Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter5
Status: Incomplete
3/18 parts completed
Chapter 5
Part 1
The girl in a dress, Gokusai Kaibi, did not do anything special.
She did not need to sneak in through a duct, nor did she need to seduce anyone by flashing her thigh from below her thin dress.
She simply approached a 10-story building analogous to the city police stations outside of Academy City.
She walked right up to it, pushed open the glass door, and entered the Anti-Skill station.
Handcuffed criminals were not in fact the only people with any business there. People could resolve minor infractions by paying off a traffic ticket, ask about a missing item, or renew their driver’s license. Since the place was air-conditioned, it was not uncommon for the elderly to stop by with no real business and either chat with the officers there or just lie down on a lobby bench. Just like hospitals, public facilities like this tended to become places for people to relax.
If you only wanted to go inside, the station’s doors were open to anyone. They would not exactly be “public” facilities if people were not allowed in.
Except the girl in a dress was interested in her sisters being kept in the holding cells. In other words, with some of those “handcuffed criminals”. Moving past the reception counter naturally increased the difficulty considerably.
(Now, then.)
“I am Tanaka from Judgment. I have here the case documents you requested for review.”
When she spoke past the reception counter, a receptionist woman who looked not unlike a bank teller smiled gently.
“Oh, is that so? Thank you very much.”
“Is the document storage room still in the same place?”
“Yes, yes. Head downstairs and take a right.”
Academy City had two different law enforcement agencies: the adult-led Anti-Skill and the student-led Judgment. The former took the place of the police and the latter worked in the schools to mediate trouble between students, but that did not mean they never interacted.
And if a connection like that existed, why not use it? It allowed her through without arousing suspicion.
Once she was in the back, the rest was easy. She exchanged nods with the adult Anti-Skill officers she passed on the way and waited until the flow of people had ended to head down a different hallway than the one to the document storage room.
Specifically, to the holding cells where her sisters were imprisoned.
At that point, the only way to avoid being seen was to rely on the general distance and direction she could sense using Measure Heart – something very similar to an unnatural presence felt when at school in the middle of the night – but she had a lot of practice there.
Not all powers were as simple as controlling fire or water. The people who ended up with a less-obvious power would focus more on how they applied that power.
“Onee-chan!!”
“Yes, yes. I’ll get that door open, so step back.”
The youngest sister’s face lit up and she grabbed at the bars with both hands, so the girl in a dress sighed and waved her away with a hand.
Meanwhile, the oldest sister, Rikuri, frowned in a skeptical and yet lazy way from the next cell over.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
Kaibi used a special spray to get rid of all the fingerprints, sweat, and spittle in the one cell and then tossed the spray bottle into Rikuri’s cell.
That toy was Rikuri’s own creation, so she clacked her sharp heels against the floor and eliminated all trace of her stay there with practiced hand.
“Since Anti-Skill isn’t with you, I take it you didn’t do this by creating official paperwork.”
With Kaibi’s Measure Heart, it would be possible to use the emotional distance of “a victim of false charges” to get a public prosecutor to write up an official document for their release.
“It wouldn’t have changed much. We have to hit the server room before leaving either way. If we don’t delete your images, fingerprints, DNA, and other data, they could trace you even after you break out.”
Measure Heart could only influence her emotional distance with another person.
The Anti-Skill station was full of security cameras, so they had to deal with that now that she had infiltrated the station without permission.
“Oh, if we’re making a stop, then let’s pick up my toy too!! From the evidence locker!!”
That was already the plan. That Gatling gun was covered in her sweat and fingerprints, so they could not leave it behind here. Deleting all that data from the Anti-Skill network was useless if it could be easily reacquired from physical evidence.
“Take whatever you want.”
“Then I want to take one of those lunches they give people. Especially if they have katsudon.”
The three brazenly left the holding cells and stopped by the nearby server room to find and delete the inconvenient data. But there was always a chance it could be restored, so they also inserted a virus that would rapidly and repeatedly overwrite everything with random alphanumeric characters. To throw off the investigation, they made sure to erase the data on a few random criminals in addition to the sisters.
That just left the evidence locker.
They had found the ID number for the sisters’ case in the server room, so they opened the metal door, found the correct container among the many inside, and pulled Amazora’s Gatling gun out.
“Yay! My gun!!”
“Rikuri Nee-san, what about your drones sand close-range injectors?”
“Not a problem. They did a blood test on us, so there should be some simple medical records in here too. Is this them?”
Anti-Skill would make an immediate connection to them if only this case’s evidence was stolen, so some disturbance tactics were necessary. They opened a random container, messed with the lithium ion battery inside, and returned it to its spot. Then they only had to mess with the fire detector and sprinkler on the ceiling to trigger a malfunction. The unnatural fire and malfunctioning firefighting equipment would mean all the evidence burned away.
(We need a non-existent case and a few unrelated decoy cases that we only partially erase. Yes, that should about do it.)
Kaibi’s thoughts were interrupted by a very small change.
She heard an unpleasant click from the metal door.
She and the older sister exchanged a glance and ran toward the door, leaving behind the third sister who still had not caught on.
But it would not open.
(Was that the electronic lock!?)
There was also a metal shutter on the outside wall for loading evidence onto a vehicle, but that was locked too. This did not seem like some kind of unmanned trap. Someone had trapped them in here.
“We’ve been had!!”’
“What, what!? Should I blow our way out?”
Amazora ignored her dress’s slipping shoulder strap as she lightly waved around her Gatling gun, but that would be meaningless. Firing that around would create a bunch of new evidence after they went to such lengths to eliminate it all.
They had no time.
They wanted to escape without anyone noticing.
The second sister clenched her teeth, but then she heard the internal phone line ringing.
Rikuri’s slitted skirt swayed as she stepped back.
“A demand to surrender maybe?”
“You restrain violent Amazora. Have her collapse her gun and put it in her bag.”
The tension and pressure were unbearable as Kaibi picked up the receiver on the wall.
“Hello. You made a mess of the network and that’s causing some chaos, but I still managed to trap you in there.”
(This isn’t Anti-Skill. And she sounds really young.)
Kaibi could not use Measure Heart over the phone.
Was that simple bad luck, or was it part of this person’s plan?
(I need to assume the worst here.)
“Are you a hired negotiator?”
“The group that wants you captured wouldn’t have contacted you like this. Now, Anti-Skill will notice something is up and break through that door in another 120 seconds, so I’d like an answer before then.”
“Then hurry it up.”
“What I want is information. Talk and I’ll do something about that electronic lock giving you so much trouble. Either for that inside door or the outside shutter. It’s your choice.”
“Then we can’t pay in advance. You would simply hang up the instant you had what you wanted.”
“If you promise to tell me afterwards, that is fine with me.”
“Then we would simply run away.”
“But don’t you want to know what happened to that data you thought you had fully erased?”
Kaibi clicked her tongue.
She had no way of knowing if this was true. This person might not be able to affect anything beyond this internal phone line. But she could not ignore the possibility of the data being restored or backed up on another server.
She sighed.
“Have it your way.”
“I’ll take that to mean we have a deal.”
With a dull thunk, the metal shutter leading outside began to move instead of the metal door leading indoors.
“They will break through the door in another 30 seconds. You need to make a mad dash for it if you don’t want to be seen.”
“Nee-san, Amazora!!”
Kaibi threw aside the receiver and gestured her sisters outside. She crouched down to slip below the shutter before it had fully opened.
A truck was stopped outside.
But not for them to ride on. The large vehicle moved forward a bit to reveal a manhole with the cover removed.
“That truck is remote-controlled,” said Rikuri. “They’re worried about your Measure Heart.”
(Argh!!)
They had no choice but to head down into the sewers.
After the three sisters entered the manhole, the overhead sunlight vanished. The truck had backed up to cover up the hole.
Once at the bottom, the flickering of a flame swept away the darkness instead of LED light.
That came from an oil lamp held by a high school girl in a short-sleeved sailor uniform. That was not an outfit for spelunking through the sewers, which made it a mystery how well she blended into her surroundings.
“Riku-Kai Onee-chans, can I shoot her?”
Rikuri stopped Amazora from getting carried away. As a poison user, that oldest sister knew that an oil lamp falling to the ground would cause the flames to spread. And while this was a storm drain, it was still part of the sewer. If the fire reached the sludge or plastic garbage in here, it could spread toxins like dioxin or nitrogen oxide in this enclosed space.
The girl in a dress breathed in the filthy air.
“What is it you want?”
“Information on L.S.S. Specifically, where President Matsuo Ryuusuke would go to hide after abandoning their HQ.”
“…”
“What, you’d rather die than divulge info on your client? But telling me that is as good as telling me everything I need to know.” The oil lamp girl gave a cynical smile. “By the way, did L.S.S. provide any help at all in getting your precious sisters out of that Anti-Skill station? They have enough power to cover up that dragon attack and the fire in that parking garage, so it seems to me they should have been able to arrange the release of two suspects with relative ease.”
“Onee-chan.”
“Oh, I know a fair amount about Measure Heart already. Feel free to set our emotional distance to whatever you like.” The girl scoffed. “Make us sworn enemies and it will come as mockery. Make us girlfriends and it will come as grave concern. Either way, what I actually say will remain the same. After all, it is a cold, hard fact that L.S.S. abandoned you.”
The river was made from concrete.
There was no real bank, but there were small pathways prepared on either side. They were only about half the width of a school hallway.
(I hope Senpai is okay.)
Kamijou peered down into the a round water port open in the concrete wall.
He only had to wait, but being on his own was agonizing.
That fluffy-haired middle school girl was no longer with them.
(How can you use the electronic lock to trap them inside and then act like you’re the good guy for letting them escape?)
He had been given extremely vague instructions (“Wait here until I’ve settled everything”) and he had anxiously obeyed, but he finally sensed someone squirming their way out from that round opening.
Kumokawa Seria gave him a peace sign with her index and middle fingers.
“The negotiations were a rousing success.”
“Whoa, those mass shooter terrorists really are following you out!!”
The three sisters in gaudy dresses did not look pleased with that description, but they also could not refute it since they had in fact been using a handgun and a Gatling gun.
The middle sister placed a hand on the side of her neck in exasperation.
“We will get back at L.S.S. for abandoning us.”
(So is she a dark sort of tsundere or something?)
“Oh, and this dark-hearted girl promised to pay us triple what L.S.S. failed to pay us. It might only be a verbal promise, but you had better not go back on your deal.”
“Well, I was wrong!! Senpai, what kind of promises have you been making!?”
“Just so you know, no matter what kind of justifications you make, we are about to attack property belonging to a company president. That is a blatantly criminal act, so it will reduce the damage we take if we have these failed assassins perform the actual attack for us.”
Still, this talk of rewards and deals was beyond what a middle schooler was used to dealing with. Were all high school girls this involved in the economic world?
“We are fine with committing the crimes here, but you still can’t escape the crime of instigation. Hee hee.”
The girl in a dress had plunged into the decadence of a defeated warrior, which drew out a mysterious allure in her. The true connoisseurs who preferred Cinderella before her transformation might have felt a fluttering in their heart.
Kumokawa sighed.
“Since our interests are aligned, we don’t have to worry about any betrayals here. We helped you escape and even prepared a job for you, so it’s time you finally played your hand. I know you must have looked into your client’s ability to pay, so where is L.S.S. President Matsuo Ryuusuke’s hideout?”
“I see.” The girl in a dress was quick to answer. “District 21. He has a villa in the mountains.”
Part 2
Academy City District 21 was the one and only mountainous region in the city.
It only had a few relatively small mountains, but there were still plenty of things built there, such as an observatory and a dam. It was also a crucial independent water source for Academy City.
A winding mountain road was covered by a canopy of trees. The area was so dim it was easy to forget it was still morning. This place seemed like a realm of eternal night, cut off from the normal flow of time.
The low-riding red sports car looked out of place on that mountain road.
Mitsuari Ayu had been placed in the passenger seat. It was unnatural for a girl in her school uniform to be there on a weekday, but she was not bound in any way. If she was, the street corner cameras or security robots would notice something was amiss.
She could not move. If not for the seatbelt, inertia would have made her fall over.
Her body felt lethargic.
Her consciousness was fading in and out.
She could not hope to use her power like this. She had to focus her mind to avoid suffocating on her own saliva.
“Once we arrive, I will inject you with my company’s antidote for the infectious stun weapon, so you focus on arriving there safely.” The young man in the driver’s seat smiled thinly. “We are very disappointed that a miscommunication has led to this. You are a crucial resource that must not be allowed to die, so you have nothing to worry about.”
“…”
He could not allow her to die, but how long would that remain true?
She could trust that up until she had given him what he needed, but what about afterwards?
She had seen the still image of the Beginning Child in the L.S.S. HQ’s server room. The oldest modern esper could be woken using internal stimulation to her mind. That alone might sound like a praiseworthy deed, but Mitsuari had been attacked by a giant dragon and a biological weapon. Supposedly, control of the Beginning Child might give one technology on par with Board Chairman Aleister and that had to be playing a large role in this man’s decision.
The classic music playing in the car was not in line with the girl’s tastes, but she could not even reach out to adjust the car stereo.
She wobbled and her head turned toward the window.
The thick forest flowing by looked like the world of the dead to her.
(A…landmark.)
“All I need you to do is wake up the Beginning Child, who not even Aleister could control. You are free to go after that. Merely having her on standby in a ‘usable’ state will be a powerful bargaining chip with the Board Chairman.”
(I need a landmark…to tell me…where I am.)
She saw a giant tower rising vertically from the mountains.
She had heard of that before.
It was a power plant that used the heat within the earth. She searched her memory and found its name: Ground Geo.
Part 3
“Ohh, ohhhhh.”
The youngest sister, Gokusai Amazora, kicked her small legs at the booth seat next to the window. She opened the menu wide and cried out in joy.
They were in a District 21 restaurant at the foot of the mountains.
“They have oysters! Raw ones!! Yes, yes! I can finally eat some raw oysters!!”
“Amazora,” cut in Kaibi from the seat next to her.
Rikuri laughed while seated at the same table.
“You can’t, my cute little sister. Didn’t we say to avoid eating those before an important job?”
“Ehhh!? I still can’t have any!?”
The third sister’s legs stretched out below the table and she blatantly puffed out her cheeks.
Those sisters had created a gal-style space different again from Kumokawa or Mitsuari. It was too much for Kamijou Touma who sank down and nervously spoke up.
“Eh? Is it like bad luck or something? You’re like the pros only seen in movies, so I’m surprised you obey those unscientific rules.”
“Oh, it isn’t about that. Even little kids know raw oysters are a food poisoning risk.”
“Well, that’s no concern of mine,” he said. “Looks like my wallet has enough to cover a lunch set, so I’ll go with this raw oyster meal.”
The third sister’s small butt rose up from her seat with her eyes aglitter.
“Yay, I love you, Onii-chan! Now I can share your raw oysters!!”
“?”
“Sigh. Have it your way, but I’m not saving you if you get a stomachache at some crucial point of the mission.”
For some reason, the youngest sister rejoiced and the other two sisters brought their hands to their foreheads, but Kamijou could only tilt his head in confusion. The food had not even arrived, yet Amazora seemed convinced that she would be taking some of the oysters from his plate.
“Hm, hm, hmm. Raw oysters, raw oystery oysters☆”
The girl of about 10 began to sing while she sank down like a submarine. No, she had crawled down below the booth table and then her head popped up between Kamijou’s legs.
“Gwah!?”
“Okay, this is my seat now!!”
Now she was sitting in his lap.
She kicked her legs while imagining the raw oyster meal to come, but Kamijou did not know how to handle kids of that age and he froze up. There was way too much body contact going on and looking down just about let him see down the flat chest of her gaudy dress, so it was a dangerous situation all around. But he also felt like it would be wrong to just mercilessly throw her off of him.
“Oh, geez. At least wipe your hands off with a wet towel. You just pressed them against the filthy floor crawling over, didn’t you?”
“Ehh? What a pain.”
“You can look at the menu while I do it. Here, let me see your hands.”
“I said I don’t need- hee hee, nya ha ha ha ha!!”
She laughed ticklishly while he had his way with her small hands and the girl in a dress cutely puffed out her cheeks.
Kumokawa Seria gave an exasperated sigh while crossing her legs next to him.
“I’m not about to get jealous of a girl that young, so can we get down to business? How is the preliminary investigation going?”
“I’ve given things a quick lookover,” lazily replied Rikuri while resting her head in her hand. She used her right hand because of the toxic threat of the needle on the end of her left hand’s ring finger.
She used drones in addition to poisons, so instead of barging onto the mountain without knowing the threat, they had decided to wait here for a bit.
“Near the dam, there appears to be a log cabin a short distance from the mountain road. It matches the documents we found when researching his ability to pay. Ventilation is handled using a long duct traveling underground to a remote location, but the cover has a very special filter installed. That may be an identifying mark of his, so he is almost certainly holed up in there for his work.”
“Anything else of note?” asked Kumokawa.
Rikuri placed a folding palmtop computer on the table and shrugged.
“My drones aren’t good enough to scan for mines hidden underground, but they did detect a few large heat readings. Those are living creatures. And I imagine we will find more and more of those.”
“How large is large here?”
“Larger than an African elephant. I initially thought they were robots shaped like that, but it looks like I was mistaken.”
You would have a hard time finding land animals that large not just in Japan but in the world as a whole. This was larger than the biggest ones listed in the encyclopedia.
The steep slopes and deep woods of Academy City’s only mountainous region had been transformed into a zone of death by L.S.S.’s technology.
“But Biohacker Matsuo Ryuusuke might be using more than those obvious creatures as his toys. There could be smaller animals like venomous snakes or bugs, there could be carnivorous or parasitic plants, and there could even be mold or bacteria. If L.S.S. wanted to, they could create plants and animals ranging from the microscopic to the enormous. They could probably also create biological-based explosives and ethanol.”
Meanwhile, the food they had ordered arrived, so they had to pause their dangerous conversation.
Amazora’s eyes sparkled and she clasped her hands in front of her flat chest, as if in prayer.
“My raw oysters are finally here!!”
“Those are mine,” protested Kamijou. “You ordered your own food! It’s not even the Midsummer Day of the Ox and you still ordered an extra-large eel bowl! And you ordered it without the usual sauce, like some kind of connoisseur!!”
“Uhh…”
“Don’t cry, don’t beg, and don’t lean back against me. No puppy dog eyes either.”
“Uhhh!!”
“Okay, fine! If it’ll keep you from crying, we can go halfsies!!”
“Heh heh. Then you can have my eel liver soup, wonderful Onii-chan.”
“How is that fair? The oysters are my main dish, so you have to give me half your eels!! With an eel bowl, dividing it perfectly in half is simple enough with some chopsticks!!”
Kumokawa Seria had ordered a bagel with avocado and sliced smoked salmon, Gokusai Kaibi had ordered pale-colored Kansai-style udon, and Rikuri had ordered a summer vegetable pasta dish, although she had asked for no chili peppers or garlic.
“This is one hell of a lineup.” Kamijou sounded exasperated. “What kind of restaurant is this supposed to be?”
“I thought it was an everything restaurant, similar to the ones on the beach.”
The only point in common between them was the avoidance of anything strong smelling, like curry rice or pepperoncino. Similarly, they had ordered cold water to drink instead of tea or coffee.
“My cute little sister, don’t put any pepper on your eels. Since you ordered them without the sauce, you need to stick to the wasabi soy sauce.”
“Ehhhh!?”
“Amazora.”
The middle sister was apparently stronger than the oldest in their family. One forceful word from her and the littlest sister gave in.
Kumokawa Seria sighed.
“Boy, don’t put anything more than soy sauce on your oysters. Don’t squeeze any sudachi on them either.”
“Ehhhh!?”
“Boy.”
He had no choice but to give in.
He did understand the point behind it. They were about to enter the mountains and play a deadly game of hide-and-seek with creatures possibly possessing superhuman senses.
Still, Kamijou was dead set on eating some raw oysters after ordering that meal. The little girl in his lap had taken away three of his five oysters (how is that half!?), so he had to plan his next moves carefully. He only had two of those shelled things left. One he would eat as is. The other he would customize with soy sauce and grated radish. If he did not manage that, he knew for sure he was going to cry.
(Okay, where’s the soy sauce?)
He reached over to grab a small bottle from the condiments at one end of the table, but his hand bumped into someone else’s.
It belonged to Kaibi.
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
Now was not the time for a bittersweet atmosphere. The soy sauce had toppled over and its contents were spreading across the table. The tension was far greater than normal thanks to the sisters’ gaudy dresses. A stain on those would do way more damage than to a guy’s shirt or pants, so he quickly reached for the napkins. And…
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
His fingers bumped into Rikuri’s slender ones.
But instead of quickly pulling away, those fingers with polished nails tangled with his. That was enough to apply great pressure to his heart. It almost felt like having a large tongue licking at his fingers. And that idiot was so distracted by the sexy fingers that he failed to notice he was only a few millimeters away from being pricked by the poison needle on her ring finger.
“My, my. Did I scare you?”
The sexy girl laughed and the girl in a dress trembled.
“First you spoil Amazora and lure her in with food and then you draw out Rikuri Nee-san’s protective and mischievous sides simultaneously? And do you not care who it is as long as they’re a girl?”
“You only just noticed?” asked Kumokawa. “I bet that boy would act extra nice to a tree if its trunk looked like a woman’s crotch.”
Amazora stuffed her face full of oysters and stretched her legs out below the table.
It was rude, but the cook would have been delighted to see the smile on her face.
“Heh heh heh. They’re so good!”
“Well, isn’t that great.”
“I can eat the rest for you if you don’t want them, Onii-chan.”
“Don’t you dare! I was saving those for last!!”
They had different backgrounds and lived in different worlds, yet they could still come together like this.
But something was missing.
Kamijou Touma did not know much about L.S.S. or this Biohacker, but he would take back what had been stolen from them.
