounded unconvinced even as she said it.

What other way was there?

The only thing they could think of was…

“Umm,” said the Mugino Family head. “One of them is inside Academy City and the other isn’t, right? How could the two sides collude on anything? Cash and electronic bank transfers between the inside and outside of the city are monitored, so they wouldn’t be able to exchange illicit money, would they?”

He had a point.

But that was assuming Academy City’s system was working as advertised.

“To be super blunt, there are loopholes.”

Kinuhata’s love of movies gave her a respect for the culture outside the city, which came in handy here.

“Academy City’s technology is twenty or thirty years ahead of the outside world, but there are some super exceptions. Like fashion. And when it comes to vintage clothing, the products on the market outside the city can be worth even more. That gives them property value.”

“You mean Quarterback couldn’t send their money directly without arousing suspicions, so they convert it into used leather jackets and boots and whatnot, load all that into a shipping container, and send it right in through the Academy City’s front gate? To pay Morning Call?”

That method wouldn’t arouse any suspicion from the agents of justice guarding the city’s wall and gate.

A container full of used clothing might seem conspicuous, but innocent people would do the same. Because travel in and out of the city was so difficult, Academy City’s used clothing stores would import as many products at once as possible when they had a valuable chance to do so.

Takitsubo tilted her head.

“So Morning Call received her reward. Probably enough money to take things so unusually far in this incident. But then what kind of product did that bomber send to Quarterback? They’re a biker gang. I wouldn’t think of them as using especially complicated bombs.”

“Oh, so that’s it… It was probably these.”

After a moment of sudden realization, Frenda waved something between her index and middle finger.

“An A-17 board?”

Mugino frowned.

Wasn’t that the toy they found in the unexploded bomb?

“Isn’t that a bomb’s detonator? Why would Quarterback want a bunch of that niche product? Why would they pay so much money for them?”

“The biker gang probably didn’t use the bombs themselves. They don’t seem like the type to set up a time bomb on a public building and send a ransom to the mayor. Then in the end, I expect they were reselling them to make even more profit.”

“Hm??? But how? We’re not talking about ordinary guns or drugs, so there wouldn’t be that many buyers. Wouldn’t they just end up with a bunch of unsold inventory if they bought up a bunch of them?”

“That depends on how they go about selling them.” Frenda shrugged. “A time limit, cutting the red wire or the blue cord detonates the bomb, tilting or shaking the bomb does the same, maybe even opening the cover and exposing it to light is enough. …Complex bomb traps aren’t the only place these things are useful. The A-17 board can be used for more.”

“Oh. ''You mean using them in the dial of their own safe?''” asked Takitsubo.

Frenda nodded.

In fact, Frenda herself protected the metal door of her container bomb-making lab that way.

“Criminals who can’t leave their money in legal banks for fear of having their account frozen or their assets seized have a tendency to develop a strong interest in delicately designed safes that can’t be forced.”

That criminal chose to use bombs based on her own personal aesthetics and had challenged a fellow bomber like Frenda.

It was after a period of inactivity that her focus had shifted from Anti-Skill to Frenda. Had that been when she made the jump from a hobby to a job?

Since they worked jobs for the Voice on the Phone, Item was also particular when it came to money. To the point that people could end up dead if they were deceived about a job or a rival stole a job from them. But those money issues were not something they would replace a core part of themselves to pursue.

This person had done that.

“Talk about pathetic,” spat Mugino. “So she was just after money?”

“I see.” The head must have been considering the matter for himself. “This isn’t just about Japan. Now that you mention it, there have been conflicts all over the world… It must have all been connected. A major commotion related to criminal organizations will naturally lead to governments cracking down on them, so even when using fake names or going through an unmarked agent, you won’t want to keep your money in a bank participating in an anti-crime campaign.”

And the greater the demand for personal safes, the greater the value of the A-17 board.

In every age, anxiety and impatience were the greatest sales pitch. No advertisement could stimulate the customer’s desire to buy as well.

That board was the ultimate form of physical security and it wasn’t available outside Academy City.

As long as it would protect their operating funds, people would be willing to pay massively inflated prices to get their hands on one.

“Well, we can’t cross the wall and leave Academy City, so can the Mugino Family clean up the mess happening out there? You won’t have to deal with high-level espers or next-gen weapons outside the city, so an ordinary fighting force should be enough.”

“What, you’re not joining us out here, Shizuri? There is one sticky problem left, so I was really hoping to skip right on past it with some Academy City power.”

“I can’t. Do you still not get how unusual it was for Frenda to get thrown out into Shinjuku before? I’m Academy City’s #4 Level 5. If I cross the wall without permission, I’ll be charged with leaking classified information like my DNA map and Academy City will hunt me down. So those of you out there need to deal with the problems out there.”

And after all that, Mugino said one last thing.



“I’m counting on you, ''grampa''.”



Time froze.

It really did seem to freeze.

It was highly unusual for Mugino Shizuri of all people to speak as the younger one in a conversation.

And eventually…

The voice that came from the phone sounded like he had a manju caught in his throat.

“Don’t do that…”

“Why not? As far back as I remember, that’s generally how we’ve spoken when alone together.”

“Have your memories gotten confused during your long time in Academy City? The one who smiles so gently when you call him that is Mujinayama, not me! Listen, Shizuri. There are words that cause incredible pain when spoken to you by the younger generations.”

“Ehh? But, grampa.”

“It hits me right where it hurts, so stop! …My family just so happened to give me grandchildren quickly. I look away for a second and, next thing I know, your father has knocked up my daughter Eika and married her, so it doesn’t mean I’m all that old myself. It hurts. Anyone who can swing a bouquet as they lead the charge into the enemy HQ isn’t some old grampa sitting in a sunbeam on the porch!”

“God, what a pain. Who cares what I call you?”

Also, don’t mention to your teenage granddaughter how her father “knocked up” her mother.

Hearing about her parents’ sex lives only made her feel blue.

“It hurts, does it? Then I’ll call you something else, Onii-chan.”

“…Sorry, Shizuri, but it hurts worse when you get that considerate. I don’t even hear that word when I visit one of the fancy clubs or bars full of rabbit ears we run. You need to study more. Flip through some of those extremely knowledgeable magazines that teach men how to cook or build a study and you’ll see plenty of ways to address a man who’s been around a while and is starting to gray! You know, like ‘mister’, ‘señor’, ‘ bad boss’, or ‘choi waru’!!”

“The Mugino Family’s grampa isn’t just ‘choi’ waru.”

Why was the God Caesar of a global criminal organization getting so hung up over something so trivial?

Mugino remembered him as someone who wouldn’t lose his cool even if he had his hands tied behind his back and a handgun against his forehead in a harbor at night.

Meanwhile, the rest of Item was tilting their heads a short distance away.

“Hm? Super what is Mugino whispering about? I can’t believe she of all people would turn her back and hide the phone from us.”

“Kinuhata. She might feel bad for us.”

“Super what for?”

“In the end, because she can so easily contact her parents, her grandparents, and just her older family members in general. That’s not something the rest of us can do.”

This was from Frenda whose little sister was in Academy City.

That too was family.

It was similar, but not at all the same thing. No matter how badly Frenda’s life was threatened in this city’s darkness, she could never let herself foolishly try and rely on her 7-year-old sister.

''She had family, but not in a way that placed a roof over her head.

The same was true of Takitsubo and Kinuhata. No one other than Mugino had come to rescue the former when she was wrongly accused and the latter had been frozen in a small room in the back of a lab. The three of them each had unique circumstances…but none of them had a roof to shield them from the winds and storms of the world.

Only Mugino had a roof, and an exceptionally strong one at that.

Even if spears fell like rain, she could rely on the older generation and take shelter below that roof.

She had insurance if anything happened.

That made a real difference.

“Huh. I wouldn’t have thought she could feel bad about something like that. I thought she was more the tactless type who would play whatever cards she had.”

“She really doesn’t need to worry about it,” said Takitsubo with her usual blank expression.

Yes, the same as always.

(But her family ties to the Mugino Family mean ''she can never escape the world’s darkness of her own free will'' the way we could. Not even if a great change comes to the world and remaining in the darkness becomes suicide. …She alone won’t be able to escape the island sinking below the waves as the sea level rises.)

They might be at an advantage or disadvantage in individual situations, but Takitsubo saw this as a compatibility issue and not an absolute ranking or hierarchy. Sometimes having a family was useful and sometimes it was easier to be alone. This just meant each member of Item held different cards. Mugino had no reason to feel bad just because her deck contained different cards from her teammates’ decks. Because they each had cards Mugino didn’t.

Whether she realize that or not, Mugino was still focused on her phone.

Because she knew she wasn’t allowed to refuse.

“Anyway, the A-17 board is the link connecting the Morning Call bomber inside Academy City and the Quarterback biker gang causing trouble outside the city. I mentioned one problem left to deal with, remember? Grampa, you deal with the problems on your end.”

===Part 12===

“Hmm? I see.”

The Mugino Family head nodded a few times with the foldable phone still held to his ear.

This was a matter to be dealt with outside Academy City.

The Family knew all about some circumstances those adorable girls did not.

After hanging up, the elderly man searched for a different number.

The Quarterback biker gang had been destroyed, but that didn’t bring everything to an end.

There was another enemy.

He couldn’t let the “grampa” title break him by reminding him of the passage of time.

He regathered his focus.

He operated the phone with his thumb. He chose one address and called it.

“Hello, hello. Are you sweating bullets? It’s me. Yeah, me. The man you failed to kill.”

Apparently the person on the other end didn’t want to reply.

But apparently they also weren’t able to hang up.

That clearly demonstrated the balance of power.

“I know about the A-17 boards. You’re the bastard who ''set things up'' so those delicate circuit boards could be bought cheaply and sold at a huge markup, aren’t you? Simply put, you sold information on other criminal organizations to the police in the relevant countries to get their bank accounts frozen. Then those criminals had no choice but to keep their money themselves. The demand for safes kept in your own home rose across the globe and the price of those boards skyrocketed. Yes, and the Academy City brand helps since their tech is 20 or 30 years ahead of the stuff out here. Anyone would want the finest security around when it comes to protecting their own dirty money.”

“…”

“That’s why criminal organizations all over have been causing trouble. They’re busy ‘working’ to make up for what they lost when their accounts were frozen. But are you sure that was a good idea? If word gets out, Quarterback will become a target of every criminal organization in the world. Now, do you think you can convince them all you had nothing to do with it? When your number is right here in their phone’s address book?”

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

Now that man would be targeted not just by the Mugino Family but by every criminal organization around the world. No matter how well he hid his self-important face behind the mask of justice, there would be an opening at some point in the 365 days of the year. And the professional criminals steeped in the darkness would not overlook that moment.

“Don’t worry.”

The Mugino Family head was going to busy now too.

After coming this far, he couldn’t let someone else get ahead of him and steal the final kill.

He had made a promise with that boy from the motorcycle shop.

That boy had a hundred years of life in the sunlight ahead of him, so there was no need for him to bloody his hands. This was a job for the Mugino Family which specialized in misdeeds.

So he made an announcement.

Holding solid evidence wasn’t enough.



“This won’t take long. I’ll be there to kill you soon enough.”

===Between the Lines 3===

It was all over.

Or it would be once one more job was complete.



Late at night, an elderly man in a brand new pricey suit put on a mask and dragged a man out of a fancy and heavily-guarded mansion and off its grounds entirely.

He stuffed the man in the back seat of a luxury car with Maid Kagyu in the driver’s seat.

The Mugino Family head immediately tore off the uncomfortable mask.

“This would have been so much easier with Shizuri…or any Academy City power.”

“And yet it took you less than 20 minutes. Head, you have again proven just what a monster you are. This is the foreign residence of a superpower’s official. How did you manage to sneak in with only a shovel?”

“I just knew I’d be in trouble if I took any longer than that. And there was no need to fire a gun. C’mon, get us out of here.”

They arrived on the outskirts of the city.

Specifically, at a large warehouse full of dust.

The Mugino Family head sat down the man with his arms tied behind his back and took up a position directly in front of him.

“Crank Serviceace.”

“…”

“Did you not study Japan’s culture and systems at all when you were assigned here? A 1-yen coin has a diameter of 1 centimeter and weighs 1 gram. They are quite well made. The insistence on those precise values shows the Japanese people’s meticulous approach to technology, don’t you think?”

The young man wasn’t listening.

The anger was gradually returning to his confused mind.

“D-do you know what you’ve done? I am an official embassy staff member. Harm me and you make an enemy of a superpower!!”

“''Ocean or mountain – choose one.''”

“…”

“''I said choose one. Hurry.''”

The head repeated the demand.

Crank Serviceace had thought he could flaunt the power of a superpower to solve any problem, but he was finally starting to catch on. He couldn’t have been taken away like this unless it was past the point of that mattering.

The Mugino Family head spoke to the young man whose mouth opened but no words came out.

This was the bastard who had abused his power to protect his own hide and continually provided Quarterback with carte blanche to commit crimes.

“Also, you ''were'' an official embassy staff member.”

The Mugino Family head strongly emphasized that one word to make a point.

Yes, the young man no longer had any connection to the country of his birth.

…Now, the Mugino Family head knew a lot about crimes. Perhaps more than anyone else in the world.

Threats came in a number of forms.

He knew them well.

If Crank had succumbed to threats against his precious family or threats to commit indiscriminate mass murder of innocent citizens of his country, the Mugino Family head might have given it more thought. He wouldn’t have forgotten the motorcycle shop burned to the ground or the boy standing blankly in front of it. Nothing would excuse what the man had done, but he might have considered lessening the dark punishment to come.

But that wasn’t who this man was.

“It turns out the US government has no need for a staff member who is so addicted to his guns he brings one with him to a country in violation of the local laws and then uses it to kill a stray dog because ‘it was annoying me’ rather than any kind of pressing reason. The paperwork has already been submitted, so you are officially fired. Congrats.”

This only sounded like a bad joke from a man with a shotgun hidden in a bouquet and so many butlers and maids surrounding him. But you couldn’t run a criminal organization if a bit of contradiction was going to bother you.

(It’s our inability to solve these contradictions that make us a ''criminal'' organization.)

He could only smile bitterly.

And this was also the scandal that Quarterback had discovered.

It may not have been much of a problem in a gun culture, but things worked differently in this country. Especially when it was done outside the embassy.

“That said, embassy staff come in contact with a lot of government secrets. Send you to an ordinary prison and who knows what brutal criminals you’d be leaking secrets to. …I guarantee if I returned you now, you’d be lucky if you were sent to Guantanamo. You’d end up in an unnamed detention facility. You’d be stuffed inside a cell smaller than a coffin standing upright and forced to live the rest of your life standing up.”

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

Silence.

The fact that Crank didn’t immediately brush that off as a silly conspiracy theory was proof of just how much he knew of that superpower’s secrets. For better and for worse. He knew secret detention facilities like that really did exist. And that that fastidious superpower would never allow any official statements that would leak the kind of secret that would hurt their reputation as the world police.

If things were allowed to continue the way they normally would, he would end up in exactly the situation he was imagining.

Which was a situation the ordinary person couldn’t even imagine.

The Mugino Family head smiled over at him.

“So like I said: ocean or mountain – choose one. This is your last chance to skip town. The Mugino Family will make sure everyone thinks you’re dead, so how about it? Will you be taking our offer?”

“Wh-what do you get out of it?”

“I run an underground organization. Whether we’re smuggling or laundering, ''the more chaos in the world, the more room there is for us to make money.'' So giving you some getaway cash will let us profit a lot more than taking whatever pocket change you happen to have on you.”

“You would have me make an enemy of the States? Do you have any idea how many satellites are flying overhead? There’s nowhere I can run without getting caught! …Delta isn’t the world’s strongest force. The truly dangerous ones don’t leave any records behind. You can only suggest this insanity because you don’t know about ''that nameless squad''!!”

“A paradise of everlasting spring does exist. You just have to visit another dangerous superpower where those FPS monsters can’t get at you even if they know you’re there. You ''were'' an official embassy staff member, remember? You know plenty of secrets that can act as a gift, so any country that hates them will welcome you.”

“Y-you mean I can buy my safety?”

“Yes,” nodded the elderly man. “Of course, that assumes you have the will and the resolve to seriously run from your crimes. You only live once, so you want try laughing out loud in a bathtub full of money, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m saved. Quarterback is gone and no one’s left to threaten my freedom. I’m saved!!”

“Yes, yes,” nodded the elderly man.

The former embassy staff probably didn’t notice with all the endorphins pumping into his brain, but the Mugino Family head seemed to be checking on something.

Then Crank spoke up again.

“By the way, I-I have a question.”

“What’s that?”

“''What is this bathtub I’m sitting in''?”

The Mugino Family head kicked away the bastard with his hands tied behind his back. Only after falling backwards and finding himself looking up at the warehouse ceiling from the bottom of the tub did Crank notice ''it''.

It looked like a kusudama.

A piece of cloth far larger than a sandbag was hanging from an overhead crane. Its bottom opened and an aluminum waterfall filled the bathtub.

“It’s your coffin.”

The silver waterfall rang loud without end.

And the elderly man spat out his words.

“I said I’d give you some getaway cash, didn’t I? So smile because I’ve submerged you up to the head in money just like you wanted. …Still, 1-yen coins really are strange things. It’s money, but ten tons of them doesn’t even add up to 10 million yen.”

There was no response.

Only a pair of ankles stuck out from the silver gleam.

The bathtub was too small to contain the mountain of 1-yen coins, so some of them spilled out onto the floor.

There had never been any chance of an exception.

Especially when this idiot demonstrated the will and the resolve to run from his crimes. He still thought of himself as one of the chosen elite. And he had made the mistake of doing this in front of the Mugino Family head who stained his hands with so many misdeeds because he hated ''that sort of illicit loophole that didn’t even amount to a crime''.

Every last person involved in this nonsense would be executed. That had been the rule from the start. The Mugino Family had set that rule even if it meant robbing a small boy of his right to revenge.

The job was complete.

He had kept his promise.

“Revenge is meaningless,” whispered the elderly man.

The most it let you do was spit on the pile of bodies you had created.

The head had said so to the innocent little boy himself.

But it had a further meaning for the Mugino Family.

“So your death changes nothing. Die a death that accomplishes nothing for the world, worm.”

Standing straight next to him, Butler Mujinayama made a suggestion.

“Shall I call my contact with that country and let them know we killed a former embassy worker who intended to leak national secrets because we knew their position would make doing so difficult? That will ensure your safety for a while and that superpower will owe you one. The White House will not comment, but the Pentagon certainly will.”

“No need. Don’t drag extra meaning into a job. It dilutes the purity of the crime. We didn’t do this for our own benefit.”

No longer interested, the Mugino Family head turned away from the bathtub full of money and headed toward the warehouse exit.

Mujinayama started work on the cleanup.

That superpower would be concerned if a former embassy worker, who could leak national secrets, went missing. There could be trouble if they suspected he had defected and began threatening other countries and regions. However, disposing of the bathtub in a public place without any way of tracing it back to the Mugino Family was no easy task.

Maid Kagyu whispered to him while walking by his side.

“Excellent work, head.”

“The fact that I enjoy coming up with these bad jokes proves I’m just another villain. The problem is this kind of cruelty is exactly what our imperfect world wants.”

“I see. You are having trouble calming down from the excitement, so you intend to spend this evening winning the hearts of the Mugino Family’s young maids using your dry wit and refined words. I have heard from the older maids it is a common occurrence in large, outdated mansions. I must welcome my unresisting self to a secret maid paradise your wife must never discover☆”

“Did you not hear what I said? Don’t drag extra meaning into a job. Going all in on that sort of erotic fantasy dilutes the purity of the crime. Stop getting so moe-moe all of a sudden!”

“Love, moe, and eroticism all have very different definitions. You must determine the nature of the maid from the aura produced by everything from the ends of her hair to the hem of her skirt. You still have much to learn about maids, head. If a puppy-style maid’s ‘Wahhh, I’m sorry. I’m such a silly, stupid ditz.’ reads as ‘erotic’ to you, I grant you 0 points. Head, you earn 0 points. Have you not been paying any attention at all over the course of your long life? Swift education and training is necessary to input everything you must know about Japanese maids. This is crucial for the improvement of my working environment.”

“…Wait. Are you planning to put a refined man like me in a maid uniform to train me from scratch, Kagyu?”

“If the head at the very top of the Mugino Family is viewing his maids with no idea how to distinguish between love, moe, and eroticism and lacks even the most fundamental knowledge on the subject and yet he suddenly wishes to attempt so great a challenge, a mere young maid such as myself could not possibly scold the head who reins so brilliantly above us. I simply could not.”

“I don’t remember clicking the ‘agree’ button, so why am I suddenly sent on this tour of hell!?”

The Management-level maid held her hands together in front of her in obedience and then sighed.

Was this really the same person she had seen 10 minutes ago?

After experiencing so many incomprehensible things in her service of the Mugino Family, she found herself able to accept even the most unreasonable thing. And this was not limited to Kagyu. All the Managers and troops serving the family likely felt the same.

“What a pain. I suppose this is what you get with the head who inherited the Mugino Family blood most strongly.”

“Eh?”

“Eh?”

For some reason, the two looked each other in the eye.

But it was Kagyu who experience the greater surprise.

“Excuse me, but I am uncertain what you mean. Why would you question that statement, head?”

“Well, I mean…”

He still looked confused.

Could it be? Kagyu was a relatively young member of the Management, so was she unaware how he and his wife had met? The elderly man explained.



“''I married into the family. I don’t have a single drop of Mugino Family blood in me.''”



A certain fact had been mentioned back when Frenda had been thrown out of Academy City.

…Mugino Shizuri did not look anything like the Mugino Family head.

Which meant it was his beautiful witch of a wife, whose age was hard to determine, who most strongly inherited the family blood.

There was another, even more frightening secret boss who hadn’t made a single appearance during the deadly battle for the head position because Sakuya was ''far too boring of an opponent''…and was the only person in the entire world capable of getting this man to eat bell peppers.

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