Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 12===

Mugino Shizuri and Norsitro Chatellenie.

Regardless of how many other people were around, this was their battle.

Whoever won would win it all. Whoever lost would lose it all.



“Don’t expect a signal. I’m not flipping a coin or anything.”

“Did you not consider that I might kill you while you said that, fool?”

They both took action immediately.

A thick beam burst from Mugino’s palm.

The neon green bondage girl smiled.

She was still alive and well.

Several of the fake training ground structures had been burned and melted, but that was all.

(Meltdowner missed its mark?)

“No, did she bend it with a current rivaling a bolt of lightning!?”

There was another beam of light.

Something powerful pierced through Mugino Shizuri from head to toe.

A high-voltage current.

In fact, it was a lightning bolt of more than a hundred million volts.

“Kah…ah…”

Mugino’s breath caught, but she managed to stay on her feet, probably because her Meltdowner power controlled electrons. She had touched a torn high-voltage line outside the city without issue yet a shock at the District 3 bus terminal had briefly stopped her heart, suggesting her psychological state influenced the effectiveness of that ability far too much to be a reliable means of defense.

“Mugino, that isn’t an esper power.”

And Takitsubo Rikou made a judgment from behind cover.

This was the natural result of repeatedly using the same trump card in front of that search expert.

“She is controlling 250 thousand drones at once. Each one is the size of a small paper airplane, but you can think of that like fanning the air with a fan 250 thousand times that size. The movements of that swarm can cause a gust of wind in a single direction, a swirling tornado, or even rapidly reduce the air pressure, allowing her to change the weather itself. She can even cause hail and lightning that way.”

“Ha ha!!”

Not at all bothered and even laughing, Norsitro Chatellenie immediately responded.

“Didn’t I tell you!? Oh, sorry. Your leader wasn’t here when I explained that, was she? Anyway, I said keeping them in top condition isn’t easy!! The Superb Starling weather control swarm claims to be a strategic weapon superior to nuclear warheads, so it had damn well better be able to handle this!!!”

Meaning…

“You…”

Academy City’s #4 Level 5, Meltdowner.

Mugino Shizuri, leader of Item and born gangster of the Mugino Family, had been cornered this far by…



“''You’re a Level 0''?”



“Funny, isn’t it?”

She was laughing.

Information Broker Norsitro Chatellenie was.

Was that sneer on a face more pained than a lost child’s directed at herself?

“The villain who stands at the summit of Academy City’s evil, devours the city’s ordinary people, and has extended her reach into the world beyond the city…is no more than a Level 0. And I’ve fought back against this entire world because I hate being called that!! Yes, it’s true. I wanted to prove to everyone who’s ever laughed at me that I am not powerless and there is so much I can do!!!”

…She had been certain.

Mugino Shizuri had been absolutely certain that large-scale weather control was Norsitro’s esper power.

So she had thought this would end up as a battle between elites.

But it wasn’t.

This was a lot messier.

“There was a major…incident.”

The enemy was a true Level 0. yet she had challenged Item’s Level 5 and two Level 4s head on and driven them to the brink of death.

“Someone had to die and we all discussed who it should be. Everyone’s eyes gathered on me. Not one of them defended me. …That’s when I made up my mind. I decided I would survive even if it meant killing them all. I decided I would be the one looking down on every last one those shits who tell their pretty lies so they can pretend they’re good people!!”

Was that the trauma that led to her surrounding herself with a rescue squad that provided her with the power to survive rather than the power to kill?

She had been labeled a Level 0.

She had been abandoned by the adults’ systems and the children’s rules.

She had been declared unwanted.

But still she clenched her teeth and reached out her hand in that rotten quagmire.

She wanted power.

She wanted to be strong.

The drone swarm could not approach Mugino. She used the viscosity of the air to bring them down before they could.

But that did not rid the 250 thousand drones of their ability to act like a giant fan to stir up the air, manipulate the air pressure, and alter the weather. Using that did not require directly approaching their target.

This was a harmful technology, but Mugino was willing to recognize the girl’s ability to convert her desire for improvement into actual power.

However.

That was only if she didn’t arrogantly brag about her unprecedented achievement and hadn’t become a monster who endlessly devoured ordinary people’s lives.

(Power corrupts, huh?)

“I can’t respect a villain who reduces herself to a disposable rocket only meant to elevate the things she’s created. What have you become in your constant fear of being killed?”

“?”

A battle between villains begins before the fighting actually starts.

Whichever one was daunted and taken in by the other would fail.

So those who lived in the shadows paid close attention to how they lived their lives even as they turned their back to the sun. They didn’t think twice about breaking ordinary laws and regulations, but they followed their own ironclad rules or Family solidarity and they despised lies, deception, and betrayal in their midst.

And once the 1.75 million drones and their weather control were stripped away, the win condition here was as simple as can be.

She was the Information Broker.

Mugino couldn’t let the bondage girl’s weapon get to her and she had to view her for who she really was.

…The lightning was powerful, but it wasn’t enough to take the life of Academy City’s #4. The rain and hail were powerful enough to engulf Academy City if used systematically, but they couldn’t immobilize Mugino right away.

And no matter how much the winds and tornadoes might bluster, they couldn’t alter Meldowner’s electron beams the way they could a lead bullet or rocket.

Mugino Shizuri grinned.

“So would your one and only effective card be…the lightning? But that’s for defense, not attack. It’s true a current of more than a hundred million volts might be able to interfere with and bend my Meltdowner.”

“…Wait…”

“That’s right. If you’re so smart, you should have realized this ages ago. …If you ''only'' have the one effective card, coming up with a countermeasure is easy.”

Mugino didn’t have time for games.

Kinuhata Saiai must have gone the extra mile in trying to deceive Mugino because it didn’t look like she had used fake blood. That meant her bleeding was real. In that case, Mugino’s goal was to acquire and use a transfusion kit. Norsitro Chatellenie was no more than a point on the way.

So this wouldn’t be a skirmish.

If she was going to kill her, one major attack would do the trick.

Item’s leader announced her intentions.

To make sure it wasn’t too late.

To save the life of her teammate.

These parting words were not just for show.



“You’re – dead – meat.”

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