Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item6 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 5===

Kinuhata and the other two arrived in the college-focused District 5.

…Mugino and Frenda would be in the luxury tourist hotel in the same district, so they had to be careful. Carelessly encountering those two would mean death.

District 8 was full of chic and mature-looking luxury brand shops for all the teachers and office workers there, so it felt like their surroundings had reversed. The city seemed to be sleeping below the blue sky.

Because…

“A used clothing store for luxury brands? Yeah, that sounds super right.”

“Think of it like a pawnshop that intentionally buys stolen goods.”

Sudori Sayu (who thought she was hiding but was doing a very poor job of it) was trembling and teasing her bikini strap with her fingers.

“But don’t they just need to convert their stolen jewels and brand-name bags into cash? Why do they need a place like this when online auctions and flea market apps exist?”

“Sudori. It might seem simple, but that’s a lot more trouble than it looks. Your screen name can be whatever you want, but it’s hard to avoid any link back to yourself when it comes to the bank account or credit card used to pay. It’s not completely impossible, but there are around three hurdles you have to clear.”

That villain sounded like she had actually done that before, so the robber girl fell silent.

It was hard to argue with someone who had actual experience.

Sudori Sayu did eventually respond while snapping her bikini shoulder strap with her fingers.

“B-but now what? How exactly are we supposed to defeat their boss? We don’t even know if all the stolen goods are in the back of that shop.” (snap snap)

“They’re stolen. They won’t be sitting out where anyone can see them. And we’re super not Anti-Skill, so we don’t need material evidence or a warrant. Now that we know who’s our enemy, we just have to barge in and beat them up.”

“Eh? But…actually who even are you two?” (snap snap snap!)

(Generally small) Kinuhata ground her teeth.

She was shaking.

“Hey, can you stop snapping your super bikini straps!?”

“I got these clothes in a hurry for the bank job, so they aren’t quite the right size. There’s a chance Anti-Skill could search for me using my fashion sense or where I bought them, right? So I chose a swimsuit I would never ordinarily wear. D-did you think I was in the habit of walking around in a bikini?”

Sudori Sayu breathed a heavy sigh.

“And it keeps wanting to come undone if I don’t fix it. I’ve always been bad at tying bows, both with shoelaces and ribbons.”

“Is that even something you can be good or bad at? That sounds like your parents didn’t teach you right when you were little.”

“Huh? This is my issue, so don’t drag them into it.”

Her voice dropped low for once.

But a second later, she shrank two sizes smaller than before.

Kinuhata sighed.

If you care about your parents so much, don’t become a criminal.

Anyway, all that remained was making the actual attack. Takitsubo Rikou was in charge of searching out the enemy and Sudori Sayu was in charge of being nervous, so this was a job for Kinuhata. If this shop was the boss’s home base, then this would bring an end to this mess. And if there was an even bigger boss, she could beat up his subordinates and get them to talk.

“Wait, Kinuhata.”

But Takitsubo, who had been kindly watching over her (to an annoying extent) in drill sergeant mode, stopped her here.

This was unusual.

“The member of the blackmailers you discovered was carrying five different phones, remember?”

“Super what of it?”

“We can’t check all the data in those phone right away, but we can take remote screenshots of the lock screen. What do you make of this?”

“Huh? A baby…photo?”

Kinuhata’s mind nearly went blank.

Kinuhata had never done it with her own phone of course, but she knew using a photo of your child as your phone background was a classic choice in the grownup world. But no one on the dark side would do that. A third party might get a look at your phone’s screen and nothing good came of letting a bloodstained person on a crime scene get a look at your young family member. And a blackmailer who made a living using anonymous threats to get people to do their bidding was an expert at that sort of thing. They would be more careful with their own Achilles heel than anyone.

Which could only mean…

“They might not be from the dark side.”

“…You’re kidding. You mean the people who collect the stolen goods and even the people running the shop are all being threatened into it with compromising information? Super just like Sudori-san!?”

“Defeating the mid boss won’t be enough to end this. Until we defeat the final boss at the very top, any empty seats will just be filled with another threatened person. And if it’s found out Sudori fought back against that hierarchy, they might retaliate against her parents.”

So everyone except the final boss was disposable? Quite the criminal infrastructure. The final boss had to be pretty sure they wouldn’t be ganged up on by their many subordinates and partners in crime. …That spoke to a lot of confidence.

But Sudori Sayu couldn’t ignore this.

Word of the failed bank robbery would eventually get back to the blackmailer boss. Then she would either be given an even worse job or her home and family would be crushed and she would be eliminated as a lesson to others in her situation. In either case, they couldn’t abandon her now.

And unlike Kinuhata and her worries, Takitsubo was quick to make up her mind at times like this.

She had already stated her stance.

Item was not Anti-Skill.

“Kinuhata.”

“Super what?”

“''Go beat up the people in that shop. To a nonlethal degree''.”