Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter3

==Chapter 3: A Certain Display of Courage, A Secret Reward==

===Part 1===

Dun, dun, dun, duuun!! Welcome to the Giant Croc Hell Dungeon, a life-size escape game!!!

Can you solve all the puzzles in the sunken underground mall of terror and escape back to the surface!?



“In – the – first – place!”

The mood was ruined in record time.

Frenda Seivelun was submerged up to her hips while wearing a fairly revealing swimsuit and another blonde girl was floating in a plastic inner tube small enough to be blown up by mouth. The 7-year-old who adored that inner tube was Frenda’s sister. But since almost all Academy City students lived in school dorms, it wasn’t unusual for family members to live apart.

It was July 14 at 2 PM.

The younger sister happily slapped her hands against the water below the cold fluorescent lighting. As her sister, Frenda was glad she had gotten over her summer cold.

The 7-year-old’s classes had ended after 4th period today, so she had gone here for the afternoon. But it was a mystery why her older sister, whose address and occupation were both unknown, could join her to play at this time of day.

“Academy City is such a strange place. How can they turn an entire underground labyrinth into a pool?”

“In the end, it’s a serious thing. Some kind of disaster response training.”

It was a summer urban flooding response program. They were running a largescale stress test in case a flash flood happened to fill an underground mall, but for most of the students, it might as well have been a temporary pool. And from elementary school to college, students could always get excited about playing in the water. Especially during the summer.

The event also provided a variety of business opportunities. The tablet in Frenda’s hand was one example. By viewing the area around them through its camera, it would augment the scene and even provide quiz-style codes and hints to search out and find.

Bikini Frenda waded through the hip-height water.

“Oh, this code is about cutting the right wire. Hey. In the end, what do you get when you mix yellow and blue?”

“Green!”

(Wait? In the end, is this using the primary colors of light or of color?)

It was a super simple question that even the 7-year-old could answer, but Frenda still suspected it was a trick question. Was that a sign of being a little ''too'' into the escape game?

One of AR’s best features was how different services could coexist at the same location. A service would use a location but not occupy it. The swimsuit couple that passed by while viewing a single screen appeared to be enjoying a mountain stream trivia quiz game. The four elementary-aged boys who each had a game system had formed an adventure party to explore the depths of an underwater cave.

Frenda rubbed her little sister’s head and operated the tablet with her other hand.

“Let’s see, we can’t get the thick rubber harpoon until we find a way to get past the electric lock on its box, so next we should solve the transformer puzzle and restore the power. No, in the end, that won’t work. It looks like we’d electrocute ourselves and get a game over if we electrified the flooded section while we’re in it. So do we have to put this entire area on hold? Is there some way to drain the water? Or is there a plastic diving suit that would protect us from the electric shock?”

“Frenda Onee-chan,” said the inner tube girl floating next to her.

At her age, she wanted to splash water on people and swim around when she was at a pool, so she wasn’t all that interested in solving some grand puzzle and cautiously advancing through a dungeon.

“In the first place, where did you buy that swimsuit?”

“What, has your mental carbonation run out already, princess? In the end, you were the one who said you wanted to do the limited-time croc escape.”

Frenda was mostly doing this for a practical test of her new summer eyeliner that claimed it didn’t run even when wet. But that had to remain a secret because the 7-year-old would have begged to wear the makeup too if Frenda mentioned it.

Anyway, about her swimsuit.

“Really, I just bought a random swimsuit at a District 15 shop. It’s called Shocking Beach and it’s the latest product from Mystery Beach. In the end, bikinis have replaced one pieces as the in thing this year. Specifically, the kind where you wear a normal bikini over a decorative thong.”

“Mhh.”

Frenda’s lazy answer didn’t receive quite the response she expected.

The younger sister was only 7, so she was wearing a cat one piece. It had been on sale for only a few thousand yen at an ordinary department store, but fashion wasn’t about the price tag. Frenda was confident in saying there was no better selection for that girl.

But the puffed-out cheeks suggested the princess was displeased.

The world’s cutest little sister frowned and explained.

“In the first place, I don’t like that your swimsuit has a brand and a name. It reminds me of those sneakers the boys show off because they’re supposed to make you run faster.”

“Eh? In the end, this is nothing like that. This isn’t a high-speed racing swimsuit, so it’s not going to change how fast I swim. In fact, with all the gaps in this, I couldn’t swim very well in it at all. The water’s current and viscosity would probably pull it right off of me. Being a grownup is such a pain. I envy you.”

“Hmph!! Now you’re looking down me. I want to wear a swimsuit like yours! In the first place, I want to grow up as soon as possible!!”

“Oh, shut up. In the end, you need to understand that I can’t wear a cat swimsuit like that anymore. It’s so childish I’d die.”

“Childish!? Die!! And I thought it was a little bit grownup because it isn’t a school swimsuit… In the first place, why do you get to be the grownup one!?”

“Because that’s how it works. In the end, you have the upper hand because you can wear that cat swimsuit and I can’t.”

“Hm?”

“And since you can wear either one, you should focus on the one only you’re allowed to wear. Kyah! Sister, you’re so dazzlingly beautiful and cute I can’t look right at you!”

“Ehh? You’ll make me blush if you keep singing my praises like that.”

The inner tube girl held her hands to her cheeks and wiggled. The way she smiled and did that reminded Frenda of a toy that did a wiggling dance in response to sound. Takitsubo had a habit of visiting a general store in rundown District 19 and her tastes were predictably unusual.

Complimenting while taking something away was one of Frenda’s standard big sister tactics for controlling little kids. If you complimented them and compromised, they would get a big head and, if you scolded them and confiscated something, they were guaranteed to rebel, so it could be tricky to get right. Those other tactics wouldn’t make her the perfect big sister who could get the girl to eat the green peas she so disliked.

“Hm. In the first place, I’m feeling kind of chilly.”

“In the end, what do you want to do? Head on up to the surface? It should be plenty hot there at 2 in the afternoon in the middle of the summer.”

They were playing an escape game where they moved around on their own, but you could also save your location to pause the game and leave. That way a larger demographic could enjoy the game with ease. The summer urban flooding response program lasted more than the one day.

“But you’re right. In the end, I could go for a drink and some sugar. If we get some hot sweets, would you prefer pancakes or some chocolate fondue?”

“Hmph! I don’t like it when you use grownup words like fondue.”

Frenda was pretty sure that was just French.

Then again, that cute but silly little sister would probably make a fuss about French things as a whole being too grownup.

“In the first place, I don’t like people who say sweets when they mean dessert.”

“Oh, that complaint I didn’t see coming.”

“Onee-chan…am I childish for wanting a hanetsuki taiyaki?”

“In the end, that makes you a classy grownup.”

That this was enough to cheer her up showed just how much of a child she was.

The thick waterproof shutters had been shut before flooding the underground mall, so all the shops there were closed. The vending machines had their power shut off to prevent any short circuiting, so they had to head all the way up to the surface to buy a drink. That may have been the one major flaw.

“Sigh. I can’t wait for summer break, but in the first place, I don’t want to do the homework or go exercise in the park. The one you do with the radio.”

“Fair warning: I won’t be helping you there, my sister. Don’t come crying to me when August 31 rolls around.”

“Mgyahhhhh!?”

After Frenda stuck a pin the map and finished saving their progress, she attached the tablet to the hook on the side of her bikini bottom and grabbed the decorative cord on the outer edge of her sister’s small inner tube. Dragging her back toward the stairs to the surface was enough for the little sister to shriek with delight.

(Hanano Choubi.)

Frenda thought to herself while towing her swimsuit sister in her inner tube.

The chill of the water dropped another level.

(In the end, I don’t even know if she’s still alive, but who knows what she’ll tell the enemy after they beat her up. Given the very real risk of a surprise attack, abandoning our hideout and escaping is worth considering.)

Worth considering

Did that mean there were other options to consider it against?

After the sisters left the water and climbed the stairs while holding hands, the little sister looked up and spoke to Frenda.

“Onee-chan, is something troubling you?”

“Hm? In the end, what makes you think that?”

“We got a rare chance to play in the water, but you don’t seem to be having much fun.”

Frenda thought about that for a bit.

That her wounds had healed was obvious enough in that swimsuit, but Hanano wasn’t so lucky. She was still suffering. Or in the worst case, she was already gone.

Also…

“In the end, here’s a question for you. Going to the pool is fun. I won’t deny that. But what if that means abandoning a friend to her problems?”

“Then you need to solve those problems so you can all go to the pool together!! Because you can’t enjoy the pool to its fullest otherwise!!”

“I see,” said Frenda before falling silent again.

She thought while holding the hand of her sister, who refused to remove the inner tube around her hips even after leaving the water.

“I went as far as buying the latest swimsuit, but I’m still too preoccupied to have fun. In the end, that must mean I already consider that newbie a friend.”

Frenda Seivelun could make friends with anyone, but she knew it was difficult for any one person people to stand out above the rest. In that sense, her emotions were thin and dry.

That meant something else about this was bothering her.

She considered that while approaching the bright exit with her sister.

(For one, her puppyish behavior doesn’t really fit in the dark side. In the end, does she feel more like a little sister than a colleague?)

===Part 2===

Fifteen Bells, District 15. Lower levels.

“Super good morning.”

“You seem sleepy. It’s already 3 in the afternoon. That’s snack time, Kinuhata.”

Takitsubo Rikou replied while adjusting the shoulder of her pink track jacket which must have slipped out of place as she moved.

“Oh, it’s only 3? I super shouldn’t have left that theater yet. Yawwwn. Ugh, the movies where they were intentionally trying to make a silly C movie are the worst. Real C movies are great because they were trying to make something good but things went wrong.”

If Kinuhata Saiai wasn’t even aware where the sun was in the sky, it was probably best not to ask her how long she had been in that windowless movie theater. Takitsubo had heard the girl liked movies, but this made it sound like she had been in the theater more than her bedroom at the apartment.

But Takitsubo’s thoughts were interrupted by…

“That apartment feels so gloomy right now. I’m staying close enough to super come running once I’m summoned by phone, but it’s honestly super easier to be out of the apartment. I’m not even sure what has Mugino-san so angry.”

“You were staying away on purpose.”

“I’m super ashamed to admit it. They super have showers at the spas and internet cafes and I can get my sleep when a movie turns out to be bad.”

Expressionless Takitsubo blinked twice.

No matter what happened, she always kept to her usual routine from when she woke up in the morning to when she went to bed at night, so the idea of making herself scarce for the time being hadn’t even occurred to her.

“With Hanano gone, aren’t you guaranteed your spot on Item?”

“I super don’t want to win that way. And I wouldn’t mind if I ended up in the support organization. It’s not like being a super elite of the delinquent world gets you anything special. So as long as I’m super guaranteed an ID and the basic necessities, I’m happy.” Kinuhata breathed a disinterested sigh. “But not if the person who holds the team together is super on edge all the time. If this place isn’t safe, I’d prefer to super leave and find the bare minimum elsewhere.”

Kinuhata didn’t need her home to be in Item. That was why she had started an illicit part-time job before all this had happened.

“She can’t help it,” replied Takitsubo, leaning against a fancy pillar in the mall of luxury shops. “Hanano is gone.”

That put a puzzled look on Kinuhata’s face.

She frowned and chose her words carefully.

“I thought Mugino-san super doesn’t value human life? Why would the loss of a single teammate super affect her like this?”

Financially, they had suffered a loss.

The suitcase filled with 80 billion yen worth of money cards had gotten away from them and they hadn’t received payment for the job from the voice on the phone either. And on top of it all, they had lost one of their team.

“I mean, I get that maybe it hurt her pride to be beaten by a group super calling themselves Item.”

“It’s not about that. Mugino is a kind person who cares deeply about her teammates.”

This time, Kinuhata’s thoughts ground to a complete halt.

Her mind refused to function, so her mouth flapped wordlessly. It took several seconds before she finally got some words out.

“Um, super what? Are we talking about the same tyrant queen here? Was there a movie version that was different???”

“I mean the real Mugino,” insisted Takitsubo. “Kinuhata, why do you think I joined the dark side?”

“Well…hm? That is strange now that I think about it. You can super keep to a normal schedule without anyone getting after you about it, can’t you? That’s super rare on the dark side. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who had to make a run for it after super killing a teacher that pissed her off.”

“I was arrested on false charges.”

She opened up so readily.

Everyone in the dark side had a reason for being there.

“My AIM Stalker is an unusual power, so some lab apparently wanted to gain custody over me. It was probably a project related to this dangerous Body Crystal drug and they wanted to keep it all a secret. I think the plan was to frame me for a crime to get me thrown in prison and then make me disappear once interest in me faded.”

“…”

A legal abduction to facilitate an experiment.

That was a strange phenomenon that could happen when the right person viewed a list of names and pointed at the one they wanted.

Kinuhata herself had been imprisoned and experimented on against her will in the Dark May Project.

Academy City really was shit.

“But Mugino saved me. The case against me was dismissed, but the reason why was never revealed. So I don’t actually know what firepower-obsessed Mugino did.”

Takitsubo smiled thinly as she explained this.

It was the smile of a girl revealing a small admiration.

“She said she wanted an esper who could support her since Meltdowner is too powerful and I don’t think she was lying about that. But if that was really ''all'' she wanted, she only needed to put me in a tiny cage in the corner of the room and give me food and water. Or if looking after a human was too burdensome and risky, there are specialized ‘pet sitters’ you can pay to do it for you. This is a city where ''people really will do things like that'' if they feel it’s necessary. But Mugino let me choose what clothes I wanted to wear, fed me whatever food I wanted to eat, gave me a room to sleep in, and – most importantly – gave me freedom and safety. I don’t care what anyone says – even Mugino herself – I think that came from a kindness in her that sets aside things like logic or efficiency.”

“So you think she’s super on edge because Hanano-san disappeared? That super doesn’t sound like the Mugino-san I’ve seen.”

“Aren’t you much the same? You don’t feel awkward in the apartment because of Mugino. When you’re there, you feel Hanano’s absence more starkly. Isn’t that what you wanted to avoid? Otherwise, you would never badmouth movies. Or fall asleep during them. I bet that was because you couldn’t focus on what you were watching.”

“…”

Strangely, Takitsubo’s words hit her right where it hurt.

What signals had she picked up coming from Kinuhata? She may have known more about Kinuhata than Kinuhata herself.

It was true. If Kinuhata had dealt with the two enemies in the library, then they couldn’t have gone after Hanano.

“Hanano is a part of Item now,” said Takitsubo. “And so are you for being so bothered by her absence. People who can care about others think everyone feels that way, but the dark side is where the people without those ordinary feelings end up. So the way you and Mugino are feeling shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

“Is that super so?” said Kinuhata as she changed direction.

She approached the elevator hall.

“Hanano-san was captured to super help you escape the Colosseum, right?”

“Yes.” Takitsubo nodded. “That gives me a reason to save her.”

“If I had been the one who didn’t fall from the library ceiling, ''I would super be in Hanano-san’s position now.'' I would have played my bodyguard role like normal and got super captured in the same way.”

Kinuhata clicked her tongue.

At times, the dark side had a way of highlighting the irony of fate.

“Damn, that super gives me a reason to fight too.”

“We all have one. No, we don’t even need one. When you get down to it, the question is whether or not you want to risk your own life to save her. I do. I can’t leave Hanano there.”

They boarded the elevator.

A palm scan and the press of a button brought them straight to their top floor hideout.

Kinuhata felt the ascent of the elevator as she watched the LCD floor number display and asked the other girl a question.

“I’ll super give you what you want here, Takitsubo-san. L-let’s just say I’m willing to let you talk me into it just this once. But super what if Mugino-san is against a rescue attempt?”

“Item generally acts on Mugino’s decisions, so I don’t think there is a way of dissenting outside of explaining how I feel.”

Takitsubo stopped there for a moment.

Until…

“But I don’t think that will be an issue.”

The elevator doors opened.

They opened the apartment entrance beyond and walked in.

“I see.”

Kinuhata put a hand on her hip and spoke with exasperation in her voice.

And a hint of amusement.

“''She’s super serious about this, huh?''”

The living room wall was entirely covered.

Documents and notes concerning the Enemy Item were pasted all across it.

The library that had been used as a Colosseum stage.

The people capable of secretly renting out the public facility, any suspicious payments they received, or any blackmail material.

Possible people who could have acquired and supplied that material.

Their personal information.

Especially anything that could be used to threaten them.

Which targets had a checkered past?

Etc., etc., etc.

The living room was large enough for an indoor game of tennis, but the entire wall was covered like a walking path covered by autumn leaves. It included the special camera equipment, the DJ who was clearly no amateur, the dark web setup, and the audience gathered at the library. Including the important and unimportant, there had to be at least a few thousand notes there in all.

But that must not have felt like enough because the lonely work was still underway.

All as a means of tracking down the enemy.

“…”

Mugino Shizuri did not even look their way. She showed no interest in the freedom and liberation of the midsummer shopping district outside and she continued her work while staring at the wall with the irritation written plain on her face. Mugino was known for being self-centered – for caring more about her nail polish than the foolish enemy’s cries for mercy – but now she had deep ''bags'' under her eyes. That was a sign of just how serious she was taking this. How long had it been since she slept? Kinuhata couldn’t say since she had been avoiding the apartment, but Mugino may have been doing this ever since their failure on July 7. That would mean a full week with no real sleep or rest.

Colored yarn extended in all directions from the known information – the library – creating something like a spider web. People, groups, money, buildings, information, equipment, fighting forces – any online information the slightest bit related had been printed out, cut out, and pasted up on the wall. The colored yarn visualized the relationships of interest, friends, enemies, superiors, subordinates, and group affiliations. It was all meant to build a giant web capable of snaring the unseen targets. The suitcase and the 80 billion were technically up there, but they were mostly buried by other notes.

That must not have been her priority any longer.

A few photographs of familiar faces were pasted at the edge of the spiderweb.

Mugino may have found the photos online, but they were the four members of the Enemy Item. The photos were fairly grainy, so she had probably found photos of other people where those four happened to appear in a corner or something.

They were pasted up there like it was nothing, but it was a miracle the spiderweb had managed to capture them at all. Tracking down those elusive girls had to have taken an unhealthy amount of effort and persistence. Mugino was known for vaporizing anything that pissed her off, but she had managed to restrain the part of her that always responded with thoughtless rage.

And.

There was also a photograph of missing Hanano Choubi’s face.

It came from the group selfie Frenda had taken as camouflage while tailing the Colosseum contestant.

Since that was pasted on the wall too, Mugino couldn’t be taking it lightly. In fact, she may have been the real center of the spiderweb, not the library.

Mugino would not let that girl become an unreachable memory.

She was the one who had ordered the girl to take Takitsubo and escape.

It would be one thing if Hanano had screwed up or run off without doing her job, but this was the result of carrying out Mugino’s order.

Mugino had to have her thoughts about Hanano for remaining faithful to the end despite being on the dark side.

She had kept her promise.

So it was only natural to risk your own life to repay the favor.

Takitsubo elbowed Kinuhata in the side and winked.

“See? I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You super win this one.”

Then they heard the front door open without the doorbell ringing.

Someone entered the apartment.

“Sorry. In the end, I know I’m way late. It took forever to buy up all the mackerel cans at the store.”

“You’re last, Frenda? Then you’re buying everyone dinner.”

It had been so long since Mugino spoke.

She may have forgotten how to do so over the past few days, so it came out as a low growl as she glared at the wall. Frenda complained through a cheerful smile.

“Eh? You aren’t even going to ask why I’m late? I had my own preparations to complete.”

That was true.

Frenda Seivelun was carrying so many bags you would think she had run away from home. First, she had a large suitcase in each hand. Then she wore a long mountain climber’s backpack on her back. But that must not have been enough because she had a sling bag worn diagonally across her front. It was July, shortly before summer break, so it was a miracle she hadn’t been taken in for questioning by Anti-Skill or Judgment while wandering around Academy City’s largest shopping district with all that luggage.

And she would have been in serious trouble if she had been taken in for questioning.

She lay down one of the suitcases and inserted a small key. It opened up like a pop-up book, revealing explosives in a variety of shapes and colors. Kinuhata didn’t know what they were all called and she doubted she would understand if Frenda explained what they all were. Since she had gone out of her way to bring them in from outside the hideout, they probably weren’t something that could be safely stored here.

She had gone around collecting them all for this.

Frenda winked.

“In the end, we need to pull out all the stops, right? If I’m going to save a friend, I’m going to give it my all.”

They wanted money, but what for?

As long as they didn’t lose sight of that, those girls would not lose their way.

What was a mere 80 billion worth?

If they couldn’t smile together with everyone they had accepted as a teammate, it wasn’t worth a damn thing.

===Part 3===

Tokiwadai Middle School was a conspicuous location even for the School Garden, a special area in District 7.

A curvy girl with a decorative braid in her fluffy blonde hair held her hands together in a polite greeting.

“How do you do?”

“Hello, ''Ibotanokikouji''-senpai. Aren’t you running late? I thought your last class today was swimming.”

They exchanged greetings like it was nothing, but the short-haired girl in front of her was in fact one of the seven Level 5s. People like that walking the halls on a daily basis was one reason Tokiwadai was a den of monsters.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, leader of a brutal dark side team, suppressed a soft sigh.

(Really, the weird thing is for elites like the Level 5s to be lurking in filthy back alleys during the day. As far as Academy City’s hierarchy is concerned, anyway.)

“I will be fine. Changing quickly is one of my talents, so don’t worry.”

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace in Tokiwadai, so I’m not sure I trust your idea of ‘quickly’. You should still probably hurry.”

Ibotanokikouji agreed with that assessment.

Tokiwadai Middle School was like a breathable aquarium.

The teachers and students all moved so maddeningly slowly as they walked down the hall or ate their lunch.

And she had to move just as slowly or everyone would see her as an aberration from the norm.

Like they did the Level 5 girl in front of her who chose to live true to herself.

“I assure you I will be fine. By the way, Misaka-sama, have you ever met the #6 Level 5?”

“I haven’t.” The girl shrugged. “It’s not like the Level 5s have some special community where we all get along. My arguments with the little one are famous, aren’t they? Or not, I don’t really know.”

The other Level 5, Mental Out, could reproduce just about any psychological power, so for better or for worse, this girl was the only one in Tokiwadai who could call her “the little one”. Which did make it seem like those two had some kind of special bond.

She casually shrugged again.

“There are only seven of us, but that doesn’t mean much. We haven’t all become friends and exchanged email addresses or anything. I don’t even know all their names and powers.”

“''What if I told you I was the #6''?”

“''Oh, really''?”

After that exchange, they parted with a smile.

Ibotanokikouji turned a corner in the hallway, and…

“Phew.”

Even the bright midsummer sun felt somehow cool inside Tokiwadai. It was a carefree world free of crime where the little birds someone had fed were relaxing on the windowsill.

Ibotanokikouji knew it was careless to attend a swimming class when an enemy dark side team wanted her dead.

Tokiwadai was a safe zone in every possible way. It was physically isolated, no information could leak out, and it was involved in Academy City politics.

But it took away everything except for safety, so staying there too long was stifling.

She felt staying here was like locking yourself up in prison for safety.

“Everything moves at such a carefree pace” was a good way of putting it.

Since she was attending Tokiwadai, Ibotanokikouji obviously was not short on money. She was soaking neck deep in the dark side anyway because she feared she would become cut off from the world at large like Urashima Tarou if she did not leave on occasion. Or to put it another way, she always wanted to be at the leading edge of the world. No matter how rotten the truth was, it helped her adjust the hands of her old watch that fell out of sync so easily.

(The dark side has a bad habit of drawing a solid line between themselves and the rest of the city.)

She raised both arms to stretch her back.

The girls in the hallway were moving carefully but somehow hurriedly just before the break ended, but all of a sudden they parted to the sides of the hallway.

''Her power was best suited for killing, but with a bit of creativity, it could also do things like this.

She walked right down the center of the hallway.

(The two worlds are geographically connected and function like two sides of the same coin. This sunlit field is within reach. I haven’t been reborn in another world or anything.)

Mugino’s team would have seen the Tokiwadai uniform in the library and they had to be working feverishly to track her down and rescue the hostage, but they must have assumed their enemy would not be attending school at the predetermined time each day.

She had sacrificed her freedom and bound herself here, so she needed it to cut off all pursuit, both physically and psychologically.

She glanced through a classroom door to check the clock on the wall, but she did not make her way to the locker room. She preferred a deserted location, so she set her sights on the landing of the stairs leading up to the roof. That some cleaning supplies had been left out but no one had reported it meant people barely ever came this way.

Ibotanokikouji nodded.

A sharp sound of splitting air scattered from her feet. Since barely anyone went up to the roof, a “closed for cleaning” sign had been left lying on the landing instead of being put away properly, but it hopped up like she had kicked it. She easily caught it in one hand when it arrived at eye level.

She set it up on the stairs below, transforming the landing up to the roof into her own private territory.

(Of course, ''if I have to, I can always have them subconsciously avoid the stairs.'')

“Now, then.”

She didn’t have much time, so she removed her uniform while operating her phone.

This was why she couldn’t use the locker room in the busy time before swimming class.

She attached an eraser-sized signal spoofing device to the phone’s bottom connector and manually input a number not recorded in the address book. She had to be clever since Tokiwadai had that electrical esper, that psychological esper, and so many more.

“Yes, I can talk now. But I need time to store my uniform, underwear, and valuables in the locker room, lock the locker, and reach the pool on time, so you have 5 minutes for your report.”

“Do they really allow private phones at that fancy school?”

“It won’t be a problem as long as none of you call me in the middle of class.”

She had called the art club girl named Inoue Laspezia.

Her plain, whispered voice was even harder to make out coming from the device.

“And a lot of the girls here don’t have one. Have you heard of love letters? They still write them on paper here. With a spritz of perfume on the stationery, of course.”

“At a girl’s school?”

“The rules in the student handbook never say a word about banning relationships with other students. Although it’s possible the teachers just didn’t think that one through.”

“Whatever. I don’t have anything to do but wait, so I was trying to figure out what to cook today.”

“Do forgive me. The school provides our lunches, so I won’t be able to eat your bento.”

“Don’t worry about it. I found some good eel, so I’m planning to make some jellied eel broth.”

“Eh? But today isn’t even your day to cook.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Jellied eel broth… Just a second. You aren’t planning to serve just that one dish for dinner, are you? Whenever you try to make a Kyoto dish, you always boil it down well past being a stew. Remember when you suddenly said you wanted to make Kyoto-style ramen the other day and ended up toiling over that huge pot for 8 hours? You always insist Waniguchi-chan doesn’t go to the convenience store to tide herself over, so she was so hungry she started rolling on the floor and begging you to let us eat even if it wasn’t perfect.”

“I will always wait as long as it takes. I will wait and wait even if it boils down beyond recognition.”

Ibotanokikouji stared into the distance, thinking she had better get home early today.

But anyway. She unzipped her skirt, leaving her in only her underwear and mentally listed out the things she wanted to check with her dark side teammate.

(We can wear whatever underwear we want, but here I am with matching white for the top and bottom. I’m so like the other girls here it makes me want to die.)

“How are things with the rest of you?” she asked.

“No real issues yet, but Waniguchi is on the verge of losing control, just as you feared. She says she wants to get back at them for what they did to our teammate, but that’s only an excuse. She really just can’t bear having to restrain herself from destroying someone who is at her mercy. …Then again, there are a number of legitimate reasons, like revenge and getting that girl to tell us where all the enemy’s hideouts are.”

Ibotanokikouji went on to remove her underwear on a stairway landing with no walls separating it from the rest of the school.

She held her phone between shoulder and cheek, grabbed the racing-style Tokiwadai swimsuit, and spread it out between her hands.

“You haven’t ''started'' without me, have you?”

“Not really. I don’t need you getting after me again, Kaede.”

“That’s a good girl. I will reward you later. I know this is an unusual situation, but we don’t gain anything by letting that get to us. Bear with it. We can all ‘welcome’ our cute newcomer together.”

“…”

Did that silence come from jealousy? But it was cute how Inoue still obeyed.

Ibotanokikouji continued the conversation with her phone held between shoulder and cheek and one leg lifted to put on the swimsuit. The angle of her head messed with her vision, so she had trouble staying balanced.

Hanano Choubi, was it?

“I still think we should have killed her then and there,” said Inoue.

“What’s this? Jealous? I chose to take her in because she’s cute.”

“That’s a bad habit of yours. And ultimately, you either don’t get along or they can’t keep the dark side’s secrets, so we have to kill them and clean up afterwards.”

Inoue sounded legitimately exasperated.

“You really need to understand that we are the only ones who can get along with someone as tricky as you. Because with both people and things, you prefer the ones ''with the presence of death about them'', don’t you?”

“Hee hee. If you’re going to react this cutely, I’m going to do it even more.”

There were two teams and the winner could officially call themselves Item.

That much was true, but there was no real reason to take the risk of searching out the enemy team’s personal information or hideouts. If all they wanted to do was lay the pressure on Mugino Shizuri’s team, they only needed to throw some of their Colosseum money at the adult world. It wouldn’t be immediate, but the damage would slowly but surely accumulate. The frozen bank account was one example. By the time the bubbles were visible on the surface, the bottom of the pot was already boiling away.

So they needed to preserve this situation.

It was crucial they kept themselves in a position where they could make unilateral attacks. If they got greedy and made a mistake, they might lose everything.

“I miss you,” said Inoue.

“Yes, yes. Just wait a while longer. I plan to head straight home today.”

“Thank you. I will have a sea bream hotpot ready for you. First, I slice it thinner than sashimi, then quickly heat it with some turnip…”

“Kyoto seasoning scares me.”

Generally, when a curvier girl attempted to put on a one piece swimsuit, pulling up the shoulder straps alone wasn’t enough to get the chest up. Ibotanokikouji pushed her large chest inside the swimsuit to fix that and finally took the phone from between her shoulder and cheek.

“The system will be back to normal either today or tomorrow. We will wait until then before working together to win over Hanano-chan. If she joins us, we have a new teammate.”

“And if she doesn’t, we kill her and dispose of her body?”

“Oh, you. You aren’t hoping for that outcome, are you?”

No response.

Ibotanokikouji seriously hoped she wouldn’t try the “she was resisting so I had no choice but to kill her” trick.

“I will do whatever you want of me, Kaede. Even if I am bored out of my mind.”

“If you’re bored, why not finally handwash your 2D body pillow covers and hang them up to dry?”

“Bff!?”

Inoue must not have been able to ignore that one because she gave a highly unusual response over the phone.

“And how can you be bored out there where your options are endless?”

Ibotanokikouji tugged on the shoulder strap with her thumb and let it snap back into place.

And she winked.

“You have it so much better than me, suffocating in this luxurious fish tank.”

===Part 4===

Mugino started with their primary assumption.

The living room wall behind her was covered by the “spiderweb” that only she could make sense of.

The enemy wasn’t here, but the battle had already begun.

“Hanano Choubi is almost certainly still alive.”

“What are you basing that on? I would super like to believe it, but I feel like optimism and wishful thinking are clouding your judgment.”

“Let me rephrase that: most likely, they want to kill her, but can’t.”

“?”

“It’s a simple issue of job allocation.”

Mugino made it sound obvious, but then she noticed the confusion on the other three’s faces.

She changed tack.

“Frenda, you arrived at the apartment with a big pile of explosives earlier, didn’t you?”

“What about it? I don’t want to hear a single word about it only being chemical fertilizer. I pulled out all the stops and even dug out the potassium perchlorate and pentaerythrite this time. Napalm, white phosphorous, thermobaric – I’ve got it all. In the end, I’m a one-girl chemical fireworks show of blood and death!!”

“''Why did you bring it yourself instead of asking the support organization?''”

Time froze for Frenda Seivelun.

She knew the answer now.

Mugino sighed.

“I’m sure you had other reasons, like not trusting them with those delicate explosives and not wanting to tell them about your hiding spots. But aside from that, you couldn’t even contact them, could you?”

Takitsubo glanced at the colorful spiderweb on the wall behind Mugino.

Mugino nodded before continuing.

“I would much prefer to leave all this research to them. Numbers are the fastest way of gathering intelligence. But that wasn’t an option, so I’m doing it myself.”

It wasn’t that they had run out of money or been abandoned. Mugino’s terrifying reputation was too powerful for that. Anyone who took the rules too lightly was guaranteed to die. Everyone who dealt with her understood that down to the marrow.

So…

“You super said it was about job allocation, didn’t you? In other words, something big is super going on, so none of the teams can gather the personnel needed to support them?”

“Kouzaku Mitori.”

Mugino pointed back over her shoulder to a photo on the wall.

It was the black-haired girl with the Liquid Shadow power who had guarded the insurance company general manager.

“She said she was preparing to attack the Windowless Building and it turns out she wasn’t bluffing. And I honestly respect that,” noted Mugino.

But that was a side issue.

“So all the villains have had their support organizations gathered up for investigation and defense related to that. No one on the dark side can easily dispose of a body right now.”

“Yeah. In the end, covering up the smell is really tricky once it starts to decompose.” Frenda shrugged in annoyance. “Those thugs on the support organizations wouldn’t have much to do otherwise. In Academy City, there’s legal precedent for the particles that cause the scent of human death being used as evidence of a crime, so no one wants to let the decomposition begin in their own hideout.”

The city did have decomposition experts who could cause even those particles to break down and excellent cleaners who could thoroughly remove the particles from the floor and wallpaper, but there weren’t many of them, which made them conspicuous.

That was bad for anyone who wanted to stay hidden.

And since the dark side’s standard(?) corpse disposal infrastructure had ceased to function, the few experts out there would be getting a rush of requests to deal with the ''already existing'' corpses. It was best to assume they were too overwhelmed to get in touch with.

“Which means I’m not very worried about Hanano Choubi being killed right now.”

If the problem was that serious, it might seem like they would want to call in a Level 5 like Mugino or a Level 4 like Kinuhata instead of the support organizations, but no one bothered to ask why that hadn’t happened.

Needless to say, if word got out that the situation was that bad, the standard(?) dark side member would use the emergency to demand excessive payment or even plot a coup of their own.

In other words, the people at the top were too concerned to open up the possibility of their pet dog biting them too.

“Mugino. Do you think she really can destroy the Windowless Building?”

“If anyone could destroy that thing, I’d have already done it,” replied Mugino like it was nothing.

She respected the attempt, but she never said it was realistic. Academy City was a shitty place that loved to shatter those kinds of hopes. All while pretending they were the good guys.

Since Kouzaku Mitori’s photo was on the wall and Mugino had an accurate idea of how likely her attack on the Windowless Building was, Mugino must have known their higher ups would be attacked but hadn’t bothered saying anything to them. She had also known Kouzaku’s plan was sure to end in failure, but she hadn’t bothered to warn her.

That was because the sooner this attack on the Board of Directors was solved, the sooner the dark side could return to normal, the sooner the corpse disposal infrastructure could recover, and the sooner Hanano’s life would be at risk.

Item was fighting the bad guys and risking their lives to save a friend.

But even with all that, they still weren’t heroes.

Nor did they want to be known as heroes.

This was evil cannibalizing itself.

“By my prediction, the anti-Kouzaku focus will end tonight at the latest. Then, with the incident over, the dark side will return to normal. So we need to attack that fake Enemy Item’s hideout and kill them all before then.”

It was just like Mugino to not mention saving Hanano there.

They had the enemy’s tail in their grasp, but they did not strike quite yet. If they screwed this up, the enemy would notice, go further into hiding with their hostage, and never return to the surface. So Mugino wanted to focus on gathering as much information as possible for as long as possible to increase the odds of success for their one and only chance.

Takitsubo smiled a little.

“What do we know about those four?”

“Only three really matter because I killed one back on the 7th.”

Mugino next pointed at the four photos she had tracked down and were pasted on the outer edge of the spiderweb.

When two groups clashed, it was important to know how many people and how much funding the enemy had. And in Academy City’s case, it also helped to know as much as you could about the esper powers and next-generation weapons they had available.

Mugino had of course spent a lot of time on this part.



“Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

“Age: 14. Sex: Female. The center of Enemy Item. A legit member of the upper class who attends Tokiwadai Middle School, but the veracity of her claim to being the #6 remains unknown. All that information is locked down too much to get at, but the rumors I’ve heard say Tokiwadai only has two Level 5s. Her power seemed to use wind or shockwaves, but it’s too soon to say for sure. She might have been holding back on her power while we were watching.

“She is a latent sadist who decided to experience the city’s night to distract herself from her oppressive upper class life. The obsession with earning a fortune without her parents’ help is probably a stereotypical rebellious phase. The way she shows no restraint with such a strong power suggests she is not a murder virgin.

“Like I said, details on her self-proclaimed #6 position are unknown.

“Still, the Dark Side’s Bane title may mean her job is to punish other villains.

“This goes without saying, but she’s the most dangerous one.

“Redirect her toward me if it all possible, but if you can’t, then don’t hesitate to run away. For now, we’ll assume she is the #6. You have my authorization to run away during this mission. You should assume contacting her on your own will cost you your life.”



“Hanayama Kamitsu.

“Age: 18. Sex: Female. She was a Level 0, but she called herself the courier and plowed through any pursuers using her Dragon Motor, a kick scooter modified to use a linear engine or jet engine. On the surface, she was a faithful courier, but she was definitely a peeping tom who loved to watch from a distance as the recipient was ruined by whatever she delivered to them. The quick-dried mummy accident in that one District 7 apartment was apparently her doing.

“I’m using the past tense because I killed her on the 7th. She won’t play a role here except for any friends or acquaintances who might hold a grudge, so you can forget the information about her personally.

“The Dragon Motor is mostly a mystery. Has it been mass-produced? If so, can anyone other than her operate it? Who knows. But we can’t deny the possibility, so we need to assume her ghost will return to haunt us in that way.”



“Inoue Laspezia.

“Age: 15. Sex: Female. Known as the modeler. On the art club and makes money counterfeiting various kinds of evidence. Like a hacker, she seems like a support specialist who uses tricks more than direct combat. In addition to creating counterfeit evidence, she also accepts jobs to destroy existing evidence. That’s a good way to earn people’s trust aside from killing.

“I can barely find a bad word about the girl either in the official Anti-Skill records or on the dark side. Almost no one has any complaints with her counterfeit evidence and the vast majority say they saved her. She might be the type who ended up here because she was a little too good at lying.”



“Waniguchi Nokoba.

“Age: 12. Sex: Female. That apparently isn’t her real name, but I couldn’t track down what her name really is. She’s small, but she’s an expert at MMA and has already killed a few people in unofficial matches at her age. Which earned her cheers from the audience, of course. In the Colosseum, she was apparently the executioner who punished anyone who broke the rules. Simply put, she’s just a combat-obsessed freak. It looked like she sought out the dark side herself because she found all the rules and regulations of the official matches too restrictive.

“She goes by a number of titles: the Executioner, the Steel Crusher, the Human Scrapper, the Death Game Queen – you get the picture.

“Since she doesn’t use any next-generation weapons, her ability to break her opponent’s spine and crush them into a giant meatball must come from her esper power.

“Leverage Struggle.

“It apparently lets her increase the force of leverage. It’s probably Level 3 or 4. She focuses on grappling since she’s a meathead, but she could make more creative use of it with some advice from the other members.”



Mugino let out a long breath after getting through all that.

Frenda shrugged.

Mugino had learned a lot, but they still only had the general outlines. Too much remained unknown: was Ibotanokikouji the #6 or not? Would Hanayama’s technology reappear after she had been retired to the graveyard? They didn’t even know Waniguchi’s real name.

And in cases like this, they couldn’t just suspect every little bit of information they had to be on the safe side. A detective who focused on all the details and prepared for the worst even without any definitive evidence would be crushed under the pressure of all the suspicion on the dark side where everything was a muddled mixture of truth and lies.

“In the end, should we find a vulnerable Judgment member and come up with something to threaten them with? Hiring a hacker and making an attack from outside would be even better. Why go to all this trouble when we could just get the data directly from the Bank?”

“In the past, Meltdowner was enough no matter who attacked us.”

Hadn’t Ibotanokikouji said their superiors had given Mugino’s team jobs they could win to give them a taste of victory? And once they had sunk beyond the point of no return, the higher ups could make use of them however they liked.

''She had a point,'' thought Mugino with a slight smile.

And…

“If this goes well, the biggest problem is Ibotanokikouji Kaede at the top. The next biggest would be Waniguchi Nokoba with her deadly martial arts. But we can’t ignore Inoue Laspezia and her ability to frame anyone for just about anything. She could end up being a dark horse. …After all, we don’t even know what her Level is. Is she a Level 0, or has she just not used her power since her job is to counterfeit evidence? They might be saving her as a last resort.”

“If they didn’t have a hostage, you could blow up their hideout from outside, Mugino.”

Takitsubo normally stared blankly into the distance, but now she gave a shocking idea. She may have been pissed too – it just didn’t show on the surface. Partially from the talk of framing people and counterfeiting evidence, but mostly about Hanano who had been captured in order to protect Takitsubo.

Kinuhata cracked her neck.

“Then let’s super think about how we’ll rescue the hostage. That’s our top priority and running away super isn’t going to help. Mugino-san, do you super know where Enemy Item’s base is?”

‘Technically speaking, they have five bases. But four are definitely abandoned, so we can ignore them. The cleaning maids have been in and out, but there was no response. Those bitches must have taken Hanano here – District 11’s abandoned railway tunnel.”

“What? In the end, are you saying those villains are a bunch of slugs who chose to live in filthy concrete ruins covered in graffiti!? When they have a suitcase filled with 80 billion yen!?”

“They did buy a retired luxury train, secretly stick it in the tunnel, and convert it into a hideout. I’m sure it was meant for technical research, but it wasn’t much use given the limited land in Academy City. Anyway, they’re living comfortably there. Any of the city’s train nerds would kill to be in their position. The Nightjar’s restaurant had three Bichelin stars, which means they have the nicest industrial kitchen you could ask for. It should also have a cocktail lounge and a pool car. The track was removed from the abandoned section, but the tunnel itself has power since laying out new power lines would have been too expensive.”

Mugino shrugged.

“But I imagine the real draw for them was the thick tunnel walls and the high-voltage train lines. They have a smart shelter where they don’t have to worry about being discovered from their phone signals, satellite images, or anything in between. Also, a nap room in a luxury beauty salon or a really nice private room in a university hospital aren’t great choices for hiding with a noisy hostage. They could apply violence to keep her silent, but the fear that produces is a double-edged sword. She might just get desperate. And remember that the corpse disposal infrastructure is down, so they can’t kill her even if they want to. As long as they have to hold onto her, they’ll stay to the tunnel.”

It meant a lot to know the location.

But a tunnel was a troublesome location. It had limited entrances and exits, so the enemy was bound to lay out tons of dangerous traps. And while they could blast a hole in the wall of an ordinary building with Meltdowner and make a surprise attack through there, it wasn’t so easy with a thick tunnel.

“You super can’t shoot through that?”

“I can, but the blast would be powerful enough to bring the entire tunnel down.”

Just like with a large arching dam, a tunnel not made with the shield method was not as sturdy as all the thick concrete made it look. Given the total amount of dirt bearing down on the ceiling, the columns were unbelievably skinny and unreliable, so it took some almost artistically creative load balancing to make it work. If that was thrown off, it could all collapse like a house of cards. And that wasn’t an option when you wanted to rescue a hostage, not kill everyone.

“If all the super traps are in the way, I could charge right on in with my Offense Armor. That would clear out all the stationary traps and give you a path.”

“That sounds great, but in the end, could the walls survive all those explosives going off?” Frenda breathed an exasperated sigh. “In the end, I want a map of the tunnel. If that line has been abandoned, the security level for that data should have dropped, right? Do you have that, Mugino?”

“Of course.”

Mugino unfurled two pieces of paper larger than picnic blankets. One was a map of the abandoned railway tunnel. The other was a diagram of the Nightjar train.

“But these are the official plans. This won’t include any of the modifications the Enemy Item made, so be careful.”

“In the end, it’s better than nothing.”

“Hee hee.”

Takitsubo held a hand over her mouth as she laughed.

Mugino gave her a funny look.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t expect you to tell us to ‘be careful’.”

If most people said something like that, they might end up reduced to charcoal.

But not so with Takitsubo.

She could rely on her own instincts to safely cross the minefield that was Mugino Shizuri.

“Tch.”

That was Mugino’s only real response.

She even looked away awkwardly.

Meanwhile, Frenda was busy analyzing. She crawled along the floor like a dog, sticking her butt up despite her short skirt, and even licking her lips.

“In the end, any modifications they made will be built on top of the original structure. No matter how much they change it, the foundation doesn’t lie.”

“You can super tell?”

“All those notes Mugino has on the wall give us enough to know the personalities and habits of each Enemy Item member. And they can’t pull traps out of thin air. Unlike guns and knives, the finished product isn’t packaged up and sold by the arms industry. Mugino, you’ve been tracking down their past actions, right? In the end, how much of your pride did you sacrifice for that?”

“I only went as far as collecting their receipts from the communal trash dump near their hideout.”

“You sure do you love your friends, huh? So in the end, I’ll look into what kinds of traps they could build with that list of materials.”

===Part 5===

A quiet scraping sound filled the room.

Silver-haired art club girl Inoue Laspezia sat on the sofa engrossed in her work. She used the kind of work magnifying glass that attached to the forehead and wore an apron over her summer uniform. Some might have thought she looked like a cute squirrel, but no one would be smiling when they learned she was working on creating a bloody ashtray as counterfeit evidence.

(I need as many cards in my deck as possible so I can help Kaede.)

She had always been good at lying.

Her adorable appearance, trouble making jokes, and plain whispery voice had helped make people trust her. Everyone had looked down on her and assumed “that boring girl” couldn’t lie and would be easy to manipulate. None of this had been intentional on her part; it had all been a miraculous combination of factors.

What would have happened to the boy who cried wolf if he fooled everyone to the very end? Inoue Laspezia was the answer.

Her parents.

Her teachers.

All of the adults.

It had been like a magic spell from a picture book that let her bend them all to her will. When the young girl had learned to use it, no one had ever scolded her for it, so her malice had only grown. It had been all the worse for how pure and innocent she was. When she shouted “a wolf is coming”, it was enough to send a silly adult to their doom.

She hadn’t wanted money.

She hadn’t resented anyone.

Inoue Laspezia had simply enjoyed the looks on their faces when a single silly false accusation against an adult so much stronger and older than her would cause everything they had built up over their lifetime to come crashing down.

It was such a common desire that it was found in a fable from more than 2000 years ago.

But it was also a villainous act that no one should have been allowed to actually commit.

(Phew.)

Maybe that was why she loved figurines. She also liked the works they were based on. In other words, she was an otaku. The residents of the 2D world never changed no matter how much she lied. They never got mad and they were never deceived. She could never be so open with anyone else. If it weren’t so easy to buy life-size body pillow covers of her favorite characters from the internet, she figured she would probably have kept a corpse in cold storage instead. …The only problem was how bulky those covers were even when rolled up like a scroll. Especially when she inevitably found a new favorite character each new season.

As anyone who had folded a 1000-yen note to play with the famous person’s face can likely imagine, one’s love can be shaken if their body pillow cover gets a crease in it. But if you carelessly iron it, things can get even worse. They fade, twist, and wrinkle so easily. They required a lot more delicate care than a resilient pet.

The pillows had a life of their own.

(Hmm. I know Kaede doesn’t like how much space they take up, so maybe I should finally switch over to VR. Then you just need the one blank body pillow you can touch and hug and the VR adds in whatever image you want. The data won’t deteriorate or take up extra space. On the other hand, you need the equipment, the hookups, enough space to move around in, and the initial setup sounds like a pain.)

“Hey.”

Waniguchi was back.

Inoue chose that as a good time to remove the magnifying glass from her forehead.

The 12-year-old executioner felt a need to resupply at the convenience store once every three hours. Inoue felt that was only the result of Ibotanokikouji spoiling the girl. What she wanted changed based on her mood, so she couldn’t just buy it all at once.

Waniguchi was supposedly an MMA fighter who wasn’t satisfied with the official matches and joined the deadly underground fights…so it was strange how dependent she was on the chips and sodas sold at the convenience store. Meatheads usually only ate protein, chicken tenders, egg whites, and raw vegetables.

“Don’t keep the refrigerator open too long. My jellied broth is setting in there.”

“Oh, you mean the stuff that’s way too bland?”

“Keep saying that and Kyoto will eventually fight back.”

“Dos Kyoto transform or something?”

Waniguchi pulled a giant cup of blue condensed milk flavor shaved ice from the bag. You apparently heated it for ten seconds in the microwave to melt it just enough. Then she pointed at Inoue’s forehead.

“You’ve got paint on your face.”

Despite the warning, Inoue did not reach up to touch her face. She couldn’t let her guard down just because she was wearing thin gloves. If she got some ''red AB-type iron paint'' on her fingers, it could get all over her. She stopped working and made a mental note to use her small bottle of turpentine later on.

Waniguchi cackled.

“You’re a mess. This is the problem with you indoorsy art club types. How is it you have such a great eye for aesthetics and are so obsessive over making your artwork perfect, but you don’t give a single thought to your clothing or even your posture. Keep stooping over and whispering all the time and the Chief will lose interest in you.”

“Is that so, Aiyose Hiyoko-chan?”

“S-stop! I’ve thrown out that name! I have a much cooler ring name now!! Even the Chief said she loves it!!”

Waniguchi Nokoba quickly held her arms up in an X-shaped defensive stance.

That name apparently qualified as a counterattack.

The mood of the room changed drastically when Ibotanokikouji wasn’t around. These two were all over her, but wanted nothing to do with each other.

The nature of relationships differed depending on who they were with.

“Anyway, where’s the can opener?” asked Waniguchi. “Hello? The can opener? The thing you use to open cans?”

“How stupid do you think I am? I know what a can opener is.”

Inoue set down the small metal file in her right hand, grabbed another tool from the table, and tossed it over.

It was an enormous knife in a synthetic leather sheath. The end of the guard had a claw-like protrusion that could be used as a can opener. Of course, it could also be used to split open an enemy’s forehead in close combat.

Waniguchi caught it one-handed, but then she noticed something.

“Wait. Isn’t this the Chief’s knife?”

“…”

“You swiped one of her things and took it to your room ''again'', didn’t you!? You always do this. Whenever she gives you the opening, you sneak off with her underwear or handkerchief or something.”

2D was the best, but it had no scent or warmth.

And if the pillow smelled like Ibotanokikouji, then whatever Inoue did with the 2D character didn’t count as cheating.

“Say what you like, but I always clean up the evidence, leave it as good as new, and return it before Kaede notices, so you have no proof of anything.”

“What the hell!? And all I ever do is sneak into her bed when she’s away!!”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Are you going to fess up, or do I have to call Anti-Skill on you?”

The arguing continued.

Maybe she wanted to get in the way of Inoue’s work, but Waniguchi stuck around while she drew the large single-edge knife from the synthetic leather sheath and pressed the guard against the edge of the can. She easily got the lid open. She wasn’t just accustomed to doing this. She worked as fast as a sewing machine.

“Didn’t you go to the convenience store?” Inoue sounded a bit exasperated. “And do they even still sell cans you need an opener for?”

“The discount mackerel cans tend to need an opener. And the entire stock has a tendency to just vanish, so they’re weirdly in demand. Also, these old-fashioned canned fruits are the best toppings for shaved ice. The Chief told me about these mandarin oranges soaking in this toxically thick syrup!”

Young Waniguchi brutally licked her lips.

After opening the can, she flipped it upside down and shook it to add her own extra topping to the convenience store shaved ice. Then she added some highly carbonated cider. It was a brute force strategy where she used her youth to protect her against all the sugar. And what had happened to melting it a bit in the microwave?

Waniguchi began mixing the giant shaved ice using the thick plastic straw and spoon the store had provided.

“So how is that girl doing?”

“She’s stopped making any noise, but I think she’s still alive. I removed anything she could use to kill herself.”

“Are you sure? Did you remove her teeth? She could bite her tongue or tear out a thick artery with those.”

“Didn’t we have this discussion already? Just like sticking her head in the sink to drown herself, the odds of her trying it are too low to worry about.”

But she still did go check on Ibotanokikouji’s new friend.

Inoue set her incomplete artwork down on the newspaper laid out on the table, removed her gloves, and rubbed moisturizer on her fingers. The way she scowled at the sound of crunching shaved ice, she may have been concerned some water droplets would end up on her art.

But Inoue’s silent glare only motivated Waniguchi to pour even more cider on and gulp down the half-liquefied shaved ice. She must have forgotten all about the canned mandarin oranges because she started choking, earning her an even harsher glare from the art club girl.

The two of them walked down the long hallway.

The mood changed the instant they opened the door.

Inoue frowned a bit at the hot, humid air that wafted out. It was like arriving in a stranger’s room. And that wasn’t entirely inaccurate. A certain girl had been trapped in there for a week now, so her scent would naturally have started to take over.

A weak groan came from the room.

In a girl’s voice.

“Uh…”

That was Hanano Choubi.

The room was structured like a prefabricated bath, but it had no window, the shower hose had been removed along with any other equipment that could be used for suicide, and the faucet had been wrapped tight with wire to keep it from turning. The tile floor was damp from the humidity and the long-unused electrical outlet was covered in dust. Her hand was handcuffed to the pipe on the wall.

Waniguchi put a hand on her hip.

“Why are we going easy on her? If we really want to lay on the pressure, we should shut off water to the toilet too.”

“Do you want to clean up after that? When we’re having so much trouble with corpse disposal already?”

Violence was not the only card capable of tearing down someone’s psyche and making them obey you like a robot. Pain was just one of the cards that made people’s circumstances impossible to bear. If you dumped them in an environment their sensibilities refused to accept and removed all avenues of escape, their internal logic would easily collapse.

For example…

A week had passed since July 7. For that entire time, she hadn’t been able to take a bath, change her clothes, or even change her underwear. For a teenage girl, that alone would feel impossible to bear.

They didn’t need to torture her or even lay a finger on her.

In these circumstances, keeping her clothes on actually increased the discomfort.

Those two had caused more than their fair share of suffering on the dark side, so they understood this well.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that perfume you sprayed yourself with back there,” said Inoue.

Hanano groaned and her shoulders shook.

“But it was really obvious because it didn’t fit your plain look at all. That stuff was too grownup and expensive for you. Just so you know, I broke it all down with a special biological solvent I have, so not even a trained dog could have followed your trail.”

“And that goes for those toys the Hound Dogs use too,” added Waniguchi with a “kee hee hee” of laughter.

Her expression said she loved shattering people’s hopes.

“That was the only trick she tried,” whispered Inoue. “Kaede said she might make for a teammate with some interesting skills, but what do you think?”

“Who can say. I bet she wasn’t looking past the girl’s appearance. She can’t get enough of the terrified mouse type. But it’s not my decision. And I never said I would always obey every one of the Chief’s orders.”

There was no panic or irritation in Inoue and Waniguchi’s voices.

They didn’t think Hanano would really be their teammate.

If they could win her over before the support organization was back, then she would be. If that didn’t work, they would kill her. They were assuming they would end up killing her and they could just stop working if a miracle did occur.

They had no real pressing reason to keep Hanano alive.

Nor would they gain anything by cruelling torturing her.

They didn’t even need to attack Mugino to eliminate that threat – going into hiding would work just as well. Then they could add onto the frozen bank account to gradually tighten their grip around Mugino’s throat. If the others on the dark side realized they had a chance to attack, those others would do the dirty work for them. They didn’t even need to get Hanano to reveal any of Mugino’s personal information or the location of her hideouts.

In fact, they were hoping to kill her and throw her out as soon as possible, so any excess injuries to the future corpse could turn into unwanted evidence.

But all of that was based on a logical analysis of the situation.

None of that meant much when to someone with a short temper who wouldn’t want to leave an enemy prisoner alone after one of their own was killed. Plus, what if they spared Hanano now and she betrayed Kaede?

“If she won’t listen, why not just strangle her?”

Chained Hanano’s shoulders jumped.

The 12-year-old girl may have been enjoying the effect her words were having on the older girl. She smiled belligerently and kept going.

“Constrict her carotid artery and she’ll be out in less than 10 seconds, but get the windpipe and she’ll suffer a lot longer. You can make her experience the fear of drowning. Do it just right and her stomach will go nuts too.”

“No. You’d enjoy it too much and end up crushing her neckbone.”

“I mean, yeah, but you’re pissed too, aren’t you?”

“Kaede does not want revenge.”

“Again with the Chief.”

“You say that, but you will obey her here, won’t you?”

Hanano’s gaze bounced back and forth like a tennis umpire. Probably because her life was on the line here. She looked truly pitiful.

Then again, this conversation was primarily being used to lay the pressure on her.

This Item had its own support organization, but those convenient workers had been called away for an emergency task. That meant they could not be relied on to dispose of a body, so killing was best avoided.

Kaede had gone out of her way to supply this secret hideout. Think of it like an article of clothing their sweetheart bought them. These girls wanted to avoid stinking up the place with a corpse.

“When do you think those underlings will be back?” asked Waniguchi.

“Who knows.”

“God, a hostage that doesn’t make us a single yen is such a waste of space. How long are we going to keep feeding her? I guess this demonstrates how necessary the support organization is.”

“Are they all that necessary, though?” Inoue rejected that conclusion while whispering down toward the floor. “You say we can’t kill her because you don’t want the stench and rotten corpse juices all over our hideout, right? I can’t stop the actual progression of decomposition, but none of the particles that cause the smell can escape if I strip her corpse naked and coat her in a thick layer of varnish or paint. It’s like packing food in rubber or plastic. We can leave the solidified paint doll in a corner of the room and wait until either the support organization returns or we have the money to pay an expert in cleaning up decomposing corpses.”

A few concerned noises escaped Hanano’s mouth. She had thought the humiliation would at least end when she died, but apparently not.

But she could not bring herself to speak in full words.

Whatever she said, she feared expressing any kind of clear will would send her in an even more devastating direction.

“Can you do that, art club?” asked Waniguchi.

“With Kaede’s permission.”

“If this girl poses any threat at all to the Chief, we should do it right away.”

“It might sadden Kaede, so we should wait for now.”

That was the line between them.

Inoue and Waniguchi glanced toward the door at the same moment.

Ibotanokikouji was not there. She was meditating like she always did. Which in her case meant holding a selfie photoshoot in front of the large mirror while using herself as a dress up doll. It sounded silly, but she had slipped out of Tokiwadai’s strict student dorm for this. She was very serious about it. If she was ever interrupted, she would get after them quite severely, so they had to be careful.

Finally, Waniguchi cracked her neck.

“Chief doesn’t seem too interested in what we’re up to.”

“I do not want to do anything without her express permission. I do not want her mad at me.”

“Yeah, your crocodile tears never work on her for some reason. Even though they’re so shocking even I’ll stop my fist when I see them.”

“Hee hee. That’s what makes her so interesting. She is the only person in the 3D world I can’t fool.”

Of course, violence was Waniguchi’s job. She would clench her fist and destroy someone’s joints in the same way some people would grab the vacuum after spotting some dust or a stain on the floor.

That said…

(The quality of an artist’s work depends on their motivation and mood. It’s so much easier with us athletic types because we’ll do what you say as long as you punch us and give us an order.)

“Hm,” groaned Waniguchi.

She stared at Hanano.

Smiling to try and smooth over an awkward silence was said to be a reflex for the Japanese. Hanano was no exception. It had nothing to do with whether or not she was happy and, in this case, it may have been more of a defense mechanism to avoid angering her captors.

The Colosseum executioner nodded.

Inoue didn’t even have time to stop her.

The little executioner needlessly slammed her fist into the center of the hostage’s face.

Hanano’s choking and sobbing sounded somehow wet. Her breathing may have been clogged by her own blood.

“Are you trying to anger me?” asked Inoue.

“My bad. That ‘you don’t dare touch me’ look of hers pissed me off☆ Does she think she’s some VIP just cause the Chief likes her?”

“Did it have to be her nose? The blood splattered on the wall and the floor. This is going to be a pain to clean up.”

“That’s your main issue? I get the feeling you’re even more pissed off than I am. Cause she’s stealing time you could’ve spent with the Chief.”

Waniguchi casually apologized while leaving the room being used as a cell.

Inoue put her hands on her hips.

“You just returned from the convenience store, right? Did you do a check around the entrance?”

“Just because there are only so many ways in doesn’t mean they’re going to go for the front door. Not even I want to be anywhere near all those traps.”

“Kaede put together those traps, but I worked hard to hide them. Hee hee. Which means it was a joint effort, doesn’t it? In an old war, they apparently painted explosives to look just like coal or rubble and placed them around enemy territory to incite a panic.”

“Damn perfectionist.”

“I guarantee you that no one will notice the high-low mix Kaede and I made.”

“So will they go for the rear entrance? Or they might look for another path we didn’t even consider. Or dig their own hole, I suppose.”

===Part 6===

“So we’ll be going straight for the front door.”

Frenda grinned in the darkness while holding a multitool knife shaped like a pair of pliers.

The darkness was not due to nightfall.

The abandoned railway tunnel was in District 11. Instead of passing through a mountain, this tunnel sloped down below the surface of the city. The hemispherical entrance was covered by a chain-link fence to keep people from wandering in, but that was easily bypassed.

Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, Kinuhata Saiai.

Frenda Seivelun stayed a step ahead of the other three to lead the way.

Takitsubo tilted her expressionless head.

“You can tell where the traps are?”

“In the end, I’m impressed by your courage if you followed me this far without trusting I could.” Frenda used her tool to cut a colored cord. “Broadly speaking, there are two types of trap: the high-tech electronic ones and the low-tech primitive ones.”

“Primitive like a pitfall?”

“Right. Those go back into BCE times, but the technique was really refined in Vietnam. You only need a shovel to make them and they don’t use any explosives or metal to be detected, so they’re still even more frightening than landmines.”

Takitsubo may have meant her example as a joke, but Frenda took it entirely seriously as she worked.

“Both types have their pros and their cons. High-tech traps using invisible lasers and ultrasound seem convenient at first glance, but they’re easily exposed using special cameras and sensors. For that matter, using electricity at all means they’ll produce a faint magnetic field. You know how sending out sonar all the time would be suicide for a submarine? It’s the same idea. …On the other hand, low-tech mines made from wood and glass are primitive, but they’ll slip right past a metal detector, which means you can’t let your guard down. Of course, they have the flaw of being vulnerable to moisture and impacts, so they easily malfunction.”

“Hm. So super which type is better?”

“There’s no definitive answer. So the optimal trap usage is to have a mixture of both types.”

Frenda moved aside a plastic bottle that had been given a metal cap. A smaller sealed bottle was submerged in the liquid within, so it was likely a detergent bomb made from two substances that were dangerous when mixed. But if Frenda hadn’t moved it, it would have looked like any other trash forgotten and buried in here.

“It’s called using a ‘high-low mix’, although I believe that term was originally used in reference to aircraft. But in the end, if you know from the beginning they’ll be using that strategy, you have nothing to fear.”

“You say that, but if you miss just one of them, we go boom,” said Mugino. “Not that it’s guaranteed to be an explosion.”

“In the end, I can sniff them out,” replied Frenda, using duct tape to seal the lid of a bug cage stuffed full of ants that likely were not native to Japan. “I wonder if this was a rush job for them. I can smell the paint and turpentine they used for the camouflage. Now, I’m not about to place my full trust in a hint left by the enemy, but I doubt this is some kind of strategy. In the end, they were overconfident and made a careless mistake. I bet they didn’t notice the smell because they’ve been surrounded by it for so long – that’s a mistake pros make all the time.”

Minefields were simple but highly effective.

Unlike a two-way fight, they let you defeat the enemy without taking any damage yourself.

But all the effort put into setting up the traps would lead to an assumption that the enemy would never make it past them all and make a direct attack.

If you had the skills necessary to get past the traps, then a frontal assault would function as a surprise attack.

“Takitsubo. In the end, I could use some water,” said Frenda because both her hands were full.

“Yes, yes. You mean this bottle with a straw in it?”

“Grab me a mackerel can too.”

“Are you sure you need that?”

While Frenda ate her fish, she began working less and less until she finally had no more work to do. They had crossed the dense field of traps. Frenda herself actually grew more cautious in case this was a trick to get her to lower her guard, but she never did find anything more.

“We’re almost to the Nightjar,” said Mugino, staring up ahead. “They were probably afraid of getting caught in their own traps, so they only set them up near the distant tunnel entrance.”

While the tunnel was abandoned, it still had power and the fluorescent lights for workers remained lit. Of course, this was the enemy’s home base, so it was possible those lights could be shut off at any moment. They kept their phones at the ready in case they needed them for light, but a large and extremely pointy silhouette was visible even without any extra light.

That was the Nightjar luxury train.

It was also the smart shelter the Enemy Item used when they were being pursued and needed a place to hide.

They heard a sound of straining metal.

Kinuhata immediately rushed out in front of Frenda and was blasted backwards by an explosive sound. Frenda quickly got down on the ground, her eyes wide.

“Eh? Eh?”

“Cough, there’s super something there! Be careful!!”

Something with eight-legs lurked in the shadows.

Several of them, in fact.

The drum-like bodies were likely based on the security robots that patrolled Academy City. The eight legs were abnormally long for those bodies and a .50-caliber machinegun had been forcibly attached to the side. Kinuhata had been knocked back despite her nitrogen shield.

Mugino clicked her tongue and launched her Meltdowner.

She also moved to protect Takitsubo.

“Tch. I thought the thick tunnel blocked any signals from getting in!”

“Signals can still travel inside the tunnel, so these could be remotely controlled from the train.”

That said, they were right next to the high-voltage railway power line, which would interfere with any control signals. It was best to assume these were specialized for autonomous combat.

However…

“They have cameras, so the enemy will know we’re here. This is a race against time now! Frenda, don’t let the enclosed tunnel scare you – it’s time for your bombs! And Takitsubo!!”

“I know,” whispered Takitsubo, pulling something from her track suit pocket.

It looked like a mechanical pencil lead case, but it contained an unsettling white powder.

“''I will use it today.'' If I had just used Body Crystal and recorded Hanano’s AIM Diffusion Field the first time, none of this would have happened. I put her life at risk because I didn’t want to shorten my own lifespan. So I won’t let the Enemy Item escape this tunnel no matter what they try.”

She was essentially saying she would chemically shorten her life.

It was a matter of chemistry, so one plus one would always equal two. There was no room for a miraculous result of three or four. She was implicitly saying she was fine with that. She was saying Hanano Choubi held that much value for her.

Kinuhata got up, clenched her teeth, used her arms to guard, and forcibly held back the machinegun fire while she marched forward and silenced one 8-legged drum with her fist.

“Is Takitsubo-san’s power that super great?”

“In the end, it’s not so much great as it is cheating! I wouldn’t want her as my enemy for a different reason than Mugino!!”

“Don’t call me a cheater. I’m always faithful.”

Takitsubo gave a somewhat off-kilter comment among the explosive gunfire while she licked up the powder she had sprinkled on the back of her hand.

Their enemy had no real reason to keep Hanano alive.

This was a race against time, so they would have a hard time searching through each of the more than 10 train cars while remaining alert for surprise attacks and counterattacks. Ordinarily, it would be downright impossible. But that was where Takitsubo’s AIM Stalker came in handy. One look at the area and she could accurately locate any esper – from Level 0 to Level 5 – by the faint power they emitted. And once she had “recorded” an esper’s power, she could track them even if they fled the solar system.

The fact that the enemy was reliant on traps and unmanned weapons meant their support organization had been recalled. The only people in that long train would be the Enemy Item’s three survivors and their hostage, Hanano.

So Takitsubo only had to identify which cars she sensed people inside.

“It’s not too late.”

Takitsubo forced out the words while covered in a disconcerting amount of perspiration.

If they looked inside an occupied car and found Hanano, they could protect her. If they didn’t find her, everyone inside was an enemy. If all three enemies were together, then blowing up that car would eliminate the threat and rescue the hostage all at once.

“If I can locate the people here, Mugino or Frenda can blow down the train’s wall, and we can rescue Hanano!!”

Takitsubo’s power would set it all in motion, so she didn’t hesitate to use the Body Crystal despite the risk to her.

''However…

“…?”

“Takitsubo?”

The faintest furrowing of the brow on Takitsubo’s otherwise expressionless face caught Frenda’s attention while she used an explosive resembling correction tape to burn right through one of the 8-legged drums.

The track suit girl had frozen in place.

“''She’s not here,''” she said.

“What? Who’s not?”

“''I’m not sensing anyone. This train is deserted''!!”

===Part 7===

“Did you hit the switch?”

“I did.”

Still handcuffed to the pipe, Hanano Choubi blankly watched Waniguchi Nokoba and Inoue Laspezia converse in the bathroom where the bathtub and sink’s faucets were locked down with wires.

The confusion must have been plain on her face. Or maybe Waniguchi was simply feeling the relief of finishing a job. Either way, she answered the question Hanano hadn’t asked out loud.

“Your friends have failed.”

“…”

“This isn’t any of our five hideouts. Those dumbasses ''attacked the wrong place'', so we got to watch them through an ultrasound-transmitted camera while remotely activating a trap to fill the entire tunnel with poison gas.”

“When we know they’re looking for us, why wouldn’t we go even deeper into hiding?”

“Who knows if this will actually kill them, but there’s no way they’ll arrive in time to rescue you.”

Hanano’s pupils shrank.

Amused by that reaction, Inoue and Waniguchi continued their conversation.

“Besides, did they really expect a bunch of girls to live somewhere like that? We certainly couldn’t bring Kaede there. Abandoned tunnels are a treasure trove of bugs and rats.”

“Ugh, my thigh is itchy all over again just thinking about it!! I’m only ever living at the top of a skyscraper where there aren’t any mosquitos or flies. And with all the cargo stored in District 11, you can’t find convenience stores anywhere. That’s a dealbreaker for me since I need to resupply once every three hours or I go crazy.”

Inoue noticed something and pulled her phone from her skirt pocket.

She checked an email and looked up.

“This says the support organization has finished their other job. They should be back soon.”

“So what was that other job anyway?”

“The battery’s low,” murmured Inoue while staring at her phone. There was a dusty old power outlet at the bottom of the wall, but she hadn’t brought a power cable in here with her. “Apparently they don’t care if we know now that it’s over. It turns out some moron tried to attack the Board Chairman’s Windowless Building.”

“Damn, I wish that’d worked. Without that shithead at the top, the Chief and I could create our own private love paradise.”

“Sounds like a hell I would do anything in my power to stop.”

The return of the support organizations meant the return of the corpse disposal infrastructure. Which truly eliminated all reason to keep Hanano alive.

“So. With that restriction gone, how should we kill her?”

“You have the worst taste.” Inoue sighed. “What if Kaede hears you beforehand?”

“Nice joke. If she really cared, she’d have stopped meditating and joined us. Besides, she’ll be happy as long as she can surround herself in death. And once she’s bored with that, we can use this girl to ''frame'' our enemy. You knew from the get-go we needed to kill her, didn’t you? It’s like the rest of you keep ordering more food but refuse to eat the bell peppers, so I get to eat them all myself. Think of me as the saint of volunteer work who completes all the tasks no one else wants to do.”

The small girl chuckled.

She bent over and leaned toward Hanano.

“I still can’t figure out what such a weak person is doing on the dark side. It takes a pretty dumb person to not follow the most beautiful of rules: survival of the fittest. But not even that rule applies to the dark side. This is a much simpler and purer world.”

“(Survival of the strongest, you mean? That sounds arrogant, but you’re really just trying to make yourself look powerful because you’re afraid of being bullied if people see you as weak, aren’t you? Oh, Hiyoko-chan. Don’t think I didn’t notice that your workout regimen with those rubber balls ''has nothing at all to do with your power''.)”

“I heard every word of that, you Kyoto girl who somehow can’t pass a history test. And use my ring name.”

The way the 12-year-old blushed and cleared her throat was quite cute, but she was also an expert in crushing and destroying people. She wasn’t about to go easy on anyone.

(Kaede isn’t coming to save her. And after she went to the trouble of taking her in.)

Inoue noted that, but she made no attempt to stop Waniguchi.

That was because ''this happened all the time.

“I have no interest in violence, so can I wait outside until you’re done?” asked Inoue.

“Ehh!? I’m a performer, you know!? I need an audience to really get into it!! Even when I’m punching the sandbag at the gym, there are at least people around! If you’re going to leave, at least call the Chief in here.”

“You must be joking. I can’t let Kaede see this.”

Just before she left, Inoue’s eyebrows twitched. There was something about Hanano. No, it was the lack of any kind of reaction that Inoue found unusual. She should have struggled in any way she could. Sure, she was handcuffed to the pipe, but she would be killed if she did nothing at all. Would she really give up and accept that fate?

Inoue sensed something from the girl’s apparent lack of concern.

The first to take a step forward was plain and whispering Inoue, not short-tempered Waniguchi. The silver-haired art club girl grabbed the chest of Hanano’s clothing and jerked her hand forward. Hanano’s short-sleeved sailor uniform audibly tore, revealing her chest.

Her modest chest was covered by a plain bra.

Something hung at her chest: a cylinder about the size of a AAA battery.

''That was a fuse.

The device was used to ensure a destructive explosive would detonate at the desired time. However, the fuse alone was no more powerful than a firecracker.

But it seemed unlikely she would have that hidden away for no reason. If it was her secret prize, it had to be worth entrusting her life in.

“Eh?”

Inoue was speechless. But she did not doubt the reality before her eyes. Her small nose detected a scent other than sweat staining Hanano’s bra.

“''Liquid explosive''!!??”

Meanwhile…

“You gave me an entire week to work with.”

Hanano managed a weak but unmistakable smile.

When she had asked Frenda to tell her where Mugino’s mines were located, Frenda had told her to find them herself. She had found that heartless at the time, but now she knew better.

You didn’t reveal your teammates’ secrets, even as a joke. If you couldn’t manage that, you could never earn the trust of your team.

Which led to only one possible conclusion: ''this was the best option available to her.

The triumphant girl spoke with no attempt made to cover the chest exposed by her torn sailor uniform.

“If you want to be villains, you really should have stripped off all my clothing.”

[[Image:Item_BW4.jpg|thumb]]

===Part 8===

''Kaboooooom!!!

Enemy Item’s hideout exploded so violently it was visible from the outside.

===Part 9===

Frenda Seivelun had emerged from the abandoned railway tunnel.

Poison gas was a bad match for Item. Mugino could simply use her firepower to burn the gas – that is, forcibly oxidize it to rewrite the chemical formula – and neutralize it. Frenda could use her explosives in the enclosed tunnel to push all the contaminated air outside. Finally, Kinuhata could protect herself with the thick gas barrier created by her Offense Armor.

But they didn’t feel like they had outsmarted their enemy.

“Get the van moving!! Hurry!”

Mugino shouted and the van’s tires screeched.

She was shouting this command to a driver from the support organization. His presence meant the situation had advanced to the next phase.

The delinquent driver first merged onto a large highway.

“Wh-where exactly do you want to go!?”

“''You can see that smoke in the distance, can’t you?'' Get there as fast as possible!!”

Frenda was desperate because she already knew what this had to be. As an explosives expert, the deep noise was enough for her to identify the type of explosive used.

The young driver’s eyes widened.

“The light’s red.”

“So what!? Don’t let your foot off the gas!! Run the light!!!”

They plowed right through the large intersection at full speed, just barely avoiding a yellow sportscar. A flurry of horns honked at them, but they ignored it.

But this couldn’t last forever.

They crossed a few district borders, but they hit some congestion upon entering District 15.

A few sirens blended together in the distance.

“I can’t get you any further!! It looks like Anti-Skill is directing traffic up ahead…”

“Tch!!”

The girls didn’t bother listening any further and hopped out of the van.

Even now, a blimp floated leisurely by overhead. Its screen read, “A fire in a building along a major road in this area is causing traffic delays. If you are nearby, please watch out for falling objects. For a detailed map of the affected area, please check the traffic management center or the railroad company’s website.”

In the distance, they saw orange light and black smoke rising into the night sky. Firetrucks and ambulances were gathered at the base of the building.

All four of them had to be thinking the same thing: why did it have to be ''here'' of all places?

Outside the “keep out” tape, the press and personal phones were filming the scene.

That made it difficult for anyone on the dark side to approach. But quite a few things were flying through the area, even outside the taped-off area.

There was sharp shards of glass, scorched wreckage of what had once been furniture, and a book that looked like it had been chewed up by a fierce dog.

The book contained Umisuna Seiru’s makeup techniques.

Who was it that had so happily embraced that prize up after discovering it at the parasol market?

Silence fell over all four of them.

Their rescue of Hanano Choubi had failed. But this explosion had revealed Enemy Item’s location. More than that, it had probably killed some of them.

But that meant nothing.

Why hadn’t Hanano considered that part?

Frenda recalled an earlier conversation with the girl.



''“Oh, right. I forgot to congratulate you for your performance earlier today, Hanano.”

''“Thanks.”



Yes.

It had been meant as a reward.



''“Without your help, we couldn’t have gotten that data from the insurance company. I doubt Mugino would have given up, but she would’ve relied on brute force to get the job done.”

''“Ha…ah ha ha…”



She had disguised herself as the insurance company’s general manager and skillfully retrieved the data.

So Frenda had wanted to give her a reward to welcome her into Item. She had thought the nervous newcomer might relax some if she felt like she had done something for the group as a whole.



''“So we owe you one. Is there anything you want us to do for you? Or anything you want from us?”

''“U-um, there is actually…”



The response Hanano had given had been a dangerous one: a liquid explosive.

But Frenda had decided that was something you might need to get along in the dark side.

Had that been a mistake?

At the time, Hanano had looked so relieved.

And yet…



''“Really? That’s pretty dangerous.”

''“Hmm. Think of it as a last resort I can use. I am in the dark side now. And I thought you would be the best person to ask.”



Frenda stared silently at the embers and smoke for a while.

She stared at that overwhelming reality.

She had failed to do anything.

She had plenty more friends, but what did that matter? She had a lengthy list of addresses in her phone, giving her connections to various industries from the light and the dark, but could any of that fill the emptiness she felt now?

The death of just a single person brought so much sorrow.

Needless to say, nothing else could replace her. It wasn’t a simple matter of arithmetic.

Hanano Choubi wasn’t meant to die.

That might sound odd for Item, who killed other members of the dark side all the time, but Frenda refused to accept that argument.

''Keep fighting,'' she thought.

''It doesn’t matter how pathetic or unsightly it is.

''The villains of Item aren’t meant to have a noble death, you idiot.

Finally, the blonde girl said something no one else there would understand.

“In the end, how was this your last resort? There had to be other options to try, like injuring yourself badly enough the enemy would panic and feel the need to take you to a normal hospital.”

That timid girl must have been pushed to her absolute limits.

She hadn’t wanted to die without accomplishing anything, so she had at least wanted to take them down with her.

Frenda thought that was a foolish decision.

But she couldn’t let Hanano’s courage go to waste. That friend had paid with her life for this hint. That smoke and fire couldn’t be hidden by any dark side tricks.

That was their new starting point. If they used that, they could resume the hunt no matter where the enemy tried to run.

(Damn that girl.)

Frenda’s mind was boiling.

She repeated much the same words, but directed at someone else.

(Damn those girls!!)

She didn’t care about the money.

There was no hostage anymore.

The girls’ objective had changed yet again.

In other words…

Frenda Seivelun bit her lip for a moment. And then…

“You’re dead, counterfeit Iteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!”

[[Image:Item_BW5.jpg|thumb]]

Villains were selfish.

They didn’t reflect on their actions, they spoke of payback and debts when they usually rejected the obligations of the righteous world, and they thoroughly criticized and punished other people for their actions. When something went wrong, they found someone else to blame before considering their own mistakes.

But none of that mattered at the moment.

Who cares about Academy City’s #6? What did the Dark Side’s Bane matter?

They would throw out their own goodness if letting their morals restrict their actions would allow their target to escape. If they couldn’t reach the enemy as things were, they would throw it all out. The wolf would break free of all its bonds, race through the night, and tear out the fat pig’s throat with its fangs.

They would choose to become wild animals.

The enraged girl’s howl rang through the night.

The foolish sacrifice had lost their final shield. They no longer had any bargaining chip capable of stopping Item.

The hunt had begun.

===Between the Lines 3===

It happened all of sudden while she was changing clothes.

“Pant, pant.”

It interrupted the selfie photoshoot she called medication.

Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the curvy girl with a braid in her fluffy blonde hair, held a hand to her head and leaned against the wall like she had bumped into it from the side. That was enough for the wall to collapse like wet cardboard, so she had to quickly catch herself.

The power was out.

A ceiling board had fallen and several wires dangle down with intermittent sparks spilling out. That gave her some light to go on in the darkness.

“Inoue-chan, Waniguchi-chan?”

She had hit her head, so it ached now. The voice that spilled from her mouth was so horribly hoarse she barely recognized it.

What had happened?

An explosion?

She wobbled on her feet as she searched her pocket, but she couldn’t find her phone. She was disinclined to get down and crawl through the dark searching for it. First, she needed to find out what happened.

It didn’t appear to have been a gas explosion from the bathroom or kitchen.

She called her teammates’ names while searching for them.

Her first guess was the room holding the hostage.

She smelled something like fireworks before she even got close. That plus a smoky smell. It looked like the door had been blasted outwards from within. But instead of the bent door lying on the floor, its splinters were stabbing into the opposite wall.

“Please answer me. Inoue-…”

She trailed off.

She could barely see the floor in the dark, so she ended up kicking something. It was about the size of a soccer ball, but heavier.

It was a human head.

Inoue Laspezia’s.

It was burnt beyond recognition and Ibotanokikouji held a hand over her mouth upon seeing it. When she looked away, she saw something hanging on the wall. It reminded her of a coat on a hangar, but that was no coat. It was skewered by a rainstorm of sharp metal scraps and partially embedded in the wall. It took her a second to recognize the motionless object as…a burnt human body.

“Wanagu-”

The name was cut off by the need to swallow the vomit threatening to climb her throat.

The hostage had done something to trigger an explosion.

Emotions could come later. She had to think about what needed to be done now. This explosion would have been visible from the outside. Anti-Skill, the press, and even online news reporters who were little more than gawkers would be rushing here before long. And Mugino’s team would follow this very obvious signal.

Ibotanokikouji’s Item had now lost three members.

She was the only one left.

In that sense, this last-ditch suicide attack had been very successful.

Now wasn’t the time to argue about individual power.

She could never have run the Colosseum and its 80 billion in profits if she let her emotions take control at times like this. Her opponent here wasn’t just a Level 5, but that Level 5’s entire team. That meant they could cover for each other’s vulnerabilities and blind spots. She had to assume she gained nothing from a direct confrontation.

Ibotanokikouji reigned supreme only as a criminal.

As seen in how she ran the Colosseum and how she abducted Hanano, her general policy was to hide herself in the crowds so she could remain invisible.

So in this case…

“I need to run away.”

She made the decision instantly.

This had nothing to do with how strong or weak her power was. Waiting here for an entire group of enemies was out of the question.

She needed to slip away for now.

She could consider how to kill them later.

“I need to escape to safety and gather my strength. And gather people as well.”

''Once she made a decision, she was quick to take action.

She grabbed a bent oil lighter originally meant to light aroma candles. At the very least, she needed to gather up and burn or otherwise dispose of the documents, the evidence, the phone she had lost and given up on finding, and anything else incriminating. She left the corpses and burnt wreckage alone while grabbing her Tokiwadai summer uniform and the suitcase containing 80 billion yen. Then she left the destroyed hideout.

It was a room in a District 15 luxury apartment.

Specifically, ''it was the room on the floor directly below Mugino’s hideout.

(We already had a room soundproofed to use as a cell, so keeping a hostage here was no problem. And we could spy on their conversations using a device that reads the minute vibrations in the pillar running between the two floors.)

“Since the blast broke though the ceiling, did this destroy their hideout too?”

She went straight to the elevator, saw it was already rising from the ground floor, and changed direction. She stepped out onto the emergency stairs, descended just one floor, and pressed the elevator button from there.

The rising elevator would not react to the down button, so she could slip past Anti-Skill, the firefighters, or whoever else was coming up from below.

She boarded the elevator that did arrive and rode it down to the ground floor.

That brought her to the bottom of Fifteen Bells, but the outside was awash with flashing red lights. She had no intention of being seen by the cameras of the press and onlookers gathered just outside the “keep out” tape. She instead left through the back staff entrance.

“You’re dead, counterfeit Iteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!!!”

She heard a shout from the crowd, but she kept her face impassive.

She poured all of her strength into her facial muscles.

They hadn’t noticed her yet, so the Tokiwadai girl slipped away from the explosion site with her suitcase in tow.

She didn’t risk using her power.

She could have ''manipulated the crowd on a subconscious level'' if she wanted, but she preferred to avoid giving herself away with any unnecessary actions.

Ordinary behavior was the ultimate camouflage.

This wasn’t over yet.

The rules hadn’t changed: the name Item went to whoever won in the very end.

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