Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 10===

Someone was crying.

They were bawling loudly like a small child.

It was the siren of doom.

Lies? Acting? Deception?

She was past caring about any of that.

Frenda and Takitsubo were watching Kinuhata Saiai from a short distance away.

This was past the point of not knowing how to approach an unmanageable child. Theirs were not the expression a parent would give to their child. The look in their eyes was one of abandonment – of “sigh, now you’ve done it”. They also kept an invisible distance from her so they could stay safely out of the way of what was coming. They chose to trust only the sixth sense they had developed as villains.

The world seemed to rapidly pull away from Kinuhata in all directions.

The weeping girl was left all alone.

If was over for her once Mugino Shizuri discovered the truth. She had known that from the start. But Kinuhata Saiai couldn’t stand it any longer.



“I…”



Her words caught in her throat.

She was aware how self-destructive this was.

Some part of her brain was screaming for her to stop.

But it was too late.

It was game over whether she stopped here or spat out the rest of her words. Mugino Shizuri would never forgive a traitor. Once she was certain of her suspicions, they would not go away on their own.

But that was fine.

She would feel better this way.

She wanted to get it all out before someone could stop her and before she passed out from blood loss.

It would pain her more for this to end unresolved. That she couldn’t bear.



“I lied to you!! I couldn’t abandon that ordinary person who was being forced by the blackmailers to rob the bank, so I saved her knowing she was a criminal who had attacked you! Everything’s gone wrong since… But that’s no excuse. I made my choice and I’ve been lying to you super ever since!!”



Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie gave her an icy look.

Unsurprising really.

The last thing she would want after working so hard to gather up information on a scandal was for the target to self-destructively go public with it. The treasure held by the brown girl in the neon green bondage outfit was now worthless scrap. Of course she wasn’t happy about it.



“It was all my fault!! So that’s enough, Mugino! I don’t need a transfusion kit! Just get out of here. You super don’t need to get hurt here!!!”



There.

She’d said it. She had come clean.

So Kinuhata Saiai managed a somehow twisted smile even as the tears spilled from her eyes.

…If only she’d done this in the first place.

She still didn’t think it had been wrong to act on behalf of the ordinary person being threatened into committing robbery by the blackmailers.

But what about the rest?

Self-preservation, self-preservation, self-preservation, self-preservation! Kinuhata Saiai had been ugly, dirty, and rotten. How could she possibly excuse her actions there?

Had saving the girl being forced to rob a bank really and truly been the same thing as lying to her teammate to save her own skin?

Saving someone was no excuse for betrayal.

If she really had done the right thing, she didn’t need anything else. Instead of worrying about her own life, she should have accepted an honorable death.

All of this was the result of failing to do that.

She had been weak, wretched, and yet greedy. Mugino Shizuri had been injured in her attempt to protect that traitor. She had shed her own blood. And it wasn’t going to end there. At this rate, Mugino, Takitsubo, and Frenda would all die. Item would be finished.

And it would all be Kinuhata Saiai’s fault.

An enemy and a traitor from within were two very different things.

Kinuhata Saiai had been taught an important lesson.

She now knew she had fallen to a position more miserable than death. She was like an insect flipped on its back and unable to right itself.

Even when she had been raised in the back of an unofficial lab, wasting her life away unknown to the world, she had at least still had a human soul.

Even when she had been taken in by Item and been asked to help with their dirty jobs, she had had her soul as a villain.

Kinuhata could tell she was having trouble enunciating. Was it her tongue or her brain? One or the other wasn’t working right after losing so much blood. She didn’t care which. This was far better than having the fear and pain rule her thoughts, preventing her from doing what had to be done.



“I’ll super handle the rest.”



When had her soul been reduced to that of an insect?

She knew the answer.

From the moment she chose to give up on being human.



“I know this is just more selfishness on my part, but I super want to take responsibility for my own actions. You don’t have to bother with any of this, so hurry up and go!!”



And.

Academy City’s #4 monster…listened to it.

It entered her ears.

It soaked into her brain.

Mugino Shizuri now knew what had happened. She had certainty. And she did not forgive traitors. Because she had been raised by the Mugino Family as a born gangster.

To reiterate yet again, Mugino Shizuri did not forgive traitors.

So.

What was the definition of a traitor?

What had Mujinayama said, after his long years of service to the Mugino Family and everything he had seen there?

“Heh. Shut the hell up.”

And.

There was no beam of light.

Even though Kinuhata was ready for it.

Mugino Shizuri placed her palm on the sobbing girl’s head.

Ignoring her own bleeding.

“If you can say all that and you can risk your life to come clean regardless of the consequences, then you’re no traitor.”

Mugino Shizuri’s bloody face bore a small smile.

She was the kind of person who could smile here.

The world had pulled away from Kinuhata in all directions, but she wasn’t alone. Someone had approached her and rubbed her head.



“You’re Item. I will never forgive a traitor, but I always protect my own.”



Kinuhata Saiai couldn’t get any words out.

A moment later, a drone dropped down like lightning and triggered an explosion.