Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Prologue
The city was fully surrounded by a wall.
Not even those on the dark side knew what actually happened to anyone who crossed that wall without permission.
Prologue: An Ordinary Other World as Far as the Eye Can See[edit]
“Ugh…”
Her head felt heavy.
Even after groaning and waking, the fluffy blonde-haired girl named Frenda Seivelun didn’t stand up for a while. She was drowsy. She wanted to go back to sleep. After a while, she finally realized something was off about this powerful drowsiness that threatened to pull her back below the surface of consciousness.
She couldn’t remember when she had gone to sleep yesterday.
And this drowsiness definitely wasn’t natural.
But Frenda wasn’t in the habit of using the commercial sleeping pills available at drug stores. They were certainly effective, but too effective, she would say. It took too long to get back into your best condition the next time you woke, so when weighting the pros against the cons, the cons won out.
Then how could she explain her current situation?
Why was she experiencing this unnatural and overly gentle drowsiness that reminded her of a drug?
“…”
She leaned back in the seat staring blankly into space while…wait, seat? Only then did Frenda realize she was sitting on a bench. A cheap plastic bench on a train station platform.
It was September – the start of autumn.
A lot of people were gathered in the morning station. A rapid train slid up alongside the platform and released a crowd of office workers before a crowd of students boarded to take their place. Seated on the bench instead of getting in line, Frenda felt left behind by the flow of time.
A train station?
Where was she?
The overhead speaker played an announcement in a male voice.
“Shinjuku Station. We have arrived at Shinjuku Station. The Meio Line rapid train to Tokyo Station will depart shortly. If you are still on the platform, please wait for the next train.”
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
“Huh?”
The train’s doors closed from both sides and it set off. The station didn’t have any kind of platform screen doors and the people walking by were holding bizarre cell phones that could only display around 10 colors and couldn’t fold in half. Some people were even hurrying along while folding up paper newspapers and magazines.
“Huh??”
The station’s announcement board contained a notice to watch out for one-ring fraud calls. And to watch out for malicious premium numbers that leave you with an exorbitant bill. It was like another world. For Frenda, it felt like being surrounded by ancient technology she would ordinarily only see in a history book.
“Huh???”
What was this?
She didn’t recognize this place.
…Shinjuku???
Frenda Seivelun recalled a certain rule.
An inviolable rule.
But not a rule of Shinjuku. No, this rule belonged to a giant city located near Shinjuku.
To keep confidential data from leaking, no one was allowed to cross Academy City’s wall and leave without permission.
Worse, how would one of the scumbags from the dark side be treated given all the deeper secrets they knew?
“Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?”
She didn’t know how it had happened.
But Frenda Seivelun was definitely outside of Academy City.
And since she hadn’t done it, a third party must have done it to her.
A game had begun.
She couldn’t imagine why, but now she would be seen as a runaway and thus an enemy to be hunted down by the entire dark side.
And she knew which dark side team was sent to clean up this kind of problem. In a way, she knew that better than anyone.
Because…
(I-in the end, does this mean that Item…that Mugino and the others will be coming to kill me!?)
