Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item Chapter4

==Chapter 4: Roar of the Level 5==

===Part 1===

July 21, 8 PM.

“Phew.”

A girl in a summer uniform and a large mask arrived in District 3. She was fortunate her usual makeup tools had survived the explosion. The mask covered most of her face’s identifiable features, but it could stand out too much if she didn’t eliminate the mismatch with her skin.

This was Ibotanokikouji Kaede.

A drum-shaped security robot passed nearby, but she was fine for now. Based on its movement pattern and the direction it pointed its lenses, it was likely on traffic duty. Panicking and running away would only draw its attention. While she was a criminal, there was not a major alert out for her arrest.

This was the northernmost district in Academy City. In addition to luxurious office buildings owned by many major corporations, it contained the North Gate leading to Saitama. That meant it also contained the traffic services and infrastructure related to the gate.

The blimp floating by overhead provided some advice on its screen: “The North Gate is experiencing light congestion. Plan for a 20-30 minute delay. If your vehicle is caught in the congestion, please turn off your engine to cut down on exhaust while idling.”

During the hot night, the roadside mist shower was unpleasant. It stuck to her skin and clothing like sweat.

A small light danced in the corner of her view while a three-blade wind turbine turned.

A couple in yukatas was crouched down, apparently enjoying some sparklers. Their phone backlights were brighter than the fireworks. ''Die,'' the upper-class girl cursed silently. It didn’t look like they had requested a security robot with a firefighting attachment to supervise, so she hoped they started a fire and had the worst night of their lives.

Her fluffy blonde hair with a decorative braid swayed as she walked, the suitcase rolled behind her, a bulging sports bag hung over her shoulder, and she entered a building that resembled a giant parking garage.

Ibotanokikouji had arrived at a long-distance bus terminal.

To efficiently process as many large buses as possible, the facility had been expanded to have loading stations on the upper and lower level. The lower level also had a taxi loading zone and a parking lot, but the bus loading stations were the main attraction.

The interior was a bit nicer than a concrete parking garage. Instead of metal signs and sun-faded plastic benches, the waiting area was protected by a glass box and contained large sofas like you would find in an airport lounge. A push of a button on the seat and a waiter from the affiliated café would come to take your order.

“C-11 – the Highway Cradle bound for Aomori should be…this one?”
Ibotanokikouji checked the alphanumeric designation provided by the e-ticket displayed on her new phone and made her way to the loading station for the bus she wanted. The bus itself had yet to arrive, so she would have to wait. She opened the clear door, found an empty spot on the sofas covering three of the four walls, and sat down.

“Phew.”

(I would have preferred to go to District 23 and escape overseas by air, but they should be monitoring all of the international flights.)

“Ugh, if only I could fly to Nice. Just give me freedom. But that can wait until I escape Kantou and take a domestic flight to another international airport.”

The transportation facility was crowded even at night. There were other middle schoolers like her and even younger elementary schoolers wandering around with large suitcases. Public transportation usually shut down after the city curfew, but today was special.

It was the 21st.

There was a reason Ibotanokikouji had taken the risk of staying hidden until today.

Today was the first day of summer break.

The city had a population of 2.3 million, 80% of whom were students. They wouldn’t all be leaving the city to return home for the break, but a lot more would be leaving today than any other day. Tokiwadai was extremely strict about spending the night away from the dorm (although Ibotanokikouji snuck out of the dorm fairly frequently), but that changed if you were returning home for the break. She had gotten her form filled out a little differently from everyone else, but as long as it let her hide among all these people, she didn’t need to fear pursuit.

She heard a deep rumbling.

A late-night bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom was climbing a spiraling slope similar to a parking garage.

“…”

Ibotanokikouji was alone after losing her three teammates, but Mugino still had all four members of her team. That meant her opponent was more than just a Level 5. Mugino had multiple support personnel, so fighting her alone would be a bad idea. The strength of Ibotanokikouji’s power didn’t even come into it. If a power compatibility issue occurred in that situation, she would be doomed.

She was at a terrible disadvantage, but the battle wasn’t over yet.

Whoever emerged victorious in the end held the right to the Item name. That condition remained in effect.

It didn’t matter that she was the only one left.

If she gathered new teammates to fill all four slots again, she could redo her version of Item.

She crossed her legs in the waiting area sofa and rubbed her palm gently across the suitcase sitting next to her.

She had created this place for herself – no adult had given it to her. She couldn’t let some stranger have it.

Yes, for herself.

To put that another way, her teammates had only ever been a collection she kept to decorate her hideout according to her tastes. She might watch them, touch them, and adore them, but she would not lament their loss forever.

She loved her Item teammates from the bottom of her heart. That was completely true.

''But'' the sorrow would not last forever.

They could be replaced.

Replaced with an even greater collection which would create an even more comfortable place for herself.

If you lost your treasured possessions in a fire or other disaster, you would not just give up. When you loved something, you would naturally seek out new ones as long as you lived.

Hers was the love of someone looking down at her loved ones from above.

(I have plenty of money. I can rebuild my forces as many times as it takes. So what I need most now is freedom. I need to go into hiding and cut off all pursuit before slowly and gradually acquiring new fighters and finally becoming the hunter once more. Then I can turn the tables on them. I will make them pay for taking my collection from me.)

“This is not over.”

To do this, she needed to escape Mugino’s team’s pursuit, use the adults’ power to gradually weaken them, and end their turn as the hunters without having to lay a single finger on them herself.

For now, that meant escaping outside of Academy City.

“As long as I am undefeated, the threat of Item remains to plague you. I will grow and regenerate and wear you down.”

===Part 2===

“Mugino.”

“Okay, let’s make a real show of it.”

===Part 3===

Something exploded, sounding a lot like a giant firework going off.

Then the building shook vertically, sending an icy chill into her gut.

The bus terminal lost all power, but it wasn’t as dark as a movie theater. Similar to a parking garage, it wasn’t fully enclosed, but more than that, the lights directing people to the emergency exits immediately switched on.

The indoor speakers that had been playing light jazz now played an emergency announcement.

But this didn’t sound like a prerecorded synthesized voice.

“Hello, hello, hello☆ This is not a test. In the end, that was a real anti-tank rocket, so I’d evacuate pretty quick if I were you. We’ll try our best not to hit any of you, but we can’t guarantee your safety if you don’t do your best to leave. I repeat, this is not a test.”

At first, the customers stared blankly in the dark.

But the mood changed once another explosion erupted quite close by.

The many customers scattered and fled in every direction.

It was like the glass waiting areas were hornet’s nests someone had poked with a stick.

The panic soon spread to the customers inside the building.

“Now, the rest of this message is for the piece of shit hiding in your midst!! We have the building surrounded by UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers. In the end, we have them programmed to detect your face and gait in the crowd no matter how well you try to hide them. That rectangular cage is our Colosseum ring. Everyone else can get out, but not you!! Take one step outside and you’ll be blown to pieces for breaking the rules!!!”

“…”

Those cursed words probably meant nothing at all to the ordinary people. The terms like “UAV bombers” and “remote grenade launchers” entered their ears, but their brains failed to convert the sounds into anything meaningful. If they had understood the situation, they would have been too afraid to leave.

The only one who understood was the true villain who was all too familiar with unreasonable death, so she was coated with sweat.

(Are they crazy? Launch a large UAV bomber in Academy City, and the airport radar will pick it up. Not to mention these explosions! Do they want to get killed by the unmanned Six Wings that will inevitably be called in!?)

No.

They probably didn’t care about that. It wouldn’t harm them if their unmanned weapons were shot down and the Six Wings attack helicopter might target Ibotanokikouji as well.

Panic clutched her heart, but her rational side insisted that, even if she were identified within the crowd, launching an explosive to kill her there would result in an indiscriminate slaughter. If they were really prepared to do that, they wouldn’t have bothered with a warning and simply blown up the entire building with their automatic 40mm grenade launchers or 300kg air-to-surface missiles.

However. While that did check out logically, could she really, truly predict what a dark side team would do while burning with rage? Would she really be safe heading outside with only that reasoning to go on?

It functioned much like landmines. The possibility of the threat was enough to restrict her actions.

(In that case, it would be better to escape in some way that prevents them from identifying me. That means hiding in a large roofed vehicle. Like in the large luggage space below a bus!!)

Ibotanokikouji’s eyes widened when she saw a uniformed driver rushing out of his large bus.

She left the glass box with her heavy suitcase.

“W-wait. You have the long-distance bus right here. We’re only 400m away from the North Gate. If you leave now…!!”

“You want me to leave with all this going on? They’ll be canceling all the trips anyway!!”

A bus would be perfect for escaping, but could it really avoid all the fleeing customers spread out over the area? The driver joined them. Ibotanokikouji considered using her power to control him, but it wasn’t suited for giving detailed instructions like the operation of machinery.

(If anyone is stupid enough to get in the bus’s way, you should just run them over.)

But only the dark side could carry out a plan like that without hesitation.

She looked to the bus, abandoned and driverless.

(I don’t gain anything by fighting here, but I can escape the city if I get this bus moving. C-could I drive it myself?)

She flinched back from a loud boom of destruction.

This one wasn’t a rocket. Nor did it sound like a collision between buses.

The slightly muffled sound reminded her of compressed gas, or maybe a powerful blow made with nitrogen.

Something was rolling in the shadowy distance. It appeared to be another late-night bus. An impact to its side had bent it and positioned it to block the spiraling slope leading down.

It weighed too much to ram out of the way, so now no one could get any of the large buses out.

“Tch!!”

She made sure to ''split the smoke and dust with her power so she could still see.

Given this, should she have given up on leaving the city and mixed in with the crowd? Even if she couldn’t escape the UAV bombers and remote grenade launchers, she could have tried going a step further and taking a hostage. They couldn’t aim at her alone with explosives!

But all the potential hostages were gone. Ibotanokikouji Kaede was alone in the bus terminal.

“It’s no use,” said a strange voice.

It was soft, but it still pierced sharply into her chest.

Someone passed by the broken bus and stood directly in front of Ibotanokikouji.

The girl wore a pink track jacket and shorts.

“We aren’t holding anything back. I have already used my Body Crystal and recorded your AIM Diffusion Field. It doesn’t matter what you do now. I can track you even if you escape into outer space or the deep sea.”

As an outsider, Ibotanokikouji couldn’t know if that voice from the darkness was telling the truth.

But there had to be something to it.

That wasn’t any ordinary gaze directed her way. She couldn’t shake an uncomfortable feeling like someone had their finger jabbed right between her eyes. It told her she couldn’t fool this observer no matter what.

“You cannot escape. Not as long as I live. So if you want to escape, you need to kill me and cut off my supernatural pursuit. Do you understand the rules now?”
Ibotanokikouji had figured that much out on her own.

She kicked away the suitcase and tossed aside the sports bag she carried over her shoulder. Even the mask was in the way now. She didn’t want anything obstructing her breathing even slightly, so she removed the cloth and let it fall to her feet.

That tracking power did sound like a problem, but at the same time, each esper could only have one power. That meant this girl could not shoot fire or electricity from her hand or otherwise fight directly.

A powerless location-tracking esper should have been hiding in the bushes holding a sniper rifle, but here she was standing in front of Ibotanokikouji. How stupid could she be? If she was going to set things up this perfectly, there was no good reason for Ibotanokikouji to not just kill her here.

But Ibotanokikouji did not step forward.

In fact, she stepped back.

A dreadful beam of light swept through the air from the side. The bus terminal was structured a lot like a parking garage and this blew away a few of the thick concrete columns supporting the ceiling. If she hadn’t noticed and moved toward the tracker girl, the first blast would have vaporized her upper body.

Yes, this was a battle between the two Items.

So of course this girl was here.

“Level 5. Mugino…Shizuri!?”

“What’s wrong, self-proclaimed #6!? Surely this isn’t enough to strip you of that title!?”

Mugino licked her lips as she approached.

The 80 billion yen in the suitcase no longer mattered.

She was much more interested in taking her time to shred that girl’s reputation.

So her first priority was…

“Kinuhata!!”

“Super on it. We’ve trapped her here, so I’ll super take Takitsubo-san and disappear.”

Kinuhata stuck to her initial role as Takitsubo’s shield by pulling on Takitsubo’s hand and gently guiding her into the darkness.

That was the right decision.

Ibotanokikouji’s win condition was not defeating Mugino – it was killing Takitsubo to stop being tracked. Fail to take those priorities into account, and Mugino’s side would lose another member.

They weren’t going to let that happen again.

Their target didn’t even bother suppressing her tongue click at this point.

“Tch!! Outta the way!”

“You’d better kill me quick, fancy girl. Otherwise Takitsubo will get away.”

Mugino slid to the side to position herself in between.

They walked in parallel for a bit.

The roles of hunter and hunted had been flipped by this one strategy. Mugino grinned and basked in a wolfish joy over stealing the advantages of being on the run.

The Tokiwadai girl could no longer escape.

Even if she intended to escape the city, she had to stop here and fight.

“You and your cheap tricks!”

“We’re not as bad as you. You decide who the good guys are in any given situation based on what benefits you the most.”

Sadism took a type of talent. Violence was just violence. To derive sweet pleasure from it required a different outlook. In a world full of targets, what you focused on differed from situation to situation. Like a cup of water in the desert or a single breath of air when buried alive. A sadist had a talent for determining what exactly that was for someone and destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.

Mugino had reached that point.

She sneered while embracing her own body and expanding a sweet barrier thickly around herself.

“So how should we handle this fight to the death. If we’re going to do it, I might as well hear your preference.”

“Oh? Have you forgotten I still get a say here? Don’t just decide what we’re about to do.”

“Have you forgotten who I am? The two team leaders are about to engage in single combat. Talking with the enemy to try and understand them would just be a bore.”

“Talking? Yes.” Ibotanokikouji laughed too. “That would be silly.”

Mugino Shizuri and Ibotanokikouji Kaede both launched something from their palm.

They didn’t bother waiting to confirm the rules. Both of them had lost at least one of their teammates. Talking couldn’t change the amount of spilled blood.

===Part 4===

Even so.

Mugino thought to herself while the anger sizzled at her heart.

Her Meltdowner beams had scorched the air and blown up a few empty buses. That much was fine.

Some of them had bent in a way she hadn’t expected, but she had seen the phenomenon before.

Ibotanokikouji immediately jumped to the side to dodge in the opposite direction, but it made sense she could get lucky there if she was guessing that a surprise attack was coming.

But what had Ibotanokikouji done?

A small red line ran across Mugino’s cheek. It was like a cut from a blade.

A moment later, the concrete wall behind Mugino was torn apart and blown away. Almost like an invisible wrecking ball had hit it.

She had seen this before when Ibotanokikouji had first demonstrated her power.

Or more accurately, she hadn’t seen it. But it was definitely there.

It was deadly.

(She claims to be the #6, but what kind of power is she actually using!?)

“Ha ha!!”

Instead of widening her eyes in shock, Mugino laughed.

By controlling her tension, she transformed it into elation and pleasure.

Like an athlete entering the zone.

Thrill rides and horror movies spent huge sums of money to safely mass produce thrills.

Since the villains were cut off from the benefits of justice and goodness, the primary rule for survival in the shadows was to convert anything and everything into sustenance.

So Mugino swallowed the lump of unease and advanced while firing Meltdowner beams as fast as she could. She ignored the passive rule of drawing out a circle that surrounded the target.

Without knowing the details of that girl’s power, she couldn’t calculate the risk of charging straight in or taking a more roundabout path.

So only one thing mattered now.

(I need to get her to use her power for defense even if I have to force it. Then I can reveal her secrets while staying safe myself!!)

Firing a machinegun could stop the enemy troops. If you didn’t want a single shot coming back your way, it was safest to pin them behind cover by firing ten thousand bullets of your own. Just like a turtle afraid to stick out its head and move because someone was poking at its shell.

And Meltdowner could do more than pin someone in place.

It could pierce through concrete pillars, abandoned buses, or any other cover. Mugino could keep most any enemy on the run without needing any evasive action of her own. She would fry them before they had a chance to counterattack.

Ultimately, she didn’t really need to reveal Ibotanokikouji’s power. Hanano had paid with her life to blow up Waniguchi and Inoue while the latter’s power remained a mystery and that was perfectly fine.

''However…

“Have you already forgotten? Do try to remember what I said before.”

Ibotanokikouji spoke from beyond the barrage. She still had time to talk with all this going on.

“Are you stupid? Your high score came from working through a list of easier small scale jobs chosen specifically to give you a taste for blood and victory. Just because you can power your way through some jobs on easy mode doesn’t mean every battle you come across will be as easy.”

It happened directly ahead of her. The thick beam launched from Mugino’s palm exploded shockingly close and scattered light everywhere.

“!?”

“Oh? The first time, our powers intersected and your beam bent, but this must be what happens when they perfectly overlap.”

Silence fell, like time had stopped for a moment.

About 10m away, Ibotanokikouji was holding out her own palm.

She didn’t even try to show off her high score of remaining unscathed in these circumstances.

Both girls came to a stop and glared at each other.

And like they had timed it…

“What the hell did you do, #6?”

“Guess, Level 5.”

The frozen time seemed to explode back into motion.

Mugino knew it would be neutralized, but she still launched another Meltdowner directly at her enemy. She dashed in the instant Ibotanokikouji held out her palm and the thick beam exploded. She kept low to duck below the scattering light to arrive right in front of her target.

She aimed her open palm up at Ibotanokikouji’s face.

Her right hand was spread as wide as it would go.

(Let’s see if you can block it when I grab your face and fire at point-blank range, Dark Side’s Bane!!)

A deep roar followed.

But that wasn’t Meltdowner. Mugino was the one who was knocked away, spinning through the air.

Ibotanokikouji winked, stuck out her tongue a bit, and whispered softly.

“I won’t even let you touch me.”

Mugino ended up embedded in the dented side of a bus, but she still smiled belligerently.

A trickle of red dripped down from her right temple, but she ignored that.

“That tells me ''even you’d be in trouble if I did manage to grab your face.''”

“My, my. You have no imagination at all, do you? It could be a bluff to make you think that.”

“If it was, you wouldn’t be so desperate to suggest it might be. If you had me fooled like you want, you would have no reason to raise any doubts.”

Ibotanokikouji fell silent.

That was the correct response.

But it revealed a concern over saying too much, so Mugino still docked her some points.

“And unlike your first attack, I wasn’t hit by enough force to destroy a thick concrete wall. Why not? I can’t think of any reason why you would hold back just now.”

Something exploded.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm out in a different direction and Mugino quickly rolled to the side. A long-distance bus large enough to give 30 people ample legroom rolled onto its side after being torn through like an aluminum can in a ferocious dog’s jaws.

The diesel fuel ignited and the sprinklers on the ceiling produced their artificial rain.

But Mugino was still the one laughing.

“Ha ha ha!! Now I see. I’ve figured you out, you flimsy #6! Unlike my Meltdowner, your power doesn’t always have the same strength. It wavers with your resolve. And it’s something you need a fair amount of distance from to feel safe!!”

“What’s it like having such an empty head? What good is bragging about the enemy’s specs ''to'' the enemy?”

She moved to the left and right.

Ibotanokikouji ran sharp zigzags through the sprinkler rain to approach Mugino.

It could be hard to tell because Mugino was often reckless in her usage, but her power had such high firepower that it wasn’t well suited for close range. She could end up catching herself in the blast. And for whatever reason, Ibotanokikouji could deflect Meltdowner’s thick beams or convert them into a burst of sparkles. And each of those sparkles was still powerful enough to melt steel. Even Mugino would be in trouble if she took one of those to the head.

Thus, ''close range was a problem for both Mugino and Ibotanokikouji.

Realizing that, Mugino held out her hand and clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Please spare me some revelation that we’re birds of a feather!!”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Unlike you, I am brimming with nobility and class.”

Their arms and legs intersected.

Ibotanokikouji knocked Mugino’s wrist aside just before she could fire Meltdowner and then swept her leg toward the leg supporting Mugino as her own power spun her around.

(Damn, do they teach an elegant self-defense class at her rich girl school!?)

Mugino had already been off balance, so she completely fell backwards while Ibotanokikouji remained standing and aimed her palm down at her.

The concrete ground was torn through and dented in.

If Mugino hadn’t rolled aside so quickly, the same would have happened to her face.

And Ibotanokikouji had no real reason to stop with the one attack. Just like Mugino had fired repeatedly to pin her down earlier.

The floor was torn into over and over, so Mugino kept rolling until she fired Meltdowner into the floor, using the recoil to jump. She landed on a bus roof, so Ibotanokikouji used her invisible power to blow away the bus below her.

Ibotanokikouji must have found something odd because she frowned while still holding her arm out. Mugino grinned while easily jumping down from the rolling bus’s roof to the concrete floor.

“I can’t see that power, but I can still tell when you use it.”

“…”

“The outstretched hand is obvious, but you also ''wrinkle your brow a bit'' when you use your power. You screwed up not killing Kinuhata back at the library. Oh, don’t bother trying. That kind of habit isn’t something you can fix that quick. And once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear.”

Ibotanokikouji ignored that and continued using her power, but Mugino dove sharply below another bus. The bus bent, flew into the air, and rolled, but Mugino was no longer there.

“Your power is invisible.” Mugino landed in a different position, the soles of her boots crunching the glass scattered across the floor. “But since it shatters glass instead of passing through, it isn’t made of light like a laser. It can’t be electromagnetic either since it doesn’t produce any sparks when it hits the side or door of a bus. I’ve heard fluorescent lights light up on their own when exposed to microwaves, but I don’t see that either. So what invisible attacks does that leave? Ultrasonic waves? Controlling the wind or air?”

“Shouldn’t you consider the possibility of simple telekinesis?”

“Not a chance. If your power was that convenient and had this kind of range, you wouldn’t need to rely on projectile attacks. You’d just grab me directly and lift me up into the air like the crane game.”

Also, the enemy wasn’t going to provide the correct answer like that.

Anything she said would either work to her advantage or just be a silly mistake.

Just like Mugino was explaining all this to try and find confirmation in her opponent’s expressions.

“I’ve been hit by your power twice already. The first time it grazed my cheek and cut me, but the second time I took a direct hit and was knocked through the air. That second one has to be the real one. When it seemed to cut my cheek, it was more like I just barely dodged the attack and it tugged on my skin hard enough to tear it. Which suggests…”

Something swept through the air.

But Mugino kicked off a concrete pillar, performed a midair flip, and dodged the invisible attack moving by at hip height.

She didn’t advertise her ability to perform acrobatics, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it.

“Pressure. But instead of fanning it out around yourself, you narrow it down to a point like a spear.”

Ibotanokikouji immediately leaped to the right and took aim with her palm.

She didn’t hesitate.

“Killer Press!!”

The concrete pillar was easily destroyed, but Mugino was no longer there.

The Level 5 took one step to the side like a bullfighter.

“Yeah, that’s a pretty self-explanatory name. But you shouldn’t have given it away even if I already knew the answer. Did you panic? It didn’t help you at all.”

“You…”

“Currents of water, air, mud, lava, or any other particle have viscosity and they will naturally flow along the path of least resistance. I believe that’s the foundation of fluid dynamics. So by launching a point of invisible but powerful pressure, you can bend the path my Meltdowner takes as it travels through the air as a current. Just like river water traveling around a bridge support in the middle.”

Ibotanokikouji herself had said it wasn’t electricity when they first met.

To be blunt, that hint had been unnecessary.

When attacking that lab, Mugino herself had pushed back a grenade blast with her power.

With her specialty in pressure, Ibotanokikouji would be able to do even more than that. It was possible she could even turn a human into a diamond.

“And it makes sense now why your projectiles are weaker at close range. You can hit anything you want with a point of powerful pressure, but it isn’t convenient enough to break the law of action and reaction. If you did shatter my body, the blood, gore, and bone fragments would be launched in every direction with the force of a bullet. Your own survival comes first for you, so you don’t want to be killed by that gruesome scattershot. So of course you hold back when you get close.”

They glared at each other.

They were past the point of hiding anything.

“Kinuhata and Frenda told me they saw you make a microphone float in the air and that you controlled a grizzly to sow chaos during the battle in the Colosseum.”

But…

“Your power isn’t just the control of gravity or of animals. You used pressure to knock the microphone into the air like a billiards ball. You used pressure to hit the switch to the grizzly’s cage. Animal paths form in the mountains and forests because animals naturally choose the path of least resistance when walking, leading them the same way every time. So you used a minute amount of pressure to ''redirect the grizzly away from one direction and toward another.''”

“Well done. Killer Press allows me to design my own animal paths by creating invisible bushes and thickets. And the sensation is so subtle the influenced target isn’t even aware they are being controlled.”

That was when Mugino’s voice dropped in tone.

“So what about back at the Colosseum, when Hanano fled with Takitsubo?”

“That’s right. You gave the command, but I influenced the direction they chose.”

If not for that, the timid chihuahua of a girl would still be there by Mugino’s side.

Mugino hadn’t seen it herself, but the way the Tokiwadai girls had parted to clear the way for Ibotanokikouji had been an application of that technique.

She sent out a minute amount of pressure to distance people.

When water, air, bugs, lava, powder, or humans moved as a group, they followed the fluid movement of particles. That meant they had viscosity and would naturally flow along the path of least resistance. That fact was the basis of fluid dynamics.

(But if that’s her power, then our trump card will work against her!!)

Mugino roared.

But not to intimidate Ibotanokikouji and not to break the limiter in her mind.

Her opponent was the only member of her team left, but Item was fighting together.

“''Frenda!! It’s time to trap her!! Restore the power!!!''”

She was answered by the fluorescent lights.

The darkness was instantly swept away. But that was not necessarily a good thing.

Mugino and Ibotanokikouji had done a lot of damage to the walls and ceiling. Thick severed cables were hanging down here and there. And thanks to the bus fire, the sprinklers had covered the floor in water.

What happened when the power was restored in that state?

A deep staticky noise erupted out.

Mugino had already launched Meltdowner downwards and used the recoil to leap onto a bus roof. The bus’s rubber tires would prevent the electricity from traveling up from the floor.

“Tch!!”

Ibotanokikouji could not use her power like a rocket in that way. Instead, she dented in another bus’s metal side with her hands to climb up to the roof like it had a ladder.

“Oh, and I thought you would cling to the wall like you had suction cups. Can you only increase pressure, not decrease it? C’mon, is that all a student of the famous Tokiwadai can do? Ha ha! And you expect me to believe you’re the #6? What can those filthy adults research using that!? This is just sad!”

“Kh, your words mean nothing to me!!!”

Stun guns were sold with a voltage of over a million, but this was very different. The much greater current and constant exposure to the entire body made this much more dangerous. The couple hundred volts used for large appliances could easily kill a human with the help of some highly conductive water.

But aside from that, Ibotanokikouji whispered across the valley of deadly electricity between their buses.

“You do know the suitcase containing the 80 billion is still down there, don’t you? The money cards are made of plastic and, while the suitcase is stab and bomb resistant, it is still made of plastic. That deadly electricity will be enough to melt the cards, rendering them useless.

“That’s only 80 billion. ''Did you really think I was still fighting for that, you piece of shit''?

A Meltdowner beam immediately flew out.

Ibotanokikouji used her own power to destroy a ceiling panel and twist a thick pipe she swung on like a pendulum to reach another bus. And she launched her Killer Press to target Mugino from a distance.

Both missed attacks caused great destruction. Concrete pillars broke, cracks ran through the ceiling, and the buses providing the only safe footing rolled and exploded. The glass waiting areas were destroyed in the process.

Ibotanokikouji pointed her open palm elsewhere.

With a loud noise, a fallen square ceiling panel shot straight up from the ground. She had shoved the pressure spear between the floor and the panel to launch it up like kicking up a soccer ball.

And as soon as it arrived at her eye level atop the bus…

“Killer Press!!”

She knocked the thin panel outwards with all her might.

The many sharp fragments pierced by the invisible pressure spear fanned out to slice through the air. Just like the break shot in pool. They roughly filled the direction Mugino was.

They were stopped by a sizzling sound.

Mugino had eliminated the glass shards flying her way. Her beam had bent and flown elsewhere, but it had managed to secure her safety first.

“Didn’t I say once I know the direction and timing in advance, I have nothing to fear?”

“…”

“But that was neat. I never thought of scattering the attack to hit someone who won’t stay still.”

Mugino sneered as she continued firing her ultra-powerful projectiles, but she couldn’t get a hit in on Ibotanokikouji. She blew away buses and broke pillars, but Ibotanokikouji remained alive.

In fact…

“!!”

When a beam was on course to hit, it would bend unnaturally.

Ibotanokikouji raised her own voice while holding her hand out.

“And I told you all matter follows the path of least resistance!! All I have to do is launch my Killer Press straight ahead and your Meltdowner will bend at least a little. You can’t hit me!!”

“''Odd. Did I say anything about trying to hit you''?”

“No, you can’t mean…?”

“I flipped that card over to scare you. Worked, didn’t it?”

This whole time, Mugino had not been aiming for Ibotanokikouji who kept jumping from bus to bus to escape. She had been aiming just a bit lower, vaporizing the remaining buses to remove her opponent’s movement options.

Ibotanokikouji’s face finally clouded over.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“Did you think I didn’t, you fancy slut?”

Another explosion laid the pressure on Ibotanokikouji.

With only one bus remaining, the two of them naturally had to rely on the same one. The two wicked girls faced each other like they were preparing for a duel.

Both espers used high firepower projectiles.

The next exchange of attacks would end this.

Ibotanokikouji held her palm straight out, but then something unexpected happened.

Mugino aimed her palm as well.

''But instead of aiming at her enemy, she aimed at the roof of the final bus they were standing on.

There was no more safe ground.

Destroy this bus, and there was no escape. They would be forced onto the wet and electrified floor of death.

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Really?”

The word seemed to slip out of Ibotanokikouji’s mouth.

Whatever she was feeling, her lips formed an oddly tense smile.

And Mugino was not shaken.

“My objective here isn’t survival. If it were, I could’ve given up on avenging Hanano and let you run off.”

So she didn’t hesitate.

“All of us in Item were only after one thing this whole time: your shitty head!!”

A beam flashed out, the metal noisily vaporized, and all the fuel in the bus ignited.

Ibotanokikouji instinctually jumped from the roof…and then her thoughts ground to a halt.

That had been the right choice if she was to live as long as possible.

But where was she supposed to land? The floor was covered in electrified water, so her heart would stop the instant her feet touched down!!

Meanwhile…

“No…way?”

Mugino had thrown herself into the air as well, but she was holding her palm out toward Ibotanokikouji.

She didn’t even consider what would happen a second from now.

In this single snapshot in time, she would do what she could to personally kill a girl who was going to die regardless. Her piercing gaze conveyed only an intention to give Ibotanokikouji more than just an electric death.

Yes.

If Ibotanokikouji hadn’t been so focused on survival, she too might have launched a final attack. But in her fear, she had looked away from the battle. Her thoughts had abandoned the battle as they raced in search of some way to survive.

It was too late now to grip the trigger again.

The light of a high-speed particle-wave cannon was already gathering in Mugino’s palm.

In that final moment, her violent lips formed a few words.

Those words didn’t even reference Ibotanokikouji Kaede, the leader of Enemy Item.

Even her own life was a secondary concern.

“''Are you watching, Hanano?''” whispered Mugino.

The beam erupted forth.

The brutal beam that had so often mercilessly sliced through Academy City’s darkness struck Ibotanokikouji at the hip and vaporized her lower half.

Mugino was no longer focused on the 80 billion or her own life.

Once she decided someone had to die, she threw out all of those normal calculations.

That Level 5 wasn’t concerned with how her attack’s immense energy nearly blew away her own body.

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