Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter1

==Chapter 1: The Fifth Girl==

===Part 1===

July 1, 10 AM.

Fifteen Bells, the largest complex in District 15.


As the largest shopping district in Academy City, District 15 was the envy of all 2.3 million residents.

The ultra-luxury apartments found in that primest of prime locations were sold more as investments than as actual residences. The very top floor and the roof garden of one such apartment building acted as Item’s base. Since the apartments were investments, the owners did not want to reduce the value by getting stains on the walls and floors or otherwise making the place feel “lived in”. That meant very few people actually lived there, so it was the perfect place to find a quiet life without actually escaping to nature and thus sacrificing the modern conveniences of the city.

“Academy City develops special powers based on quantum theory, so the city is home to scientific espers. Using the fact that observation alters the movement and nature of particles, methods such as hypnotism, drugs, and electric shocks have been used to help students develop a Personal Reality which allows them to produce ordinarily impossible phenomena.”

With nothing to do after completing their job, Mugino Shizuri was crossing a living room larger than a tennis court to reach her bedroom. The 100+ inch TV switched on by itself. Automatically searching out a recommended program upon detecting someone’s face didn’t seem like the best idea. It didn’t seem very ecological. And its recommendation algorithm had failed for her because she had no interest in the morning news program it had chosen.

But just this once, maybe it had done a good job after all.

This had delayed her just long enough to notice something flashing in a corner of the room.

“Huh?” she grumbled with a bottle of carbonated water in one hand.

She was only wearing a thin negligee since she had just taken a bath, but she had no real issues with standing by the window. She threw herself into one of the recliners lined up by the glass and grabbed the phone receiver. She leaned back and the chair collapsed back into something like a bed.

This was an ecological city of skyscrapers and three-blade wind turbines.

The large screen on the side of a blimp provided a UV forecast for the pedestrians walking below the summer sky.

The city sprawling out beyond the window was a shitty place. It could only shine so bright thanks to the dark side’s support, but no one there so much as glanced toward that dark side.

The call was from exactly who Mugino expected.

“Mujinayama, why do you always insist on calling the home phone? I don’t check this thing’s answering machine. You could reach me directly on my cellphone, so I’d never miss your calls.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, milady. I am but a lowly servant, so I would never be so rude as to directly contact you without prior arrangement. I really should not be calling your home either, but I can just barely preserve my honor by relaying it through your apartment landlord.”

Mujinayama was the ''butler'' who served at her family home outside of Academy City and he was like this about everything. She could never quite tell if the old man was treating her with care or trying to avoid interacting with her as much as possible.

“You may be living away from home in Academy City, but you must always be aware that you are a member of the glorious Mugino family and maintain the appropriate resolve.”

“You try to act humble, but did you call me up first thing in the morning to lecture me?”

“Milady.”

It was currently 10 AM. That was much too late for a student or a worker to be relaxing at home, but the gray-haired butler did not take issue with her not following the same schedule as ordinary people.

“Many things found their way to this country during the Westernization at the beginning of the Meiji period.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Science, art, meats, medicines, steamships, and – most importantly – wheat. The Mugino family is now one of the wealthiest in the world because they saw how the country was changing, actively accepted the Westernization, and spread its wings wider than anyone else. That family name is a sign of wisdom and glory that only a chosen few are privileged with, milady.”

“(Westernization, my ass. Udon and manju are made with wheat too. That pure white rice you see in samurai movies is a lie. In those days, I doubt much of anyone really ate just rice.)”

“Milady.”

Mujinayama still insisted on calling her that.

Mugino sighed in exasperation while lying back in the window-side recliner with the cordless receiver in hand. And she took a sip of carbonated water from the plastic bottle.

It was true a wide variety of new things had entered the country after it opened up from its isolationist period: new clothing, new cuisine, Western medicine, Shakespeare’s plays, etc. The Mugino family had indeed greedily absorbed those things and rapidly expanded just like Mujinayama so proudly stated (even more proudly than the girl who actually belonged to that family).

“''Don’t forget Western-style organized crime.''”

“''Now, now.''” The butler spoke like he was chiding a small child. “Violence is merely another form of negotiation, no different from conversation and money. But a Mugino must use violence as a tool, not be controlled by it. The honorable Mugino family is in fact one of the 5 wealthiest in the world and runs the grain production company which fills the bellies of 1.4 billion people worldwide.”

That put the Mugino family in a different position from the Japanese-style yakuza. They never did anything too noticeable and none of their criminal bases or criminal members every came to light. They did not wear obvious sunglasses and gold necklaces. On the surface, they were a global grain production company and, even there, the Mugino name was never found in the company name or the personnel list. But after the vast fortune earned there was laundered through specific banks and casinos, it was used to raise an army of a hundred thousand around the world. More than handguns of dubious origin, they even possessed tanks and attack helicopters. And the investment fund run by the group would buy up any company that gave them an opening – whether it was an old, established one or a new startup – to spread the corporation across the world like an amoeba.

It became an inextricable gear of society, all while hiding its presence.

Even the graffiti on the walls and the way they shook hands were used as signs to identify insiders and outsiders and any outsiders nosing around too much were eliminated. That was the Western way of using violence as a tool.

“If they’ve got so much wheat, they should just make illegal booze like a proper gang.”

“Unfortunately, there is no reason to make it illegally in the modern day.”

In other words, Mugino Shizuri had a dark lineage. Unlike most in the dark side, she hadn’t wound up there after making some kind of mistake. She was a monster born and raised in the darkness.

But in Academy City, she was simply a student.

That may have been what worried Mujinayama so much. He himself came from a more modern lineage that had thrown out their rusted bandit swords when the Westernization led to a prohibition on swords and were reborn as mountain-based snipers. He wished to personally assist when it came to combat rather than leaving that in the hands of Item’s other members, who were only with her by happenstance.

“Is there anything new with you, milady?”

“Hm, not really.”

She had diligently stayed up late last night killing. ''Same old, same old.

“I’m one of only seven Level 5s. I’m not going to find myself in serious trouble all that easily. There are those in the dark side who ''protect themselves by giving an invented story of their past,'' but I haven’t reached that point yet.”

(As long as the #6 – that Level 5 known as the Dark Side’s Bane – doesn’t show up anyway.)

Mugino lazily yawned and rolled over in the recliner. The old butler’s adorably jealous voice came over the phone.

“What are your ''schoolmates'' doing?”

“They’re downstairs flirting.”

===Part 2===

“Ah hah hah!! In the end, I’ve always been the bullied one when it comes to chest size, but we’ve finally found someone who makes even my clothing look baggy!!”

“…”

Frenda Seivelun held her sides and laughed with tears in her eyes while Kinuhata the newcomer pouted. Kinuhata had borrowed some clothes since she couldn’t stay in only a towel forever and this was the treatment she got. It was all the worse because she had thought the two of them weren’t all that different in size.

Fifteen Bells was roughly divided between the luxury apartments on the upper floors, the offices on the midlevel floors, and the fashionable brand-name shopping mall on the lower floors. Kinuhata Saiai had been forced into a too-big summer dress with one of the shoulder straps slipping down and now she found herself in an aisle of a luxury brand shop where even one of its empty boxes would net you some cash at a pawnshop.

It was 10 in the morning and the mall’s front glass doors didn’t open until 11, but this was a secret time when only the residents of the apartments above could shop. The truly wealthy did not fight through crowds or enter online drawings to buy the products they wanted.

“Can we super really shop at a place like this? Aren’t you a criminal group that gets paid dirty money for illicit work?”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. In the end, we just completed a big job, right? Our pay is deposited immediately upon completion, so there’s nothing to worry about. Now, it’s time for a shopping spree with the black card of your dreams!! It’s time to throw money around to transform an innocent young girl into my very own dress-up doll!!!”

It didn’t sound like Frenda was willing to listen to a reasonable argument. She hadn’t even bothered denying they were a criminal group.

Next to Kinuhata Saiai, the pink track suit girl named Takitsubo Rikou was staring into the distance.

The air conditioning must have been a bit chilly in her shorts that left the full length of her thighs bare because she occasionally rubbed her legs together.

“Is this super weirdo always like this?” Kinuhata whispered to Takitsubo.

“Frenda normally uses her sister as a dress-up doll, but that sister is down with a summer cold. Frenda said she was going to explode if she didn’t find some other outlet to relieve the pressure.”

How were you supposed to respond to that?

Frenda herself didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Anyway, I bought a few things to celebrate, but do you have any requests? In the end, I’ll choose for you if you don’t.”

“If possible, I’d super like something easier to move in. I don’t mind if it’s short, but a bunch of loose frills and stuff ''that catches on the air'' would be super annoying.”

“So in the end you prefer boyish clothes?”

“I super don’t care about that distinction.”

The three argued as they walked through mall. At a spot similar to a public square, several clerks had a thick tarp laid out on the floor. They were apparently doing watermelon splitting as a seasonal event. There were paper bags smaller than a light novel gathered in one corner, which appeared to be the prizes for anyone who got it in one hit. As small as they were, they were still brand-name products that hosts and hostesses would swarm like puppies.

The girls arbitrarily chose a shop with a sporty look and entered. Kinuhata chose a garment that looked easy to move in and easy to maintain, but her cheeks stiffened when she saw all the zeroes on the price tag. ''Hold on. Has Japan become a country where you need a stack of cash to buy a single pen?

Meanwhile, Frenda and Takitsubo didn’t mind at all.

“Huh. In the end, France really is the country to go with for bicycle stuff. C’mon, Takitsubo! It’s time you said goodbye to that track suit! How about we cover your curves with a formfitting road bike suit!?”

“Oh, no. Not one of those colorful skintight suits the female pilots wear in robot anime.”

“Wouldn’t it be more like the female member on a Sentai show? On Sunday mornings, my sister prefers tokusatsu shows like Kabuto Driver over anime. She’s 7, so it’s not easy keeping up on that stuff so I can discuss it with her. Anyway, take this formfitting suit!!”

“Hey, hey, hey!!” quickly cut in Kinuhata. “Maybe look at all the zeroes on the tag before playing around with this stuff! One super careless tear and you’re in serious trouble!!”

“Don’t underestimate the criminally wealthy just after getting paid for a job, newbie. In the end, did you find something you want to wear? Is that what you’re holding?”

“Eh? Um, super, uh, this is way too expensive.”

“Then let’s get to the fitting room! In the end, it’s time for the thrillingly embarrassing experience of changing behind a single cloth so flimsy it feels like the air conditioning is going to blow it out of the way!”

“I said it’s too expensive! I’m super terrified to wear this!!”

Her complaints went ignored, so Frenda and Takitsubo grabbed her arms and dragged her into the fitting room. Just like a captured alien. She was confident in her strength, but she didn’t dare struggle and tear the clothing.

“In the end, if you don’t shut the curtain yourself, everyone will be able to see you, just like someone who didn’t set their social media profile to friends only.”

“I super get it already!!”

She yanked the curtain shut.

Track suit Takitsubo Rikou’s gaze lazily wandered through empty air before landing on Frenda.

“You’re having fun.”

“Wah hah hah!! In the end, this is tradition. The newest member of Item is doomed to be the dress-up doll of the second-newest!”

This meant Takitsubo had done this to Frenda and Mugino to Takitsubo. Frenda was still traumatized after experiencing minor gestaltzerfall when that girl had lined up 72 colors of plain track suits and quietly pressured her to choose one.

And eventually…

“I’ve super put it on.”

The curtain opened and Kinuhata Saiai emerged.

Her outfit consisted of a hoodie dress, a shoulder-baring top, and leggings. It suited her a lot better than the fancy dress that had been forced onto her.

“Ohh.”

“You’re a new type for Item.”

Kinuhata looked uncomfortable at the attention from the other two.

Frenda crossed her arms and nodded twice for some reason.

“We can use this as a starting point and try out some other genres. Let’s head to the other shops so you can try on a wide variety of styles.”

“Wait, um, you’re super buying this!? But the zeroes!!”

“Frenda, you need to buy Kinuhata’s underwear too.”

“Hold off on that because I’m saving the best for last. Yay, yay! In the end, which will you find more embarrassing: adult lingerie that makes it look like you lost a bet or kiddy ones with a big kitten face printed on the butt?”

“Eh? You mean Kinuhata isn’t wearing any underwear under there? That’s a problem.”

“~ ~ ~!?”

Kinuhata blushed red and trembled. Really, it was the athletic shop’s fault for not selling underwear. But without an official identity, address, or student ID (or clothing), she would have nowhere to go if she left now. And she would probably be naked again. So in that sense, Frenda and the unlimited black card she was waving around were still the most reliable “umbrella” here.

“Excuse me, she’ll be wearing this home, so we’d like to check out.”

In Academy City, crime was not the result of poverty. Kinuhata took a detached stance as she noted that you couldn’t escape the dark side even if you had such a large pile of cash you could die in a money avalanche.

“Umm.”

The popular clerk with a gyaru look had to be terrified of upsetting such a good customer because her fear was almost palpable as she spoke to Frenda.

“I don’t know how to say this, but our reader can’t seem to approve your card. I checked and it isn’t an error with the card’s chip or the reader, so it must be the account it’s linked to.”

The clerk seemed legitimately distressed, so it didn’t appear to be a joke.

Time froze.

Frenda Seivelun hesitantly looked back.

The blonde girl was trembling as she witnessed a situation far worse than she had expected.

“Whoa, where did you super get those scissors from?”

“Kinuhata, you need to remove the tags if you’re going to wear this. There, all cut off. Now these clothes are yours.”

“Did you super cut off the washing instructions too? Ugh, and memorizing those is a super pain.”

“Ah ha ha. Now you can’t return these.”

Frenda couldn’t bring herself to intrude on that heartwarming scene.

She didn’t have the courage to count the zeroes on the price tags fluttering to the ground.

===Part 3===

“Wehh,” moaned a tearful voice.

Hanano Choubi was a girl who looked to be around 15. Her long black hair was split into three with only the very ends tied. She was still a young girl. Her general vibe was more doglike than catlike. And she was trembling like a wet chihuahua.

She wore a short-sleeved sailor uniform, but she wouldn’t be questioned by Anti-Skill for walking through District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district, at midday.

Everyone judged Hanano Choubi to be a girl with abysmal timing. Nothing she did or said was ever wrong, but the timing of those things was always off to a miraculous extent. So due to no real fault of her own, she earned everyone’s disapproval and found herself all alone.

''Kyah! This man is a molester☆

For how many people would that accusation lead to a counteraccusation of being a scammer making false accusations, getting called a slut, and having your entire life derailed?

“Ugh, what kind of public reputation is ‘enemy of train-commuting salarymen everywhere’?”

Her tendency to monologue to herself despite her lack of friends may have come from her time in the drama club.

At any rate, her life had continued after hitting rock bottom.

Today was the start of her new and exciting life on the dark side. The person instructing her over the phone had told her to go to the top floor of the Fifteen Bells complex in District 15, meet her new teammates there, and work as a four-person team.

But when she boarded the elevator and pressed the top floor button, nothing happened. She noticed an inconspicuous palmprint reader next to the rows of buttons.

“Hmm.”

''Hanano Choubi sprayed her palm with a special powder'' to easily get past the lockout and made her way to the top floor.

That was her specialty since she had no real esper power.

The elevator doors slid open and she found just one door in the space ahead. She hesitantly pressed the intercom doorbell, but there was no response. She had been told to be punctual, so she looked straight up, ''put a color contact in her right eye'', and had the eye-scanner door opened only a second later.

“E-excuse me…”

Despite the techniques she used, Hanano Choubi only opened the door a crack and stuck her head in like the nervous small animal type she was. Her voice was quiet but carried well, another sign of her drama club background.

There was no response, but she still entered.

(Wow, that’s a lot of clothing brushes. How many clothes do you have to own to end up with so many different kinds of brushes? I’m kind of jealous.)

She touched the small intercom screen on the interior wall to check the status of the security system. It looked like there were people here. Based on the guard function that worked with the cutting-edge AI air conditioner, there were four people gathered in the large living room.

That had to be her destination.

“Umm, my name is Hanano Choubi and the voice on the phone told me to join a team called Item…”

She must not have been aware of her own biggest problem.

(Wait, four people?)

The things she said and did were always correct, but her ''timing'' was bad.

So the instant she touched the living room doorknob from the hallway…

“We did the goddamn job you asked us to, so why the hell haven’t we been paid!? Braglhlbhlakdfghsfjhnbhfahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

She fell right to the floor.

Hanano Choubi’s hips gave out, leaving her in a cute w-sitting position. Even she could tell she had tears in her eyes. She had to gather all her strength in her crotch to keep her bladder from giving way.

There was a demon lord living in modern Japan.

Or rather, a girl with a demon lord aura was shouting incomprehensibly into a small phone with her hair standing angrily on end.

The pink track jacket and shorts girl standing blankly in a corner of the living room noticed Hanano Choubi and turned her way.

“Mugino, there’s someone here.”

“Blaghblkhaydfgblakhndflwehrnakldsfhababhahafh!? …Huh?”

The death metal shout was cut off by a note of confusion.

The girl even tilted her head quite cutely.

“I-I’m Hanano…Hanano Choubi.”

That was all Hanano Choubi could get out while trembling in her attempt to avoid wetting herself.

“Who’s she? A friend of yours, Kinuhata?”

“Super nope.”

Meanwhile, a voice spoke from the phone at the demon lord’s ear.

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, I transferred your payment like always. If you can’t access it, it must mean your account has been frozen for some reason. Go bitch at the stupid bank operator, not me.”

''Oh, I know that voice,'' thought Hanano Choubi, her face brightening a bit.

That was the usual voice on the phone.

The traditional demon lord, meaning she was more frightening than sexy, frowned.

“Why would it be frozen?”

“Do I look like the tutorial goddess who’ll answer every question you pray at me? The money’s gone from my wallet, so the rest is on you. I’m not transferring any more money for that job. But if your account was frozen without any kind of notification to you, it probably means you screwed up on the data front and triggered a criminal account alert with the bank.”

“You think we’d make such an amateur mistake?”

“Then someone set you up. Maybe a hacker and maybe a snitch, but someone from the dark side.”

The demon lord glared over at Hanano Choubi with the phone still in hand.

“Also, someone I don’t recognize has shown up in our apartment.”

“That would be Hanano Choubi. You were saying you wanted more variety since Item only has three members, remember? You should thank me. She’s a real prize. She specializes in disguise and infiltration, so she opens up a lot of new options for you☆”

An awkward air set in.

The voice on the phone had said they only had three members, but there were four other people here. With that one called Kinuhata and tearful, trembling Hanano Choubi, they made for a five-person Sentai team.

Every face there (expect for the trembling one) had “could her timing possibly be worse?” written on it.

“It’s up to you if you use her or not, but make your decision within 30 days. Oh, and you can’t return her if she dies or loses a limb or something. She might be Level 0, but like I said, she’s a real prize. If Item doesn’t want her, I have other places I can send her. So treat her with care even if this is only a trial period.”

“Hey, do you think we’re in any position to hire someone new? We can’t access our money with our account frozen! If we don’t do something soon, we’ll have to leave this apartment hideout!!”

“As cashless as our lives are these days, I’m sure you have some physical money lying around. If not, go crawling on the floors and check under your beds. All you need is a single yen to open a new bank account. Use whatever name you want as long as it can’t be traced back to us. By the way, Hanano Choubi’s disguises would be perfect for that. And don’t forget the most basic fact of life: if you want money, you need to work for it.”

“Do you have a job for us?”

“A big one. And if your frozen account was a targeted attack on Item, then I bet it was about this. They somehow learned what job I was bringing to you and made a ''preemptive'' strike. They’re so scared of you they were hoping to keep you away before the fighting even started. No one’s going to work if they can’t get paid for it, right?”

“…”

“I don’t care if you’re after the money or the revenge, but I have a feeling you’re very interested in hearing about this job.”

===Part 4===

If they were going to start on a new job, every member of Item needed all the details. That meant Mugino Shizuri’s phone was not enough.

Thus, the five girls took the elevator to the lower floors.

“How did you manage to buy Kinuhata’s clothes without your credit card?” asked blank-eyed Takitsubo.

“In the end, I dug through my pockets and found a few prepaid cards. Y’know, the kind where you input the alphanumeric string on them to buy stuff online or buy songs for your music player. If I wasn’t able to cash those out, I’d’ve been in trouble.”

“Hm? What would have happened to you then?”

“There are specialists for dealing with dark side people who don’t pay their debts, so I’d be on the run as they swarmed me like an endless stream of army ants. Now, I’m not about to let those losers take me alive and wring me out so tightly I turn into a super-rare cute girl diamond, but it’d be a pain regardless.”

“Eep. There are people like that on the dark side?”

Hanano Choubi shrank down even though this wasn’t about her.

Their destination was the classic style theater among the few different movie theaters in Fifteen Bells. It was strange for it to be deserted even at midday on a weekday, but no one voiced any confusion. Once they shut off the lights, deadly documents appeared on the large screen. Item’s job was in fact to erase and eliminate dangerous elements from Academy City.

“Huh? Why do you look so disturbed, Kinuhata-san?”

“It’s super nothing…”

They had to be surrounded by an unknown number of speakers because the voice on the phone sounded very three-dimensional as it explained. They still couldn’t see her face, though.

“Are you familiar with the Colosseum?”

“In the end, it’s an underground fight club with no rules – you can use any weapon or esper power you want,” readily supplied Frenda Seivelun.

Her immediate response suggested she was one of the ones who enjoyed watching the fights with a bowl of popcorn.

“The venue moves each time, so it’s hard to track down. The audience watches a dark web livestream on their computer or phone so they can enjoy seeing a real fight to death in high enough quality to make out each speck of splattered blood. It supports the latest high-definition resolution and even VR goggles. But they use some kind of obstruction program that prevents you from recording or screenshotting it. The contestants come from a variety of backgrounds, but I believe they’re all drawn in by the promise of the substantial prize money.”

“You know a lot about this, Frenda,” said Takitsubo. “You’re like a knowledge professor.”

“Heh heh. In the end, keep the praise coming☆”

The pink track suit girl’s off-kilter comment earned a bashful response from Frenda. Meanwhile, Hanano Choubi’s ordinary sensibilities had all the blood draining from her face.

“They claim the fights are to determine the strongest esper when it comes to pure violence rather than the Level system which is entirely based on what most benefits the adult researchers,” said the voice on the phone.

Even in the dark theater, one of Mugino’s eyebrows clearly twitched.

She was a battle freak who loved ''things like that''.

“We wouldn’t care if it was just a bunch of idiots gathering together and killing each other. The problem is the prize money your girl mentioned. The prize is 15 billion yen. Where do you think that comes from? Surely you don’t think livestream ads are quite that lucrative.”

The voice on the phone probably wasn’t expecting a response. She continued without even waiting three seconds.

“Life insurance.”

“…”

The only sound was Hanano’s groan.

“They take out insurance policies worth billions on all of the participants, kill all but one in what they claim is just a sporting event, and then give the payouts to the winner☆”

“Huh? That explains the prize money, but what about the Colosseum’s management? Taking out the insurance policies costs something and managing communications infrastructure you can’t afford to be discovered is a major risk, so aren’t those pieces of shit the ones who would super want the most money?”

“Who’s that? Never mind, I don’t care. The management makes their own money. There’s the ads I mentioned earlier, plus there’s a paid service that lets people gift weapons to their favorite contestant mid-fight.”

“In the end, that’s why a lot of the male contestants dress like hosts and the female ones wear risqué costumes in order to survive. But if they rely on that strategy too heavily, the results are pretty tragic once their fans get tired of them.”

“Right, right,” said the voice on the phone. “Then the management uses their earnings to fund insider trading and illegal loans over social media to make even more money. They of course threaten the losers who get scared and drop out of the fights and set up a breakwater of branch managers and specialized staff in order to construct a safe zone where no consequences will make it back to them even if the entire operation comes to light. Really, it comes down to how convenient cryptocurrency is. All this money is shifting hands, but no one can track any of it. So long story short, the managers aren’t interested in ''a mere'' 15 billion. Like that Frenda girl said, the life insurance payouts are only meant as bait for contestants.”

“So what do you want Item to do about it?” Mugino Shizuri did not sound happy. “Nothing as stupid as wanting us to kill them all, I hope.”

“Of course not. This job comes from the insurance company they’re taking advantage of. The insurance business is just like horse racing: they go under if the amount they take in from customers isn’t more than the amount paid out to the customers. They’re close to going out of business after paying out so many high-value policies back-to-back.”

“And we’re supposed to shut off the tap?”

“The managing director who hired us says there will be no questions asked regarding our methods. Basically, do whatever you want as a long as it doesn’t cause their company any trouble. So this is a DOA job. Got that?”

In this case, DOA meant “dead on arrival”, not “dead or alive”.

“Hm,” groaned Mugino Shizuri as she considered it.

(The managers aren’t interested in a mere 15 billion. I don’t know if they have it in cash, gold, or crypto, but their vault must contain ''even more'' than that.)

“That sounds good to me.”

“To be clear, the Colosseum management recruits powerful esper contestants, so they’ll be armed with enough firepower to deal with complaints from an entire group of those contestants. Which means they’re likely powerful espers from the dark side. Screw this up and you could end up dead.”

“This is sounding better all the time.”

They were done talking.

After the call ended, the entire theater lit up.

It was a clean space without a single stain. It seemed to perfectly represent the shittiness of Academy City.

“So in the end, what are we going to do?”

“First of all, you and you.”

Mugino ignored Frenda’s question and pointed at Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi.

“We have five people all of a sudden, so we need to figure out what to do with these newcomers.”

===Part 5===

Item was more than just the girls. Just like the bus and its driver from the night before, there was an entire support organization below them. There was a limit to how many people could receive that level of support. As Mugino saw it, a single organization could only support three or four people at full specs. Any more and the costs would be too high and the support would become imbalanced.

Bullets were more destructive to biological matter when made from a soft metal with a high relative density, but everyone would choose a lead bullet over a gold one. Why was that? Because even the military and police preferred the much cheaper substance if the effect was similar.

So…

“One of you will be a full member, the other will do odd jobs.”

“H-hwut!?”

One girl stumbled over her word with the worst possible timing, earning her glares from the other four. That was of course Hanano Choubi.

''And that statement sealed her fate.

“This timid chihuahua can do the odd jobs.”

“Wait, please waiiiiit!!”

Hanano Choubi tearfully begged, but Mugino’s exasperated look was unchanged.

Takitsubo approached from the side and whispered in her ear.

“(Hee hee. I didn’t know you were so nice, Mugino.)”

“Huh?”

“(A Level 0 who can’t fight on her own is a lot more likely to die on the front line. And she doesn’t seem to use tools like Frenda does.)”

Mugino shooed Takitsubo away without even looking her way. Takitsubo herself seemed amused despite the careless treatment.

“Eek! I’ll do anything! Anything! So please don’t throw me out!!”

Hanano Choubi seemed truly desperate, so Frenda shrugged.

“We have another job already, don’t we? In the end, why not use that to see how useful they are?”

“(Honestly, I’m not too interested in Item, so as long as I super have food to eat and a roof over my head, I’m perfectly fine doing odd jobs to support you.)”

“Kinuhata, don’t run away from a challenge,” said Takitsubo.

Unwanted support from an unexpected direction kept Kinuhata Saiai from running away.

The five of them boarded the elevator and rode it down past the ground floor.

Hanano Choubi was muttering to herself in the corner and friend-maker Frenda immediately got to talking to her.

“(Ehhh? Wait, how many dangerous landmines does this Mugino-san person have? You should have warned me! How is a newcomer supposed to know!?)”

“Not my problem. In the end, I had to carefully search out each of those landmines myself. I’m not handing over the product of my sweat and blood that easily.”

“(Please tell me you meant sweat and tears. And there’s something super fundamentally wrong with this team if you have to super search out personal landmines like that.)”

“Mugino.”

“Do those worms think I can’t hear them in this tiny elevator?”

The older girl hung her head while burning with rage.

They finally arrived at a concrete underground parking garage.

Since they were on their way to a vehicle, Mugino Shizuri had to already have a destination in mind. Hanano Choubi tilted her head curiously.

“Um, where are we going to start investigating this Colosseum thing? We don’t know who runs it or what they look like and I thought the fights are held at different locations each time.”

“Right.” Mugino nodded like a small child. “Our client is a life insurance company’s managing director, remember? We’re going to abduct them.”

Time froze.

But only for Hanano Choubi, it seemed. Frenda and Takitsubo didn’t seem at all surprised.

“Yeah. In the end, I figured we’d be doing that.”

“It did seem like they were holding back a lot of information.”

Mugino smiled.

One vehicle’s headlights flashed a few times in the gray parking garage. It was the seemingly rundown studio bus from before. The Level 5 girl waved casually toward it.

“Exactly. A lot of those who hire the dark side are in some kind of trouble they’re hesitant to come clean about, but I’m not about to sit around solving that puzzle using an intermediary in a game of telephone. We know who has the answers, so we’ll cheat and go to them directly. Dark side investigations start with the known factors and work from there.”

“Um, um, um, um!!” Hanano Choubi finally interrupted. The girl with abysmal timing already had tears in her eyes at this point. “I don’t really understand a lot of this, but I thought that important person from the insurance company was the one who hired us. Why are you starting by attacking our ally!?”

“Because it’s faster and easier.”

“But they’re the one paying us! Make the client mad and you won’t get paid even if you finish the job!”

“Who cares about the dark side’s stingy payment? Our target has at least 15 billion and probably a lot more. We can focus on taking all that for ourselves.”

“!!!??? I-isn’t this an important person!? What if that grownup with some kind of scary influence holds a grudge and puts our lives at risk!?”

“You think that’s enough to threaten a Level 5?”

You have to remember.

Just the day before, ''Item had destroyed the stronghold of quite a few powerful grownups.

“Besides, if this was an important client, the voice on the phone wouldn’t have given away so much of their information. If all we need to do is find the Colosseum and destroy it, we wouldn’t need to know about the insurance company or its general manager.”

“B-but do you even know which insurance company it is?”

Terrified Hanano Choubi kept asking Mugino more questions (which was actually quite reckless).

Fortunately, Queen Mugino was in a good mood, so Hanano Choubi didn’t have to blossom into a bright red flower.

“They’re about to go under, right? Before hiring us, they must have gathered a lot of data to determine the cause of their problem and that would have included some conspicuous searches into the dark side. There’s only going to be one insurance company that’s done that, so we target the general manager of that one.”

The safest option was to say nothing at all.

A member of the dark side could learn this much from a single statement.

Mugino chuckled.

“I know she’d deny it, but the voice on the phone wasn’t even trying to protect this client. Anyway, resolving this incident comes first.”

“…? But isn’t the insurance company the one with the problem?”

“In the end, someone else must want this job done. And since the voice on the phone never mentioned them, that’s the real client she wants to protect.”

Then Takitsubo Rikou spoke up.

She didn’t speak loudly. It was a quiet interruption, but it gathered everyone’s attention.

“Mugino. Even if they’re up to no good, this manager isn’t part of the dark side. We need to be careful of you-know-who.”

“Those are just stories.”

“Academy City’s #6 is known as the ''Dark Side’s Bane''. I don’t think we should underestimate them.”

An icy silence settled in.

The only sound was the silly noise of Hanano Choubi’s nervous fidgeting.

There were stories of a malicious stalker being found dangling upside-down from a streetlight. There were stories of a gunrunning group being wiped out in a single night. There were stories of a small child being rescued unharmed from a kidnapping group.

This person had as many legends as there were stars in the sky, but no one knew their name or what they looked like. They assisted the weak found weeping in a back alley, they provided a means of fighting the villains, and they had saved an unknown number of lives from the inescapable pit of the dark side. That might make them sound like a righteous saint, but for those being targeted, they were like a living disaster.

The #6.

It was said you could judge whether someone was a good or bad person by how they reacted to hearing that name in a dark alley: hope or fear.

Item was of course not a fan.

Mugino Shizuri ranked higher, but in a direct fight with another Level 5, she would not escape unscathed. Although she was an extreme battle freak, so she might not avoid such an obvious risk if she encountered it.

That kind of risk management was a job for Frenda who worked with bombs, which were destructive and always required proper preparation and funding.

“So in the end, we need to set things up, nab them in an instant, and make a quick getaway?”

“I suppose.”

Mugino wasn’t too happy about it, but she did give her agreement. She required a delicate touch. If they had suggested giving up on this job, she would have exploded right away.

In a contrast to Hanano Choubi, Kinuhata Saiai remained calm.

She looked up at tall Mugino and asked a question.

“Super what should I do?”

“You were in the Dark May Project. That means you have a portion of the #1’s thought patterns in your head, right? How much can you do? I’m not interested in theoreticals. What can you actually do?”

Kinuhata Saiai didn’t even need to think about it.

She plainly responded.

“Super well, I can at least kill someone.”

===Part 6===

Several highways were linked together by the loops of a multilayer junction.

The area directly below it was shielded from satellite surveillance thanks to the many overpasses blocking the sky. It was the perfect spot for attacking a vehicle even if it was being escorted by several military trucks to the front and back.

First, a few beams of light flashed from behind.

The slightest of grazes melted the armor of the rearmost truck, causing it to crash quite spectacularly, so the rest of the convoy sped up. The instant they triggered an infrared laser crossing the road at a height of one meter, an unmanned rocket fired from the side of the road.

“Good, the off-route mine got them!!”

Frenda clenched her fist in victory a short distance away.

With the frontmost truck engulfed in flames, nothing could stop them.

The black luxury car ended up in a multivehicle crash with its bumper caught below the rear of the taller truck in front of it, so its tires squealed in a futile attempt to move froward or back.

As long as the trucks had proper bulletproofing and anti-shock construction, the soldiers inside would be injured but alive. The flames only affected the exterior, but they were still out of the fight now that their doors were bent and burnt too badly to open. The bulletproof trucks were made sturdy, so the soldiers the VIP had paid so much to hire were trapped inside. In Academy City, there was a saying(?): if you need to get rid of a bulletproof car, knock it into the water.

“Don’t let your guard down yet, newcomer.”

“Super yeah, yeah.”

Mugino and Kinuhata left the studio bus that drove up behind the mess. Mugino used Meltdowner to burn the driver’s side door just enough to trap the driver inside. The target car was also bulletproof, so the same conditions applied. Kinuhata jabbed her skinny arm into the rear bulletproof door and tore it away with brute strength.

Dry popping sounds rang out.

Kinuhata Saiai took a spray of gunfire from a T-shaped PDW smaller than a puppy, but she didn’t even flinch. A layer of concentrated air forcibly stopped the small caliber bullets.

“E-e-eeeeek!?”

Kinuhata dragged out a man holding a now-empty gun. Takitsubo carried over a giant caddy bag. If you folded in someone’s limbs and stuffed them inside, it functioned like a straightjacket.

Takitsubo expressionlessly puffed out her cheeks.

“Mugino told you not to let your guard down.”

“I didn’t. Which is why I’m not hurt. So where are we super taking this guy?”

“While it is soundproofed, I don’t want to take him to our usual hideout. I’ll have our support organization find a decent spot for us. Maybe an abandoned factory or hospital.”

He must have decided there was no telling what these girls were going to do to him.

The elderly man, who was looking 50% grosser than normal with all the sweating he was doing, gave a desperate shout.

“''K-Kouzaku-kun''!!”

“''What a pain.''”

It sounded a lot like a bedsheet flapping in the wind.

Someone placed a foot atop the destroyed black luxury car’s roof so gently it was like gravity didn’t affect her. The gloomy black-haired girl wore a short-sleeved blouse with the chest left unbuttoned and a miniskirt. That was probably some school’s uniform, so she looked like a high school student, or maybe a middle school student. Well, if not for the silver horns on the sides of her head, the bat wings on her back, and the pointy tail at the back of her hips.

Mugino frowned.

“Metal. …And is it a liquid? Who hired you to hand out tissues in that getup?”

“Ah ha ha. Do you really think this is ''just'' a costume? It was originally the ''product'' of high-level cushioning research, but it turned out it was too heavy for practical use. But it’s a ''perfect'' match for my power☆”

Was the weird emphasis on some words meant to hide her natural speech? Despite her short skirt, the black-haired devil girl called Kouzaku bent forward, allowing her silver tail to rise up like a scorpion.

“Now, greasy old men aren’t my ''type'', but this bad grownup promised to tell me everything he ''knows'' about the Windowless Building. I’d at least ''like'' some plans of the place before I make my attack, so I’m sorry to say I’m doing some ''work'' for him.”

“Hah. What can one loner girl do? In combat, defense is a much harder role than offense. You have to defeat all of us while keeping that guy alive, but you couldn’t pull that off even if your power can grow you 6 cold arms. All you’ll do is give me some speedy target practice, loner metal!!”

“Oh, really?”

Something splatted against the studio bus’s windshield.

It was a lot like a raindrop.

Except it was silver.

Plus, no ordinary raindrops could reach the bus below the overpass.

“Hm? Everyone, look out above,” whispered Takitsubo Rikou when she noticed something.

A silver downpour began.

The “raindrops” were in fact metal arrows a bit longer than a pencil. But these were falling from an altitude of more than 10 thousand meters, so they had enough force to tear through the overpass and pierce through a bulletproof car’s armor.

The spiraling junction’s overpass collapsed into blocks.

Colorful cars crashed down along with it.

With a highway running above, the ordinary vehicles were not spared the devastation when the road suddenly collapsed below them. This destruction violated all the rules and standards of the dark side, which preferred to keep their presence hidden.

The deadly ceiling of silver arrows continued its descent.

“Tch. SAMs!!” shouted Frenda, swinging her arm horizontally.

Immediately, her short skirt ''flapped in the wind.'' More than five spear-like objects emerged and rocketed up into the sky. Explosive cylinders far thicker and longer than bottle rockets loudly exploded overhead.

Explosive blasts and steel pieces scattered in every direction, the two barrages collided in midair, and the distribution of the deadly rain ''was thrown off''.

Small holes – safe zones – were forcibly created.

“Eek!?” tearfully shouted Hanano Choubi, clinging to Frenda’s hips and falling onto her butt.

But not even multiple microwave/IR short-range surface-to-air missiles could shoot down tens of thousands of “raindrops”. Frenda felt a chill down her spine.

“Takitsubo!!”

The silver rain collided sharply with the asphalt. An earsplitting metallic screech drowned out Frenda’s shout. Every last metal arrow vibrating at the moment of impact created a noise far louder than a giant chandelier falling to the floor. The hard pavement accepted the arrows like clay, letting them stab deep.

But the pink track suit girl was not shredded along with it.

That was thanks to Kinuhata Saiai.

She lay on top of Takitsubo and blocked the metal downpour with an invisible nitrogen barrier. Deflected arrows lay all around her.

“Takitsubo-san, are you alright? This is super my job here, right?”

“Don’t give up, Hanano. You can still come out on top.”

But she had only managed to protect this one small area. There was nothing she could have done about the collapsed overpass or the cars that had fallen with it. One car was badly crushed and its windshield shattered. Something stuck out from the bottom of its broken door: a family fireworks set sold at just about any department store.

The plastic packaging was stained dark red.

Frenda Seivelun spat out an unusually low voice for her.

“In the end, you won’t get away with killing ordinary people for no reason. If you want to play, find a worthy opponent first.”

“I super agree. And it’s our turn now.”

There was a flash of light brighter than a nearby lightning strike.

After all this, Mugino had left her defense entirely in Frenda’s hands. She hadn’t even glance toward the falling “rain” as she held her hand straight out. All so she could vaporize her target with Meltdowner.

“Whew. Giving up on defense for an all-out offensive? How ''exciting''☆”

With the sound of flapping wings, the gloomy girl worked her metal bat wings and hopped down from the black bulletproof car’s roof. She placed her feet on the pavement she had just obliterated.

The wind finally carried over a rusty scent.

While Item’s bus had been bulletproof, it had still been torn to pieces. The metal arrows had pierced through the roof and even the chassis to reach the asphalt below. The windshield had turned white from all the cracks. No, there was red there too. The delinquent driver was probably dead.

The same had to be true of the enemy.

That devil girl had protected her client, the general manager, but no one needed to see what had happened to the bodyguards trapped in their vehicles. There had to be a mixture of blood and gasoline pooling up on the road below those vehicles.

Mugino clicked her tongue.

That girl was completely indiscriminate. Academy City’s shitty side was leaking out into the sunny side.

“Don’t just kill everyone. Safely cleaning up those corpses isn’t cheap, you know? You did it, so I hope you’ll be footing the bill for the cleanup. And if the #6 learns of this, you deal with that supposed Dark Side’s Bane on your own.”

“You’re so nice to get angry for the people who died, Mugino.”

Takitsubo was as expressionless as ever as Kinuhata helped her up. Maybe your sensibilities had to be that abnormal if you were going to get along with a violent Level 5.

And Kouzaku didn’t bother waiting around.

The tens of thousands of metal arrows piercing the pavement began to lose their shape. They gathered together and silver dolls rose up. There had to be at least 50 life-size dolls who looked a lot like Kouzaku herself.

“Ah, the dolls really ''are'' the easiest ''to'' control.”

The devil laughed as she raised her hands, gathered air in her wings, and wiggled her tail alluringly.

“''As you can see, I’ve got plenty of teammates too''.”

She used metal in liquid form. That should have been enough of a clue right there. It was absurd to think that skinny black-haired girl could carry around hundreds of kilograms or even several tons of a metal with a greater relative density than water. And if she could freely alter its shape, there was a simple solution there.

Not so much a mist as a cloud.

By filling it with plenty of air and parking up at high altitude, she could have it condense and pour down like rain when she needed it. If the surprise aerial bombing didn’t do the trick, she would then have an army of soldiers down on the ground.

“So what was it you were saying about having greater numbers?”

“…”

“Like you said, I need to defeat all of ''you'' while keeping this guy alive. ''This'' should be enough for that, don’t you think? Looks to me ''like'' you’re the ones on the defensive ''now''.”

Along with her casual comment, the countless silver dolls rushed toward Item from all sides.

===Part 7===

Since she was outnumbered more than 10-to-1, Mugino Shizuri must have decided a lengthy battle would be a bad idea.

She suddenly produced a sharp flash of light and an explosive boom.

But that must have been a diversion. Someone made a move in the brief moment Kouzaku Mitori’s eyes and ears were overloaded. The silver dolls controlled by her Liquid Shadow could not think for themselves. She was essentially remote-controlling them with her power, so they would stand still if her thoughts ground to a halt.

Someone slipped between the many silver dolls and arrived right in front of the small girl.

“!!”

Kinuhata Saiai aimed for the center of Kouzaku Mitori’s chest with her fingers strengthened in some way. This attack was destructive enough to singlehandedly tear off a bulletproof luxury car’s door.

For a brief moment, the lovely girl’s eyes were muddied by red killer intent.

This meant her power was being boosted by thought processes taken from Academy City’s #1.

“''How bout I super tear away half your body weight with just the one hand''!?”

The impact made a high-pitched sound.

That meant it wasn’t a clean hit. Kouzaku Mitori had raised a pair of thick knives to catch Kinuhata Saiai’s palm.

Kouzaku Mitori laughed with her blades locked with the other girl’s fingers.

The immense pressure was bending the knives, but they were meant to be disposable anyway.

“Did you think my Liquid Shadow power was the only card in my deck?”

“''You sack of shit''!!”

“''Also,'' that 5-star super rare boost probably won’t do much good against me.”

Meanwhile, Kouzaku’s eyes were pitch black.

Her voice dropped another level while staring out with her deep, stagnant eyes.

“It’s based on those ranks the shady ''higher'' ups of this city decided on for themselves. Seeing people innocently believe in and use that hierarchy to decide how many rights people get ''makes'' me want to vomit.”

Her silver tail tore through the air. But instead of Kinuhata herself, it was aimed at the ground below her. No matter how thick Kinuhata’s nitrogen armor was, she would still fall if the road below her crumbled.

The tables quickly turned.

Kinuhata noted the vibration of the thick knives Kouzaku was placing her full body weight behind to hold back Kinuhata’s hand.

“''A frequency edge? Does making a T-shaped razor super vibrate like some kinda toy really accomplish much''?”

“Hee hee. Oh, this ''toy'' might be a little too exciting ''for'' you.”

That was when three or four spheres smaller than baseballs were thrown in from the side.

They were grenades sans pin.

“In the end, I’m trusting your power is thick enough, newbie!!”

Kouzaku didn’t even glance over as she used her silver tail to throw an equal number of knives. As soon as the knives stabbed into the grenades, causing them to hover for a moment, the timed fuses activated. The explosives detonated one after another from quite close by.

“Tch!! Didn’t get a critical…hit…!?”

Frenda’s words trailed off.

Something tore apart the dust cloud and flew her way. They were the very same throwing knives that had stopped the grenades – and so should have lost all speed and momentum. They didn’t even fly along straight lines. They followed blatantly unnatural curved paths before stabbing into Frenda’s arm and side.

Kouzaku whispered bewitchingly while using the knives in her hands to pin Kinuhata on her back.

These thick blades were not an esper power.

“''They’re called drone knives.''”

“Kah! In the end, how many tricks do you have up your sleeve!?”

Frenda cursed but focused on evasive action over stopping and removing the knives, proving she really was an experienced dark side member. The next pair of knives that flew in only managed to hit her shadow.

But that was fine.

The knives came to a stop only 3mm away from the ground and changed direction. With a sound like a firework going off, triple flames erupted from the base of the knives in a Y-shape, creating something like a guard for the blade. The blades spun around and blasted the rocket-like flames from their pommel to pursue their target anew. They had already been introduced as “drone knives”.

And if the drone knives could fly on their own…

“''Gut her''☆”

“Tch!!”

Something exploded.

Kouzaku Mitori was secretly impressed. With no time to stop and remove the blades, Frenda had applied a small quantity of explosive to the knives and detonated it to forcibly propel them out of her. If she hadn’t done that, the drone knives would have spun around while still stabbing into her body, but it still wasn’t something most people could decide to do on such short notice.

One after another, rockets blasted through the air. The girl was skillfully and admirably focused on killing. But Kouzaku detonated an explosive of her own she had earlier kicked underneath a black bulletproof car. That rolled the heavy vehicle over as a giant shield to block all of the rockets.

(And if worse came to worst, I could use these movable wings as a shield☆)

Kouzaku’s power was only specialized to create and control those dolls ''under special conditions''. But by using her own body as the base of her calculations, she could create the metal wings and tail as an extension of altering the details of the dolls.

(''Of course'', if I screw up my control, I could end up tearing away large pieces of my ''body'' with my own metal.)

The blonde girl was reliant on projectiles and it didn’t look like she could get back up and rejoin the fight right away.

Kouzaku was up against multiple opponents. There were still more people she wanted to stop while she had the chance. She could take her time and kill them all after she had them all down.

“Now, then.”

“!?”

Kinuhata Saiai was still just barely pushing back against the knives while fallen onto her back, but she was suddenly knocked to the side. A silver doll had kicked her in the side like she was a soccer ball.

“They have a relative ''density'' of about 20. The human body’s would be 1, just like water, so ''even'' these very sexy dolls weigh around a ton.”

“Bfh. Doesn’t that make the original weigh 50kg or so? That’s super heav-”

“I said ‘around’, you scrawny chicken carcass!”

That was about as heavyweight as you could get. It was like getting hit by a giant offroad vehicle. Kinuhata’s Offense Armor could stop a shotgun blast, but this had to be testing even its limits.

“Now for the next one.”

Several metallic crashes and clangs rang out.

Kouzaku had sent drone knives after a target other than Frenda, but they never hit Takitsubo Rikou. Kinuhata Saiai had blocked them with her body by forcing her way in their path on her unsteady legs.

…That kind of phony friendship pissed Kouzaku off.

These people were soaked in the dark side. They had killed and taken so much, but they had the nerve to declare themselves the single exception and take good care of their own family and friends?

Yes. That was how it worked, wasn’t it?

The grownup researchers who had taken away Kouzaku’s precious ■■■■■ would have gone home to their own partners and children at the end of the day. They knew what it meant to care for someone more than your own life, but they had no problem taking those kinds of people from others.

To them, clones and espers were no more than guinea pigs.

Kouzaku Mitori could not let them get away with it any longer.

She had become yet another drop in the sludge of the dark side she so loathed because it was the only way she could rebel. She was willing to kill if it would help her take down ''the ruler of this city''.

“Hm. I ''had'' a feeling the drone knives wouldn’t work ''against'' that air armor.”

“Super technically, it’s nitrogen.”

“I really ''don’t'' care. And since you ''bothered'' to protect her, I take it ''that'' useless one in the track suit is your leader? That tells me my ''best'' bet is to focus my attacks on her.”

She probably couldn’t defeat Kinuhata, but she could immobilize her by siccing the liquid metal dolls on her, releasing their shape, and trapping her inside a block of the metal.

Once that was done, Kouzaku could capture the track suit girl and either kill her right away or use her as a shield.

Kouzaku stepped over a bloody corpse and swung her silver tail.

“The legs? No, I want her to stand on her own, so that won’t ''work''. Okay, Miss Leader, I ''believe'' this is checkmate. I’ll start by taking your arms.”

“''You will, will you? I’m so sad you’ve completely forgotten about me.''”

There was a sizzling sound, immediately followed by a beam of light. A few more followed. That was enough to tear through the entire group of Liquid Shadow dolls. It didn’t matter that there were 50 of them.

Mugino Shizuri and her Meltdowner were one of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

But that was irrelevant. Shoot them or blow them up, those dolls could regenerate. Or each of the scattered droplets could transform into a sharp needle that rushed toward Mugino.

Yet they didn’t regenerate.

Kouzaku tried to control the blasted silver droplets, but for some reason, her power couldn’t reach them.

It all splattered across the ground.

“Wha-!?”

“You don’t use just water or metal. You went out of your way to control something as unusual as liquid metal, which tells me your power can only control a very limited range of things. You said this was the product of high-level cushioning research, but it never caught on because a relative density of 20 was too heavy, right? I’m betting you can only control a specific metal molecule created in a factory somewhere.”

Mugino Shizuri gathered light in her palm and held it straight out.

She was ready to fire at any moment.

“Then all I have to do is provide a generous injection of electrons ''to change its molecular structure''. Ion manipulation isn’t all that difficult. Mixing in various impurities on the microscopic level will make your special metal a lot lighter. It’s like dropping your melty candy in the sandbox. With all that gross sand coating it, you can’t eat the treat your mommy gave you.”

“That’s not possible…”

“This is Academy City. Don’t stop thinking so soon. My power is known as the atom breaker, for crying out loud.”

She made it sound so obvious.

She wasn’t even trying to brag. She was just pissed that she was being asked to give a detailed explanation of why 1 plus 1 is 2.

“S-so ''what''?”

Kouzaku Mitori spread her arms wide.

Her metal wings did the same.

Her silver tail rose and she shouted with a bloody corpse lying at her feet.

“I still have ''plenty'' more weapons waiting for me at 10 thousand meters. I have a grand total of 1000 tons! If I send it all down and make dolls from it, we’ll have a real war on our hands!!”

A scratchy groan came from Frenda who was collapsed bloody on the ground. That had to be more than 100 large dump trucks’ worth. A girl weighed around 50kg with a relative density of 1 and that metal had a relative density of 20. That meant the total amount could create 1000 dolls.

“Quadruple digits? What the hell? In the end, how many secret weapons do you have!?”

“Not even an army of thousands is ''enough'' if I really want to bring down that goddamn Windowless Building.”

A deep, muddy darkness could be seen in Kouzaku Mitori’s eyes.

“But they have other uses. High-Level espers always ''have'' to play alone, so I’ll show ''you'' what a real war is like. I can defeat anyone ''if'' I crush them with ''superior'' numbers!!”

“Oh, really?” Mugino Shizuri grinned. “There’s more to Item than me. We’re a team and we work together.”

That was when something stabbed Kouzaku Mitori in the flank.

The corpse at her feet had stood up.

No, ''Hanano Choubi had been lying face down covered in blood,'' but she had grabbed one of the fallen drone knives and tackled Kouzaku.

From close range and with no mercy.

She supposedly specialized in disguise and infiltration. The voice on the phone had called her “a real prize”, so her skill had to be real. When she decided to attack, Kouzaku didn’t have time to react with arm, leg, wing, or tail.

“Gah?”

“I’m not the only one sad I’d been completely forgotten,” said Mugino Shizuri with a savage smile.

She did not overlook the moment her opponent was immobilized.

“And we fight as a team!!”

She sent out another Meltdowner blast from dead ahead.

Time seemed to resume flowing all at once.

Something exploded.

The scattered silver droplets became silver arrows and tore through the dust cloud as they flew horizontally toward Mugino.

“Tch!!”

Mugino evaded to the side and fired more Meltdowner blasts, but to no avail.

The inability to focus on offense hurt her a fair bit.

“Wah, yikes, eek!! I’m here too! Please don’t shoot meeeee!?”

Hanano covered her head with her hands and curled up like a small animal, but that was all Mugino could see. The gloomy black-haired devil girl was nowhere to be found beyond the shredded dust cloud.

She had probably sacrificed her wings or tail to create that scattershot so she could escape.

“God, so she detonated her own stuff? She’s really thought her power through.”

Kouzaku had shown a familiarity with using her power to attack and to withdraw. When fighting alone, you had to deal with all your mistakes yourself, so securing an escape route was more important than gambling on a method of defeating the enemy.

The dolls spread across the area lost their shape and splashed down into silver puddles. Kouzaku must have severed her power’s control. That meant the battle was over.

Mugino roughly mussed up her hair with a hand.

“With that done…Hanano!!”

“Y-yesh!? Wha-what do you want!? D-did I do something that upset you and all your terrifying power!?”

“Upset me? That was a well-played attack. You got her good.”

The nervous girl stared blankly for a moment.

But her face finally seemed to melt.

“Heh…heh heh☆”

“Mugino.”

Takitsubo Rikou approached Mugino.

She shook a small case.

“''Should I use Body Crystal?''”

“Hmm.”

Mugino crossed her arms and looked up.

That girl had claimed to have had 1000 tons waiting at 10 thousand meters. Those were absurd numbers, but a military bomber was more than 200 tons when empty, which meant it wasn’t that much different from a formation of bombers flying on a mission. Assuming that wasn’t just a bluff, that girl could have covered every centimeter of the area with a downpour of metal arrows, but some time had passed and there was no sign of it. She must have truly run away.

She had wanted some information from a “bad grownup” so she could attack the Windowless Building.

Assuming that was true, it didn’t necessarily have to be the insurance company’s general manager. If things weren’t looking good, she could stage a hasty retreat and make use of another immoral VIP who had the information she needed.

After some thought, Mugino made her decision.

“No need. We wouldn’t make any money pursuing her.”

“(In the end, there would’ve been no stopping Mugino if she got mad. I’m so glad that bloodthirsty and immature old hag managed to keep her cool this time.)”

“Frenda, if you have something to say, you’ll need to speak up. But anyway, we need to deal with that general manager.”

“E-eek!?”

All alone now, the old man had fallen on his rear.

When one person had the fortune of escaping, someone else would be stuck with an equal amount of misfortune.

Unfortunately, that was how the dark side worked.

===Part 8===

Item’s usual luxury limo disguised as a used studio bus had been destroyed, but they had other options.

After calling a tow truck and street cleaner (both belonging to their support organization) and having the destroyed cars and bloodstains dealt with, Item boarded a boxy minivan with a delinquent feel to it. In Mugino’s opinion the rear spoiler on the boxy vehicle gave it the perfect cheap look she wanted in a disguise. Aerodynamically, it actually increased drag, so it was more a hindrance than anything. No one on the planet would pay any attention to someone stupid enough to do that. Although if that was the driver’s legitimate tastes, she would lecture them and immediately scrap the van.

“Hanano! What are you doing!? Hurry up!!”

“Oh, yes! Coming!!”

The new girl scrambled into the back seat. Mugino looked back curiously to see what the girl had been doing, but she had apparently picked a small flower from somewhere and laid it out as an offering. She may have been holding a moment of silent for the ordinary people killed by the downpour of metal arrows. In this shitty city of science, it didn’t matter what offerings you placed on the roadside. Especially when any trace of Item’s presence here would be erased by their support organization.

After loading the van with the stuffed caddy bag that squirmed like a caterpillar, they drove to a familiar abandoned factory in disorderly District 10. Mugino took ''a toolbox'' from their underlings, laid out a tarp on the dusty floor, unzipped the caddy bag, and dragged out their target.

The old man, who had gained a +80% boost to his greasiness, immediately shouted up at her. But he must have been too terrified to move because he made no attempt to escape despite not being handcuffed or tied up.

“Wh-who are you people!? What did I do to deserve this!?”

Kinuhata kicked aside the unneeded caddy bag and approached.

“Is he the super client? We only knew the name of the insurance company and the job title of general manager.”

“He doesn’t have to be the client. As long as he has the same privileges at the same company.”

Mugino Shizuri didn’t seem particularly interested as she applied some hand cream to the back of her hand. She must have scraped the surface of a nail on the latch of the toolbox, so she pulled out a small bottle of nail polish with far more interest than she showed for the fate of the human in front of her.

“But if he is a normal person with no role in any of this, why did he have that gun? And an ordinary person wouldn’t hire a dark side esper as a bodyguard.”

Client, insurance company, general manager. The scraps of information he overheard were enough for the man to figure out what was going on.

His attitude immediately changed.

“Oh, are you those Item thugs the voice on the phone mentioned? I-in that case, I am your client! Have you dealt with the Colosseum yet!? Don’t think you can get away with this. I will tell the voice on the phone what you’ve done! This is going to cost you!!”

“Sigh. I really don’t like having to torture people.”

That comment shut the frantic old man up.

While applying another coat of nail polish, Mugino kicked the toolbox with the toe of her shoe just hard enough to produce a solid metallic clunk.

The violent sound echoed on and on in the silent abandoned factory.

“''I always take things too far and they die on me.'' I don’t have any corpses to show you, but you can still see their scorched outlines on the walls. Like there. Or over there.”

“…!?”

“Unfortunately, those accidents have really driven down the value of the place. But you don’t have to worry about us.”

Mugino blew on her nail.

When she moved the shining finger to point at various spots on the walls, the greasy old man began to tremble.

“So tell us everything you know about the Colosseum. I’m sure you have tons of secrets you didn’t tell the voice on the phone. Come clean and I won’t have to worry about the blood and gore splattering past the tarp. Not that I’d be cleaning it up. That’s a job for our support organization.”

“Mugino,” Takitsubo quietly interrupted.

“Hm? Yeah, I know. If I do it, he’d die before we got anything out of him.”

“So in the end, I have to do it?”

Frenda tilted her head while ''burning open'' a mackerel can as a treat for herself.

“Want me to do the usual? The one where I ''shove a nonlethal amount of explosives up his nose'' and blow open his face just enough that he survives no matter how much he wishes he were dead?”

“No.”

Even Frenda’s seemingly superhuman suggestion was rejected.

Mugino continued as casually as if they were discussing stopping for some sweets afterschool.

“You and you.”

Her brightly polish finger pointed at Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi.

“Whichever one we end up choosing, you need to get to know your job. Choose whichever tool you like from the toolbox and give this old man a nonlethal beating. ''Just tenderizer him a bit,'' because we need him alive to tell us what we want.”

“Wait, wait, wait, please waiiiiiiit!!”

It was Hanano Choubi, not the man, who shouted in protest. She shook her pale face side to side.

“S-stabbing a villain in self-defense is one thing, but this is something else entirely. T-t-torture? You want us to use these hammers and saws on an unresisting old man who looks old enough to be a school principal!? I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!! I could never do that!!”

“Hmm.”

Despite the blunt refusal, Mugino didn’t seem particularly offended and held her palm out.

Meltdowner pierced right through the thick concrete wall.

“But if you don’t ''I’ll kill him for sure.''”

“…”

“''So if you want to give him any chance at all of surviving, you’ll have to do it yourself.''”

In a small world cut off from the outside world, people’s values were easily replaced.

Especially in a place on the border of death.

Mugino blew on her nail again before continuing.

“How many times do I have to tell you to keep him alive? Maybe using violence to take a life is too difficult for you, but what about using violence to save a life? Even Anti-Skill and Judgment do that when they come running to protect the peace of Academy City.”

Kinuhata Saiai and Hanano Choubi exchanged a glance.

Silence.

Eventually, some metallic clattering sounds echoed through the abandoned factory.

The only one who didn’t keep their silence was the insurance company man.

Timid Hanano seemed especially shocked by her own change of heart. She was supposed to be the representative of benevolence here. For her, it may have felt like having your elevator suddenly and silently stop. The deadly height had always been there, so the greater fear came from the usually unnoticed safety features that had suddenly stopped working.

The old man, whose confidence had clung to him like fat, was now trying to cajole the girls.

“W-wait, what you two doing!? What is that? A-a file? A screwdriver!? What could you possibly plan to do with that? Hey, are you listening!?”

Mugino Shizuri and Frenda Seivelun were accustomed to using violence themselves.

Not even Takitsubo Rikou made any move to stop them.

This was the dark side.

Logic was twisted and reconnected like a Möbius strip to reach obviously distorted conclusions.

“''But if we don’t do this, you’ll super die.''”

“''This is allll for your own good.''”

Even a virtuous person could become a killer under the right circumstances and without the luxury of choice.

It happened so easily as long as the obvious violence had a virtuous reason attached.

This was how people lost all restraint.

===Between the Lines 2===

Accessing digital recorder.

Performing sound quality diagnosis and automatic text conversion on New Recording File 0001.



…Pant, pant.

Y-you know how it works, right? The Colosseum uses high-value life insurance policies for its prize money. The payouts for everyone but the winner are combined for the prize. But that shouldn’t be possible.

Stop, I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything, I swear! Gblahh, please not the below the eyelid!!

Unnatural contracts and payouts should trigger an automatic alert in the central server! So someone would notice. It’s impossible to withdraw 15 billion yen in such a short time!!

Th-then how does the Colosseum actually work, you ask?

Well, that’s why I hired you.

I was threatened! By the people behind it!! So I connected to the central server from inside the company and altered the settings for the auto alerts!!!

Pant, pant. Urp. Do you understand now?

I’m not lying. ''Ksh.

This case involves my own wrongdoing, so I couldn’t contact Anti-Skill like normal. I had no other choice. I needed to end this in the darkness, without any of it coming to light.

That’s why I couldn’t tell you everything when I hired you. I didn’t want you coming back later to blackmail me using what I’d done. I wanted to protect my family. They don’t know about any of this.

Who runs the Colosseum?

Well – ''ksh.

They called – ''ksh'' – emselv – ''ksshh'' – I – ''ksh'' – te – ''kssshh…



(Warning!) The microphone is too close. The recording target’s breaths, rustling clothing, and other sounds are too loud. However, modifying the recording file could affect its validity as evidence. Create new copy and use a noise reduction program? (y/n)

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