Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter1
Chapter 1: Tokyo Bomber Girl Crisis[edit]
Part 1[edit]
Three girls were gathered in an Academy City District 7 movie theater.
Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, and Kinuhata Saiai.
Three of Item’s four members were receiving their next job from the big faceless screen.
“Frenda’s left the city?” bitterly asked the #4.,
Why would she do that?
But their higher up didn’t seem to be considering that question. Which made sense when anyone on the dark side would be working sketchy jobs and treating the lives of friends and foes as disposable.
The question wasn’t why she had fled.
In this industry, the question was why she hadn’t fled sooner.
The Voice on the Phone spoke with audio only.
“There will be a reward, but keep in mind that this job is an order, not a request. We have train station surveillance camera footage and multiple witness reports. It isn’t known how she made it across the wall, but since she had been seen in Shinjuku, Frenda is a definite traitor. I’m playing the power games to hold back the others in this business, but that won’t last long. If you don’t make good use of that limited time and settle this yourselves, every member of Item could be seen as traitors. It’s always like that with them. Time is your ticket to survival. Think of it as an RTS game. So if you sit idly by and don’t do anything, you will all be marked for execution. Count on it.”
“Heh, you’re being nice today.”
“Is this the time for laughter? How many 1-second tickets do you think you wasted with that?”
The big screen didn’t tease Mugino for her comment.
She must have seen something even more troubling from her higher position.
That hinted at how pressing the situation was.
“Mugino.”
“I know.”
(Did Frenda run, or did someone set it up to look that way? Whoever’s behind it, I bet I know why they did it. They couldn’t take on Item directly, so they’re using the rules to bring us down from a distance.)
“Frenda is a Level 0,” continued the Voice on the Phone, “but Academy City’s higher ups are afraid the city’s cutting-edge esper development tech will leak or that she’ll give away the dark side’s many dark secrets. They will do whatever it takes to prevent that.”
“Hm? Do they super have a surefire method of finding and stopping Frenda-san?”
“Fremea Seivelun.”
Mugino raised an eyebrow.
The Voice on the Phone continued regardless.
“If capturing Frenda takes too long, they will use her innocent 7-year-old sister as bait to lure out the runaway target. It’s always like that with them.”
The air strained with tension. There was an actual sound. Could a movie theater that put such care into its audio system really creak due to temperature and humidity?
Mugino Shizuri had been taught to follow certain rules from a very young age, so she did not appreciate this turn of events.
A low growling voice came from that girl who could crack the air with only a glare.
“That’s the kind of joke that reduces you to a common thug.”
“Which is why I said I’m playing the power games to hold that off as long as possible. It’s always like this with you. I am using up quite a few of my intangible tickets of influence. By the booklet! If you waste all your time and fail to show results, I’ll have wasted it all for nothing.”
Track suit girl Takitsubo tilted her head.
“Why are you doing this for Frenda?”
“Don’t make me laugh. I don’t give a shit about that dangerous bomber girl. …But her sister is just an innocent person outside the dark side, right? Even I’d rather not think about a 1st grade girl being captured and screaming as they play the acid eye drops game with her. Gives me chills. So I’m telling you to settle this before that happens. I’m betting on the people I know can get the job done. Do you have any intention of living up to my expectations?”
“Yeah, sure. But do you know what it means to toss Item outside the city walls? I don’t want to hear any complaints later on. Especially since my #4 powers aren’t the easiest thing to control.”
“You’re free to do whatever you want to prevent an information leak. But unlike when you’re in Academy City, no one can cover for you technologically or politically. That means nothing’s getting covered up. You should really consider not killing anyone other than your target. If you are caught by the outside police, dark side assassins will be paying your cell a visit before the mass media can catch wind of it and put it on the news.”
“Assassins, huh?”
“Those three sisters aren’t as adaptable as Item and really are only able to kill, so I’d prefer not to rely on them here. Anyway, do you get the rules, guidelines, and regulations? Then have fun executing your teammate☆”
Part 2[edit]
“C’mon, kid. Crying isn’t going to help you find your missing commuter ticket. Oh, and what’s this? Why, it’s a commuter ticket someone dropped in the ditch☆”
“Old lady, you forgot your cane after leaning it against the railing back there, didn’t you? In the end, you need to keep better track of it.”
“Whoa, what!? No dog can escape m- yikes, now it’s running this way. Are you kidding? In the end, is that one of those poodles that’s anything but small!?”
The girl who ended up half knocked to the ground by a serious hound and licked all over by the poorly-trained boy was Frenda Seivelun.
Of course.
Academy City’s elites were closing in on her all the while. She knew that much. In the worst case, it could be Item led by #4 Mugino Shizuri who was after her. It was best to assume that every minute and second counted.
But…
“Well, in the end, it wouldn’t bring anyone a happy future if I just let that innocent poodle go charging into that group of little kids in their school backpacks.”
Still down on the ground, Frenda commented to herself after handing the leash back to the elderly man who was repeatedly bowing in thanks.
…Frenda knew all too well (thanks to the excellent nose for such things she had developed on the dark side) that she couldn’t be wasting her time on this, but the people in Shinjuku, Tokyo, had hopelessly poor defenses. Frenda knew far too well (thanks to the excellent…well, you get the point) that leaving even small pieces of trouble unresolved could lead you into much bigger trouble, so she honestly couldn’t sit idly by.
She patted her hands along her thin poncho.
(Hm, all my bombs and fuses are gone… In the end, I feel naked without them.)
“Okay.”
Frenda moved behind cover, reached inside her clothing, and pulled something from a fairly unspeakable place.
She still had her phone at least.
In the right conditions, she could control a bomb or drone with that. And dark side standard practices meant she didn’t have to worry about anyone tracking her position using it. That changed if she transmitted anything from it, of course. She reached between the phone and its cover to pull out a few (paper!) 10 thousand yen bills.
That was all the funds she had to work with.
“In the end, what a pain. The famous wicked socialite is reduced to this? I’ll have to work fast.”
Her shoulders drooped as she returned to the main area.
Men and women in suits were staring at her.
Now, if it was widely known that a bomb expert had escaped from Academy City, they would be panicking right about now. So that wasn’t what this was about.
(I see. Frenda-chan must just be too dazzling for them to behold. In the end, the age distribution of the population is different outside Academy City. Especially on weekdays. It might still be morning, but a super cute teenage girl shouldn’t be wandering around in casual clothing at this time.)
Each exit from the massive Shinjuku Station led to a very different part of the city. Wanting to avoid an obvious entertainment district where there would be more police patrols, Frenda left through the south entrance, but that led toward the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and a district full of fancy office buildings. For the health-conscious government workers who walked to work instead of taking the subway, a (self-proclaimed) cute blonde girl doing volunteer work in casual clothing instead of going to school may have been an unusual sight.
Things really were different on the outside.
The only reason she wasn’t being questioned and taken into protective custody was her blonde hair and blue eyes marking her as a foreigner. They probably couldn’t decide if she was an ordinary tourist or an unusual sort of runaway girl.
(Then maybe I should have pretended to not speak Japanese. No, wait. In the end, that would only make me stand out more.)
It was hard to fake speaking in broken language while making it sound natural. If it looked too much like she really could understand Japanese, people would think she was making fun of them, but if they thought she couldn’t understand them at all, it would put them on guard.
Frenda sighed and moved over to the edge of the sidewalk. She leaned back against a convenience store’s glass wall to rest. Which places sold canned mackerel on the outside? She noticed the security camera distribution was poor, so she could get this close to a store without any of them capturing her face. There also weren’t any mobile security robots and no constant satellite surveillance.
Frenda glanced at the security company’s logo sticker on the glass wall.
(Based on this, I’m betting the security camera data is divided up between security company and no one has a combined database of it all. Leave it to Criminal City Shinjuku to have huge electronic blind spots too.)
Technology inside Academy City was said to be 20-30 years ahead of the outside world, but Frenda was so used to Academy City that this felt like traveling into the past.
The sign on a nearby building mentioned an internet cafe, but Frenda shook her head.
Should she contact Mugino and the others and explain her predicament?
They would definitely trace the call and snipe her with a long-range Meltdowner blast. How long they had worked together meant nothing here. Mugino and the others were professionals. If their dark side job was to hunt her down, they wouldn’t hold back on the violence. Whether or not they would kill her had already been determined when they chose to accept the job or not. Frenda knew better than to hope they would have a change of heart after arriving on the scene.
“…”
That was after her.
Frenda felt a tingling in the back of her head and all her pores opened to expel a cold sweat.
She shouldn’t have imagined it so concretely.
She took a deep breath to calm her rattled nerves.
Panicking would only limit her options, but she needed time if she was going to face the situation and regain her cool. Only by expanding her options like that could she survive.
She raised her head.
She saw the city’s horizon. But it was located quite high up.
Far above the skyscrapers, a giant wall drew out a horizontal line. That was the border with Academy City.
“Now, then.”
Needless to say, Frenda had not escaped by foot.
Some unseen villain had drugged her and taken her outside the city.
That much she knew for sure.
But something bothered her about that.
(Why didn’t they just kill me then?)
If she had been unconscious and defenseless for hours, they could have killed her at any time. Yet they hadn’t.
That would mean keeping her alive benefited them more than killing her.
Or it would cause more damage.
It meant they saw some meaning in creating this situation where she was on the run while the rest of Item hunted her.
(Are they trying to tear apart Item without facing us directly, or is the trouble we cause only supposed to draw attention away from something else they’re doing?)
“…”
Mugino Shizuri, Takitsubo Rikou, and Kinuhata Saiai.
Those three had to be hot on her trail. No matter where she ran, they would catch her in the end. Before that happened, she had to find and capture the villain who had thrown her outside of Academy City to frame her and then present that villain to Mugino and the others when they showed up to kill her.
Her own survival?
Revenge against the true culprit?
The blonde girl’s motives were nothing so trite.
Do not forget that she was more than just a dark side bomber.
She glanced up at a skyscraper wall to check a retro digital clock resembling a giant calculator.
(So today is September 10.)
Frenda Seivelun silently gathered her resolve so that no one around would notice.
Yes, she had a reason to return to Academy City alive no matter what.
Specifically, she had to be back by the morning of September 18.
Because…
“That’s when all the city’s schools gather for the Daihaseisai athletic festival. My sister is in the 1st grade, so this is her first one. In the end, no self-respecting big sister could miss an event like that!”
Part 3[edit]
Mugino, Takitsubo, and Kinuhata of Item crossed the wall and set foot in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
There was ordinarily a lengthy process involving tons of paperwork and a tracking nanodevice injection, but they had skipped past all that. That showed just how pressing the situation was. More than that, it did no one any favors to leave official records of dark side activities.
“Takitsubo-san, I thought your AIM Stalker could search someone out super no matter where in the world they were.”
“I don’t record the AIM Diffusion Fields of my teammates,” expressionlessly replied Takitsubo.
It was admirable she was still following that rule after it prevented them from learning Hanano Choubi’s true identity. Then again, the laws and regulations usually required to protect people’s lives and property didn’t function on the dark side, so maybe the secret to survival was to mind your own business. Giving into paranoia made a villain fragile.
In that sense…
“If Frenda did run away on her own, it’s odd that she left her sister behind… I would have expected her to flee Academy City with her family in tow, even if that meant grabbing the girl’s arm and dragging her.”
Mugino was cautious about these things.
So while this was a threat to Item as a whole, she wasn’t too worried yet.
“That’s if super Frenda-san is her usual self. But you can never predict what people will do when they feel trapped.”
“We just have to predict what choices she would make the same whether she’s guilty or innocent. Then we can get ahead of her and catch her.”
Takitsubo was sharp and to the point, despite her unfocused eyes.
This wasn’t even about her power. She was the best in the field of searching.
On the dark side, these tracking skills were even more important than simple violence.
You had to sniff out any oddities, accurately follow their tracks, and locate your target no matter where in the wide world they were.
A military hound like that could directly influence people’s lives and futures.
“What will Frenda do next, whether it’s real or just a trick meant to confuse us?”
Takitsubo Rikou was her usual self.
She spoke like an oracle.
“Prove her innocence, maybe?”
Part 4[edit]
Sobasaka Michio worked as a detective for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Investigation Division 1.
The only reason he was the first to receive the initial notice to arrive at the head office in Kasumigaseki was because he had spent all night working.
“Wake up, newbie. They say a bomber’s escaped Academy City. The most populous area outside the East Gate is Shinjuku!”
“That ain’t good. But if we’re really talking about a bomber, isn’t that more a job for Public Security than for Division 1?”
When the new kid tried to continue his argument about jurisdiction, Sobasaka slapped him on the top of the head.
“Which section of Public Security? The ‘let’s stop currying teacher’s favor and seriously try to make some inroads on Academy City’ section? That city exists right smack in the middle of Tokyo, but they use their extraterritoriality to keep the police out no matter what happens in their walls. I say we end that absurdity here and now. Word is there are children dying inside those walls, but we can’t even get any accurate numbers. How is that right!? If we capture this bomber and throw the book at them, I just know we’ll find a ton of additional crimes. And if we play our cards right, we could even get a chance to demand an investigation of Academy City as a whole!”
Was Academy City trying to reduce their own responsibility by providing the bare minimum of information before anyone outside began pestering them? But as time passed, even that would be suppressed and erased by different people’s interests and rights.
The data alone felt too flimsy.
It would probably just disappear at some point. Sobasaka grabbed the computer mouse and the office laser printer began spitting out pieces of copy paper.
“Who knows when they’ll be by to confiscate this, so memorize it all while you have the chance, newbie!!”
“Ehh? Don’t drag me into this. Now, let’s take a look…”
Name: Classified
Photo: Classified
Age: Classified
Address: Classified
School: Classified
■■■■■,■■■■■■■■■■■t■■.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■■■i■■■,■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■.
■■■■■,■■■■■■,■■■■■.■■t■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
■■■■■■■■■■.■■■■■■■■■■s■■■■■■■■■■■■■.
“…”
The police detective froze while viewing the stack of papers.
You call this sharing information, Academy City? Nearly all of it was blotted out!!
His new subordinate asked a hesitant question.
“Wh-what do we do about this?”
“~ ~ ~! We still search out the bomber! This isn’t Academy City! It’s our city!!”
Part 5[edit]
9 AM.
The morning rush hour for students had passed, but Item didn’t care. The convenience store clerk was staring at them while trying repeatedly to get the register to actually read the barcode, but a single glare from Mugino preempted any possible questions. Such a convenient and pleasant world this was.
Once outside, they ate their breakfasts.
“What the hell? This salmon rice ball packaging won’t open no matter how much I tug!”
“Mugino, read the instructions. You’re supposed to start by pulling on the thin tape running vertically down it.”
“And that’s what I’m- oh, dammit. Now the seaweed’s all messed up!!”
Differences between inside and outside of Academy City could be found here as well.
Technology wasn’t perfected right away. It had to be used by a great many people so they could discover the problems needing solving. Stolen technology was one exception, but in that case they would lack the experience to deal with any problems they did come across.
“Let’s review the rules, guidelines, and regulations.”
Unable to let grilled salmon go to waste, Mugino broke down the rice ball to extract it from the plastic it had half fused with and ate it. Her annoyance was written plain on her face.
“We won’t have any support from the higher ups this time. So whether we kill or destroy, it won’t get covered up and will be treated as a crime. If the outside police catch us, a dark side assassin will sneak their way to our holding cell. Always weigh your options. Rule #1 is to avoid any violence that isn’t worth the risk.”
Kinuhata tilted her head while neatly removing the packaging from a chestnut okowa rice ball that appeared to be a new product.
“What do we do if Frenda-san super makes a desperate counterattack with her bombs?”
“We sniff out the signs. Then I burn the entire place down with Meltdowner before she can do it.”
They were to keep the damage to a minimum.
But no one had said anything about reducing it to zero. If things would only get more complicated, then they would erase it all with violence that was “worth the risk”.
So…
“For Frenda, that will be the final line. We’ll consider taking her alive if she doesn’t use any bombs, but if she uses even a single bomb here in the outside world, our priorities change.”
“Hey, if I have the chance, I say I just blast her and get it over with.”
“(With you, Mugino, it’s super impossible to tell if you’re serious or not.)”
On the dark side, you generally just killed everyone because anything else would be a nuisance, so they were already being fairly lenient here.
Of course, none of them knew how this would turn out.
“Mugino. We’re about to be gathering information, so should you really have eaten that rice ball?”
“We’re only going to end up ordering some overly sweet latte, right?”
They ended up going for the autumn-exclusive Mont Blanc latte.
Item weren’t the police or Anti-Skill, so they didn’t gather information by directly questioning people. For them, it was all about listening.
At a cheap chain cafe.
“Don’t they grow all the same stuff year-round? In plastic greenhouses and whatever.”
“It’s super worse than that. This is made from a chestnut-flavored powder. Unlike those rice balls that actually had stuff in them, you can’t prove that whatever’s in a liquid is real.”
The cafe menu changed out of human preference. Even if August had ended and September had arrived, a summer day was still a summer day. The status of the harvest wasn’t going to change so suddenly.
Takitsubo used a small fork to poke at a Western-style ohagi that came with the set.
“Mugino, adzuki beans are an autumn crop too, aren’t they?”
“Don’t mix a sweet drink with a sweet snack. You’ll just numb your tongue to the sweetness.”
After identifying a cafe frequented by the part-timers handing out fliers on the roadside that morning, Item occupied a table and started listening to the conversations going on around them. Information from around the city gathered here. They frequently strolled slowly up and down the narrow aisle, pretending to be grabbing a wet towel or a straw. And on the way…
“That little beret…”
“Super what was up with that blonde girl?”
They couldn’t afford to waste any time, so they used their own whispered hints to steer the conversations. By stimulating the other people’s memories, it wasn’t that hard to guide other people to a topic.
They were of course interested in any sightings these part-timers had made while on the job.
They didn’t even have to wait half an hour.
A blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl had been out in the morning rush hour but hadn’t gone to a school.
She was foreign, but she spoke fluent Japanese. And she hadn’t seemed like a tourist.
She had found an elementary schooler’s commuter ticket, worried over an old woman’s lost item, and grappled with a large poodle…
Mugino sighed in exasperation after returning to their table.
“What is that idiot doing when her life is on the line?”
“It sounds just like Frenda,” said the track suit girl, as expressionless as ever.
Kinuhata tilted her head.
“She doesn’t sound too worried. Could she super actually be innocent?”
“What about that was legal evidence? Don’t let impressions lead you astray, Kinuhata. We can’t deny the possibility she’s doing it on purpose to confuse us.”
Kinuhata looked over and found Takitsubo was her usual expressionless self. Usual. She normally seemed so unfocused, but her eyes hadn’t wavered before or after learning this.
Apparently the only one empathizing with Frenda was Kinuhata Saiai.
(Is this the super bad habit of a movie lover?)
It wasn’t clear if Frenda was guilty or not.
But whether she was serious about it or trying to find a way to deceive her pursuers, it wasn’t hard to predict what she would do next.
Mugino thought a moment.
“Prove her innocence. …That means she’ll stay put. For now, we shouldn’t have to worry about her hopping on a plane and escaping overseas. Takitsubo.”
“Nh.”
The track suit girl pointed with one hand.
She was their tracking expert.
Now, how far could they corner Frenda?
“Since we haven’t narrowed things down much, we should start from somewhere that gives us a panoramic view of the entire city. So let’s climb up high.”
Part 6[edit]
Of course, Frenda Seivelun made full use of her “weapons”.
At 10 in the morning, a shopping center packed full of hardware, gardening, and other specialty stores was already open.
That place was like heaven to a professional bomber.
“Sigh, it’s just so easy to buy these dangerous ingredients at ordinary stores. I do love the complete lack of defenses that comes from crime not having evolved much out here.”
The blonde girl left a store with large bags in each hand.
Frenda Seivelun was a professional bomber, but that also meant she was well-versed in the use of all chemicals with explosive reactions.
Mimicking the forensic investigation techniques of Academy City’s Anti-Skill was no challenge at all.
“Now, then.”
Frenda had awoken on a station platform bench, but she doubted someone had carried an unconscious girl through the rush hour crowd and left the super dazzling blonde girl there. People would have noticed.
Which meant…
(It must’ve been before the first train, but after the last patrol by a station attendant. Who would have free access to carry in a large piece of luggage before the station opens?)
“A delivery or cargo worker, maybe? Like a truck driver?”
Then had Frenda been lying there for hours on the dark station platform bench before she awoke on her own? In the middle of all the riders and station attendants at one of Japan’s most crowded stations? Tokyo really was coldhearted.
“Ugh. In the end, I hope I didn’t catch a cold.”
That was a particular worry when she was on the run and couldn’t risk visiting a doctor.
A delivery worker was especially suspect because they would also be legally allowed inside and outside of Academy City. Transporting everything by air increased costs considerably and Academy City didn’t border the sea, so using trucks was much more profitable.
This must have been a truck driver who did work at both Academy City and Shinjuku Station.
There couldn’t be too many like that.
It was a risk, but after completing her preparations, Frenda returned to the massive Shinjuku Station. But instead of going inside, she made a circuit of the perimeter.
Shinjuku Station had some harsh height differences. It had been built partway up a slope, so the ground level exits could be as much as three floors apart.
On the lower side, near a spiraling slope, Frenda found the row of metal shutters that signified the cargo unloading entrance.
“Here we go.”
Since she had been left at the station platform before the first train, it must have happened around 4 in the morning. She doubted the truck that had taken her from Academy City was still at the station.
But traces would remain.
“In the end, should I start with tire tracks and exhaust gas?”
While speaking to herself, Frenda quickly mixed multiple chemicals using the tablespoon, teaspoon, other measuring cups she had bought at a discount store. She wasn’t melting or burning anything, so mixing a reagent like this didn’t require a special mask or goggles.
After pouring the liquid into an empty spray bottle, she began spritzing it onto the asphalt.
“Bingo☆”
Pairs of thick tire tracks, presumably from trucks, appeared in bluish-white. Tire treads were a type of technology. The truck driver must have replaced his worn-out tires in Academy City because just one track had a noticeably high-tech pattern.
(The target probably refuels in Academy City, so I was planning to follow the traces of the exhaust gas that sticks to the asphalt. But in the end, reality did me a favor here.)
That would be her sign for now.
Of course, if she kept spritzing along those tracks, she would run out of reagent quick. Not to mention that she would gather attention walking down the center of the road staring intently at the ground. So she would instead connect point to point. All she wanted to do was pursue the escaped truck, so she only needed to check with a quick spritzing at the intersections. She was only guessing based on the spacing between the tires, but such a large truck would have to stick to the major roads.
Frenda obeyed the lights and used the crosswalks while aiming the spray bottle at the ground without crouching or stopping. The range of the spray bottle? Earth has this little thing called gravity, so as long as she sprayed the mist, it would fall toward the ground on its own. Then, once she had reached the other side of the street, she would look back to check the result.
And.
When it was all going so well.
Frenda felt an unpleasant chill along her spine.
She was suddenly hesitant to take another step.
Zvwahh!!!
A fearsome beam flew straight in, melting and scorching the sturdy asphalt.
It hit right in front of Frenda.
That was Academy City’s #4 Mugino Shizuri’s Meltdowner.
Even a modest estimate told Frenda the light source was more than 3000m away.
The blast had been fired diagonally down from above.
Mugino was either on top of a skyscraper or she had chartered a helicopter.
“!!?”
For a moment, Frenda herself wasn’t sure how she had managed to dodge that.
(In the end, was there a brief unnatural shadow on the big sign on that distant building’s roof? From someone standing in front of it? I must be a genius to notice that!!)
Psyching yourself up like that could provide a surprising amount of strength during an emergency.
When used properly, it could keep you from freezing up and being killed.
Frenda acted as her own cheerleader as she sent her gaze darting through her more immediate surroundings, but she saw no sign of Kinuhata making a secondary attack from close quarters.
Was this only a sniper attack?
That suggested this wasn’t a planned attack and they had just so happened to spot Frenda. Unexpected opportunities were like ad libbing on stage – it was a battle against mistakes.
However, Meltdowner did not require operating a bolt handle or loading the next round. If Frenda continued standing out in the open, she would waste this miracle she had been granted. If she didn’t respond right away, the next attack would be coming in less than two seconds.
(The closest light is red. In the end, none of the cars are moving!!)
More bright flashes burst out, but these did not come from Mugino.
Frenda had triggered some magnesium flashes as a distraction.
(Even if you don’t have any professional stun grenades, you can find magnesium all over the place. Like in the signs attached to power poles. In the end, they use magnesium to increase the strength of the wires made of a zinc or aluminum alloy.)
Even so, a beam of electrons tore into the asphalt less than 5m from Frenda. She didn’t have time to hesitate. She practically leaped into the space between two buildings.
“But I can’t just ignore the tire tracks. Hiding isn’t enough. In the end, I need to occasionally poke my head out to spray the reagent on the road.”
Fortunately, she had already revealed a few points of the trail.
She extrapolated from those and made her way to the next point. She wanted to to finish following this trail as quickly as possible.
Part 7[edit]
“Mugino.”
“Just one more!”
“The usual rules don’t apply here. Your powerful light beams are a trump card, but they’re conspicuous. Even 10 seconds is too long. If you haven’t killed your target in that time, you need to quickly withdraw.”
“You’re not on her side, are you?”
“Also, Frenda hasn’t killed anyone yet. I feel like she hasn’t crossed that line .”
“You ‘feel’ that way, do you!?”
“Mugino, you were actually trying to kill her just now, weren’t you?”
“…You doubt me?”
“That means Frenda must have sensed the killer intent of a professional. It wasn’t just wishful thinking like when a delinquent threatens to kill someone. A professional will kill calmly as part of their job. If Frenda keeps going like this, she will be killed. She knows that, but she still isn’t fighting back.”
“…”
“She’s an explosives expert, remember? She may have had her equipment taken from her, but knowing her she could build a handmade non-guided rocket with just the parts available in the city. So if she wanted to, she could fight back. If she was serious about that and didn’t care about collateral damage, a 3000m difference wouldn’t matter. She would be able to bring down this entire building.”
“Taken from her? Sounds to me like you’re basing this on some fantasy about her being taken from the city against her will and having her stuff stolen in the process. Oh, damn. You aren’t actually taking the target’s side, are you!? It did look like Frenda stiffened just before I shot. Did you intentionally have me stand in a noticeable spot?”
“Okay, okay. That’s super enough of that! If you throw a tantrum, the Voice on the Phone will be upset. And we can’t use the usual cover up infrastructure this time. Look, people are gathering around the spots you hit, so more of that sloppy aim is out of the question. We need to super get out of here.”
“Did you just call my aim sloppy, you scrawny little newbie?”
“Oh? Tough talk for a sniper who screwed up her initial shot. Were your senses dulled by those super juicy-looking thighs?”
“Mugino, patience. They’ll be mad at you if you kill anyone other than the target out here, right?”
“God, I’m cut off at every turn! What do you mean I can’t even kill my own teammates!?”
Part 8[edit]
It looked like she had survived.
Frenda breathed a soft sigh.
(In the end, I hope she isn’t just waiting to kill me at her leisure.)
When she really was being hunted, the lines between optimism, being reasonable, and overthinking could become blurred. It was common in the dark side to find yourself unable to trust your own thoughts.
Despite the popular image, Shinjuku wasn’t just Kabukicho from one side to the other. When leaving the train station from the southern entrance, there was a surprising amount of green (which was of course an artificially maintained park). Frenda saw a few large corporate office buildings and hotels, passed by the distinctive Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, and kept walking a while longer. She came to a stop after the building heights had decreased a fair amount.
She had arrived at a certain building.
Several taxis were gathered around a filthy set meal restaurant. That wasn’t all grease stains, was it? There were a few large trucks in addition to the taxis. Frenda thought of Shinjuku as a collection of tall buildings, so this one-story restaurant looked out of place. Was this the result of a strong but misguided obsession? The menu out front had chilled Chinese noodles crossed out with two thick lines in marker and “ramen” scrawled in its place. Maybe that was due to the changing of the seasons.
The entire place was filthy. Even though it was a restaurant. The general vibe would make ordinary people think twice before entering.
The restaurant must not have cared how many stars it had on the food review sites.
It was like a tropical fish in an enclosed tank…no, that analogy was too clean. It was like a turtle that had lived for decades in a mossy, seldom-cleaned tank.
“Wow, this is the kind of mystery restaurant you’d find in an urban legend. …In the end, are these set meal places even any good?”
Frenda had doubted her quarry would immediately get on the highway to escape far away.
Even though there wasn’t any word on the news or internet yet, information on the “escaped bomber” must have been shared with Investigation Division 1 and Public Security. In a heavily redacted report, of course.
The driver would be relaxing at a restaurant near the scene because they were waiting for the police checkpoint to be removed.
Of course, Frenda wasn’t going to wait until the heat died down. She had been set up and was being pursued, but that crisis could come in handy at times.
According to the tracks revealed by her reagent…
(This is the truck that abducted me. There’s a family photo at the driver’s seat and the footprints lead into the restaurant. But, in the end, the driver will return here on his own.)
Just to be safe, Frenda used some dust made by shaving down aluminum foil to check around the door and she found fingerprints. Old and new ones. That meant they weren’t a last-minute trick.
“That confirms it. Now to set something up.”
Frenda reached into her thin poncho and pulled out a spray bottle other than the reagent one. This one had a thick mark drawn around the neck of the bottle in red marker.
The sliding door to the filthy restaurant opened.
A middle-aged man who looked a lot like a truck driver emerged, approached the large truck, and pressed the button on his keys to unlock the door.
Just then, Frenda silently approached from behind cover.
The driver caught sight of her in the large side-view mirror and quickly spun around, but she had planned on that.
“Okay. In the end, have a spritz of mint, chili peppers, and vinegar☆”
“Gwahhhhhh!?”
Taking the super irritating cocktail to the eyes brought the man down onto his rear.
Frenda’s area of expertise was all chemicals with explosive reactions. She had never said bombs were her only weapon.
If she blew him to bits, he couldn’t exactly answer her questions, now could he?
(Toys like this are more useful when paired with a booby trap bomb than when used on their own. In the end, just when they’ve carefully removed the screws and taken off the cover of the explosive device, all sorts of nasty powders prepared inside will float silently out and blind the bomb squad’s delicate eyes☆)
“Oh, hey. In the end, rubbing your eyes will only make your eyelids swell more. You’re only going to make this worse for yourself, so I recommend not resisting and heading on around to the back.”
“Ow, wh-what the hell did you do to me? I-I can’t see!?”
“I’d like to ask you that.”
With an exasperated sigh, Frenda grabbed the driver by the scruff of the neck and dragged him behind the large truck. His larger size made that fairly difficult.
(I can do all this and no one makes a fuss. I’m not going to ask for drum-shaped security robots, but in the end a world without drive recorders and drones is so easy it’s scary.)
Once in one of the city’s blind spots, it was time to get to work.
It was interrogation time, where she would get information out of him like turning on a faucet.
“In the end, do you have any clue why someone from Academy City would be doing this to you?”
“Uh.”
The driver’s shoulders jumped.
That would be a yes.
“A professional truck driver can drive right through Academy City’s gates. But you had no reason to do what you did. …Who hired you? Were they paying you with money? Tell me everything you know.”
“I-I couldn’t possibly tell you.”
“I gave you a taste of the tear spray I had marked as ‘safe’. The undiluted version is 20x stronger, so a spray from that will permanently blind you. In the end, are you still going to resist?”
“Wait, wait! Not my eyes! I’m a driver!”
People’s mental defenses were weak against types of pain other than simple punching and kicking.
It worked even better if you if you let their imagination do most of the work.
Frenda knew he couldn’t see her, but she still worked hard to keep her expression neutral.
Because this was how she really felt about this:
(Damn, I hate this. In the end, it’s just not my style to torture a weakened amateur.)
But at times, it was unavoidable.
Mugino had fired Meltdowner at her just recently. Item really had been released from Academy City and was hot on her trail.
It was unclear how close those destructive and deadly girls were to reaching Frenda.
But the clock was ticking all the same.
If Mugino fired another…sniper shot? Artillery blast? Whatever you wanted to call it, it might just hit the driver by mistake.
She had to play the monster.
Yes, a monster like the Japanese oni that that had scared her 7-year-old sister so badly she had trouble sleeping earlier this year. And so the big sister had to stay up with her using the voice chat on a F2P game. Based on what her sister had said, that strange monster could be defeated by roasted soybeans and fish heads. That part was a little worrying, but a true oni probably did some really nasty things.
“In the end, histamines are great for swollen eyelids. They’re the substance that causes the pain and itchiness during an allergic reaction, but you can easily extract them from rotten garbage. There should be plenty of raw materials back behind the restaurant. By getting them inside your body, I can boost the swelling as much as I want, so do you really want to experience this pain but several times more powerful? How about we start at 100x the spiciness?”
“I-I don’t need money.”
“Then did they threaten you? Using a photo taken after you fell for a honey trap, maybe?”
“I would never betray my family!!”
Then how do you explain your current circumstances, criminal?
The driver yelled at exasperated Frenda.
He sounded a little desperate.
“I needed time. Time! Being a truck driver only gets you money. We end up dedicating the majority of our time to the job. At least more than half the year. So we have money in our bank accounts, but we can’t take our families on a vacation or even on a trip to the local park! If you live like that long enough, it messes with your head!!”
But he couldn’t quit.
He knew all too well that his life would be empty if his job was taken from him.
“…We made a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“If I completed this job, they will negotiate with the company. No one listens to us drivers, but those experts know how to ‘talk’ both above and below board.”
Something interrupted him.
The round object was about the size of a basketball.
On closer inspection, Frenda realized the sides of the large ball slid back to act as wheels.
The sphere supported itself with the two wheels and its bottom and it turned by working the wheels in opposite directions.
But it also did something the wheels couldn’t explain.
With nothing else around, the orb suddenly hopped 3m straight up.
It was Frenda’s knowledge as a professional bomber that told her immediately what this meant.
“Shit, get under the truck!!”
“?”
The hopping orb burst from within, scattering 800 sharp fishing hooks with maximum efficiency.
The blast swept across everything around it.
Part 9[edit]
The explosion was obvious even from a distance.
A dust cloud.
Screams and shouting.
In fact, the asphalt ground shook a little.
“Earthquake alert. A shindo one quake was just detected in Shinjuku, Tokyo.”
An unmanned seismograph must have been triggered in error because an out-of-place alert scrolled along the top of an outdoor screen playing advertisements.
Mugino Shizuri grimaced and clicked her tongue.
“That idiot…”
“She’s crossed the line,” said the track suit girl.
Takitsubo was relatively protective of Frenda, but this announcement said she was switching to the other side.
Part 10[edit]
A bomb professional knew how to do more than set up bombs.
When the situation called for it, they could also disarm bombs or identify a safe zone to escape the blast.
“Kh…”
(In the end, that was a remote-controlled hopping bomb that uses springs to launch itself up.)
Frenda groaned below the large truck.
She heard something falling all across the ground. Those barbed fish hooks had been used to make the blast more deadly. So many of them had been scattered in all 360 degrees with more force than a handgun, but lucky for Frenda, they had been pouring down from above. That meant a solid roof was enough to stay safe.
The blonde girl tugged on something with her right hand.
It felt too light.
The driver was much larger than her. She had tried to drag him under the truck with her, but the bomb had detonated first. Thanks to that, his bottom half had still been sticking out from below the truck. That part of him had been annihilated by the blast. The result reminded her of a swarm of piranhas. After dozens of fishing hooks had pierced and torn through his body at speeds greater than a bullet, his flesh and even his bones were just gone.
There was no further attack.
(Was that meant to silence him, not kill me? In the end, they have some nerve punishing that amateur as a traitor after they got him involved to avoid dirtying their own hands.)
At least he had died instantly.
Frenda reached down and shut his gaping eyes before crawling out from under the truck.
The world outside was in awful shape.
The metal taxis had been flipped over and destroyed and the shock had triggered their car alarms, which continued to blare meaninglessly. Several roadside trees had been felled. The restaurant was a decent distance away, but its sliding door had still been destroyed. No one was exiting the restaurant despite all the noise, probably because they had no way of knowing if another blast was coming.
Still, the police would be here soon.
Frenda couldn’t stay here for long, but seeing the blast site stimulated her mind.
“I see.”
In both hacking and bomb-making, the initial crime someone came up with was then copied, modified, and combined with other techniques. No matter how complex the explosive device, the wicked invention would spread throughout the world in no time.
As someone who followed that path, Frenda could glean some information from the small fragments left behind after the explosion.
(So they used a cheap music player with a clock and numerical password and used sparks for the ignition. In the end, cutting a colorful cord wouldn’t be enough. Defusing that would have required programming knowledge too.)
The explosive device was probably a copy of someone else’s. There was no need to ask whose. It looked far too familiar. The unseen villain wanted to frame Frenda, so basing this on one of her past bombings was the best option.
There was a decent technological gap between Academy City and the outside world, but the villain would have had an example to work with. Frenda’s equipment had been taken from her before she woke up on the Shinjuku Station platform, after all.
“In the end, a remote-controlled hopping bomb is a very Academy City sort of toy… I doubt they have those in the outside world yet.”
Conversely, the explosive was just pathetic. It was cheap garbage made from chemical fertilizer. Inside Academy City, there were plenty of explosives that were easier to make, more powerful, and could slip past nitrogen compound sensors. This was definitely something acquired in the outside world.
But this was no laughing matter.
(They would be able to buy as many fancy explosives as they want. But instead they made their own out of everyday substances, which is like leaving a calling card of identifying traces.)
This was a compound made from a commercial chemical fertilizer, not a pure element. No matter how carefully it was processed, the mixing and extraction processes would introduce some impurities. The distribution of those impurities would contain small idiosyncrasies. Ordinarily this would provide dangerous clues to a forensic team, such as where the ingredients used had been purchased, but they had instead left behind their own unseen calling card.
Instead of hiding their crime, they were showing it off to use fear as a weapon. Instead of securing their safety by fleeing the police and judiciary, they would use despair to prevent a proper investigation from being carried out. There was an organization out there that had turned fear and violence into a product.
Be careful, they said.
If you mistake this for an ordinary bombing and continue investigating, even a police officer will end up sleeping with the fishes.
“…”
A compound made from chemical fertilizer.
Frenda Seivelun knew of a group that preferred that method.
She only had secondhand information from the internet since she rarely left Academy City, but the anonymous poster had gone silent afterwards, so the information was probably good. The idiot who carelessly let that one slip likely went through a lot and ultimately had to take on a whole new identity. In fact, the odds were good they had been forced to flee the small island nation of Japan for their own safety.
The enemy was an outside organization.
It was a sophisticated Western-style machine of violence.
“In the end, this was the Mugino Family.”
Between the Lines 1[edit]
Their headquarters were in Yokohama.
Alongside Kobe, Yokosuka, and Hakodate, that city had acted as a crucial point of contact during the Bunmei Kaika.
Criminal organizations are ordinarily(?) created as a reaction after social stability is shaken. For example, if the national economy crashes, loan sharks will become widespread. And if food supplies become unstable, black markets will grow more active. In that sense, this too was a major enough event to wind up in the history books.
In other words, the Bunmei Kaika.
The end of isolationism in Japan.
The process wasn’t all bright and cheerful. Westernization alone was praised and Japanese traditions were sold off for a pittance. While Western culture was welcomed on the technological front, it was also a time of confusion when people mentally armed themselves with the ideas of traditional Japanese masculinity and femininity. And so an organization inevitably arose to accept the people’s frustrations and complaints.
For this reason, the Mugino Family isn’t a purely criminal organization.
They simply used the Bunmei Kaika as an opportunity to greedily absorb every last part of Western culture. And it just so happened that included a system of violence that crossed the sea to reach Japan.
So they do not place a sign out front. No matter how much power they accumulate, they keep themselves hidden below the surface. The Mugino Family is a grain production corporation that controls the stomachs of 1.4 billion people worldwide, but their name will not be found on any list of corporate executives.
Loath to fight anyone directly, they prefer to camouflage themselves among the people.
They are a corporation.
Violence is just one of their many negotiation tools and they make an appearance in many other territories and classes. Do not forget that, no matter what anyone says about them, the Mugino Family protects the livelihoods and smiles of 1.4 billion people.
The Mugino Family does not go out of their way to break the law. It is more accurate to say they do not even consider the law. If the law falls within the bounds of their inviolable rules, they will obey it. But if it conflicts with those rules, they will break it without a second thought. That is why the Mugino Family is willing to kill, but also sends vast quantities of food overseas to feed starving children.
Thus, if you focus only on the violent parts, you will fail to grasp the full picture of the Mugino Family.
Two terms must not be forgotten when discussing that large scale system of violence: the Bloodline and the Management.
The Bloodline were those who directly inherited the Mugino name. They generally played no part in the criminal activity.
Loan sharks, the sex industry, gambling, threats, violence, kidnappings, and killing.
These activities were handled by the Management…that is, the butlers and maids who were not blood relatives.
The influence of a particular member of the Bloodline within the Mugino Family was determined by how many of the powerful and profitable Management they had in their service. This superseded the usual family hierarchy that placed the eldest daughter or son at the top.
It was a lot like a game of shogi. They all gathered together and tried to take the game pieces from each other. And in rare cases, a foolish Bloodline member would get so fixated on that game they allowed themselves to be killed in their sleep.
The Bloodline who directly carried the Mugino blood in their veins numbered only a few dozen.
The Management’s numbers were estimated to be in the hundreds or even thousands.
Including those overseas, their total number of soldiers easily surpassed 100 thousand.
So the seemingly simple concept of the Mugino Family in fact contained countless plans and interests, and even different moral viewpoints, so they could not be seen as a monolith. The Bloodline members who had the legitimate right to inherit the family were always struggling over the trump cards that were the Management and that often manifested itself as physical violence.
The Mugino Family was suspect, but it wasn’t clear if the attack on Frenda was the will of the entire family or if some individual member of the Bloodline or Management had gone rogue or even betrayed the family.
“In the end, the Mugino Family has bared its fangs against me.”
She had to investigate this.
Obtaining an accurate view of your enemy was the most basic step for anyone who fought on the dark side.
“But who in the family is actually calling the shots here?”
