Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 9===

They were in the outdoor field of the former fire fighter training ground in District 2.

A great mass of moving air created a low roar.

250 thousand drones were packed together like a black dragon as they moved together.

They were all aimed at Mugino Shizuri alone.

The Information Broker laughed with her phone in hand. She held a hand over her mouth as she did so.

“Oops. I forget to ask.”

Norsitro’s expression was as casual as if she were out at the supermarket and realized she had forgotten she needed to buy the one item that was on sale.

“Would you prefer to be killed by my power or by the swarm? But asking now is a pain and it doesn’t really matter, does it? You’ll die a painful death either way.”

Mugino Shizuri gave a snort of laughter and flicked out a card she had pulled from her pocket. Before it could fall to the ground, she accurately struck it with a thick Meltdowner beam.

Silicon Burn.

Nearly 150 scorching electron beams thinner than hairs fanned out in front of her.

However…

“Tch. So a scattershot’s not enough.”

“I am using 250 thousand of them with a total of 1.75 million. But if you think you can shoot them all down, feel free to continue going for a high score. Although I expect you’ll be crushed to death first☆”

No matter how many Mugino destroyed, the number was replenished, so the swarm never dropped below 250 thousand.

And that wasn’t the main problem.

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner had failed to bring down the swarm. Even when using her special Silicon Burn. With Mugino’s attack a failure, nothing could stop the endless drone force. This time they charged toward Mugino as if aiming for a cross counter. En masse.

A sticky blackness filled a large portion of the scene.

Like a bottle of pitch black ink had fallen over on a painting of Academy City’s scenery.

The black dragon devoured the blue sky. No, the swarm weapon made up of 250 thousand drones circled around together to attack Mugino.

According to Frenda’s analysis, each one was as destructive as a grenade.

But there were 250 thousand of them.

If they all attacked at once…it would be like taking a machinegun spray of explosive rounds head on!

“Mugino!”

“Want to make bets how many seconds you’ll last?”

Norsitro smiled in her neon green bondage outfit.

The following explosion felt like space itself were expanding.

But Mugino wasn’t injured.

Despite the many, many explosions going off.

“Oh? I thought you were all offense, but I guess not.”

She had a shield of light.

Meltdowner normally flew sharply out as a straight line, but she must have instead had it spiral close to her hand. It looked like a round shield fully covering Mugino’s body.

The sharp fragments and even the blast itself were pushed back. Academy City’s #4 had extraordinary specs in defense as well, but Norsitro wasn’t normal either. The very act of forcing Mugino Shizuri to defend – that is, to ''threaten'' that bundle of arrogance enough that she thought she would die if she didn’t defend – was extraordinary enough.

Adding Mugino Shizuri to the fight wasn’t enough to defeat Norsitro Chatellenie.

All four members of Item together couldn’t end this.

They were on the verge of death and cutting it close.

But that was more than just a risk. With a different viewpoint – Kinuhata Saiai’s for example – it could also be a one-in-a-million opportunity.

Win or lose? Live or die?

No one knew what was going to happen, which created enough of an ''opening'' to take otherwise unthinkable actions.

Here, she could force it through.

She concluded a chance like this wasn’t going to come again.



If she was going to fool that girl.

If she was going to get Mugino Shizuri to betray her, it had to be here.



Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner, even when scattered like a shower using the Silicon Burn, could not shoot down Norsitro Chatellenie’s 1.75 million drones.

To put it another way, ''it wouldn’t look strange'' if something unexpected happened here.

The countless wandering self-destruct drones sliced through the air as they charged in.

Now was the time to make up her mind.

Takitsubo and Frenda had both given Kinuhata some advice while they were pursuing the Kitchen Car truck to reach this place.



''“Saying you will ‘deceive’ her may make it sound like something you do while watching on from some safe place, but that won’t work. A safe zone on a deadly battlefield where anything can happen will look suspicious to Mugino.”

''“In the end, the only way to truly trick Mugino is to risk your life. So you can’t be lying to save your life. This is Mugino Shizuri we’re talking about. She’ll notice immediately if you aren’t truly risking your life with the lie.”



In other words.

…A liar wouldn’t do something so dangerous. Someone trying to trick me with a lie would make sure they were safe.

By taking advantage of Mugino’s low opinion of traitors, Kinuhata could hide in her blind spot.

So it had to be here.

It had to be when Norsitro’s drones charged in and detonated at close range. It was something only possible for Kinuhata Saiai who stood outside Mugino’s Meltdowner shield and who Academy City’s #4 could not fully protect.

She did it herself.



She deactivated Offense Armor.



“Gh.”

She felt a scorching heat. From her right flank. First she felt a twisting and tugging sensation on her skin and then her small body was thrown more than two meters straight back.

“…Gah…?”

She rolled a few times and her small body was left trembling.

(Oh…no.)

Had her fear of Mugino made her take the act ''too far''? An iron taste seeped into her mouth. She could feel something throbbing inside her. She felt badly dizzy, perhaps from the blood loss, and she couldn’t tell which way was up as she lay on the ground.

She might really die here.

Takitsubo Rikou ran over, held the wound, dragged her behind cover, and waved her phone in her other hand while calling out to Mugino.

“Mugino, she’s lost a lot of blood. Her breathing is heavy and her pulse is falling. My health management app is giving red zone warnings. Kinuhata won’t last like this.”

“Huh!? …Because she was near me? But how’d she get hurt so bad when she has Offense Armor!?”

It was a valid question.

But…

“She was fighting before you got here. While protecting me. She was more worn out than anyone. If you use you power too much, you run out of stamina, right? That’s what happened here.”

…So that was the scenario they were going with.

If they didn’t push this through while Mugino’s thoughts were still confused by the red blood, they couldn’t avoid her questions about what the three of them were doing at this mysterious training ground behind her back.

So…

“Norsitro Chatellenie. In the end, she planned to kill you and take control of Item as a convenient system. Kinuhata was fighting with everything she had because she didn’t want that. She was fighting for you!”

Frenda sprinkled some kernels of truth in there.

The Information Broker didn’t just gather information – she was an expert in when to play her trump card. If they let her, she would start shouting the truth, but by establishing a different idea in Mugino’s mind first, Mugino wouldn’t listen to what the enemy was saying.

And while fighting back and looking irritated, Mugino Shizuri scratched at her head with a hand.

“~ ~ ~ Frenda!!”

“Not happening. She must have lost around a liter of blood already. The lethal limit is based on body weight and Kinuhata’s the smallest of us, so she has the least wiggle room there. Pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers, drills – I have a lot of tools on me, but nothing that can heal people. In the end, I think the most I have is disinfectant, bandaids, and bandages?”

“1.5 to 2 liters is the limit even for a large man. Kinuhata is in serious trouble if she doesn’t get a blood transfusion immediately,” stated Takitsubo Rikou.

She never showed any emotion on her face, so she didn’t have to try and put on an act here. The listener would imagine their own emotional state mirrored back to them in her voice.

So the more pressure Mugino felt, the more urgent Takitsubo’s warnings would sound.

They were being pushed back. Item’s leader clicked her tongue.

“Did you call that kid the Information Broker? From the way they move, I’m guessing those guys around her are firefighters.”

“In the end, probably so.”

“That makes them a security team specialized in keeping her alive over defeating her enemies. …They should be prepared for any kind of emergency. Which means they might have transfusion kits for each blood type including Rh positive and negative.”

“Then what should we do, Mugino?”

Since Kinuhata couldn’t talk, Takitsubo organized their information from behind cover.

She showed Mugino the horrific values on the health management app.

“We can’t even withdraw with her like this. Moving Kinuhata in this state will kill her. Fight or run, we need to start by giving her enough blood to save her.”

…The numbers on the health management app were of course fake. The app was called Vital Jamming. It was a joke app that let you adjust some simple sliders to change the readings to show a minor cold, an injury, or even close to death.



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



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



…Takitsubo already had it installed on her phone to make the threats necessary to get Mugino to go jogging.

(Does that mean I’m still super alive enough she needs the app to make me look bad enough? Damn. And here I was getting all worked up thinking I might really die.)

Kinuhata felt regret. And embarrassment.

She was supposed to know this was all meant as a way to keep her alive.

The #4 must have decided Meltdowner alone wasn’t enough. She moved Kinuhata, who was lying collapsed behind some twisted metal with no engine or electronics inside. It may have been used to practice rescuing people from a vehicle after an accident. A moment later, that cover was engulfed in a series of explosive blasts.

Mugino grimaced at the continuous noise and raised her voice.

“If they have transfusion kits, where do you think they would be!?”

“Blood is a liquid, so it gets heavy if you have a lot of it. With A, B, O, and AB with Rh positive and negative for each, carrying around the liters needed to resuscitate people of any blood type would mean fighting with weights strapped to you. I doubt they would do that. But they never know when one of their people will be badly injured. In the end, they won’t keep it too far away.”

Or to put it more simply…

“At the very least, I doubt it’s in these fake buildings out here. If you want to find their transfusion kits, you’ll want to head inside the training ground’s main building!!”

They had an objective.

Of course, they couldn’t actually have Mugino save Kinuhata.

Their goal was for Mugino Shizuri to betray her teammate.

They needed the perfect genius of Academy City’s #4 to fail here.

“My, my. Oh, dear, dear. Hee hee.”

This came from Norsitro Chatellenie a short distance away.

She was here too, so she had of course seen that delightful drama play out.

Mugino was already under the impression that Kinuhata had been injured while fighting for her, so even if the Information Broker accused the other three, it seemed unlikely Mugino would blast them with Meltdowner right away.

As an information expert, she must have picked up on that mood.

So she knew nothing she said would get through to Mugino now that she was “the villain who harmed Mugino’s teammate”.

In her neon green bondage outfit, the girl shrugged and operated her phone.

“Sounds like you have an interesting predicament on your hands, but it looks like sticking to the villain role will be the must fun for me. Speaking of, do you think I’ll just let you through?”

“Tch!!”

One movement of her finger moved the swarm of drones.

Not even Mugino Shizuri could push back the entire swarm of 250 thousand drones with a maximum of 1.75 million.

Several beams sliced through the sky, triggering a few explosions, but that wasn’t enough to bring them all down at once.

“Mugino. Your wall doesn’t have to be sturdy. Even a curtain or net can catch and stop the flying drones.”

“Go to Frenda for little tricks like that!!”

The training ground facility included more than the outside field. Item carried injured Kinuhata down a flight of stairs and entered an underground field meant to simulate a subway station, but that didn’t last even ten seconds.

After a rapid series of explosions, the entire thin ceiling was torn away.

“You can’t get away.” The bondage girl was staring down at them with hands on her hips. “Training grounds like this are designed with wide open spaces underground. They’re fairly flimsy, which makes them easy to blow away. Although that means you won’t be buried alive below dirt, so maybe you should count yourselves lucky?”

They didn’t have time to complain.

The drones were like the downpour of flaming arrows meant to bring down a castle. More and more poured down from above, so Item had no choice but to run down the hallway and climb back to the surface at another exit.

Each individual phenomenon might not be so bad, but they couldn’t seem to regain control of the overall situation.

They couldn’t escape the palm of Norsitro’s hand this way.

“Mugino. In the end, they’re here too!”

“Kh. Kill them to clear a path!!”

Large men, presumably former rescue squad members, emerged from behind vending machines, benches, and other hiding places. They were armed with unique weapons like firefighting axes and rope guns that launched the rope with noncombustible gas.

On top of it all, Norsitro Chatellenie had an unidentified weather control power.

Everyone could tell things were only getting worse.

They were tumbling into the abyss and fast.

They could physically reduce the number of rescue squad members, but the number of drones never seemed to drop. No, Mugino and Frenda were shooting down quite a few of them, but that was like trying to change the weather by throwing stones up at the rain falling from the sky. It was a waste of time.

And if they couldn’t stop somewhere, they couldn’t stop Kinuhata’s bleeding.

They weren’t even supposed to move her right now, so what would happen if they tried to break through the enemy like this?

“Mugino… In the end, we have to give up,” said an astonished Frenda as she scattered mines to slow the enemy down.

…That Frenda could say something like this without it sounding out of place made Kinuhata suspect she was always adjusting her ''emotional distance'' even during ordinary conversations. Because what came next was a suggestion only allowed in the dark side.

“We can’t get a transfusion kit! We don’t even know if there’s one here, so we shouldn’t risk our lives looking for it. I get wanting to save Kinuhata, but you’ll be killed too if you keep this up!! This isn’t just about Kinuhata! If we don’t withdraw now, we’ll all be killed!”

“You’re the leader. So you decide,” added Takitsubo to drive the point home.

Item wouldn’t distribute the responsibility among its members. Stressing that this was Mugino’s decision applied pressure to her. That was a necessary part of setting things up for Mugino herself to betray Kinuhata.

They had no choice. There was no other way.

It didn’t really matter how Mugino phrased it.

But they couldn’t let her claim that they all made the choice together. So all of those psychological loopholes and outs had to be plugged up in advance. Item’s search and information expert showed no mercy here.

“Make a decision, Mugino. Without a choice from our leader, we will all die.”

With that, she preemptively eliminated the option of not making a choice and letting them run out of time.

Now Mugino Shizuri had no excuse.

Since they couldn’t overwhelm Norsitro and acquire a transfusion kit right away, Mugino had only two options: abandon dying Kinuhata and escape or choose nothing and let Kinuhata die when time ran out. Either option would mean Kinuhata’s death, so this was a powerful card to use against Mugino Shizuri who despised betrayal more than anything.

Kinuhata and the others had betrayed her first.

Mugino Shizuri would never forgive a traitor.

So for the three of them to survive, they had to cancel out their betrayal with Mugino’s betrayal.

“Mugino… In the end, I think Kinuhata wants to say something.”

The stage was set.

Takitsubo, supporting her bloody body behind unreliable cover, glanced over into Kinuhata’s eyes.

She understood.

The final emotional push would be most effective…coming from Kinuhata herself.

“Forget…about me.”

Kinuhata forced out the words as she gasped for breath.

This wasn’t an act.

She was cold.

They hadn’t managed to stop the bleeding. She could feel her body temperature dropping.

She hadn’t been killed right away, but she had lost a significant amount of blood. She found she couldn’t speak any louder than this.

“Whether or not there’s a transfusion kit somewhere in the facility…it’s super too late for an injury like this. So please…get out of here. You’re wasting your time. You’ll only get more of you killed. So please…”

An odd feeling filled Kinuhata as she spoke.

She was deceiving Mugino.

Objectively speaking, this was a terrible thing to do.

But she was finding she no longer had to consciously lie to betray Mugino here.

Strangely, she found she was speaking her true feelings.

She didn’t want Mugino to die here.

She didn’t have to lie about that, so she simply placed her current honest feelings in her words.

“I’m thankful… If you hadn’t taken me in, I’d probably still be on ice in the back of that lab. Gh… I was only meant to rot away without every leaving that place, so now I’ll just be returning to the earth. So you don’t have to feel bad about it… So hurry and go.”



(Yeah…)



The words left her almost on their own

And while it happened, a thought came to her.



(If only I wasn’t carrying all this baggage. If only I had super been the kind of person who could say this without needing to sully it like this.)



That could never happen.

The initial assumptions were wrong.

Or maybe this was the final destination of the traitor.

The end result for a selfish dreamer.

The final refuge of a fool who couldn’t bear the weight of reality.

“I was only ever something extra you picked up, right? So you don’t need to bet the fate of Item as a whole on someone disposal like me. Go!! I’ll break their perimeter. I’m going to die anyway, so I might as well go out in a blaze of glory and take a ton of them with me. Cough… That’s a hell of a lot better than dying a meaningless death!! There’s no saving me now, but I’ll super use what time I have left to make Norsitro and her people regret crossing us! So get out of here already!!!”

She drove her point home.

Kinuhata Saiai waited for Mugino to speak.

For her to say, “Fine then. If there’s no other option, we’ll leave Kinuhata here to die.”

For her to admit, “I don’t want to die here, so if you’re going to die anyway, you take care of it.”

Reality wasn’t like the movies. Especially in Academy City’s dark side, a heartless response like that would hardly be a surprise. And because Kinuhata knew that, she bet on it happening. She bet her life and future on it. Bring it on. Because if Mugino didn’t abandon her here, this would end without her receiving the bargaining chip she needed. Then she would be accused of betrayal and reduced to charcoal.

In the distance, a neon green bondage outfit creaked and Norsitro shouted to them in amusement.

“What do you think you can do with that dying body? You can’t even act as a shield against my swarm, so how do you expect to break our perimeter!?”

Something exploded.

The rusty smell grew stronger again.

A sharp fragment must have grazed her because Mugino had a cut on her right cheek.

The drones were only as big as a paper airplane made from a flier, so they could only carry so much explosive. And Frenda’s expert analysis said they weren’t carrying anything special. Each blast was only about as much as a grenade, so the lethal range was about 10 meters.

Even so, a lethal range was a lethal range.

Rapid-firing Meltdowner beams wasn’t enough to stop them all, so Mugino destroyed the base of a nearby fake three-story building to topple it and use the plywood as a shield. She could shoot down the leading drones, but that wouldn’t last forever. And even if she did defend against the sharp fragments, the shockwave still circled around the cover and struck her body.

A single bomb or bullet could kill. Far too easily. That was how it worked on the dark side. A total of 1.75 million? No, she couldn’t let her guard down with even a single drone.

But.

Even so.

“…Takitsubo.”

“What?”

“There’s still a chance, right? If I manage to get inside that building at the cost of my own flesh and blood and acquire a transfusion kit, we can save Kinuhata, right?”

“Maybe.”

“Heh,” laughed Mugino Shizuri.

And she gave her answer.

Item’s leader held her palm straight out and stepped forward. Out from behind cover.

“That’s all I needed to hear.”



…Wait a second.

Why isn’t she betraying me?



“I’m not running.”

Her voice wasn’t particularly loud.

But Mugino Shizuri did speak.

She had to know how bad the situation was for her. She had toppled the fake building to create a shield because she knew she couldn’t shoot down all the drones with Meltdowner.

But a fake building was only a fake. While the drone attacks weren’t designed with penetrative power in mind, this wouldn’t last long. Once the consecutive blasts broke through, it was all over. And Mugino had stepped out from even that much cover.

And yet.

She completely thew out the cold calculations of the dark side.

“I will never abandon a teammate and run.”

A drone exploded.

Close by.

Kinuhata received no new injuries.

Because Mugino Shizuri stood in the way, clenching her teeth. A shard several centimeters across had lodged itself in her shoulder.

This was the borderline between life and death. If the truth came out, it was all over. That was why Kinuhata had put on an act, even if it meant losing more than a liter of blood.

She was of course deceiving her teammate.

But Mugino Shizuri’s heart turned out to be…unexpectedly sturdy?

“Bring it, Information Broker!! I don’t know your name, but you will pay for underestimating Item. Did you think ''the'' Mugino Shizuri would let you get away with doing this to one of my teammates right before my eyes? You’ll be nothing but charcoal once I’m done with you!!!”

Takitsubo fidgeted nervously with her usual lack of expression.

Frenda Seivelun appeared aware how dangerous the situation was. She was frantically trying to work out a course correction from behind cover.

“Wait… In the end, why are you getting all hot-blooded right now when all our lives are on the line!? Don’t you know what Item’s leader is supposed to do!? Hurry up and tell us get out of here, Leader Mugino!!”

“This is my decision to make and I will never betray anyone. I won’t leave Kinuhata hear, turn tail, and run!! It isn’t a matter of pride anymore. All the tools I need to save my teammate’s life are within arm’s reach. If I have to let these blasts tear the flesh from my bones, so be it. I’ve got plenty of excess flesh to offer. So I will get my hands on that transfusion kit!!”

“…”

Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner could not shoot down all of the drones even with its scattershot. She could also use her power to defend, but that wasn’t its primary use and it was far from perfect.

More explosions erupted.

She wasn’t critically wounded yet, but she was gradually being worn down.

Academy City’s #4 was.

The next head of the proud Mugino Family was.

All because Kinuhata Saiai had dragged her into this.

Mugino would have had more options here if she were alone. Meltdowner could pierce through any obstacle. She could have escaped outside the former training ground and then sniped Norsitro through the thick wall.

But she couldn’t do that.

Because she couldn’t leave injured and bleeding Kinuhata’s side.

Because she would prefer to accept some disadvantage than abandon a teammate.

Because she wanted the life-saving transfusion kit no matter what.

As fearsome as she was, Mugino Shizuri wasn’t lying. She wasn’t deceiving anyone. She wasn’t betraying anyone. Yet she was being worn down for the sake of a dirty liar.

While roaring that this was better than abandoning her dying teammate and escaping on her own.

“You’re…kidding.”

Kinuhata Saiai was not Mugino Shizuri, so she hadn’t heard what the old butler Mujinayama said.

But he had said that the best way to prevent betrayal was to prepare for it in advance.

And he had said that suspecting your own people was a form of betrayal in and of itself.

Because.

If the person you suspected was not in fact a traitor and was instead a reliable ally who trusted you from the bottom of their heart…then your own suspicion of them would have branded you as a traitor.

Bull’s eye.



“No…”



She had decided to deceive.

There was no way around the fact she only had the one life. So she had decided survival even at the cost of betrayal was the right choice.

But she couldn’t do it anymore.

Something was burned through inside Kinuhata Saiai.



“Are you kidding me!? I super can’t stand it anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!!”