Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter4
Chapter 4: Your Chains Exist to be Broken[edit]
Part 1[edit]
It was midnight on August 7.
All sound had vanished from the world in the brief respite of the typhoon’s eye.
Ainame Caroline disappeared.
“!!!???”
Mugino Shizuri felt a scrape.
She immediately swung her head to the side to dodge, but she couldn’t stop the icy pain on her neck. Even though just a 5mm difference would have cut open her carotid.
“Sample acquired☆”
She had seen this bizarre teleportation before.
After sharply moving past her, the little brown gyaru smiled and twirled her phone in her hand. Not only was it contained in a sturdy blast-resistant case, but the case’s decorative bunny ears were in fact razor blades.
(Her power is Thoughtography, which doesn’t explain how she can suddenly disappear! Damn!!)
But Mugino didn’t have time for a detailed analysis.
Before even holding a hand to her neck wound, she held her right hand directly behind her.
She launched a Meltdowner beam.
She heard a sizzling sound, but not from Meltdowner.
“Kee hee ha ha!!”
Dark scorch marks surrounded everything around the 10-year-old girl, including the walls, floor, and ceiling. The lines drew out some kind of pattern and they looked a lot like movie film chopped into pieces and scattered around.
Thoughtography.
That was all it was supposed to be, but Mugino’s attacks weren’t hitting.
“Lame! Did you forget? I’m the head researcher who was directly involved in developing you as a Level 5. This entire lab has essentially ceased to function without me around. And did you think Meltdowner was the only thing I worked on? Hee ha ha! It’s cool, really. So, so cool!! The seven Level 5s all influence each other. And! I’ve already acquired the essence of the #6!!!”
Ainame Caroline disappeared again. She approached while taking small steps to the right and left. If Mugino let herself be lured into firing a poorly-aimed Meltdowner blast, the girl would rush in all at once.
Mugino hated how her wet white clothing clung to her skin. And in this life-or-death situation, even a slight irritation could become a serious threat.
She had a blade slash with red blood dripping from it.
But that wasn’t about to extinguish Mugino’s rage.
“Ohhhh!!”
She thrust her palm out in front and fired Meltdowner.
But just when she assumed Ainame Caroline would disappear, the girl instead swung her body to easily dodge the deadly light and then rushed sharply in toward Mugino.
“Again!?”
Neck, wrist, and thigh.
The sharp bunny ears razor blade had plenty of vital points to choose from.
Even Mugino was forced to guard herself with her arms. A sharp scorching heat ran through her flank.
“Lame. I already have Meltdowner’s DNA map and duplicate samples are honestly a real letdown. But since I took it, I might as well archive it. Oh, I know. Wouldn’t it be hilariously cool if I preserved each drop of blood on a microscope slide and handed them out in front of the train station like tissues!? Ha ha ha. Now that would throw the world into chaos!!”
It wasn’t over yet.
Mugino couldn’t afford to collapse here.
Collapsed and abandoned Tachiuo Mary entered the corner of her vision. That girl had fought all four Item members at once to buy time, but then she was abandoned by the very person she had trusted to the end. A villain like Mugino regretted the loss of someone so deadly.
She wanted to do something for her.
Could the dark side really accept this sack of shit who wasn’t even a villain?
“You can’t possibly understand what it feels like to not just be a duplicate but to be discarded without even getting the chance to live up to your full potential. When I use those support organization delinquents, I at least make sure it’s part of a plan leading to victory. I might coldly consume their lives to win, but not even a villain would continue to throw them into the meat grinder while knowing from the beginning it was a dead end.”
“Ah ha ha☆ Deflate that ego, guinea pig. That’s something only us cool researchers can do.”
Mugino blinked in displeasure.
That girl could gather information through Thoughtography, she could mysteriously teleport, and she had her bunny razor blade.
If Mugino couldn’t reveal all of Ainame Caroline’s tricks and prevent her from using them, she would be carved up little by little!!
Part 2[edit]
“Oof.”
Still drenched, Takitsubo held limp Kinuhata below the arms and dragged her to a nearby room. That might not be enough to protect her from stray shots when espers of that level were fighting, but it was still better than leaving her where she was.
The clingy wet clothing felt gross.
Ammonium carbonate smelling salts would be meaningless even if Takitsubo could find some. There might be a drug that would work on the nano iron paint graffiti burned across the surface of the brain, but even a top quality(?) black market doctor had been hesitant to try anything there. It would probably be best to not break open the locked glass cover over the shelves and make a selection with her phone’s search engine in one hand. The most she could do for Kinuhata and Frenda was keep them in a position that wouldn’t obstruct their breathing.
Mugino Shizuri had not asked Takitsubo for assistance.
Ainame Caroline didn’t seem to be paying her any heed either.
But..
(I can still help.)
The track suit girl pulled a small case from her pocket.
She tried to sprinkle some of the white powder on the back of her hand but failed. An unnatural and unpredictable shaking caused the powder to fall to the floor.
“Kh.”
She clenched her teeth.
Her brow was soaked with sweat.
Even so, Takitsubo Rikou was a member of Item.
She could tell Mugino was having trouble fighting on her own. She had once been a victim of false accusations, which led to her rights being stripped away and brought her a step away from being a lab rat. The person who had rescued her from that life was again facing a foe with anger in her heart. If she screwed this up, an even more horrific reality was sure to present itself.
Even dark side villains would never abandon someone they had chosen as a teammate. Anyone who couldn’t even manage that was just a sack of shit.
Takitsubo once more grabbed the small case.
She sprinkled the white powder onto the back of her other hand.
The back of her throat was still stained red from coughing up blood before. She herself couldn’t fully explain what had happened when she fought Tachiuo Mary, so she decided she couldn’t expect it to happen a second time.
But that didn’t mean she could give up. Maybe she was a villain, but she had to consider every option available to her here.
(Using Body Crystal again so soon is pushing it, but I should be able to support Mugino from here.)
Part 3[edit]
A few sharp pains slashed at Mugino in quick succession.
Removing her wet cardigan and wrapping it around her right arm didn’t provide much defense against that sharp razor blade. While she did that, Ainame Caroline silently disappeared and continued to do solid damage.
And she disappeared again.
Not even Mugino’s most powerful Meltdowner blast could kill this sack of shit unless she solved the mystery of that brown researcher.
A few more beams missed their mark and the bunny ears razor blade sliced through the air in counterattack.
Red spray scattered in the air.
“Kee ha, ee ha ha!! Hee hee ha ha ha ha!! What happened to your precious Meltdowner? Are you even trying to hit me, you failure? If your power had developed better, I could’ve realized my dream a hell of a lot sooner. Lame. It’s all your fault!! You delayed and twisted my future, so the least you could do is prove that power was worth it by killing me with it!!!”
Even small wounds were a threat if there were enough of them.
And there were plenty of thick blood vessels visible on the surface of the body.
Plus…
“Kh.”
Mugino’s head wobbled heavily on her neck. Her vision blurred darkly. The extreme situation would have caused her to perspire and caused her blood vessels to expand and contract and then her wet body had been exposed to the chilly air conditioning this entire time. It wouldn’t reach the point of frostbite, but there was a risk of hypothermia.
But she refused to relinquish her consciousness.
She had to do something for Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. She also had to stand up to the insult against Tachiuo Mary, who was so delightfully deadly.
She would repay this debt in accordance to her own rules.
She would prove it was a bad idea to underestimate the Mugino family that had gained power by absorbing the Western gangs before anyone else.
(I more or less know how it works.)
“!!”
The 10-year-old brown gyaru vanished and the next attack arrived.
Soaked Mugino scattered water droplets from the end of her long hair as she climbed over a table and used it as a shield.
Nothing happened after that.
Ainame Caroline twirled her bunny ear phone from a short distance away.
“What’s wrong? Does that fancy teleportation of yours not work with an obstacle in the way?”
“…”
The wounds she had taken had not been for nothing.
She would let an enemy cut her flesh as much as they liked. As long as it gave her a chance to turn the tables on them.
Tachiuo Mary had made her tremble with excitement. Frenda and Kinuhata had trusted her with their lives.
She swore she would repay that debt.
She wouldn’t let this sack of shit live out a happy life.
“Of course it doesn’t.”
Mugino grinned and violently kicked away the table between them.
Her wounds wouldn’t heal. Her situation was only getting worse.
But the thought of her imminent victory pumped adrenaline into her blood and her fading field of vision instantly expanded.
“Each esper only gets one power. Even if you did develop your own power based on whatever you learned working with Meltdowner and the #6, you can’t give yourself two Level 5 powers at the same time. That means your esper power is electricity-based Thoughtography. Most likely, you use the invisible flow of electrons to simulate the future and draw it out using magnetism. That ability can be explained with just the one power. I could grab you by the ankles and shake everything out of your pockets, but I’d never find a completely different power that lets you instantly teleport objects.”
Mugino had been looking at it wrong.
That girl wasn’t hiding another unseen power.
“That teleportation is a trick that only requires your Thoughtography.”
That was the proper assumption when thinking about Academy City espers.
Ainame Caroline used the hand not holding her phone to pull a new chocolate snack stick from the box held in place by her short skirt and stuck it in her mouth.
“Oh? Such as?”
“Humans close their eyes automatically. So maybe you dash just one step forward while we’re blinking. The idea would sound silly if I was talking about a normal person, but your Thoughtography lets you see the future. As long as you know when someone will blink, it isn’t all that difficult.”
As a result, it looked like she disappeared.
It was Mugino herself who had been abandoning her sight for brief periods.
She didn’t know how many times a human blinked during a minute, but it had to create a decent opening if you could utilize all of them.
Soaked Mugino brushed her wet bangs up.
“That’s also why you burn photos all over the floor and walls when you use your Thoughtography. Everyone can see your photos, so with just the one photo as a hint, they would realize what you were up to. So you have to scatter a ton of extra photos around as camouflage.”
“Lame. I can only give that 3 out of 5 stars. How borrrring☆’’
“What? Are you saying you aren’t predicting the coincidental timing of our blinking? Do you use light, sound, or electrical stimuli to make us blink when you want?”
“Ha ha ha. Why else would all four members of Item blink at the exact same time? Obviously I’m influencing that. It’s pure sleight of hand, so I don’t even need my Thoughtography to do it.”
That would mean she didn’t even peek at the future when dodging Meltdowner.
She was only littering the floor and walls with wholly unnecessary futures.
By burning all those thoughtographs into the walls and floor, she changed the surrounding patterns and colors to create an optical illusion that accurately threw off Mugino’s aim.
Wasn’t that the same method used by Shokuhou Misaki – no, by Mitsuari Ayu in disguised?
There was no rule requiring someone with a real supernatural power to base their attacks on that power.
“So you’re a goddamn researcher to the very core.”
“Hee ha ha. That’s right, esper. I’m a cool researcher who’s also an esper. I’m built different from a boring Level 5 who has nothing else going for her. It cracks me up, really.”
It had bothered Mugino that Ainame Caroline used a phone as a weapon.
What if it was more than the special razor blade and blast-resistant case? What if the entire phone itself was a weapon? That would let her produce all sorts of toys, like infrared and ultrasound. If light and vibrations too weak to notice applied minute stimuli to the surface of the eyeball, it might be possible to induce blinking at the precise moment you wanted. Maybe something similar to spectators obstructing baseball or soccer matches with a laser pointer.
Mugino saw a small and wicked smile before her.
Ainame Caroline remained confident even after her secret was revealed.
This was odd. The enemy wouldn’t go out of her way to give Mugino an answer that would help her.
If she really had developed her own power based on the Personal Reality so closely related to Mugino’s mentality, she had to understand that villain’s logic.
“Wowww, you actually got it right. But does knowing how it works mean you can avoid it? Can you avoid being dazzled by a bright light through willpower alone? Or can you hold back the tears while chopping an onion through sheer force of will?”
And.
Ainame Caroline hid her mouth behind her rectangular phone.
“Lame. Did you forget? My teleportation might only be a trick, but my Thoughtography can directly fry your brain☆”
So she only needed enough of an opening for that attack.
She only needed to lure Mugino into a position where she couldn’t avoid it.
That was all she needed to win.
And to do that…
“You intentionally let me reveal your teleportation trick!?”
“Ha ha ha!! Were you relieved you’d solved the mystery? Lame! That’s the moment when people drop their guard, making it the perfect time to use my power in a surprise attack!!”
It happened suddenly.
They both held their palm out.
Was the bunny ear phone only camouflage and Ainame Caroline was actually taking aim with her palm?
Just like Ibotanokikouji Kaede had and, more importantly, just like Mugino Shizuri did.
“An expert photographer knows how to draw out the beauty of their subject. To photograph a wild bird, you blend into nature. To photograph food, you let it cool so the steam won’t get in the way. To photograph a human, you chat with and flatter them to make them smile!”
“You mean all of this was you’re a photographer’s conversational technique!? Am I a joke to you!?”
The beam launched from the one palm shot right past the brown girl’s cheek.
The color black danced wildly about.
Countless massive photographs were burned into the walls and floor around the little brown girl.
“Level 1 Thoughtography!!!”
Time slowed to a crawl as Mugino was faced by a threat rivalling a large truck barreling toward her.
Mugino did not consider that to be weak.
At this point, it didn’t make sense.
That girl had the ridiculous ability to accurately read the future and to objectively share it with anyone as a photograph, but she was still only Level 1?
Academy City’s level system was judged by the adults. It was possible her ability to burn graffiti into people’s brains was considered too horrific to warrant any further research, which had cost her points. The adults may have decided the risk outweighed the benefit of knowing the future.
This too was a dark side tactic. As a researcher who knew how powers were scored, she would be able to influence the result.
So how much higher would her level be if it were accurately judged!?
(If I screw up here, I can’t avenge Tachiuo. And I can’t **** Frenda and Kinuhata!!)
If a single Meltdowner blast hit, she would be safe without having her brain scrawled on. But Mugino grimaced. The optical illusions drawn out on the walls and floor by the Thoughtography messed with her aim. Her straight-line beams had been easily avoided. Trying the same thing again wouldn’t help. She would only be hit by a deadly counterattack! How would she handle that attack? She had no way of dodging it!
She had focused on the wrong thing.
Instead of trying to figure out the phony teleportation, she should have focused on finding a countermeasure for the weaponized Thoughtography. Instead, she had fallen for the breakwater placed in front of her and wasted her limited time thinking about something else. It was no surprise she had no plan now.
(How much of this did she predict!?)
“All of it.”
Ainame Caroline answered a question Mugino hadn’t even said out loud and then bit through her chocolate snack stick.
“My Thoughtography isn’t suited for combat because I can’t use it to essentially watch a livestream of the immediate future while I fight. But I’m second to none when it comes to taking my time thoroughly photographing the more distance future! Ah ha ha! It cracks me up!! I’d already photographed your boring defeat before I even showed up. Lame. Did you really expect such a valuable head researcher to set foot in this primitive place if I hadn’t!?”
There was nothing Mugino could do.
Ainame Caroline had bared her deadly fangs. There was no stopping it with Meltdowner!!
“Did you really?”
The third voice that interrupted from the side sounded far too ordinary.
Then Mugino noticed an odd smell.
(Time has sped back up to normal?)
Something had wafted over to her. Then pain raced through her like all her blood was boiling.
Ainame Caroline hadn’t done this.
This wasn’t that girl’s attack!
(Gah, bwah?)
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
The beam gathering in her hand suddenly exploded.
Her power was running wild.
And this was no coincidence. Mugino knew of a substance that could artificially induce this state.
“It…can’t be…”
Ainame Caroline was just as dumbfounded.
Had her precious Thoughtography failed to show her this uncontrolled chaos?
For the brief moment Mugino’s deadly violence blossomed wildly, she clearly broke free of the world’s invisible rails.
“Body Crys-”
It pierced right through.
The thick beam caught the little girl at the hip, fully vaporizing her lower half.
It seemed to happen in a moment of absolute silence.
“You want to save Frenda and Kinuhata, don’t you? You just can’t bring yourself to say it.”
But a voice broke that silence.
“So I’ll say it for you. I am a member of Item and it’s my job to do what you can’t.”
Part 4[edit]
Ainame Caroline’s upper half splatted down onto the filthy, wet floor. Just like with Tachiuo Mary, she couldn’t die right away because the edge of the wound was cauterized. That introduced the risk of a counterattack after the battle should have been over, so that may have been a problem worth fixing. A groan came from the lump of flesh pasted to the floor.
Mugino didn’t escape unscathed either. She stung all over. More than half her body may have suffered minor burns. But for now, she had to focus on Ainame Caroline.
She wouldn’t let this end with an accident or losing control.
She had to personally finish off that sack of shit who couldn’t even become a villain.
Otherwise she couldn’t avenge Tachiuo Mary. And she couldn’t get payback for Frenda and Kinuhata.
She had to end this here and return to her ordinary life.
Ainame Caroline had completed Meltdowner. Mugino had survived on the dark side thanks to her Level 5 power, but her thanks for that weren’t enough to forgive that girl for what she had done.
That insane genius had crossed the final line and violated a taboo that was off limits even for villains.
Punishing people like that was Item’s entire purpose.
She couldn’t let that girl out into the world.
She had to defend this final line and eliminate her.
Soaked Mugino put back on the cardigan she had wrapped around her arm and spoke.
“Did you think you could get away with anything just cause you’re a little kid?”
“Lame… I could say the same to you.”
“What, you think you won’t be charged with a crime because you’re special and talented? That isn’t how it works. You might not have much of a body left, but you’ve still got a heart, so look deep in there. Then you’ll see you brought this on yourself.”
“Right back at you.”
She really was a dark side villain, even if she was a poor example of one.
She only had her upper half left and her death was guaranteed, but Ainame Caroline didn’t make a meaningless plea for mercy. Nor did she apologize to someone who was already gone or ask to be put out of her misery.
She chose to leave behind as many malicious scars as she could.
That was the only thing fueling the little brown gyaru’s wicked smile.
“Are those temporary teammates really that important to you? Lame. Boring too. They’ll all move on eventually. Leaving you behind cause you’re the only real villain among them. You’ll find yourself all alone in that pathetic darkness☆”
“You talk big for someone who can only measure people by their functions and skills.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m saying you never did understand what your sister was thinking when she made you a charaben each and every day.”
“…”
“Yeah, I can see how you ended up like this,” spat Mugino. “At the very least, I know your sister didn’t want you to turn out this way. I’ve never met her, but I know that for a fact. That’s why she worked so hard to shower you with love on a daily basis. She saw you becoming a monster of a researcher with no qualms about breaking the rules, so she did everything she could to change the trajectory of your life. But none of it ever got through to you, so here you are. If she spent so much of her life and sacrificed so much and this is the result, it sounds to me like she died in vain. You might as well have spat on your family grave. Your sister was as much one of your victims as anyone else.”
There was no silence.
For the first time, Ainame Carolien’s face crumpled up.
But any salvation for her would be too little, too late.
She had already mercilessly abandoned Tachiuo Mary and she held Frenda and Kinuhata’s lives in her hands.
If she wasn’t willing to release those two from her Thoughtography, the only option was to kill the source of the brain graffiti and hope that got rid of it.
Ainame Caroline had to understand that.
“Go to…hell.”
Her quivering lips produced a curse. Was this the first true human emotion produced by her heart – not just a function or a skill?
If so, that little researcher was barren earth that would bear no fruit no mater how many seeds were sown and watered.
She should have kept quiet.
Why did she insist on further proving that her dead sister’s life had been meaningless? It was the same with Tachiuo Mary. Everyone who had believed in that wasteland of a person and given her their love received nothing in return.
“You can’t survive…even on the dark side.”
Mugino dragged her aching body and looked down at Ainame Caroline.
She held out her palm and gathered deadly light there.
“Level 5s are not cool enough to grow on their own. You can only continue to grow because all the researchers work themselves ragged continuing their research and experiments. Lame. You saw how this lab’s nothing but an empty shell without me. You’re done for. You had plenty more potential for growth, but now that you’ve killed me, that potential will dry up. Doesn’t that crack you up? Now you can only watch as the others surpass you. And you’ll have no chance at all of making a comeback. Lame… Watch out or they’ll swarm you and prey on you, trapped little rich girl.”
A short silence followed.
And then Mugino spoke clearly, without eliminating the light in her palm.
“That’s a small price to pay for killing you.”
She would not let this girl create a second Tachiuo Mary. No one needed another Mugino Shizuri.
No one at all.
She could carry the weight of this deep darkness all on her own.
“Say what you want, it’s all a million times better than letting someone as dangerous as you go free. Even the dark side’s villains understand human emotions. People are supposed to do what’s right, preserve order, respect other people’s rights, support each other, and live together in a society. The true dropouts who can’t manage that know how to respect the ordinary people who live in the light. But you couldn’t even manage that part. What you’ve done isn’t good and it isn’t even evil. All you’ve done is destroy your own dignity.”
“Oh, really?” said the wicked researcher with a slight smile. “Then laugh. Because you’ve just nipped all your future possibility in the bud by siding with the good guys☆”
That ended it.
But Mugino wasn’t the only one whose lips moved. Ainame Caroline smiled thinly and held her palm out toward the deadly Level 5. Her lower half was already gone and there was no escaping death for her, but she did it anyway.
Both of them said the same thing and used their deadly attacks at the same time.
“You’re – dead – meat.”
