Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2

The ''girl in a dress'' sighed softly.

She was Gokusai Kaibi, second of the three sisters.

After shaking her head to the side to crack her alluring neck, she placed a hand on her ear. She spoke into the small radio there.

“Success. I will continue to apply pressure, but it looks like she will leave the School Garden regardless.”

“Ugh,” groaned the youngest sister. “Kai Onee-chan, bring the itch cream already. I can’t stand it any longer!!”

“Hee hee,” laughed the oldest sister. “Don’t worry. I don’t have an antidote for insect venom, but if you use this botulism bacteria, it will block the signals from your nerves. Just leave everything to me, my adorable little sister, and that itchiness will be a thing of the past.”

“Hurry!! Before Riku Onee-chan gets to me! And don’t you dare try that!! You can’t bring back the dead nerves afterwards!”

That had been their plan.

Not even those three sisters could cause trouble in Tokiwadai and the School Garden for long. If they were going to do this, they had to be more precise. First, they had to make sure their target thought she could survive this if she lasted just a bit longer.

She had to assume Tokiwadai Middle School and the School Garden’s security were useless.

They wanted her to use her shallow, childish mind as best she could and grow so paranoid that she ended up leaving the entire School Garden.

Once their prey had left that safe birdcage, the true hunt could begin.

“Rikuri Nee-san, are you tracking her from the sky with your drones?”

“Always. I am relaying my control signal through a cellphone tower, so we don’t have to worry about the distance causing any trouble. Still, I do wish I had splurged a little more and gone with a model meant to disseminate agrochemicals. Then I could hit her with a single spray of knockout gas even in the middle of the city.”

“Then is there a convenient location nearby?”

“Oh, dear. Are you trying to test your biological sister? There is a parking garage for a shopping mall near the School Garden’s gate, so that should do. The rooftop seems to be a popular peeping spot for lonely gentlemen. They can park a car there with an active drive recorder and ‘just so happen’ to ‘coincidentally’ film some rich girls frolicking in their school swimsuits and it’s all perfectly legal. Although the exact positioning never allows Tokiwadai to be in the frame.”

“Burn it all down!” insisted the 3rd sister in a newfound spirit of righteous chivalry, but the 2nd sister remained entirely rational.

(That might just work.)

Kaibi ignored the shoulder strap slipping down on one side as she crouched and reached into the bushes for what she had hidden there earlier. She pulled out an electric minibike small enough to fit in a backpack when folded up.

“Then we need to leave too. Let’s chase her down and finish this.”

She caught on.

Mitsuari Ayu finally caught on.

She had ended up here while being chased by the drones and an electric minibike. All while wearing her indoor slippers.

She lightly beat on her fluffy-haired head because she was now inside a concrete parking garage.

She had figured out what the enemy was trying to do, but it was too late to matter.

She had screwed up really bad.

“I’m so stupid, stupid, stupid!! What is wrong with me!?”

She heard a loud boom followed by the disconcerting roar of flames sucking up oxygen.

She could no longer return to the first floor. A sweep of the Gatling gun had shredded the cars there like wet tissue paper, triggering a large explosion and engulfing everything in a great conflagration. It terrified her how the heat seemed to stab into the upper arms and thighs left exposed by her gym clothes. Worse, there was a risk of the gym clothes’ synthetic material melting like cheese on toast.

She climbed the winding slope.

That was all she could do.

“Pant, pant.”

Once on the second floor or higher, there was no escape for the skinny girl. Her sleeveless top and her shorts were both uncomfortably soaked with sweat. She gradually consumed the drink she had pulled from her refrigerated bag, but she felt like she was sweating the fluid right back out of her. It was like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

The emergency stairs on the outside wall had long since been torn away by the Gatling gun, but if she jumped down and hurt her legs, she would be obliterated by the Gatling gun or sliced up by the wire drones. On the other hand, the rising heat and smoke of the fire meant she would be burned to death if she stayed where she was. The second and third floors both felt equally oppressive. It was already a midsummer day, but now she was assaulted by an intense heat similar to a sauna or pizza oven. There was no doubt in her mind that her stamina was slowly but surely being sapped from her.

She really was trapped.

“Ugh.”

What had she been thinking?

She could not help but wonder that while dripping with sweat.

She had her phone with her, but Mental Stinger only worked on people’s minds. She needed someone to use it on. Her power had one weakness: being alone. That seemed to perfectly reflect the shape of her own heart.

She did not know who this enemy was.

There were at least three and possibly more. That was all she knew.

The thing was, she had actually run across some people on the way here. She had spotted some Tokiwadai students, some School Garden security officers, and even some people in this very parking garage. If she had aimed her phone’s camera at them, she could have controlled them and sent them toward the enemy as a diversion.

But she had not.

Now that she was trapped, she had to ask herself why she had not.

Of course, the answer could not have been more obvious.

“Okay! Can I go in first, Riku-Kai Onee-chans? Neither of you already entered the first floor, did you?”

The 3rd sister’s long, wavy blonde hair fluttered behind her in the blazing sun as she began checking on her surroundings only after firing her Gatling gun to blow away everything on the first floor.

A carefree voice reached the small radio in her ear.

“That’s perfectly fine, my adorable little sister. I am enjoying some tea while looking down at you from above. Hee hee. I wish I was still young enough to not care about getting sunburnt. Our bath tonight should be fun. Let me peel it off, will you?”

“It must be nice letting the drones do all the work, Rikuri Nee-san. Of course, I’m also holding a position that gives me a good view of everything. And, Amazora, you stand out a little too much. You never know when the higher ups will cut off their support, so you need to make sure you have an escape route for yourself.”

“Yes, yes. Grownup society is so unfair. The hardest workers get all the complaints.”

3rd Sister Amazora pouted her lips, but her face lit up when she looked in the window of a car parked nearby. She smashed the driver’s side window with the Gatling gun barrel and made sure to cover her hand with a handkerchief before unlocking it from the inside and grabbing the small bottle sitting on the dashboard. Reaching over caused one of her dress’s straps to slip off of her skinny shoulder, but she did not seem to care.

“Yay! I found some itch medicine☆”

It was a liquid variety instead of a cream.

She began humming as she removed the cap and pressed the wet opening against what was closer to being her butt than her thigh. An icy feeling similar to ethanol soaked deep into her skin.

“Unyah!? Heeee, kh, khh!!”

She shivered from the unexpectedly powerful feeling and then someone behind her slapped the top of her head.

She spun around toward whoever was treating her like a quiz show buzzer, but it turned out to be the 2nd sister with an exasperated look on her face.

Kaibi pointed at the car’s broken window with her automatic handgun.

“What are you going to do about that?”

“Well, ha ha ha, let’s just call it a necessary mission expense?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wahhhhh! Kai Onee-chan, help me!!”

When her older sister put a hand on her hip and spoke with ''the emotional distance of a local dentist'', the bare-thighed 3rd sister rubbed her inner thighs together and started to cry.

Then the loud sound of breaking metal exploded out nearby. Kaibi looked over in surprise to see a supposedly empty steamroller drive up onto the car and crush it flat.

Now no one would be able to tell if the window had been broken beforehand or not.

The oldest sister, who specialized in using unmanned machines, spoke lazily over the radio.

“There you go. Now is not the time for sisterly fights, my adorable little sisters. Just borrow some remote-controlled heavy machinery and all that dangerous evidence goes bye-bye.”

“Rikuri Nee-san, how many times do I have to tell you not to spoil Amazora!? …Wait, where’d she go!?”

The flashy Gatling gun girl had vanished in the short time Kaibi let her out of her sight.

She had forgotten how speedy that girl was despite her heavy equipment.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make up for my mistake,” said missing Amazora over the small radio in Kaibi’s ear. She sounded so carefree you would think she was talking about splitting up the chores between the sisters. “That girl is following the usual path. We just have to trim the meat, soften it up, slice it up nice an even, and then cook it over a sizzling flame!! She’ll be ready to serve with some ginger sauce soon enough☆”

(Oh, no.)

Mitsuari Ayu’s teeth chattered inside the parking garage as it was gradually engulfed in flames, starting from the bottom.

Her refrigerated bag was almost empty.

She had consumed several drinks and ice creams, but she did not at all feel hydrated. At this rate, she would wither up in the heat.

Wasn’t that just about the worst way to die?

The worst?

How could you rank it? Being killed by someone else for no good reason was the worst no matter how it happened.

She trembled, her legs naturally turned inwards and lost their strength, and her small hands wandered through empty air in search of anything at all to rely on. But there was nothing there and she slid down to sit on the concrete floor in her out-of-place gym clothes.

(Oh, no!!)

She was not just afraid of the absurd attackers who had managed to waltz right onto Tokiwadai’s campus.

This was not like the night before.

Then, someone had always grabbed her hand to lead her around the fiery scene, she had been given a role to play, and she had not had to defeat that giant dragon herself. Things could not have been more different from when that pointy-haired boy and mystery high school girl had been with her.

She had the power to control people.

But if she did that, she would have to take responsibility for everything that happened to those people. What if they were caught in the fire and smoke or if they were torn apart by the Gatling gun or wires? She could never carry that weight. Choosing to fight meant to no longer remain just a victim. She would then be a victim and an attacker simultaneously. One or the other would be hard enough to bear while living a peaceful life, but a normal student (albeit one at a prestigious school) could not so easily choose to bear the combined cross of the two.

So she had failed to do anything.

She had not even asked for help.

There had been some adults here who would have shared her fate in the parking garage, but she had aimed her phone’s camera at them and given them a simple command: ''Forget your cars and wallets. Just leave this place immediately.

This was the result.

If she had chosen to fight despite the consequences, she may have found a different option along the way. If she had created a great army using her phone, the attackers might have feared the difference in numbers and chosen to regroup. If she had chosen to cry and beg to exchange addresses the night before, she may have even been able to ask for help from the two who had defeated that giant dragon.

But she was alone.

She had turned her back on all of the cruel choices she could have made and that had led her to the precipice.

Perhaps this result was to be expected.

Had it really been strength that led her to avoid getting anyone else involved? Could it have come from weakness instead?

Just then, she heard the strange roaring of an engine.

No, it was not the sound itself that was strange. Plenty of large motorcycles in Academy City made the exact same sound. Then why did it seem so strange here?

Its location.

The direction it came from.

The fluffy-haired girl’s eyes widened in disbelief, but no matter how crazy it seemed, the reality before her was very real. She could only accept it.

In other words…

“It’s outside the building? But this is the 5th floor!”

With a deafening roar, an airborne motorcycle soared into the parking garage at a point well off the ground.

It began with his phone.

Kamijou Touma pulled it from his pocket and glanced down at it. A few unread online news notifications were flashing.

A parking garage was on fire near the School Garden.

The wind could carry the smoke to nearby locations.

Kumokawa Seria raised one of her shapely eyebrows.

“What, did you actually write a macro for that?”

“It’s nothing that fancy.”

It was a built-in service on the phone, although he rarely used it.

The pointy-haired middle school boy exhaled through his nose. By inputting some keywords, the icon would flash whenever related news articles or blog entries were posted. He had given it several keywords related to the previous night’s incident: dragon, District 7, L.S.S., archery, Tokiwadai Middle School, Biohacker, and School Garden.

“I was a little afraid that this list of terms would make me look like I had something to do with it, though.”

“You’re overthinking it. Bored people on the internet will pursue incidents far more obsessively than the actual criminal. If search terms were enough to arrest people, the jails would be full of self-styled defenders of justice and freelance tabloid writers. It’s not hard to find full articles posted online about the various crimes and accidents that happen around the city. With very little evidence for any of the conclusions drawn therein.”

Kamijou Touma did not care if it came from TV, a newspaper, or the internet. He just wanted to find what news he could related to that dragon so he could learn that the culprit was arrested and there would not be a second attack. Unfortunately, he had found nothing so comforting and had to conclude that someone was instead covering it up.

That was why he had set this up, but it had not given him what he wanted.

And now it was picking up on something else. Because he had set the keywords to focus not on himself and not on Kumokawa Seria but on that other girl.

“…”

He snapped his flip phone shut and sighed.

Then he turned around.

“Where are you going?”

“I know where this is happening. I’ve wanted peace of mind this whole time and I’ve finally found a clue where I can find it.”

“Have you already forgotten what you got caught up in yesterday? Based on that article, there’s already a fire. We have no idea what is going on a rampage there. It might not be ''anything as cliché as a dragon''.”

“Does it look like I ''want'' to go there? Can’t you see my legs shaking? But that’s why I have to go.”

He was no saint.

He had his own reasons for doing this.

“It might be that Mitsuari girl being targeted today, or it might be someone else entirely. But what about tomorrow? Or the day after that? How can I ever relax knowing nothing has stopped the people who released that dragon, had it attack us, and then cleaned everything up afterwards? Plus, we already tangled with them last night. We probably have higher odds of being attacked than most anyone else.”

He glanced down at his right hand.

He clenched it to form a fist.

He was plagued with misfortune, so he would never consider the possibility of being coincidentally overlooked for no reason.

He knew all too well that those prayers would only leave him feeling like a fool.

He needed a solid basis for thinking he was safe.

“This is an opportunity. Or you could call it a crossroads. I was only reacting to the crisis before my eyes, but now I might be able to catch up to whatever this is. It’s either this or tremble in fear while waiting to be attacked. It could be tomorrow, it could be six months from now, and it could be a year from now. Am I supposed to wait that long? If it’s dangling in front of me like this, it would be faster to just go for it. The risk is the same either way. Whether I’m attacked tomorrow or a year from now, the odds of death are still 100%.”

And if this was not considered to be the crime it was, then he could not call Anti-Skill like normal. He felt like the grownups’ rules did not apply this time. He had no proof of that, but he still felt sure of it. If he did not see it through to the end himself, he could never rest easy.

If this did not follow the grownups’ rules, he would have to seek out the truth using the children’s rules.

“I see,” said the older girl, even if she did not sound convinced. Her tone was one of pure exasperation. “You seem to have a way of sounding reasonable without actually being reasonable. That sounds nice and all, but if the risk is the same tomorrow or a year from now, then why the rush? Plus, those search terms aren’t focused on you. You clearly used ''keywords related to Mitsuari Ayu''.”

“…”

“Fine, let’s just say your reasoning is valid. But even if the risk to you is the same whether it happens tomorrow or a year from now, you might be able to save someone else if you act now. Isn’t that what this is about?”

“No, I wasn’t…”

He trailed off and stopped speaking altogether.

He heard a dull metallic sound and looked over to find Kumokawa Seria had broken the chain lock to a large motorcycle parked nearby.

“Hold on. What are you doing!?”

“Was it that confusing? Don’t they teach how leverage works in elementary school? Scissors and chain cutters use it, so it isn’t just about seesaws, you know? I knew you weren’t bright, but this is just sad.”

“No, not that.”

“This is a no-parking zone and it’s covering up the tactile paving for the visually impaired. Removing this asshole’s bike would be doing the world a favor.”

“No, I’m asking why you’re getting involved in this! Stealing a motorcycle isn’t exactly risk free!!”

“Oh, that? My reasoning isn’t as pure as yours. For me, it’s about weighing the pros and cons. The risk is the same whether I’m attacked tomorrow or a year from now, but if I save a useful esper now, it increases the odds of having them on hand later. We aren’t up against a single Biohacker here; it’s probably a group, so I doubt anything we do today will be enough to fully end this. And if I’m looking at a long-term fight, it can’t hurt to have a full set of cards I can play at any time.”

“Her power was called Mental Stinger, right? I’ve never actually seen what it can do, but I guess she is from that prestigious Tokiwadai school.”

“(She isn’t the useful esper I was talking about.)”

“?”

“Just talking to myself.”

After brushing off his question, she spread her legs wide in her skirt to mount the large motorcycle.

With a dull snapping sound, she broke the keyhole and easily reconnected the wires to start up the engine. She really was a super high school girl. The pointy-haired boy had no idea who this mystery older girl was, but she seemed more accustomed to the rules of the city’s night than he was.

“Now, boy. If we are going to act, time is of the essence, but are you prepared to do this? I am the one stealing the bike, but some blame will fall on you if you ride behind me.”

“There’s no time.”

“Didn’t even have to think about it, hm? You’re quite something. …But you’re only thinking about fluffy cotton candy girl, aren’t you? I may need to give you a kiss on the cheek once this is all over.”

With an unnecessarily deep roar, the motorcycle picked up speed.

Kamijou was nervous at first and tried not to touch the defenseless back and hips of that busty high school girl (every word there is crucial), but it was too wild a ride to keep worrying about that. He ended up wrapping his arms around her torso to hold on for dear life. She was a lot softer and warmer than a boy.

“You’re awfully pure for someone who wanders the streets at night. Heh heh heh. I can feel your pounding heart on my back.”

“Bff!? No, um, you misunderstand! I’m scared because I don’t normally ride motorcycles!!”

“Oh? So you won’t say you never ride them?”

“…”

“And if you’re going to hold on, do it a little lower. Stop using your arms to surreptitiously weigh my boobs. Stop lifting them.”

He frantically let go only to have the blowing wind nearly blow him back into a bridge pose.

And.

The girl and boy riding in broad daylight without a helmet roared out onto the main road while ignoring all the lights and speed limits. First, a drum-shaped security robot sounded an alarm and then one of Anti-Skill’s (so-called) supercars, which was legally modified from a civilian vehicle, took chase with lights flashing.

“Pull over right this instant, you criminal couple!! We have a V12 hooked up to oxygen under the hood, so we can reach 400km/h easy! You can’t outrun us, so give up now! We’ve already scanned the license plate number! Why the hell are you stealing people’s bikes in broad daylight!?”

“Hey,” said Kamijou.

“A couple, hm?” said Kumokawa. “Heh heh. Is that what we look like? And, boy, don’t look back or their facial recognition will get you.”

“No, not that.”

“We know something’s going on at that parking garage, right? Won’t the attacker panic if we arrive along with Anti-Skill, the defenders of law and order?”

Their motorcycle’s engine could not hope to outdo that car, but it provided its own advantages. Once the cheerful blue sky grew discolored by toxic-looking smoke, Kumokawa turned the handlebars so hard Kamijou screamed and clung to her back. They turned right into a nearby park.

Park entrances generally had thick poles in place to keep vehicles out. A motorcycle could slip between them, but a car could not. They heard screeching brakes and shouting behind them.

“You damn criminal couple!!”

“Hah hah hahhh!! If you want to stop the city’s young residents from getting it on, you should really research the usual hookup spots!! You’ve gotta use your head if you want to keep people from doing it outdoors, Anti-Skill!!”

Kumokawa laughed as she cut across the park and drove out the exit on the other side.

Kamijou blinked.

He felt like a mystery phrase of hers had hinted at an exciting concept.

“Outdoors?”

“You’re probably full of questions, but don’t search that one online.”

They were almost to the burning parking garage now.

Since they were so close to the School Garden, a well-dressed adult woman could be seen watching the spectacle. The white foam she was spraying on the sidewalk from something like a monstrous vacuum cleaner was probably a fire extinguishing chemical meant to prevent the spread of the blaze.

“If she has something like that, why isn’t she helping to put out the fire?”

“Stop breathing on my ear, boy.”

“If I don’t hold your hair down with my chin, the wind blows it back into my face, and it really hurts when it slaps me like that!!”

“Call it what you like, but stop using it as an excuse to enjoy my scent, fetish boy.”

She must have had her own thoughts on what was and was not acceptable because her tone was much lower than with the arms on her underboob earlier.

And after that sharp warning…

“Also, don’t be so harsh on her, boy. Adults have their own issues to deal with. The School Garden has much better equipment than the other districts, so acting beyond their jurisdiction can get them in trouble more easily. Simply put, she wants to help out but can’t. Because that would count as moving beyond her territory.”

This time, there was no sign of a dragon, kraken, or other giant monster created by a Biohacker. They only saw the tall parking garage engulfed in flames and dark smoke.

They had no idea who they would run across if they rushed in there. They did not know the first thing about what the attacker looked like, so they could not even trust an office worker with neatly parted hair walking in the area. Thus, they chose to observe things from a distance.

The motorcycle was stopped now, but Kamijou continued holding Kumokawa Seria’s slender waist in his arms like she was a stuffed animal.

“The first floor is burning and the second and third floors look risky too. Hmm.”

“I’ll overlook it this once since I doubt you’re doing it on purpose, but stop teasing my navel with your fingertip, boy. That hurts more than you would think.” And after that sulky warning, “Do not forget about the smoke and heat. In a real fire, most of the deaths aren’t from the flames themselves. You need to worry about heat, lack of oxygen, and dehydration.”

Kamijou glimpsed something.

The plain concrete wall had openings that were more not so much windows as gaps between the barrier and ceiling.

He saw some fluffy chestnut hair through one of those.

He subconsciously squeezed the motorcycle driver’s torso even tighter.

“There she is. 5th floor!!”

“Ngh, my navel! Kah, cough, cough! W-we have two options here. One, run into the blaze and meet up with Mitsuari Ayu. Two, circle the parking garage to find the attacker and defeat them if they’re here.”

That was not even a question.

“If circling the place is enough to find them, then the Anti-Skill we brought here can deal with them. And defeating them isn’t going to make that fire go away. What’s the point if the girl in there suffocates on the smoke while we’re fighting!?”

“Rescuing an ally takes precedence over defeating the enemy? Fine, we can do things your way today.”

The engine gave a deep roar once more.

Kumokawa spun it around and the pointy-haired boy could only grab onto her waist like before.

“Hm? What’s this hard thing here?”

“What are you, a mischievous elementary school boy? That’s my bra hook. But I will throw you off the bike if you undo it during an emergency like this.”

Now, Kamijou Touma had stated his ideal solution, but how exactly were they supposed to get in there? The ground floor was engulfed in flames, so they could not get in unharmed no matter which cardinal direction they chose. And these flames were not as thin as a circus’s ring of fire.

“This will be a little bad for your heart, so be careful,” casually warned Kumokawa Seria.

“Huh? What will be?”

“Academy City is well known for packing its buildings in close together. Entering the first floor of a burning building is not going to be easy, but there’s a tall building right there next to it.”

The parking garage had been built as a later addition for the large shopping mall next door. The older sailor uniform girl drove the motorcycle directly inside the large shopping complex and sent it up the down escalator for a ride even wilder than a coming of age ceremony. Once at the top, she made a sharp turn and drove up to the next floor. They needed height. Their goal was the 5th floor, so the 7th or 8th floor would be best.

Kamijou Touma’s eyes widened in shock while he was tossed around in the back seat like he was in a rodeo.

“Can we calm down for a second!? What are you trying to do right now!?”

“If you would hold onto my hips more firmly, you wouldn’t be so close to being thrown off and dying. Listen, you need to wrap your arms around my hips for what’s coming. Nice and tight like this, okay? Bikes don’t come with seatbelts or safety bars, so you have to look after yourself.”

She finally stopped the wild motorcycle.

The engine continued to idly rumble below them.

Kamijou had his chin on her shoulder and was nearly rubbing his cheek against hers, but he was entirely focused on what the headlight was shining at.

It was a women’s clothing store.

It looked like it had a solid wall in the back, but that was actually a giant window with decorations attached over the glass wall.

It did not take a genius to realize what she was planning.

“Hold on. Wait.”

“What, does the women’s underwear section still make you blush? That mannequin there is displaying a concept model, but don’t you worry, boy. Don’t let it shock you. Not everyone wears that kind of see-through stuff on a daily basis. Everyone prefers what’s easy, so you’ll find ordinary white is pretty common. Same with stripes.”

“That’s not what I meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeant!!!!!!”

He tried to shout in the busty high school girl’s ear, but accidentally bit her earlobe instead, eliciting an odd cry from the older girl’s lips, but none of this changed that she was the one in control of the handlebars and foot pedals. With a screaming Kamijou on the back, the 750cc mass of metal used its full speed to crash through the women’s underwear and negligees.

His life flashed before his eyes while he was surrounded by a kind of frilliness that featured nowhere in that life.

“That one you can’t stop staring at is known as an open gate bra. Undo the bow in the middle and the thin cloth falls away to reveal the tips. There’s also a bottom to go with it, but I don’t have to explain how that one works, do I?”

“Agfelborvehh!!!???”

He was too preoccupied to respond.

The large motorcycle plowed full speed into the wall and shattered the reinforced glass window simply covered with a sheet.

This was the 8th floor.

An ordinary motorcycle with no special flight equipment soared through Academy City’s sky.

(What is ordinary Anti-Skill doing here? The higher ups were supposed to tell everyone but a bomb squad ''which will never actually show up'' to stay away in order to prevent secondary damages from an explosive leak!)

3rd Sister Amazora, the elementary school girl with wavy blonde hair and a gaudy dress, gasped at what was happening.

She doubted hiding behind one of the decorative pillars would be enough.

Those people took everything too seriously, so she had learned the hard way that her special move, Thigh Flashing Seduction, did not work on them. She also wanted to avoid using that because (for some reason) her older sisters got really mad when she used it.

She folded up the thick metal components like a 3D puzzle and the six-barreled Gatling gun was soon small enough to fit in a drum bag.

She wanted to take advantage of this man’s preconceptions.

If he was going to find her regardless, it was best if she approached him than if he found her spying out from behind a pillar.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at school!? Those clothes and that luggage…you didn’t run away from home for the summer, did you!?”

“Heh, eh heh heh. Today’s the anniversary of the school’s founding, so we have the day off☆”

She fidgeted and rubbed her bright thighs together.

She also waved her phone around to make it look like she was here to get some footage of the fire.

Since a smiling elementary school girl was holding one bag over her shoulder and the other in one hand, he would never guess each one weighed more than 50kg. She was trying to act mature, but she did not seem to notice how the belt over her shoulder had twisted her dress’s strap out of place.

(I might be screwed if he asks me to open the bags.)

She maintained her perfect smile as she began wondering if she should play the harmless little girl to avoid any questioning, or if she should use up one of the acceptable deaths for this mission.

But her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shattering of glass.

The adult must have had an idea what caused it because his head shot up to look overhead.

“Them!!”

Just as he shouted into the air, Amazora used the distraction to slip away. That righteous hero had been lucky, but the 3rd sister had to click her tongue and hide behind a nearby building while carrying around two hefty sports bags and without paying any attention to the hem of her short skirt. A villain up to no good would not rely on luck. They could hardly complain if the tables were turned on them.

It was a motorcycle.

A 750cc motorcycle left the adjacent building, soared through the blue sky, and entered the burning parking garage from a point well above the ground.

Once she had cleverly escaped to safety, she had to whisper into the small radio in her ear.

She set down her bags and absentmindedly fidgeted with her dress strap as she did so.

“Riku-Kai Onee-chans, what should I do?”

“Plan B,” replied the middle sister. “We don’t know what kind of power or means of escape this newcomer has, so we can’t just let them burn. Of course, neutralizing them would be simple enough if I used my Measure Heart to adjust their emotional distance. ''If their beloved husband or girlfriend was still inside that conflagration,'' they wouldn’t be able to turn tail and run so easily, right?”

“Let’s hope this intruder isn’t a teleporter and doesn’t have a personal jetpack,” added the oldest sister. “Hee hee. This is a pain, but let’s head on in and take them out ourselves. Did you know that dehydration increases the concentration of sodium in the body? Inject a little more from outside the body and the balance is easily broken. Hee hee hee. Just inject some here and the burned corpse will look right at home in the scorched building.”

“Okay, okay.”

The elementary school girl giggled and sent commands to her two drum bags. There was no need to hide it anymore. The Gatling gun heavy enough to crush an adult was revealed, so she picked up the machinegun itself and dragged along the wheeled drum magazine. If she leaned forward just a little, the baggy neck of her dress would likely have created a tunnel around her flat chest, but she did not seem to care.

Each unit weighed 50kg.

Together, they weighed around three times her weight. That was blatantly too much to wield unassisted.

This unnatural feat was boosted by an Academy City esper power.

“That’s perfect. To be honest, waiting around isn’t my style!!”

Everyone was gathered in one place.

Good and evil, expert and amateur – everyone.

The large motorcycle broke through the shopping mall’s 8th floor window, flew in a falling arc, and charged right into the 5th floor of the blazing parking garage. The force of landing blew out the rear tire, but Kumokawa kept the motorcycle from falling over and forcefully stopped it by spinning it around in something like a roundhouse kick.

“Kyah!?”

A high-pitched scream sounded from surprisingly close by.

A fluffy-haired middle school girl was crouched down clutching a refrigerated bag to her chest to look as small as possible as she cried out in terror. The heat and smoke must have gotten to her because she was so sweaty you would think she had been in a sauna. Also, she was inexplicably wearing sleeveless gym clothes. It was plastered to her bodylines and the color of her skin showed through in places.

“What’s with the oddly sweet smell in here? I was wondering how she had held off dehydration in this sauna of a place, but she must have been rehydrating all the while.”

“Eh? You mean that isn’t just how girls smell? I mean, she is pretty sweaty.”

The motorcycle was useless with the tire blown.

Kamijou hopped off of the rear seat and Kumokawa did not bother with the kickstand. She just let it fall and she did not seem to care when the sidemirror was smashed against the floor.

“Ah, ah…”

Mitsuari Ayu stared in confusion at first, but once she recognized who this was, she felt a different sort of panic. This must have been an odd curveball for her current mental state because her eyes started spinning and her small hands wandered aimlessly through empty air.

She wore gym clothes and indoor slippers.

She sat there in that mismatched outfit and looked up at the boy and the girl.

“Wait, what? What are you doing here!? Why would you break free of the earth’s gravitational pull to come here of all places!?”

“Direct your thanks to Mr. Lady Killer here. To be honest, I wouldn’t have seen any need to come here if I was doing it myself. I’m pretty sure I can get information on LS.S. from another source.”

“Eh? Huh?”

Still unable to get up, she glanced over at the pointy-haired boy, but he did not say anything.

What could he say?

If he explained at length why he had come to rescue her, what would it accomplish aside from making it sound like he was asking for something in return?

He did not know how much it would help, but he handed her the handkerchief from his pocket.

“I don’t see anyone else in here. I don’t know who did this, but was the idea to let her burn in here?”

“That would make this easier, but I imagine they’ll come check the corpse to make sure she’s dead. So someone will be coming here. What I can’t tell you is whether that will be a human or if it will be a dragon or dinosaur or something.”

“Th-they’re human.”

The fluffy-haired girl got her voice out in fits and starts.

She squeezed the borrowed handkerchief in both hands and spoke like she was taking a step forward in this hopeless situation.

“There are at least three of them!! One is an esper using a Gatling gun, one controls drones with poisoned wires, and one is another psychological esper with a handgun!!”

Kumokawa Seria put a hand on her hip and sighed.

That girl could have done a better job than this with Mental Stinger at her disposal. If she had controlled a large number of people and sent them in, she may have been able to escape to safety even if it meant a bloodbath for everyone else. But there was no sign of that. In fact, there was no sign of anyone else having collapsed from the fire and smoke in this parking garage. No customers and no security guards.

Kumokawa coolly asked a question within the blazing heat.

“Did you use your power to move the other people ''away''? First this boy insists on going to rescue you and now this. Does no one else have any sense at all?”

“…”

“So why the change of heart now? The information you gave us may change the outcome of the battle. And in this fire, if the attacker is left unconscious, they could be killed in the fire they themselves set.”

Still slumped down on the floor and with tears in her eyes, Mitsuari’s mouth moved.

For a while, no words came out.

But.

But she finally managed to squeeze the words from her dry throat even though her hips were too weak to move and the sweat pouring from her skin had plastered her fluffy hair to her cheeks.

“I…”

She was desperate.

This did not at all sound like a brand-name girl.

“I can’t keep going like this. Someone came to save me even though it meant choosing to fight and being an attacker instead of just a victim. So…so I can’t just hide behind them. I want to be useful to someone!!”

That was enough.

It was unclear what she could do in this situation.

But in that moment, Mitsuari Ayu joined their party. Of her own free will. She was not waiting in safety to see which side was going to win and then joining them. She was taking their side when everything was still up in the air.

Now it was Kamijou’s turn.

They were all in this together now.

So it was time for him to reveal a certain ''secret''.

“We’re not up against a giant creature made by a Biohacker. We have multiple opponents and we need to be on the lookout for next-generation weapons based on esper powers. In that case, we might just be able to use ''my right hand''.”

“Do you really believe that?” cautiously asked Kumokawa Seria, but the pointy-haired boy did not apply the brakes.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I believe it with all my heart. Maybe I’m wrong, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. We all make mistakes, but it definitely wouldn’t be this girl’s fault.”

“…”

These were exceptional circumstances.

Mitsuari Ayu looked up at him with a curious look while she sat on the floor with her sweat-soaked gym clothes plastered to her skin.

Kamijou Touma rotated ''his entire right arm'' around as if to see how his shoulder was doing and then he clenched his fist.

For the first time, he called a certain girl’s name.

“Don’t worry, Mitsuari. If anything tries to hurt you, I’ll smash it to smithereens.”

He took on the burden of that girl’s life after she was driven to the very edge.

He was in his element now.

A certain inexperienced boy was going to use his right fist in a true battle between espers.