Chapter 2_ Maidens in Opposition

CHAPTER 2 Maidens in Opposition Space_and_Point. 1 The school bus Kuroko Shirai got on was shared among all five schools in the Garden of Learning. With the kind of finances the young ladies’ schools possessed, they could have had separate buses, but they had put them together anyway. According to them, it was so that the students could experience a society that guaranteed the most safety possible. Its size and gorgeous interior design had earned it the name of two-story parade bus. In fact, all the student seats were on the bottom, and the top floor was a big café lounge—that’s how extravagant it was. Because of its size, it took the bigger roads and followed a course around the five student dormitories. Kuroko Shirai didn’t get off at the stop in front of Tokiwadai Middle School’s dorm. She alighted in front of a completely different dormitory, surrounded by girls from another school. She stretched her arms and sighed. Seriously, what about that bus was similar to “most societies” trying to prevent creating sheltered girls? Other types of buses—normal ones—stopped in front of Tokiwadai’s dorm, too, and the difference between them was like night and day. The time was half past seven in the evening. During the summer, the sun would still be setting at this time, but now that it was mid-September, it was already dark out. Shirai took her Judgment armband out of her bag and stuck it on her shoulder. Then she started in the opposite direction than all the girls around her. The flimsy bag felt more like baggage when she switched gears from “after school” to “on the job.” Slowly and steadily, the number of combat-related items she kept in it was beginning to outnumber her school-related necessities. Right next to the dormitory, she could see the building of another school. Its totally normal, square, concrete walls marked it as completely different from those in the Garden of Learning. Shirai went in. She borrowed some little-used slippers from the staff entrance and headed into the hallway, lit here and there by lights. For a few moments, she plodded over the cold, hard linoleum and then found a door with a long-winded name on it: JUDGMENT OFFICER ACTIVITY BRANCH 177. There was a glass plate next to the door. After it scanned her fingerprint, veins, and fingertips, the strict lock opened, and she threw open the door without knocking first. It made a loud slam. The girl inside gave a sharp jolt. Her name was Kazari Uiharu. She was the same age as Shirai, but her short height and rounded shoulder lines made her look younger. It was rare to see a middle school student the summer sailor uniform didn’t look right on, but Shirai felt that was the case here. Her hair was short and black, and she wore a decoration patterned with flowers like roses and hibiscus. From far away it would have looked like she had a colorful flower vase on her head. Shirai, glancing at her fright, rudely stepped into Branch 177. “What did you need? Judgment’s a big organization, you know. Why did you have to call me for this?” “Weeell, after thinking about it more, maybe it didn’t absolutely need to be you, Shirai…” “…You knew very well I was out shopping with Big Sister. If that’s how you feel, then maybe you should change your attitude a little bit, hmm?” “Hooraay!” “Not like that! Why are you waving your hands and acting so inspired?!” Shirai teleported over to Uiharu in an instant and got the small girl’s temples with her fists, then started twisting. She still had her bag on her arm, and its clasps bounced on Uiharu’s ear. They were both in their first year of middle school. They acted like one held a spot above the other, though, because of Tokiwadai’s unique brand and the fact that Shirai was Level Four. Well, Shirai had rescued Uiharu, still not part of the organization, back on her first job as a member of Judgment, but Uiharu was the only one paying an undue amount of attention to that. Branch 177 was a single room, situated in what was more like an office than a school. There were steel business desks in a row, like in city halls, and several computers. Uiharu was facing one of those computers. She was sitting in an ergonomic chair that was soft and flabby like a Dali melting clock, whose rounded designs were scientifically proven to make it harder for the one sitting to grow tired. Shirai, giving her a noogie from behind, naturally looked up to the computer monitor. It displayed what looked like a GPS map. There was a red X drawn on it—usually that meant something was going down. There were a few other points labeled on the map as well, and on another window she could see photographs and other data. She would have to listen to Uiharu’s explanation in order to know what it meant—but she did have an impression just based on her broad glimpse of it all. “Oh, my. This isn’t a school fight, is it?” She wouldn’t have been using GPS if it were a problem in a school setting. She would have brought a rough sketch of the school’s floor plan. Judgment was the collective disciplinary organization for schools; it generally existed to maintain peace and safety in school. There was a branch in each school in the city, and unlike police boxes, they didn’t operate at all hours of the day. They’d be locked up as the last buses were leaving and emptied out—with today being an exception, apparently. As long as they weren’t in a state of emergency, Anti-Skill would be in charge of “extramural” peacekeeping activities. They couldn’t leave dangerous streets or night patrols to students, after all—at least, that was the adults’ point of view. Shirai stopped grinding on the girl’s temples and Uiharu’s face relaxed a bit. “I contacted Anti-Skill like the manual says, but the situation is kind of odd. Anti-Skill seemed desperate for us to share our information with them right away, and I just thought you would be able to give better answers than I would, so…Oh, should I put on some tea or anything?” “I’ll pass, thank you. I would rather not pour tea into an empty stomach.” Shirai considered tea to be something to enhance dishes and desserts, so she wasn’t a big fan of anything that brought the tea itself into focus, like afternoon teatime. Uiharu’s face went blue with astonishment at her curt reply. She moaned, “But I’ve been spending so much time reading books on black tea to try and be more like a proper young lady! I even got kind of obscure spices like Japanese rose oil, too! And you evaded it with the kind of relaxed air proper young ladies have! But at school, we all yearn for black tea because it’s an upper-class thing to do, right?!” Tokiwadai Middle School and the young ladies who commuted there were the objects of adoration of every girl in Academy City. Most of them, however, didn’t actually know anything about the lives of those who attended. Sometimes there would be girls who would be attracted by the prospect of going to a young ladies’ school, then end up studying really weird stuff, like Uiharu here. “Right. The only ones who get into it like that are people who just came into a lot of money. Anyway, what exactly seems to be the problem?” “Well, I suppose I am still lower class—to me, that wouldn’t matter because those people are still rich. Anyway, about the problem at hand, it’s no big deal, really. It’s like a robbery, or should I say a purse snatching. But ten people or so are attacking the victims. It’s not what you could call efficient.” Mulling over that, Shirai put her flimsy bag on a nearby chair and focused on the monitor. It showed a map of District 7. The X was at the corner of a major road in front of a station. A few colored arrows were drawn from there toward nearby roads, indicating potential escape routes. She looked at it dubiously. “That certainly doesn’t seem like something we should have anything to do with.” “Well, this is where the problem starts. According to eyewitnesses, they stole a bag of carry-on luggage.” “Carry-on luggage?” “Oh, you don’t know, Shirai? It’s a kind of bag—about as big as a suitcase, and it has wheels on the bottom,” she explained briskly. “It always looks to me more like something a flight attendant might use rather than something one person would take on a trip. And the witnesses say the luggage had a tag on it.” “So basically, there was a tag on this travel bag? What’s the problem with that?” “Umm, well, look at this. Autonomous police robots caught it on camera, too, and I zoomed in and looked…” Uiharu hit a key and a new window opened. It showed numbers from the tag, its shipper, and its delivery address. Shirai read the delivery address and frowned a bit. “Tokiwadai Middle School Calculation Support Facility…? I’ve never heard a name like that before.” “Oh, you haven’t? It’s hard to get in contact with the Garden of Learning, so it’s hard to confirm one way or the other. I mean, even with the Daihasei Festival right around the corner, they’re not opening it up to the public as part of the competitions, right?” asked Uiharu, sounding disappointed at that part in particular. “I checked the number on the tag, too, but it’s weird. The number is registered, but it says its contents are a large cooling device made to prevent the overheating of a host computer that manages a grid of calculation devices. Something like that would never fit in carry-on luggage, right?” “What…? Metal objects might be one thing, but I’ve never heard of anyone importing actual equipment into the Garden of Learning.” “I’m doing an analysis on the image of the tag itself; I don’t have positive proof whether it’s the real thing or not. It’s probably a counterfeit tag someone copied and put on there for some reason.” “…Wait. All this talk of camera images and witnesses…Shouldn’t you just be asking the person directly about what happened when their luggage was stolen? Wouldn’t that be faster?” “Said person isn’t around.” Shirai did a double take, surprised at Uiharu’s quick response. She spoke again. “Apparently the victim is conducting his own pursuit, separate from us. See the image right before this? There were over ten robbers, and yet here, he’s contacting someone and chasing on his own.” Uiharu typed something and brought up a new window in the mess of windows already on the screen. It was a vivid video recording. There was a rich-looking man wearing a suit at what seemed to be a road in front of a station. He looked around, then used a wireless radio instead of a cell phone and contacted someone. “Right here,” said Uiharu, suddenly pausing the video. “Do you notice anything strange?” Shirai looked at the still image, but nothing particularly stood out to her. There was a slight blur on his face as she’d stopped the video right when the man in the suit with the wireless radio suddenly shook his head, so she couldn’t make that out very well. “Shirai, do you see how the victim’s suit is turned up a little?” “Huh. Well, now that you mention it.” The ends of the man’s suit were turned up slightly due to his movement. And near his side, she could see a blackish, suspender-like thing. “You can make out the serial number if you enlarge it. L_Y010021. It’s an official shoulder holster made by a big-name gun manufacturer. It’s the kind for hiding a handgun inside your clothing. You know how on detective shows when the guy pulls a handgun out of his clothes? That’s what it is,” finished Uiharu, enlarging the holster’s belt. Shirai smiled a little. “It could just be an accessory.” “Yes. It may just be an accessory—and this could be, too.” Uiharu did something. It zoomed in on the chest of the man in the suit, and hundreds of thin arrows appeared. It was detecting the subtle unevenness in the clothing. It looked like a magnet attracting iron filings. The innumerable arrows created the vague outline of a handgun. “That’s all this image has to offer…It would have been nice to have some more pictures. What do you think, Shirai?” Shirai thought. Was the man trying to avoid cameras? Or did he just happen to go out of sight as a result of chasing the fleeing robbers? “Good grief. I get the feeling this is going to be a huge pain, like always.” “Huh? Shirai, I didn’t know you had farvision.” “Oh, be quiet. I can’t say much for sure about the handgun with only this data, but the wireless radio—it looks like the professional kind I saw during Judgment training. Which means…I get it. It would appear these are some quite troubling circumstances. Even the fact that we didn’t get a report is odd.” The victim was moving alone. The carry-on luggage had something to do with Tokiwadai Middle School. The things the man had on him seemed unnatural. It was certainly different from your regular old incident. And if there really was a handgun involved, it would probably change what Anti-Skill would bring into it. At that point, Judgment would have no place in the incident (not every member of Judgment had reached Level Four power levels like Shirai had), so maybe having someone familiar with the Garden of Learning or Tokiwadai Middle School would help somewhat. “So, Shirai…Between the culprits and the victim, which should we focus on getting information about?” “I’d like to tell you to investigate both, but if I had to choose, it would be the ones who committed the robbery,” she ordered, taking a step back. “If we recover the luggage, then the victim would eventually get to us without us having to chase him down. Do we know where the culprits fled? Well, I mean, it took me thirty minutes to get here, so I’m sure you don’t know exactly where they are.” “That’s not true,” declared Uiharu simply. “After they stole the carry-on luggage, they apparently went into the underground mall on foot, without using a car or anything. I think it was probably to get somewhere out of satellite view.” “…? To escape our sight? It isn’t like the underground is completely devoid of cameras. They’re set up all over, and there’re autonomous robots patrolling the place, too.” “Yes, but it is still easier to flee there than above ground. Without the bird’s-eye view from the satellite, he could blend in with the other people there and fool the cameras. And sometimes it’s faster to run through the underground, too. There’s currently congestion on the main lines in the area—#3, #48, #131—due to an electricity mishap to the traffic signals or something. And using a car would be particularly hopeless. Running in the underground would give both speed and stealth.” “Is that right?” Shirai nodded. Anti-Skill, having received word from Shirai, was probably moving now as well. Any wheeled vehicles would find themselves stuck in the traffic, though. Considering they didn’t know how much importance to assign to this incident, it would take too long to go through paperwork to get a helicopter or the like. The many processes were to prevent individual troops from requisitioning equipment for personal use, but of course, organizations always came with the side effect of being inflexible. “Jeez. I suppose it would be best to go there posthaste.” “Ehh?! If you’re not here, Shirai, then I’ll have to give Anti-Skill an answer on my own!” complained Uiharu, truly against the idea. “That will be such a pain!” Shirai gave her a dull stare. “You needn’t worry about a thing. I’ll go clean up the pain right now.” She took her flimsy bag from the chair it was on and headed for the entrance. Without turning around, she said, “Just who do you think I am? Above ground, underground—it doesn’t matter to me.” 2 Kuroko Shirai possessed an ability called teleportation. It wasn’t an all-powerful skill, though. The weight limit of what she could teleport was 130.7 kilograms, and its max range—regardless of the weight of the object—was 81.5 meters. Plus, she could only use the power on things she touched. She couldn’t bring something far away to her. On the other hand, though, that meant she had no trouble moving the constant reference point of the ability: herself. Shoom, shoom, came the sounds splitting the air, over and over again. Every time she warped eighty meters, she’d designate her next destination eighty more meters away and jump again. Others would have been seeing her at a place, then not seeing her, then seeing her again somewhere else. Of course, it was far faster than traveling by foot. Translating it into velocity would mean she was reaching 288 kilometers a second. I’m not moving in a straight line; I’m moving from point to point, she said to herself, crossing space again. Luckily that means inertia has nothing to do with it. It would be no joke if I were to be affected by air resistance while wearing this skirt. She changed her foothold every jump, leaping from roads to railings to the tops of vending machines. There were voices of surprise around her, but they were espers all the same. It didn’t evolve into an especially big ruckus, probably because not only did she wear a Tokiwadai uniform but also a Judgment armband. In contrast to the robbers running underground, Shirai was flying around above ground. But the underground mall had a limited number of entrances, so as long as she accurately held them, they wouldn’t get by her. In fact, if she were to carelessly pursue them underground and drive them down mentally, they could end up inciting violence among the civilians down there. (It was still unknown as to whether they possessed weapons, but even barehanded, ten people were a pretty big threat to civilians.) Thinking sensibly, there were only so many entrances to the underground mall, so if chaos broke out, it would be harder to evacuate the civilians. She needed to approach this delicately and from above ground. If she was going to arrest them, it would have to be somewhere with not a lot of people and above ground. On top of that, it would be best if she could control the situation so she could finish it swiftly and surgically. Then her cell phone rang. Shirai took it in her hand, not breaking her teleportation chain. A buzzing, staticky sound came out. She was instantly crossing space, so with the radio-wave receiver constantly changing places, things went wrong. “Shira—i, the culprits—moving…They came out—from the entran—A03 of—Area Sale mall—They seem to be going—from the end of the underground mall to the next one…” She gave a single phrase in response. “I already see them.” She hung up and returned the phone to her pocket. Near a building that looked like a subway entrance, she spotted people weaving through a mob of cars laid out like bricks. The cars’ horns were blaring, but all the suit-wearing men kept on going. She saw one of them pulling a wheeled white carry-on luggage behind him. They had evidently been trying to keep things covert, and now they seemed somehow ashamed as they crossed the large roadway and entered a narrow alley. Shirai made sure she had a good grip on her bag, and bam! She took off, noticeably more powerfully this time. The next moment, she was already in the alley. Right in the middle of the ten or so men. She exchanged glances with the man with the carry-on luggage and gave him a smile. Before he could be surprised at all, she was running a finger along the surface of the luggage. Teleport. She disappeared again, then reappeared at the end of the alley to prevent their exit. Beside her was the white luggage, which she’d taken with her when she crossed through space. She put one hand on her hip and touched the other to the luggage. “Excuse me, I am with Judgment. I expect I do not have to explain why I came here?” Her voice was condescending, depending on how one listened to it. And so the men reacted swiftly. Each one reached into his suit’s breast pocket and brought out a black handgun, each with the same design. Just looking at them struck her with a hefty weight. Crap, so they weren’t just some regular old purse-snatchers! When did this turn into a spy movie?! Shirai crouched down behind the carry-on luggage to use it as a shield, but they seemed confident. Their index fingers didn’t hesitate on the triggers—they would aim precisely for the parts of her sticking just a little bit out from her “shield.” Her throat made a very slight and unnatural sound. Her teleportation wasn’t responsive or precise enough to send away every single bullet. Fire flared from the ten muzzles. But Shirai was crossing through space just one step faster. She was aiming to get behind the man in the back. Kuroko Shirai and the carry-on luggage disappeared. She left only her flimsy bag behind in midair; after a moment it plopped straight to the ground. The men seemed bewildered, their target suddenly having vanished. Meanwhile, Shirai took the giant carry-on luggage with both hands and gave a really hard wallop to the guy all the way in the back. “Gah…!” he groaned. The other thieves all started to turn around at once. Shirai touched one of them and teleported. The man immediately changed places—but only by a few centimeters, and with his body turned all the way around. What ended up happening was that eight men spun to look behind them, and one of them instead turned to glare at them. The thieves were now all pointing their guns at one another like a Mexican standoff. “Uh.” The man who had gotten turned around hurriedly pointed his away, and that was when Shirai delivered a massive kick to his back. The robbers all fell to the ground like dominoes. She swung the carry-on luggage up with all her might, then brought it down on each of the gun-wielding men’s wrists in turn. There was a series of short shrieks. They couldn’t run—they couldn’t move. It was like they were wrapped in spider thread. If they tried to use their guns, they’d probably have to go through their own piled-up allies. As a result, despite all their murderous weapons, each one only waited helplessly to be knocked out and lose consciousness. “Well, that was nothing to write home about. In fact, it was a little too easy for my tastes,” she said derisively, though to no response. She poked the men with her toes to make sure they were all unconscious, then bound them all in Judgment’s nonmetal handcuffs. She ran out after the first four, so she made use of a loose cable lying on the ground. Despite the pressure on their wrists, none of them woke up. After giving Anti-Skill a quick call, Shirai glanced at their equipment. She looked at the name and model number of their guns, but she didn’t understand them. She knew they were completely different from the ones they’d held during Judgment training, though. The main pieces of handguns developed by Academy City weren’t made with metal and were thus extremely light. These men’s guns, though, were hunks of steel. There were numbers and English letters engraved on their sides. She briefly wondered if they were their official model numbers, but that was all. She didn’t have much technical knowledge regarding the armaments—Anti-Skill, which fought mainly with firearms, was one thing, but she used her ability for combat. Aside from that, she couldn’t find any identification on the suit-wearing men. It looked like they might have purposely erased them. She looked at the face of one of the fallen men and clicked her tongue in annoyance. “…Gold teeth?” she muttered dubiously at the wide-open mouth of the unconscious man. There were a number of better materials for that job in Academy City. Nobody used gold teeth in this city these days. She found cell phones with no registered numbers in the pockets of their slacks, but they were old as well. Academy City didn’t sell any of this stuff. It was said that Academy City’s internal technology level was twenty or thirty years removed from the outside world. Electronics went without saying, but even smaller articles that wouldn’t appear to have anything to do with “technology” sometimes looked different here. They were trained to a certain extent, given the way they held their guns, but they were completely led on by my ability, so it must have been the first time for them…Perhaps they do not have any ties to espers at all and are professionals from the outside. “…” And now for the carry-on luggage. Those outsiders had sneaked all the way into Academy City to get their hands on it. She looked down at it once again. It was large. Like other travel luggage, it was rectangular in shape. If she curled up, she could probably fit inside the thing. It was white, and its surface was made from a special material with a glossy finish, like it had been waxed or something. She put a hand to the latches keeping it closed—to no avail. “Locked…I suppose I should have expected that.” But upon surveying it again, she realized the lock was extremely elaborate. There were two physical locks, one electronic one, and even a magnetic lock, which was said to have a practically infinite number of patterns. “Well, none of that matters to my ability.” Her ability was teleportation. She couldn’t move something unless she touched it, so she couldn’t take an object out of a box. However, if she moved only the box itself, she could get the contents that way. She couldn’t move really heavy “boxes” like the ones in bank vaults, but a piece of luggage wouldn’t be that difficult. She casually held her right hand out to the luggage, then placed her fingers on its surface. Huh? Then she noticed it. This case had essentially no gaps in the outside. Something like rubber packing was stuffed into various places, as if to make it waterproof. All of the gaps in it were shielded. Wait…Is whatever is inside sensitive to light? Like photography film?…It must be something delicate. Oh, and there I went, slapping those men silly with it. She thought for a moment, then came to a quick conclusion. I suppose putting off opening it would be for the best. I will have a clairvoyant or mind-reading colleague check it first, she decided as she scrutinized it, put off by its excessive shielding. Suddenly, though, she spotted some kind of tape stuck to its side, as though it were keeping its cover on. It was the tag from before. It was printed elaborately and reminded her of paper money. There was probably an IC chip embedded in it somewhere, too. The things written on it were the same as what Uiharu had shown her earlier. They wouldn’t be able to distinguish it without putting it through a machine, but at the very least, none of it seemed strange to her eyes. What’s this marking…? Shirai looked down the side of the luggage again. There was a marking engraved directly into the case, separate from the tag. It was a simple mark, with a few rectangular shapes overlapping inside a circle. She felt like she’d seen it somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember exactly where. She decided to stop thinking about it. “Best to ask others what I don’t understand, I suppose.” She took her cell phone out of her skirt pocket, then removed the super-thin scroll-looking part out of the small tube. She then used its camera to snap a picture of the entire carry-on luggage, the tag, and the marking, sending it all in a message to Uiharu with only the words look at please. Sure enough, one hundred twenty seconds later, she got a response. Shirai hit the talk button before the second note in her ringtone could play. “Shiraaai, it’s Uiharu. You finished your job, so I have a report for you and a demand for a prize.” “I’ll accept the report but not your demand,” she answered smoothly, though inside she was astonished at Uiharu’s investigative prowess—she didn’t let it into her voice, though. She might have had access privileges to the city’s data banks, but her response time was insane. “Demands are demands because you have to demand them! Well, anyway, I’ll give you my report first. That carry-on luggage is special, basically. It’s really airtight and blocks all kinds of cosmic rays. See how the surface is gleaming like that?” Now that she mentions it, thought Shirai, looking at the luggage’s surface. It was like it was waxed. It reflected light, showing Shirai’s own face. “It looks like the really good stuff they use in astronaut suits and the outside of space shuttles. And obviously, given the technology used to make it, it was created in Academy City.” “Wait, cosmic rays…What for?” “Just how it sounds. You don’t need much in the way of protection from cosmic rays when you’re on Earth. Though I can’t say for sure, since the ozone layer has been doing badly lately.” Which means…Outer space, so…Were they going to use this in some kind of EV work in space? The unexpected development gave her alarm. “Next is the tag. Oh, but before that…Shirai, I have a request. Can you change your phone to RWS mode and take another picture of the tag? There’s a red square on the right side of it. Focus on that.” “What? RWS mode?” “It’s the mode you put it in to read electronic data from IC chips and stuff! It’s standard issue on all Judgment cell phones. I put that expansion chip in your cell phone for you, remember?! You haven’t even read the manual, have you?!” “I know basically how to use a cell phone, so I never felt like going through the minor things in the manual…” “Ahh, jeez! Anyway, first, open the main menu…” Shirai followed Uiharu’s directions and came to a screen she’d never seen before on her cell phone. Then she took a picture of the tag again. She attached it to a message and sent it to Uiharu. “Oh, there we go! Got it! Umm, let’s see what the scan says…Yep, it found something.” Uiharu’s tone changed to one of seriousness. “The tag itself is the real thing, and it was definitely issued by Academy City.” “The real thing…Then it was going to the Garden of Learning like we thought?” “Yes.” Shirai began to think. There was no building at Tokiwadai Middle School called the “Calculation Support Facility.” By nature, if a nonexistent delivery address was written on a package’s tag, there wouldn’t be any point in delivering it. That meant this sort of message might actually have been some sort of code that would mean something to somebody else. “The analysis on the IC chip info finished, too. It supplements the simple type of code printed on the tag. It has the frame number of a space shuttle and an outer space work schedule number. Both belong to Academy City. They match the records of District 23. This is smelling more and more like danger!” “District 23…The whole thing is covered in airfields and launch sites for aviation and space research and development; nowhere else in the city has facilities like that. Students aren’t allowed in there.” “Yes. And that mark on the luggage? The one with the squares inside the circle. That’s District 23’s emblem. It’s kind of like a school insignia.” Shirai groaned. Part of her wondered why she didn’t realize that earlier, but she wouldn’t generally have remembered the emblem for a facility with no connection to students. She’d probably glanced at it before on the news during space shuttle launches or something. “The sender on the tag is also District 23,” continued Uiharu. “Everything there is highly classified, so there’s no sensitive details written on it, of course.” Shirai looked at the bag again. The date matched the date Academy City’s shuttle returned to Earth. And the shipper was District 23—an airfield-slash-launch-site monopolizing an entire school district for aviation and space research. Who in the world did District 23 plan on delivering the luggage to…? she wondered. And who could those guys who stole it out from under them have been…? For now, she decided to just thank Uiharu. “Thank you. I will give it some thought while I deal with the luggage and these men.” “Ahh! Like I said before, I expect a reward! Like a proper young ladies’ teatime with a real lady like you! Actually, not just tea! It has to have the atmosphere that only proper ladies craft” She sounded quite flustered. Shirai hung up anyway. Like a scroll being rolled up, she watched as the super-thin phone was wound back up into the cylinder holding it. Then she returned it to her pocket and started giving some more thought to this. Unfortunately, Shirai didn’t have much knowledge of space-related technology or events. Even when she thought it over, the only space-related happening she could think of happening recently was the continuous schedule of rocket and shuttle launches by organizations all over the world, beginning with Academy City. “It might be…a bit of a stretch to connect this to that. Still…Sheesh. After all that, I still don’t even know whether I should look inside this thing or not.” She sighed and sat down on the luggage. The men in the suits were a mystery, but then so was the one who had been carrying this in the first place. “Either way, it is not my job to think about it any more than this.” Having come to a noncommittal conclusion, she waited there for Anti-Skill to arrive. They were taking a while, though the road conditions were not very good. Shirai wouldn’t complain, though—they didn’t have any abilities, so they couldn’t help it. Then, her cell phone suddenly rang. She looked at the tiny screen and saw the words Mikoto Misaka written on it. She quickly turned back toward the men. They were still out cold, but she wanted to avoid carelessly letting them overhear her conversation and trying to start trouble. Leaving the scene for a personal matter would be an issue, though. Though feeling a slight resistance to doing so, she brought her hand to her mouth as if telling someone a secret and pushed the talk button on her cell phone. “Hey, Kuroko?…I’m not getting very good reception. Where are you, anyway?” “Um, err, well…I sort of can’t say where I am.” “Huh? Oh, okay, I got it. Still on the job…Sorry for bothering you!” “No, not at all. What did you need?” “No, if you’re working, then don’t worry about it. The underclassmen are saying we should definitely be on the lookout for a surprise R.A. inspection, so I wanted you to hide your things if you could.” “? Big Sister, are you not currently at the dormitory?” “Um. Well, no. I can ask someone else. Do you mind them cleaning up your things?” “Wha, what? What did you say…?! B-Big Sister, are you asking some other girl for a favor…? Please, wait, Big Sister! I will come back to the dorm as soon as possible, therefore, please, give to me the privilege of you saying what a good girl I am and giving me a hug” “…Why would I hug you for something like this? Besides, you’re working, aren’t you? They’re saying the rain should start around midnight, so if you don’t want that, then hurry up and get your assignment done so you can go home. Bye!” She hung up on her. Shirai stared at the cell phone for a few moments as though she’d been left behind. A low ring of disappointment sounded in her mind— Ka-thunk. She heard soft footsteps. Whoops. I was so absorbed in fighting that I never put up any off-limits tape, she thought vaguely, still sitting on the luggage. Then, a moment later. The sensation of her weight being supported by it disappeared. It just slipped away. She stuck out her hand, but it wasn’t there. The luggage she had just been sitting on was no longer even within arm’s reach. It was like it had suddenly disappeared. Almost like it had been teleported. Tele…portation… Shirai’s mind was still somewhat blank after the unexpected event. She knew something was happening around her right now, but her thoughts couldn’t catch up to it. Just when she managed to grasp that she was in danger… Thud! Something cut into her right shoulder as she lay there on the ground faceup. “Gah…!” There was a searing pain. She felt something inside her tearing apart. Not with her ears—the sharp noise was coming directly through her body. She glanced and saw a pointed piece of metal stuck through the fabric of her short-sleeve blouse and into her skin. Its tip was like a thick wire and was twisted like a spring, and the handle was made of a white material that resembled porcelain. A wine corkscrew?! Kuroko Shirai forced her mind to be calm—the pain had almost taken over—and teleported. She only shifted a few centimeters, turning her fallen body up ninety degrees. As a result, she stood up instantly. Drip, drop. The heavy sound of liquid splashing on the ground. A pair of eyes watched in amusement. Kuroko Shirai looked at the entrance to the alley again. There was a girl there. She was a little taller than her, and her hair was tied up into two long strands in the back. She was wearing a school uniform, but it was a winter one. She didn’t have her arms through the sleeves of her long-sleeve blue blazer, instead wearing it over her shoulders, none of its buttons done. She wasn’t wearing a blouse underneath it. Her torso was naked, with only some sort of light pink–colored bandage-like innerwear wrapped around her chest. She wore a belt at her waist, too. It wasn’t there to hold up her skirt; it was just for decoration. It was made of metal plates linked together rather than leather. On it was a key ring that had a black, metal cylinder hanging from it, about forty centimeters long and three in diameter. It looked like a military-grade flashlight you might see on police officers. Shirai somehow expected her to be in high school. She couldn’t rely on her outward appearance to tell her age, but high school kids just looked older to middle school students. Something about her didn’t give Shirai the impression that they were alike. The girl had the white luggage next to her. The one that Shirai had just been sitting on a moment ago. “So it was teleportation?! But…” She hadn’t touched the luggage. Or maybe she’d immediately teleported behind her and then went back with it. Even then… If this is just teleportation, then something’s wrong, she thought, alarmed. Shirai, buried in thought, snapped out of it when she heard the girl laugh. “Oh, you figured it out already? I should have known an esper with a similar ability would be quick on the uptake. I’m a little different from your type, though.” Shirai frowned. A similar ability. A little different. “My power—it’s called Move Point. Unlike your shabby ability, my movement doesn’t need me to touch the object. Amazing, ain’t it?” That dispassionate voice…The girl looked down at the suit-wearing men on the ground behind Shirai. “These people were useless. That’s why I assigned them this random job to grab the luggage. I didn’t expect them to be so useless they couldn’t even do that, though.” Useless. People. Grab. Random job. Assigned. Those words all clued Shirai in to the fact that she was somehow related to these men. She raised her voice and cautioned her. “You would commit violence against me despite knowing who I am?” The armband displaying her position was already bloodstained from the wound in her shoulder and turning black. “Yes. That is exactly why I could be so calm with this, Miss Kuroko Shirai of Judgment. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have revealed my hand so easily.” Shirai didn’t know what was in the luggage. And she didn’t know what this person was after, either. But she still understood; this girl, looking at her wounded state and laughing, wasn’t about to let her go home quietly. An enemy. Yes, this was not a girl standing before her, but an enemy. “Gah” Shirai spread her feet wide. The recoil caused her short skirt to flutter. Her exposed thighs revealed leather belts around them, with dozens of metal darts inserted in each one—just like bullets in a gunman’s belt in a western film. They were her trump card. Deadly darts that she could instantly warp to a target with teleportation and send into an enemy. But the girl moved before Shirai was able to. Her slender hand inside the blazer hanging from her shoulders went to the military-grade flashlight packed on her metallic belt and pulled it out in one breath. She spun it around in her hand like a baton, then waggled it just a tiny bit above Shirai, as though beckoning. A change occurred. The men Shirai had brought down and arrested vanished and warped in front of the girl. She held the ten unconscious people out in the air as a shield. However… “That won’t help” Shirai fired the metal darts at her thighs anyway. The numerous darts crossed space soundlessly, ignoring the linear distance in between them and the target—in other words, passing right through the men—and reappeared directly where the girl was standing. She was aiming for her shoulders and legs, firing carefully so she wouldn’t hit her joints. Her teleportation ability didn’t move things in a straight line but rather from one position to another. There could be as many hostages in between them as she wanted; it didn’t pose a problem. And when the darts all appeared out of nowhere inside the girl’s body, they would tear through her tender flesh from the inside out. The attack didn’t depend on the type of object. For teleportation, the object being moved would appear overlapping the object she sent it to. So it would have been odd if her attack didn’t pierce the girl’s body. And yet… “Uh,” she grunted without meaning to. After the men in the air succumbed to gravity and crumpled all over the place… The girl wasn’t there, where she’d expected. She had taken a few steps back and was now sitting on the luggage, legs crossed elegantly. She had kicked it backward while sitting down so it skidded across the ground like a wheel. All the darts Shirai fired hung in empty space for a moment, then they all clattered to the ground—just like the unconscious men had. Teleportation was movement between points. If she designated the coordinates a little bit wrong, her attack wouldn’t hit. The men hadn’t been used as armor to block it but as a screen to throw off Shirai’s perception. The girl, legs still crossed, moved the flashlight in her hand. She pointed to one of the fallen darts with it, then flung it upward like a fishing rod. One of the darts then vanished—and reappeared in the girl’s empty hand. Here it co— The girl sidearmed the metal dart toward Shirai, busy preparing herself. She hadn’t used teleportation (or Move Point, like she said). It was traversing a linear, three-dimensional route. It was, however, aimed precisely at the middle of Shirai’s body. She couldn’t dodge it to the side given the width of the alley. There was always the option of teleporting across a wall and into a building to flee, but she couldn’t use it carelessly—she didn’t know what the inside looked like. If she accidentally sent herself into coordinates overlapping with another person, it would be a terrible tragedy. But there was no point in retreating backward. The dart was heading straight for her. Therefore, she chose to teleport forward. She warped right in front of the girl, ending up on the other side of the dart. She balled a hand into a fist. It would be a counterattack—delivered right after evading an incoming attack, it would send her enemy flying. But before she could… Smack. A metal dart struck her in the flank from behind. “…Ah…?!” Shirai felt something like a tremble bubbling up from the core of her body. Quickly losing the ability to endure it, she felt all of her strength drain from her. Her legs buckled and she fell to the ground. And oddly enough, it now looked like she was groveling at the girl’s feet as she sat on the luggage. “I already told you,” she said with a smile, re-crossing her legs. “My Move Point doesn’t need me to touch the object like yours does.” Kuroko Shirai heard her scornful tones—but couldn’t get herself to lift her head up. It was simple logic. First, the girl had thrown a metal dart with her hand. Then, at the same time Shirai dodged it, she used Move Point on the flying arrow. To make it appear inside Shirai’s back. The metal dart had been skillfully flipped one-eighty degrees without it losing its momentum and had stuck farther into Shirai, toward her stomach, then finally stopped. A terrible scraping resounded from deep within her. Shoom, shoom! The sound of air parting occurred in succession. The next thing she knew, the girl’s empty hand now held every single one of the metal darts Shirai dropped. “How unfortunate for you. You’re from Tokiwadai Middle School, yeah? Mikoto Misaka might be at her wits’ end right now, but I didn’t peg her as the type to get her subordinates and juniors wrapped up in her personal affairs. Well, I guess she didn’t stop that experiment by herself, either, so maybe she doesn’t care anymore.” Those words sent a jolt through Kuroko Shirai’s body. It wasn’t a shudder of pain that went through her near-senseless body but a different kind of tremor. “What…was that?” She strained her neck. She lifted her head up. She gritted her teeth, rallied all her strength, and looked up as if beseeching the heavens from the ground below. “Why…would you mention…Big Sister’s name?” The girl decided to humor her and answer—as though to scorn her as no longer requiring caution, as her wounded state presented no threat. She seemed to enjoy watching how frustrated Shirai was, seeking pointless amusement at the expense of discarding the most logical course of action. “Oh?” Still cross-legged, the girl put a hand to her mouth as though this were a joke. “You didn’t know? Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re being used without knowing it…Tokiwadai’s Railgun doesn’t have that kind of character.” She hadn’t answered her. Shirai had asked that question with the last of her strength, and all she got was a self-satisfied soliloquy. “Didn’t you think things were a little too convenient? Like how the useless person who stole this practically aimed to get wrapped up in a traffic jam? You couldn’t guess the reason behind the electricity failure on the traffic lights? There’s no possible way you wouldn’t know what kind of powers Tokiwadai’s ace has.” Kuroko Shirai glared, though she couldn’t look above her. She glared at the unidentified piece of luggage and the enemy reigning supreme atop it. “What…have you…” Her dry lips clung together; she moved them anyway, coughing the words out as though blood would come out with them. The lip balm she’d borrowed from Mikoto sent a strangely sticky feeling back to her. “…been talking…about…?” “The remnant—well, you wouldn’t know just from my saying that. And ‘silicon-corundum’ would be difficult, too, I suppose,” answered the girl, pleased, clanking the metal darts in her hand together. “Let’s see. Perhaps if I mentioned the remnant of the Tree Diagram, you’d understand. It was broken, it was forgotten—and yet enormous possibility still remained within the supercomputer’s silicon-corundum central calculation unit.” Kuroko Shirai was shocked. “That’s…impossible. Isn’t it…up in satellite orbit…as we speak…?” It was so absurd she didn’t have a sense if it was real. The Tree Diagram, the world’s finest simulation machine and the pride of Academy City, was being kept safely in space on board a satellite. Even if you wanted to do something to it, you would never be able to touch it so long as you were connected to the ground. Besides, if there had been an accident (or it had been destroyed), it would have had a pretty extensive round on the news. However. The luggage the girl sat on was made to be used in extra-vehicular work in space. And its tag had the day Academy City’s shuttle returned on it. Agencies all over the world were currently competing for space advancement. Shirai’s thoughts wavered. The girl took a photograph out of her skirt pocket and flicked it toward her, spinning like a Frisbee. It fell in front of her. “An appendix to Academy City’s report on its destruction. Rare, huh?” The photograph showed the giant Earth against the deep-black background of space. In the foreground of the blue planet’s gentle curves floated the scattered wreckage of a satellite. A satellite whose silhouette she had seen before on the news and in pamphlets. “That…that’s…” As she stared in mute amazement, the photograph vanished, warping to between the girl’s index and middle fingers. She’d used Move Point or whatever it was to get it. “The Tree Diagram was destroyed quite a while back. That’s why everyone wants to get their hands on the remnants of the broken satellite floating around up there.” She seemed to see something in Shirai’s expression. “Mikoto Misaka sure has it rough. Someone blew up the Tree Diagram for her, so her nightmare ended—but now they’re saying they’re going to repair it. If that happens, they’ll redo the experiment. So, well, I suppose I can sort of relate to her feeling she needs to struggle desperately against that.” At the mention of that one name from the girl’s mouth, Shirai’s abdominal muscles clenched. Mikoto Misaka. Why does she keep bringing her up? she thought. She had no way of knowing. She couldn’t digest even a small piece of this situation. The girl turned a much stronger glare on her then. It was enough of an issue that such a dangerous person had so much as mentioned her anyway. “Heh-heh. My, my! Seems you’ve been left out of the loop. By the looks of it, you don’t even know anything about the experiment. But you’ve caught a glimpse of fragments of it. For example…yes, do you remember a couple weeks ago when there was that terrible explosion at the train switchyard? It held up every train in the city for a while. Huge mess. I recall being quite impressed by the skill with which you all got the train schedules back to normal in under a week.” The girl spoke pleasantly; Shirai couldn’t answer. There was a sizzling impatience in her head, but she still didn’t understand what this girl was saying. “Still don’t get it? I’ve said so much already. August twenty-first. Anything particularly odd happen around you that day?” The girl could ask, but it was just a vague date. Shirai couldn’t clearly picture it. Besides, the 21st of last month hadn’t been a special day or anything. What has she been saying…? Was I foolish to think I could even have a conversation with her? Dubious though she was, the girl’s words did seem to have some kind of regularity to them. “I see. You made it so far that I would have gladly been your friend, you know,” she said. Shirai didn’t have the strength to answer. Her lips were dry and slightly torn, the taste of blood dripping into her mouth. She did understand two things, though. First, that she needed to stop this girl right here and right now. Second, that she couldn’t allow the contents of the luggage to be given to anyone. With one hand, she removed the scant few darts she had left on the belt on her thigh up her skirt. There were only two. She grasped them so tightly she almost crushed them, and then, as if to inspire herself, looked up to the sky and uttered a meaningless cry. The girl never got up from her luggage. Legs still elegantly folded in front of her, toying with all the clinking darts in her hand, she flipped the switch on her military-grade flashlight—which could have also been used like a police baton—and spun it around, tracing a ring of light in the air. Then she looked down at the weakling groveling and struggling and writhing at her feet with tenderhearted ridicule. There was a moment of silence. The sound of a car engine ran by from outside the alley’s exit, on the main road. Both girls took that as their cue to act. Not even a second was needed to decide the outcome. Tons of metal needles flew through the air, scattering clear, fresh maiden blood. There was a scream. With a wet thump of filthy clothes falling, Kuroko Shirai dropped to the ground. The wind blew. There was no follow-up attack. The other girl left the alley, leaving the Judgment officer there. She trotted along with light steps as though pleased, not bothering to use Move Point. With the luggage. B-Big…Sister… In her frustration, she gritted her teeth and apologized in her mind. She couldn’t possibly muster the strength to say it out loud. She’d known what she had to do—her goals. And yet the inexperienced Kuroko Shirai couldn’t accomplish a single one. INTERLUDE TWO In the hospital, there was a bathroom with a bath in it used for in-patients. In her green jersey, the gym teacher Aiho Yomikawa rested her back against the door to the bathroom. She was stylish and pretty enough that wearing a jersey seemed almost sacrilegious. Her breasts jutting out of the front even surrounded the simple jersey with a tremendous appeal. The fact that she didn’t realize its worth at all portrayed her as even more dangerously unprotected. Stupid Kikyou, giving me more weird problems to deal with! She sighed, reminded again of the face of her old friend, a female researcher currently in the hospital. During the one instance Yomikawa had been allowed to see her, all the researcher told her was to look after a certain pair of children. The requester fell unconscious right after making her request, leaving Yomikawa with no details and no way to refuse. Apparently she’d been entrusted with a unique duo of espers. She could hear the children’s voices from the other side of the door—from in the bathtub. “Splish-splash-splish-splash-splish-splash goes Misaka goes Misaka, doing a flutter kick in the narrow bathtub. Maybe this is indoor leisure particularly made for tiny bodies, suggests Misaka suggests Misaka, exploring new possibilities.” “Shit, you’re getting water in my face! You’re not supposed to swim around the freakin’ bathtub” “If only you could use your reflection, says Misaka says Misaka, giving you a pitiful look. Still, the strongest esper starts crying when he gets shampoo in his eyes, huh, says Misaka says Misaka, astonished.” “I haven’t completely lost my reflection. I can’t get all bossy with it, since I’m using your network to do the calculations, though. But if I used it here, all the water would bounce off my skin and I might as well have not come here in the first place…Also, I’m not crying, the shampoo in my eyes doesn’t hurt a bit! It might be the first time I ever got the damn thing in my eyes but it doesn’t matter!” “Splish-splash-splish-splash-splish-splash!” “Yomikaawaa Why?! Why do I need to suffer through this brat’s fucking thrashing in here?!” Oh, they’re talking to me now. Yomikawa raised her eyebrows. “It’s fiiine! It’s dangerous for little kids to go unsupervised in the bathtub. They could drown, ’kay?” “Then why don’t you supervise her?!” “It’s fiiine! If I had to play with such a rambunctious kid, I’d get all soaked and see-through, y’know? Besides, you need to wash yourself properly now that you can finally take a bath again, ’kay?” “This is bullshit… Why am I constantly surrounded by people who lack the mental faculties to listen to what I’m saying, damn it?!” “There, there, there, comforts Misaka comforts Misaka. I understand this is embarrassing for you, but as you can see, Misaka is Misaka is properly equipped with a bath towel. Paying too much attention to it will make things harder for you, says Misaka says Misaka, offering some life advice.” “Yeah, right. Here, I’ll give you a shower to the face as thanks.” “Bfpppft?! says Misaka says Misaka, toppling over at the sudden attack! That was rude—you risked your life to stand up for me at the end of summer, says Misaka says Misaka, her face going white!” “Hah?…Wait a second!” “You were so kind to me when the virus was destroying me, so why are you acting like this to me now—could you be bored of Misaka already?! asks Misaka asks Misaka, trembling and shivering at the possibility!” “…Uh? What did you just say?…The virus?” “Oh no, says Misaka says Misaka, clamping a hand over her mouth.” “Don’t oh no me, you brat! How do you remember what happened that day?!” “Umm, says Misaka says Misaka, poking her cheek with her index finger and stuff.” “You were supposed to lose all your memories when I fixed the fucking virus in your brain!” “Misaka shares her memories with all the Misakas in the network, from #10032 to #20000, admits Misaka admits Misaka.” “…I see.” “Basically, I guess if one Misaka loses her memories, it’s okay, since she has a backup, says Misaka says Misaka, sticking out her tongue cutely. They’re not Misaka’s memories, but I can get them back by absorbing memories from other Misakas again, says Misaka says Misaka, making all sorts of gestures in a frantic, solitary battle to quell your rage and stuff.” “Okay…so what? Do you know what I shouted on that day—?” “‘Yeah, I killed ten thousand of those Sisters. But that’s not reason to let the other ten thousand die. Ah, jeez, I know that sounds whitewashed. I know the words coming out of my mouth right now! But you’re wrong! We may be the epitome of human trash, but no matter what your reason is, there’s no fucking way it’s okay to kill that kid!’…says Misaka says Misaka, the memory bringing a tear to her eye.” “You…you fucking brat…I’m gonna kill you…” “It’s fiiine! Besides, a friend of mine left her to me, so don’t give me any more work to do, okay?” said Yomikawa vaguely, listening to the two of them splashing water at each other in negotiation. The doctor with that frog-like face had told her they might be hard to deal with, but nothing in particular really stood out to her as worrying. At this rate, it didn’t seem like she needed to accompany them anymore. Time to get back to her own job. Yomikawa sighed and pulled her back off the door. “Message for you two. The nice lady needs to go to her job at Anti-Skill, so don’t burn the place down while she’s away, ’kay? Be good children and I’ll bring you back a souvenir or two.” “Okaaay! replies Misaka replies Misaka, flinging large quantities of water with her superpowered water splashing attack.” Ignoring the response of “you little priick,” Yomikawa picked up the big sports bag at her feet and left the hospital behind her. There was a sharp glimmer in her eyes. Her bag was heavy and filled with the regular Anti-Skill equipment. After Yomikawa left and the two of them had expended all their precious bathwater resources in the war, they came to a peace treaty. “This is bullshit. The water doesn’t even come up to my lap anymore…” “I can barely even splash anymore, says Misaka says Misaka, though tilting her head and wondering if maybe she could do something with it if she were clever enough?” “Stop. Splashing. I’m freaking wounded, in case you forgot” “Actually, your hair grew out crazy fast and stuff, so you can’t even see the surgery scar anymore, says Misaka says Misaka, impressed. Wait, would it be against the rules to encourage regeneration of your body tissue from the electric signal vector level? asks Misaka asks Misaka, her eyes all glowy at the wondrous secrets of the human body.” “I’m telling you, the cracks in my skull haven’t fully healed up yet” “Splish-splash bubble-bubble kicky-kicky!” “…” “If Yomikawa knew how much bathwater we just wasted, she’d be angry, says Misaka says Misaka, shaking. But maybe she won’t come back to the hospital today, suggests Misaka suggests Misaka optimistically.” “Eh? You’ve heard somethin’ about it?” “Weeell, not from Yomikawa, says Misaka says Misaka…” Word Count: (10811)