Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Epilogue
Epilogue: If Just One Thing Had Happened Differently[edit]
It was August 8.
Typhoon 11 had moved slowly, but it had finally passed Academy City by.
With roadside trees fallen and wind turbines stabbed into building windows, Academy City had a post-apocalyptic look in the wake of the typhoon, but most people breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the clear sky overhead. The ground and building walls were still soaked, but people might begin complaining of the heat once the sun rose high into the sky. The security and cleaning robots were rolling lazily along.
Mugino Shizuri walked through the city and entered a small flower shop on the way.
It had a decent location, squeezed between a luxury car dealer and a chapel that looked like it held weddings on a daily basis. It likely provided for a unique form of demand, much like a bicycle shop near a school.
“Welcome. Are you looking of anything in particular?”
“Not really. I’m on my way to visit some people in the hospital, so can you prepare me a decent bouquet?”
The young, aproned female clerk looked puzzled.
She may have found it odd since there was no large hospital nearby, but Mugino was talking about the black market doctor (who had stubbornly survived the attack by Tachiuo Mary). Ordinary people had no idea the nearby short-term apartment building had some of its rooms converted into temporary hospital rooms.
Mugino quickly brushed off the woman’s confusion.
“You don’t need to worry about it too much. They only have minor injuries, so they’ll probably be released today or tomorrow.”
“Oh. I don’t mean to be rude, but what is your budget?”
“For them? 10 thousand’s probably my limit. I’d just feel silly spending more than that.”
“Wow, 10 grand. That’s generous of you.”
“Even when it’s divided by three? Oh, right. I’ll be splitting it up into a vase for each of them later, so keep that in mind when making your selections. Each flower needs to stand out on its own.”
“Can do☆”
The sweet-voiced clerk selected a few recommended varieties and quickly assembled the bouquet. As a kid back with her family, Mugino had learned what flowers were considered good or bad omens, but unused knowledge tended to fade. And she was pretty sure the version she was taught was less about preparing gifts for important occasions and more about putting together a bouquet that would tell your target they were about to be killed.
(Didn’t grandfather give me a rare head rub when I mixed Japanese and Western by using both chrysanthemums and black roses?)
“All done. Is this bouquet to your liking?”
“Great work.”
Mugino paid with a hefty tip, took the bouquet, and left the shop.
Kinuhata Saiai and Frenda Seivelun had passed out during the fight with Tachiuo Mary. Takitsubo Rikou had also gone down after using too much Body Crystal. But after everything that had happened, they were lucky to have escaped with only minor injuries. The special iron ink used for the brain graffiti was supposedly supported by the patient’s own bioelectricity, but when Ainame Caroline had died, she had released a special form of faint noise over a wide area, which caused the patterns inside her victims’ skulls to collapse and vanish.
It was a good thing the black market doctor had been correct about the Thoughtography user’s death releasing the brain graffiti.
Ainame Caroline had been a formidable opponent.
Mugino sighed and had just rested the bouquet on her shoulder when her phone rang.
It was the Voice on the Phone.
“What do you want?”
“The contradiction of having to reward you for this is threatening to tear my soul apart. Why must it be like this with you? I have independently confirmed Ainame Caroline and Tachiuo Mary’s deaths. But you caused too much damage this time. That lab will be shut down and moved elsewhere, so keep that in mind.”
“Why bother when that lab can’t accomplish anything worthwhile without Ainame Caroline?”
“Fair point. Now, if anything is still bothering you, ask it now while you have the chance. Congrats☆ To celebrate your win, I’m willing to answer a few questions.”
“I’m good.”
“You are so not cute. It’s always like this with you. C’mon, aren’t you curious about that one claim that was never properly addressed? Ainame Caroline said she didn’t just work on Meltdowner, remember? She claimed the Level 5s can influence each other and that she also worked on the #6.”
“That was obviously a bluff.”
“What if I told you I’d heard the #6 was working behind the scenes six months ago when Ainame Caroline was booted from the lab?”
Mugino briefly fell silent.
Ainame Caroline had supposedly been fired for taking her experiments too far, but how exactly had the boring adults in the lab forced out such a monster? That did remain an open question.
Could that be why Ainame Caroline kept using the #6 as a threat?
The psychological esper named Mitsuari Ayu had some kind of grudge against Shokuhou Misaki, so she had pretended to be her on the dark side to ruin her reputation.
The mentality was similar.
“You’re getting closer. It’s always like this with you.”
“…”
“You haven’t made direct contact yet, but you’re getting too close for comfort. In our business, the most dangerous connections are the ones that just happen without you actually digging into whatever it is. You can feel the pull, can’t you? The person at the center of the diagram isn’t you – it’s probably the #6. If a villain comes in contact with the #6, they will die, even if they are Level 5. I’ve seen bits and pieces of a few past cases. The #6 will deliver a finishing blow to a villain’s life, even if it means shoving aside the invisible concepts we call safe zones, causality, the order of events, and the system of god. You know how the dark side loves talking about unscientific things like luck and omens, right? Assume the signs hidden below the surface are far worse than the ones you can see.”
The #6. The Dark Side’s Bane.
Making direct contact, even unintentionally, would mean ruin for any villain.
“I’m not interested either way.”
“You really aren’t cute.”
The Voice on the Phone didn’t sound particularly surprised.
“Don’t get yourself killed too easily. The project you destroyed means more debt, so I’ll be working you hard to repay it. This debt began with your own selfishness, so it’s your responsibility.”
“What’s your point?”
“I have the utmost trust in you☆ Think of yourselves as excellent racehorses and me as the owner who has bet big on you winning. Ah ha ha. If you don’t want to become some workhorse in the middle of nowhere, you need to give me consistent results. It needs to always be like that with you. As long as you remain useful, you will have a place here.”
“You said you would answer some questions, didn’t you?”
“What’s your question then?”
“Maybe this is rude, but do you have a younger sister? While your voice itself isn’t familiar, if I imagined it a little younger…yes, there’s something about your inflection I’ve definitely heard somewhere else-”
The phone call abruptly ended.
Mugino was right smack in the middle of a big city, yet her phone’s antenna symbol showed no signal.
“?”
“Whatever,” she decided. That money lover was sure to call again eventually.
That was another draw of the dark side.
Those untrustworthy sorts would show up whether you liked it or not.
If she was to find anything worthwhile in all this, she would find it in the battles she had fought.
Honey Queen had been a level or two above Item in ability and strategy, so how had Item still won? She needed to focus on that irregularity and thoroughly analyze it.
In other words…
(They weren’t the untrustworthy sort.)
Not that she was going to say that out loud when anyone could overhear her.
Mugino resumed walking toward the “hospital” with bouquet in hand.
Takitsubo Rikou.
Frenda Seivelun.
Kinuhata Saiai.
Without those three – or if they had come together in a different way – she never would have survived that stormy night.
“Hm, hm♪”
She hummed a random tune and pulled out her music player. It contained a cassette tape, but this one did not contain a re-recording taken from a digital music subscription service.
The digital cassette contained all of Ainame Caroline’s research data on Angelica.
She had kept it hidden away instead of presenting it to the higher ups.
“Then laugh. Because you’ve just nipped all your future possibility in the bud by siding with the good guys☆”
That sack of shit had smugly spat that curse.
But that wasn’t enough to stop the Level 5 Meltdowner.
Mugino removed the digital cassette, kissed the corner, and grinned.
After robbing the dead and shrugging off an ominous prophecy, the wicked girl made a new announcement.
“I guess that means my path to the top is restarting from here.”
