Toaru Majutsu no Index: Genesis Testament

Volume 3, Chapter 2: Dark Side — Ghost, Android, and…

Part 1

Tires scraped against the asphalt as they slipped to the side.

Academy City’s District 1 was a government district and that loud noise seemed out of place in such an orderly and coldly inhuman area. Especially when it was mixed in with screams and sounds of destruction.

“Hey, wasn’t that one of our prisoner transport vehicles!?”

“It didn’t just slip on a snowy road! Something’s happening inside it! Move, get down!!”

The 20-ton mass of metal swerved along a large S, broke through a makeshift barrier, knocked away the special vehicle on the other side, and crashed into the front gate of the general Anti-Skill station. After coming to a stop in front of the building, an eerie silence hung over the prisoner transport vehicle, but that did not last long.

Everyone assumed the sound of sparks was from the side door being cut away.

But in fact, the bulletproof and blast-resistant armor was cut through a centimeter out from the door.

The door collapsed outwards and a strange girl emerged from within. She looked to be 13 or 14. She had long hair colored an inhumanly bright red and she was not at all dressed for winter. The colors covering her undeveloped body were orange and black. She was only wearing something like a racing swimsuit with the toxic coloration of an insect. Surprisingly, she was barefoot.

Her bangs were cut cleanly across, she had a smartphone on each shoulder and she had several skinny tubes in the belts around her thighs. Some were rolled-up silicone keyboards and others were clear bottles full of some kind of thick liquid that definitely did not look like a drink.

Her pupils mechanically expanded and contracted without any other change to her expression and she held a 60cm blade that was much too large and thick to call a knife. It looked lot like a machete used to clear one’s way through the jungle, but it may not have belonged to any existing category.

She had used that to cut through the armor.

The vehicle’s wall was designed with bullets and bombs in mind, but it had been like gelatin to her.

The atmosphere froze. Everyone stood still like they had failed to read in these new rules, triggering an error. They had never imagined anyone would make it this far toward Anti-Skill’s center.

“The dark side!?” someone shouted.

“Good grief.”

A skinny old man wearing a lab coat over a dark blue jumpsuit followed the girl out of the vehicle.

He could have been a researcher or a mechanic. The glint in his eyes felt like it would fit either profession.

Sparks flew as his handcuffs were cut through. Not the chain, the two loops.

“Ladybird-kun, there must have been a gentler way to handle that.”

“You were captured before I could hijack a vehicle, Sensei, so I used the Anti-Skill prisoner transport vehicle to bypass the need to fight at three checkpoints. That has saved us 250 seconds.”

“Unlike you, I am human. Crush any one of my organs and I die.”

“I complied with all safety standards. If you wish for even greater safety, you would need to replace your body with carbon muscles and a heavy metal skeletal frame. I recommend depleted uranium.”

“Now I’m worried what your idea of safety standards are. Really, it’s a miracle I’m still alive.”

When the girl known as Ladybird spoke, there was a mismatch between the movement of her lips and her actual voice. Almost like she was a ventriloquist’s dummy.

The paralysis finally wore off for the surrounding Anti-Skill officers and a few of them drew their handguns.

“What are you doing here, dark side!? You damn harmfuls!!”

“Oh?” The old man looked legitimately puzzled. “Have you not heard what is happening outside? The confusion among your ranks must be worse than I thought. Maybe there was no need to pay you a visit and cripple your network after all. If so, I do apologize.”

A dry “bang!!” rang out and an Anti-Skill officer was pushed back by the recoil.

Everyone assumed the old man would collapse, but he did not.

A few of the officers pulled their triggers half in a panic, but for some reason, it was Anti-Skill who had someone collapse from a bullet wound to the head, chest, or other vital point each time.

Ladybird had expressionlessly raised the machete in her right hand.

That was all. When a bullet came whizzing in, she would accurately detect it, raise the thick blade in its path, and use the deflected bullet to attack Anti-Skill.

Yes, she redirected it toward someone other than the person who had fired it.

Anti-Skill had been a united front at first, but now their eyes turned toward their companions.

None of it seemed to bother the old man as he toyed with his own gloves.

“Ladybird-kun.”

“Yes, Sensei?”

“Kill them all. We have no other option.”

Screams continued for a while after that.

The old man known only as “Sensei” walked deeper into the building with the pace of someone strolling along their usual walking path. A storm of red, black, and orange raged around him. Anti-Skill was firing handguns and submachineguns to try to stop him, but not a single bullet hit him. Hitting him was not possible in a world where Ladybird could take control of a flying bullet with brute force and send it back the way it had come. That was like trying to fight a stealth fighter using a hot air balloon.

Their cutting-edge bulletproof and blast-resistant equipment was meaningless.

They could not break that thick machete with bullets or even with artillery-sized heavy weaponry.

“It is made of Saintium. That element’s metallic bond strength is 56 times greater than depleted uranium, so it can easily stop a warship’s armor-piercing artillery. Of course, only Ladybird-kun could hope to pick it up. As for your equipment, I am grateful that prisoner transport vehicle had plenty of horsepower.” The old man sounded like he was just having a casual chat. “Now, you won’t find it mentioned in any chemistry textbooks because it’s an artificial element that doesn’t exist in nature. A speck of it large enough to see probably costs more than any of the cars driving around out there. It was not easy running the accelerator at full power long enough to get this much. I would have been in trouble if it hadn’t shown the results I wanted.”

Anti-Skill must have shifted things up to the next level because a grenade was thrown from around the corner.

Ladybird accurately detected the flying explosive and swung her machete horizontally toward it. She hit the grenade back like a baseball and the blast and fragments shredded the Anti-Skill officer.

But then she heard a solid sound at her feet.

The officer had thrown two grenades just to be safe.

“…”

She tilted her head, making her red hair flutter, but she did not hesitate to act.

She got down on top of the grenade to suppress the blast with her own body.

A muffled boom range out, but that was all.

She slowly stood back up and stood by the old man’s side like nothing had happened. There was no red of blood. Her racing swimsuit and soft skin were both entirely unscathed. Blast resistant equipment was not enough to explain that.

“A-a machine?” The officer who had been badly injured by the first grenade moved his lips while down on the floor. “Is that one of those cyborgs we’ve heard about?”

“That term is about two generations out of date. You need to update your thinking if you hope to talk about a Kihara like me.”

Ladybird’s pupils mechanically expanded and contracted as she walked barefoot from the entranceway to a hallway. She made sure to end the life of an Anti-Skill officer reaching for a gun with a trembling hand.

She pulled one of the bottles from the belt on her thigh, drank some of the contents, and then dumped the rest over her head as if drinking it was not enough. The thick clear liquid dripped down her hair and skin and gave her outfit the unique sheen of a racing swimsuit. That was a room temperature superconductive fluid that allowed her to safely release all her excess energy, but it was also a discharge machine oil that reduced the frictional wear on her joints. That sounded simple enough, but combine that with an outer space nuclear reactor and building a manned space probe was within reach.

However, the old man was more troubled by what he saw in front of him.

“Ladybird-kun, you could really stand to be more tactful.”

“Explain to me why you equipped me with parts that trouble you when they show through my clothing.”

The old man brought a hand to his forehead when the girl did not bat an eye while fixing the butt of her racing swimsuit with a finger bent like a hook. They had no business with the elevators or emergency stairs. If they only wanted to slaughter the people here, they would have simply brought down the building from outside. Ladybird’s specs allowed her to keep up with rifle bullets using that Left Arm sword that was 56 times tougher than depleted uranium, so it was curious why she had even bothered to enter the building.

They had business deeper inside. That was when his outdated phone rang. He pressed the small button with a finger inside thick engineering gloves. That model protected against injuries and the cold while also allowing for precise movement. That sounded simple, but even professional snipers had a hard time finding one they liked.

“You’ve done it now, Kihara-kun,” said a voice on the phone.

“I would really like to throw those words right back at you. Your silly betrayal here has already brought down three Kiharas.”

“This is all the newly-appointed Board Chairman’s doing. The twelve of us did not agree to it.”

“Such arrogance. Did you really expect me to accept that? My life is on the line here. And there is no need to hide the fall of Neoka Norito. It changes nothing here, but hiding it does make it harder to trust you, Board of Directors.”

The racing swimsuit girl kicked down a metal door deep inside the building and escorted the old man toward the stairs leading down. They led to a dimly lit room of bare concrete. In addition to the boiler and plumbing, there was a metal box larger than a refrigerator. That was the fiber optic communication control box.

“Do you want to be deemed harmful?”

“They were already calling us that here,” said the man. “And I’m not so sure the categories invented by those in the light really mean all that much.”

“Do you think you can escape just because you are a Kihara?”

“If you have no plan, you should really shut up now. Your threats are sounding less concerning all the time. Now, do you have any more stupid questions?”

“Do you think it’s paradise outside the city? This city is the only place you can survive. No matter what form that survival might take.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Really, I find it strange that all of us were ever contained to a single city at all. Former Board Chairman Aleister has left the city. Without the Archetype Controller to reinforce our presence here, won’t the Kiharas naturally spread out across the world?”

The old man pulled a floppy disk larger than a tablet from his business bag. He inserted it into a special reader and then used a large device to hook it up to a fiber optic cable.

Ladybird expressionlessly tilted her head.

“Sensei, isn’t there a more efficient way of doing that?”

“When the world grows too convenient, people forget the value of a single byte. People can do anything with just one meg. If you forget that feeling, your creativity dies.”

“If you say so. I do not understand it myself.”

“Yes, yes. It may be hard to grasp for someone who is made from a flowchart of 1s and 0s. But restrictions bring inspiration to the human brain. Unlimited storage space is the same as a drug addiction.”

And in fact, a grinding sound filled the room as a horrific change occurred. The Anti-Skill general station’s network was infected through the communication control box and the ill effects spread to all 23 districts from there.

Hacking in from the outside would be difficult, but it was so much easier from the inside.

The old man smiled as he poured a fine powder into the large device.

“Parasite Hardware.”

Another nightmare took form.

“These nanodevices directly attach themselves to the signals traveling through the fiber optic cables to move around. Even light has a force capable of pushing objects, so it can actually carry devices of such a miniscule size. And the antivirus software searching for other software cannot detect this hardware, so the nanodevices pass right on through.”

“If you want a general term for software that removes malicious programs, sets up firewalls, detects suspicious activity, manages data traffic, and otherwise defends against cyber attacks, the term you are looking for is security software.”

“Good grief. We didn’t bother making all those little distinctions back when I helped build the foundation of the internet. And I’m still young, so that couldn’t have been all that long ago.”

“Unknown error detected.”

“Ladybird-kun, I am trying to do everything I can to compromise with you here, so do you have to tilt your head like that whenever I say something? You aren’t getting a correction out of me because there’s nothing at all inaccurate about calling myself young. Hey, wait, wait, wait. Not so close, Ladybird-kun.”

At any rate, the administrative network was in tatters now.

Anti-Skill communications, data sharing, and access to the cameras and sensors around the city had been brought down.

(Not that a little prank like this is enough to get past the wall.)

It was unlikely a single attack would actually be enough to bring down all of the online services, but to determine otherwise would require inspecting all of the hardware with an electron microscope, not just doing an automatic search with a program. A single drop of poison would require those in charge of water safety to clean everything down to the bottom of the dam. This was the polar opposite of a single megabyte floppy. The total amount was so great that inspecting it all was extremely difficult.

The old man had bought himself the time he needed to think up his next move.

After he left the basement, the conversation on the phone continued.

“Our reinforcements must not have arrived on time,” said the phone.

“Just give up.”

“You will die here, so enjoy this present from us, harmful.”

The call ended. The overly skinny old man stuck out his tongue and slipped the phone back into his lab coat’s pocket.

“Sensei,” said the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit.

The walls and ceiling were sliced through at the same time.

Several silhouettes covered in black armor broke into the building. Their equipment was different from the previous Anti-Skill officers. If an ordinary human fired those giant guns, the recoil might break their spine, but these silhouettes were wielding them with ease.

They said nothing, but the text on their right arms indicated they were different from the others: Anti-Skill Aggressor.

These special personnel had been trained to reproduce the movements of the enemy – that is, the brutal criminals of the dark side – during training. These elite of the elite had been created by training specially chosen Anti-Skill officers to the limit and providing them with equipment that could not be used openly. They had been intentionally made to stand on the borderline between justice and the dark side.

They were the Board of Directors’ trump card.

The old man known as a Kihara gulped when he saw them.

“Unbelievable.”

The look on his face was of legitimate surprise.

“I was looking forward to whatever secret weapon you had in store for me and you send out equipment I designed myself? Worse, this version sold to ordinary Anti-Skill is at least two generations out of date.”

A stir ran through the Anti-Skill Aggressors.

The hostility and killer intent meant to overpower the old man felt like no more than a ripple to him.

In fact, the multiple Aggressors were forced back by a creaking and cracking sound. Almost like they were being crushed by a thick wall.

The space itself seemed to cry out as those collections of heavy armor and advanced tech staggered back.

“Wh-what?” The Anti-Skill Aggressors broke their silence as their control of the scene crumbled away. “Can that hunk of junk use Telekinesis!?”

“Ladybird-kun.”

The old man ignored it all.

The Kihara spoke to the girl who was toying with her swimsuit’s shoulder strap because the slipping material was bothering her.

“You have two minutes. Teach them the value of a single byte.”

The snow had stopped a bit ago.

A sticky sound seemed to defile the icy air. Sherbet-like snow remained on a main road in District 17 where many unmanned factories ran.

An Anti-Skill officer wearing a bulletproof and blast-resistant full-face helmet actually clawed at his thick helmet with both hands, but he was too panicked to perform the simple task of removing it.

He doubled over, collapsed to the snow-wet road, and began to convulse.

Almost like he was drowning inside his own helmet.

“Everyone, check your helmet seals!!”

“I’m not getting any gas or bacteria warnings, though.”

“We can’t see it, but that harmful must be using some kind of tech. If we just protect ourselv- gah!?”

After feeling a bubbling sensation from his dominant hand to the shoulder, another Anti-Skill officer collapsed to the road.

“It’s no use.”

A woman stood there. She had a light blue silhouette with long blonde twintails. She wore a tight dress that showed off her figure, but a thin cloth was worn loosely around that like a fairy tale princess’s skirt, looking something like a hanging flower. Overall, she looked like a Western doll, but her curvy figure was at odds with that.

She was known as Frillsand #G, but no one here was familiar with that development code.

“If you would stay away from here, I would have no reason to attack you.”

She was all alone, but this standoff had been going for more than an hour. She stood in the center of a six-lane road with no cover to protect her from bullets.

“What I am doing is not the question. What you need to dodge to survive is not the question.”

She actually sounded sad.

Frill Sandwich #G spoke quietly while exposed to the gunfire.

“From the moment you see me, I hold your lives in my hands.”

“My aim…” A surviving Anti-Skill officer clenched his teeth in his helmet. “My aim is off! I can’t seem to aim at her!!”

Their target was not moving. Frillsand #G remained entirely motionless. Yet they could not hit her. When they tried to aim their guns, their arms would shake. Even when they forcibly steadied their weapon on the hood of the special vehicle they were using as cover, they could not stop the shaking.

With a dull rumble, thick cracks ran through the asphalt road.

An unmanned weapon had separated from a transport helicopter passing by overhead and landed on the ground. The quadrupedal machine was larger than the average van. It was known as the Dangerous Bull.

Gas and bacteria meant nothing to that bull-shaped unmanned weapon.

Or so everyone thought.

But…

“Gyahhh!?”

It was Anti-Skill that screamed while a loud boom shook the area. The sides of the bull opened up, allowing rockets and missiles to stick out like an attack helicopter’s weapons, but none of them were launched. Inexplicably, the unmanned weapon ran right past the motionless woman and trampled Anti-Skill as they tried to scatter.

The color red burst out, the car being used as a shield slid to the side, and endless groans left the officers who were not killed instantly.

“Stop! Stop!!”

“Can it…not see us? What happened to its facial recognition!?”

Frillsand #G’s thin blue skirt fluttered as she spoke quietly.

“It’s no use.”

A dry bang rang out. It was probably pure coincidence, but when an Anti-Skill officer crawled along the snow-wet road, grabbed a submachinegun in trembling hands, and fired it, the bullet flew straight toward the doll-like woman’s forehead.

He scored a clean hit.

He smiled within his helmet, but then the despair hit.

Frillsand #G’s forehead was unharmed. Not a single drop of blood. But not because her body was absurdly sturdy or because a barrier in front of her had deflected the bullet.

Yes, the bullet had entered her forehead.

And passed right through her.

The officer saw sparks flying from the factory wall behind the woman with the silhouette of a fairy tale princess. He had not wanted to see that and it acted like a toxin physically eating away at his nerves.

Then he noticed something.

His tablet showed the footage coming from the Dangerous Bull that had trampled his allies, but something was wrong. The autofocus was not working and it was full of the glowing artifacts known as orbs.

The woman was standing right in front of it, yet the facial recognition cursor was flashing at a different point altogether.

One of his fallen colleagues’ face and hands were weirdly erased from the footage. Almost like some form of lock-on symbol.

He did not have the guts to see what he looked like through the lens.

“It…can’t be.”

It was not possible.

He wanted to reject this possibility since it should never have even occurred to him in a city of science.

“No, that’s just not possible. This must be a hologram using a mirage.”

“No, I am not that.”

“Then you’re using ultrasonic waves outside the audible range to exhaust our brains until they malfunction!!”

“No, I am not.”

“Symbols on the wall are messing with our view of three-dimensional space!!”

“No.”

The helmeted Anti-Skill officer shook his head in protest.

Every scientific approach he could think of had been denied.

So he had to accept it.

“A gho-”

“It is best to let sleeping dogs lie,” whispered the doll-like woman whose long double skirt hid her legs from view. “Leaving here is always an option. If you give up on entering this place, I need not bring further harm to you.”

She was an unknown. But this was Academy City where science worship thrived, so instead of sealing it away and leaving, the residents here reflexively chose to challenge the unknown.

“You…”

The woman appeared to breathe a quiet sigh when the man raised his gun.

“You damn harmfulllllllll!!”

“Hello, this is Frillsand.”

The man’s hands stopped unnaturally while holding the gun. And the bizarre song of the lifeless determined his fate.

“Next stop: mincemeat. Repeat: mincemeat.”

An unpleasant sound followed.

The woman had not moved a finger, but the human silhouette inside the bulletproof equipment crumbled away.

Slowly.

“I was only supposed to buy enough time to transport the children away, but Anti-Skill is not going to last at this rate.”

The Anti-Skill officer could not even scream as he drowned in his own blood. Frillsand #G watched that as she spoke to herself and her long twintails fluttered with movement entirely disconnected from the wind.

“Are you safe, my Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

A ghost could not hold physical objects, so she could not even wear a communicator on her ear.

Thus, these words were entirely meaningless.

But she had mentioned a certain family of researchers. Anyone with any contact at all with dark side research would be familiar with that name.

“Gasp, pant.”

District 8 was a dreary place with very little lighting even on Christmas. A schoolgirl with long and unruly silver hair and wearing a hakama was being chased down a narrow alley lined with used bookstores. The path was narrow enough already, but there were also piles of snow getting in the way. She pressed her back against the filthy wall and slid down onto her butt where she protected her head with both hands without worrying about how wet with snow the ground was.

She looked like she would wet herself if left like this for long.

“I-I haven’t done anything, so please help me! Don’t kill me!! Gasp, pant. Why does everything bad always have to happen to me!?”

Two fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers had her surrounded, but even they seemed taken aback by this.

“Hey, is she one of them?”

“She’s in Outrank. Vivana Oniguma, a dark side researcher.”

“Not what I meant. Is she a gentle beneficial or a brutal harmful?”

A simple flashlight caused the hakama girl to jump like she was on the receiving end of a laser attack. Afterwards, that girl, whose silver bangs were hardened into two decorative horns, actually looked confused, like someone who thought they were having boiling water poured on them from a tea kettle only to find it was room temperature.

One of the officers sighed in his helmet.

“What did you do?”

“N-nothing! It’s all a big misunderstanding!”

Vivana sniffled and answered honestly. A closer look showed the pattern of her hakama was made up of mascot characters, but if that was special-ordered, it had to be expensive. It may have been something like a red lacquered guitar or phone case.

“I don’t know about this beneficial or harmful stuff, but the dark side can refer to all sorts of people. My field of research just so happens to – eh heh heh – get some disapproving looks from most everyone in the educational field, so the next thing I knew, I had fallen down to this level. But I’m really not doing anything wrong, I swear.”

Anti-Skill was merciless to criminals who resisted to the bitter end, but there was nothing they could do with someone who fell onto her butt and confessed everything. The two of them exchanged a glance in the silly atmosphere they found themselves in.

Two large pieces of luggage sat near the girl: one black and one pink. But instead of suitcase or sports bags, they were large cloth wrappers stuffed full of things.

One of the men casually picked up the pink one.

“We can discuss this further at our car. This is your stuff, isn’t it?”

“Ah.”

“It’s pretty heavy. …Wait, it’s full of old Japanese books. Um, is this shung-?”

“G-gyahhh!!”

She frantically snatched the thick book away from him before he could open it.

The other man snapped back at her.

“Hey!!”

“Stop it, you idiot! This is fine! Don’t pull out your gun!!”

The two Anti-Skill officers started arguing. Vivana remained entirely motionless with the old Japanese book in her arms. She had even placed her butt back on the damp ground.

She was too panicked to get back up, but things were taking an unusual turn.

“I’ve had enough! Dark side is dark side. She’s a harmful, so we’ve got to do this!!”

“Are you insane? She’s clearly beneficial. She hasn’t even tried to resist!!”

“You never know where a harmful has a deadly weapon hidden.”

“She’s beneficial, so she isn’t hiding anything!”

“Get out of my way!!”

“Why should I!?”

Several dry gunshots rang out.

“Um.”

For a while, the silver-haired hakama girl squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head as if grabbing her two horns. But…

“Huh?”

When she hesitantly opened her eyes, it was already over.

The two officers must have accidentally pulled the trigger while fighting over the handgun because they were both collapsed on the ground with dark red holes in them. Strangely, Vivana found there was an unmistakable difference between a living person and a dead person. They seemed separated from their surroundings, like the color had faded from the background in that one spot.

When she noticed the red stain spreading toward her luggage, she quickly picked them up. That caused both cloth wrappers to come undone. They nearly spilled their contents of rare shunga books, rope, candles, a bamboo sword with a broken tip, tatami needles, incense, and a collapsible water wheel and wooden horse, but she shoved them all back inside.

(Uhhh.)

When her hakama slipped down from her shoulder, cheap red tape could be seen within. That was an even more familiar bondage material than ropes or leather. The taping techniques developed for sports medicine could also be used in more inappropriate ways.

(Why does everyone find this field of research so strange? Almost every country stops you from researching torture and the history of execution methods. They probably just don’t want me stumbling onto past cases of false charges. All I ever wanted was to do some ordinary, wholesome research, but the next thing I know, I’ve been shoved all the way into the dark side for it.)

Vivana Oniguma tearfully pouted her lips like a child while holding one of her favorite books in both hands.

“It’s not lewd.”

“How far did you wander off?”

“Ehh? You were the one that got lost, Onii-chan!”

Children’s voices could be heard on the Christmas streets. The little sister had emerged from the labyrinthine back alleys with her arms around a large dog that probably weighed more than she did.

“The doggy showed me how to get back to the street!!”

The golden retriever was wearing a thin backpack and he calmly looked up into the chilly sky.

The snow had stopped earlier.

He wanted a smoke, but he would wait until the children were gone.

(So after benefiting from our work for years, the Board has finally decided to cut us loose to save face. Not even this upheaval can dislodge those at the top. It is a reasonable choice on their part, though.)

He was helplessly petted by small hands while he thought in human language.

(Still, I know the one way the dark side has any chance of victory here.)

“The snow will still be here in the morning, so you can wait until then for your snowmen and snowball fights. Head home for today, children.”

“It talked!?”

“It talked!?”

The young siblings stared wide-eyed at the talking dog.

His name was Kihara Noukan.

He was unusual even for a Kihara and his very existence was near legendary. He was a researcher who loved both logic and romance. He was not a hero. If someone actively stepped into the darkness to gorge on the profits within, he would make a guinea pig out of them no matter who they were, but he would not go out of his way to intrude on a peaceful family.

Was he a gentle beneficial? Nonsense.

He was a Kihara. He understood that illogically drawing that kind of dividing line was the way villains thought.

“Make sure you’re home before even the moon is swallowed up by the darkness.”

Part 2

A click sounded in one corner of the darkening city.

It came from an old coin locker next to a capsule hotel. In such a rundown area, the lockers had no shortage of plausible rumors about babies or spirit tablets being found there.

“Okay.”

Hamazura pulled out a small paper bag of medicine.

He had gotten himself intentionally arrested to enter the Anti-Skill station, but he could not have them confiscate all of his possessions. He had especially wanted to keep Takitsubo’s medicine safe.

(But this is amazing. I just left it with Aneri’s drone and here it was inside a locker. With the locker locked and everything.)

“Enjoy karaoke with all your friends on Christmas!! Studio Enjoy Singing has a collection of more than 700,000 Christmas songs. And a full menu of food to enjoy too. Skip the chicken this 25th and feast on a real turkey! The full bird is cooked nice and long in the oven, so if you want food that tastes good and looks good on social media, head on down to Studio Enjoy Singing!!”

The LCD billboard on the capsule hotel’s roof would not shut up, but he could not glare up at it in protest. Even that carefree ad was equipped with a facial recognition camera to determine the favorability of the ad’s reception.

The city appeared peaceful even as the sun set.

Witness accounts of the “accidents” had to be out there, but most people only saw that as no more than a hint of excitement coloring their everyday lives. Yes, other people’s misfortune was only something to film with your phone and get likes on social media and views on video sites.

A strange buzzing came from his pocket.

He frowned and pulled out the phone to find the screen had lit up.

It was powered on despite him powering it off earlier.

“Aneri?”

Support AI Aneri had urged him to turn off his phone so Anti-Skill and Judgment could not track it, so he had done the same with the borrowed second one. But if Aneri had turned it on, had she come up with a way of preventing that?

She had probably used hacking, an anti-tracing program, or something else he did not understand.

“That’s good.”

Nothing major had happened, but it still felt significant. Seeing the light on that 6-inch screen felt just like seeing the lights in a mountain cabin window when lost on a snowy mountain at night.

Of course, he had no way of knowing the truth.

Aneri had decided the risk of being tracked was minimal because powerful dark side members had been attacking Anti-Skill stations and the network needed to search for him had been brought down by a brutal program or nanodevices.

“We’ll be fine now that Aneri’s here. Aneri, there’s so much I want you to look into! I’m counting on you, Aneri!!”

“You worry me, Hamazura.”

Takitsubo Rikou’s mouth formed a small triangle as she glared over at him.

Anyway, he had gotten a phone from that man who had worked as a voice on the phone, but he had not been able to get past the lock screen. He also did not know how to access any data or apps that were not openly displayed with square icons.

Aneri solved it all in three seconds.

The voice on the phone had possessed a counterfeit passport even more fancy than a normal one, so he must have found the address of a skilled counterfeiter who had created that passport for a fee.

It turned out that counterfeiter was known as Perfect Film.

Passports could have even more anti-counterfeiting methods woven in than paper money. It was generally best not to trust someone if they claimed they could counterfeit one, but if that voice on the phone had used this person, their quality was all but guaranteed.

You might think a passport was unnecessary for a domestic airline. That was true, but what was needed and what hurdles were set up could change on a case by case basis. It was actually easier to predict the hurdles with an international airline that always required a passport.

“Do we have enough money?” groaned Hamazura.

The voice on the phone’s small sling bag had included money crudely balled up and wrapped in rubber bands. Any activities that had to remain clandestine would require a fair amount of money. He did not know the going price for counterfeit passports, but this was a lot like flea market. Only suckers went ahead and paid the named price.

He looked down at the golden glitter in his hand. The shine had filled the entire outer edge of his Coin of Nicholas and the shadowy part was gone. The donut-shaped bar graph still had its full charge. That coin was apparently pure gold, but he felt using it for money was a bad idea.

(Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone what it is.)

It scared him.

It was creepy, but he was also reluctant to let it go at the moment.

He had more than just money troubles. You would normally contact a counterfeiter like this online first, but the situation was too pressing. Contacting them in advance might even cause them to flee, so rude as it was, it was best to head straight there and try to negotiate in person.

Once he had the email address, searching out the physical address was simple enough.

And Academy City was a large place, even if it was surrounded by walls. When they were being targeted by the city’s own system, slowly walking from one end to the other would be a bad idea. Plus, they did not know how long the Perfect Film counterfeiter would remain at their hideout.

They needed to act as soon as possible.

“The train will be arriving soon. Please keep your distance from the platform doors as you wait to board.”

“We’re taking the train, Hamazura?”

“Yeah.”

Takitsubo Rikou looked around at their surroundings, but Hamazura kept his eyes dead ahead as he quietly answered her.

“We could also steal a car, but anyone can see inside one of those ‘sealed rooms of glass’. That means crowded public transportation like a train or bus is best. If we act naturally, all the other people will hide us from view.”

“Acting normal now feels like the hardest thing, though.”

Once the train arrived, it spat people out and swallowed up the people waiting to board. Since it was the 25th, it felt busier than normal. Thankfully, there did not appear to be any delays due to the earlier snow. He felt a small hand grab at his jacket, so Takitsubo may have been afraid of them being separated by the crowd.

“Don’t push, please don’t push! We’re running on a special Christmas schedule, so there will be trains running after the usual last train. You don’t need to force your way onto this one, so please just wait for the next one!!”

Other passengers pushed on their backs as they boarded the train while a puppy-like station worker shouted from the platform. The station worker did not show any obvious interest in them. Even if the train system was half-public, the station workers were company employees, so they had no obligation to risk their lives to assist in the crackdown on crime. That may have been why their gears had not broken as badly as Anti-Skill’s.

“Gh.”

“Bear with it, Takitsubo.”

He had no idea if it helped, but he pulled his girlfriend close in the crowd.

“This is incredible,” she said while helplessly squished against him. “Is everyone here going to the same place?”

The thick automatic doors closed and the train began to move. With this crowd, Anti-Skill could not walk from one end to the other searching for people.

The train shook as it started to move, but that was when they heard an announcement from the opposite platform.

Train and station announcements were known for being dull and flat, but this was more than that. It sounded like the synthesized voice from music software where a text was given to the computer and the intonation was provided by altering the wave line.

“The next train is a commuter express headed to Katasu Station. Repeat: to Katasu Station. Please move behind the yellow line as you wait to board.”

“?”

Hadn’t this station been fully equipped with platform doors for a while now? Hamazura frowned at that strange announcement.

Just then, he heard a loud impact and then the glass of the nearby door was dyed red.

It happened just after the arrival of the train on the next track over. Screams erupted from the opposite platform along with the screech of steel on steel as the train rapidly applied its brakes, but this train continued to accelerate away from the station platform.

“Wait, did it hit someone?”

“I saw a severed head flying through the air. That’s what hit the glass like a ball.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo were surrounded by whispering voices while everyone was packed in too tightly for them to move.

The meaning of that crowd had suddenly changed.

“I saw who it was. It was Hikami, that loan shark on social media.”

“Eh, Ryougo-kun? The blond who’s always getting flamed for his videos? Like the one where he set a fan of cash on fire or the one where he sold some weird gold coin to a pawnshop?”

“Serves him right, but how’d he even fall onto the track? Aren’t there platform doors in the way???”

“Hamazura,” groaned a quiet voice. Someone else from the dark side appeared to have died, but it barely seemed to bother any of the other people here.

“What, some loan shark ended up like the Teke Teke?”

“There are worse ways to die. I fell asleep on the train after school one day and dreamed I was on a train full of gorillas.”

“You know how they never seem to finish those huge station expansions? I heard they’re having trouble with the rumored Platform 13. They dug too far and hit a spring, so they can’t stop the water and it’s been a swamp down there for years now. You can dump bodies or guns there and no one will ever find them, so there’s supposedly tons of people who sneak in there during the night.”

It did not matter what had actually happened. They had seen it happen for themselves, but it had quickly blended in with baseless rumors they had heard. It was no different than some 30-second video they would watch to pass the time. Hamazura felt like they lived in an entirely different world despite standing right next to each other here. He felt a gaping hole in his heart growing even wider as he realized they would respond in the same way if he and Takitsubo died.

(I won’t let that happen.)

He clenched his teeth while holding his girlfriend even tighter in his arms.

(We haven’t lived lives we can share with just anyone, but we were doing everything we could to survive. I won’t let us be just one more passing curiosity for these people messing with their phones while munching on a snack in safety.)

The advertisement monitor at the top of the door was displaying a few headlines likely taken from some online news site.

They could have been showing a list of tomorrow’s victims, but instead the top story was about Mont Blancs passing shortcakes in sales. Almost like they were trying to give the impression that nothing of incident had happened on the 25th.

“We will soon arrive at the station.”

A flat male voice gave an announcement.

This one was not a strange synthetic voice talking about Yami Station or Katasu Station or whatever.

“The train may shake without warning, so please be careful. Next up is the end of the line: District 6 Amusement Park Main Gate Station. The station is likely crowded, so if you purchased your tickets in advance, we recommend getting them ready now.”

Part 3

They could not remain here.

Shirai Kuroko parted the putrid air to reach the underground parking garage.

“Can you drive?” she asked.

“Eh? I only have an assisted driving license. You know, the one where you sit in the driver’s seat and the self-driving car handles everything for you.”

Combover and glasses Anti-Skill Officer Rakuoka Houfu’s answer irritated the twintails middle school girl. Her image of adults was crumbling even further.

“That’s a same-day issue license like one for a moped, isn’t it? But I thought it didn’t qualify as ID. So do you normally use your insurance card?”

“Hm, do I even have insurance?”

“How do you function!?” the 1st-year middle schooler shouted at the middle-aged man.

For a civil servant, insurance payments would be automatically taken from their paycheck, so he would have insurance whether he knew it or not. Where his insurance card had gone was still a mystery, though. If he also lacked a passport and identity number card, then he may not have had any real ID. Had that never come up as a problem?

Yomikawa Aiho, another survivor, gestured the two of them over.

“You two can ride with us since we have room for four!!”

“Thanks,” said Shirai Kuroko while brushing her hair from her shoulder. “And do not forget about my internal investigation. I don’t want that being put off until later due to the emergency!!”

She could teleport faster than the average car, but after that surprise attack, the enemy might still be hiding nearby and they might have left a web camera or drone as a present. She wanted to keep her cards close to her chest for now.

She climbed into the back seat of a large and thick four-wheel-drive vehicle that was practically an armored truck. It actually looked inconvenient outside of the jungle or desert.

Rakuoka took the seat next to her like it was to be expected.

“Where are we headed?” she asked.

“Going south and crossing the district border would be faster than heading to North District 7 from here. And District 2 specializes in firearms and vehicles, so the station there should have plenty of equipment.”

That answer came from the brown-haired Anti-Skill officer in the passenger seat…Namino was it? The snow was more of a danger after it stopped falling, but the adults did not seem concerned about solid ice on the road.

(Where are you, Onee-sama?)

It was sunset.

The enormous four-wheel-drive vehicle left the parking garage. Shirai’s thoughts turned to her phone, but Mikoto was the kind of person to cut off contact when things got dangerous. She was the strongest electric esper, so it was best to try and outmaneuver her.

And something else was bothering Shirai anyway.

“What has become of the Outrank database of the dark side?”

“The datalink is undergoing an unknown form of cyber attack. From what I heard, we’re lucky to have noticed there’s an attack underway at all.”

This was a much bigger deal than she had thought. She had heard District 7 was not the only place under attack, but without Outrank, they had no way of arresting the people on that list.

“So we can’t rely on any of the stationary servers inside the building. As an emergency measure, we have put together a temporary network using an operation command vehicle and an aircraft. It’s a terribly thin line, but-”

He was cut off by an explosion.

Shirai looked out the window to see an aircraft had fallen into the city somewhere. A shout identifying it as a tiltrotor reached her ears through the thick bulletproof glass.

“Only one left,” groaned Yomikawa Aiho in the driver’s seat.

“They have to constantly send out powerful signals to wirelessly support the datalink, so as valuable as they are, we can’t hide them deep underground,” explained Namino. “We need them on the scene to maintain the network, but the very equipment they use gives away their position.”

“So with that tiltrotor down, only the operation command vehicle on the ground is left?” Rakuoka Houfu gulped. “If it comes to it, w-we will have to protect that mobile server ourselves.”

Shirai could not stop picturing the disaster at the general station. Were more people going to die in ways that left nothing resembling a human body behind?

She pulled a laptop from the pocket in the back of the seat in front of her and tossed it onto the middle-aged man’s lap.

“We can’t let those twins escape. Rakuoka-sensei, you write up my description and work on summing up everything that we saw. However you define the dark side, they had to be using either technology or esper powers. We can learn everything there is to know about them if we gather enough information. I don’t want to arrive at the next station asking for help with nothing to offer in return, so let’s make sure we have a gift ready.”

“Fine, but I don’t know how to use computers.”

Anti-Skill was supposedly made from volunteers among the teachers, so how did this guy make his handouts for class? Surely he did not still write them out on manuscript paper with a fountain pen.

“Handwrite it if you have to, but write up a report! Before this raw data I risked my life to obtain fades from my mind!!”

“Urp, I would love to, but…I get carsick and the scent of air fresheners only makes it worse. Ughh.”

“How did you ever get a teaching license!?”

Shirai finally grew wide-eyed and shouted at him, but then she handed the pale-faced man a motion sickness bag with an exasperated look.

“Geez, are you okay?”

“I really am sorry about that. Ugh, I’m losing the fight.”

“Vomiting on the job counts as a work-related illness, doesn’t it? Anyway, I will put together a digital report, so-”

“I will resist!!!!!!”

He showed some actual willpower for one.

And he smiled in a self-deprecating way as Shirai watched him.

“Pant, pant, sigh. I didn’t have a real reason for choosing to be a teacher.”

“Is that so?”

“I just couldn’t leave the familiar framework of the school after I graduated. Having a teaching license saved me when my search for other employment failed, but that’s kept me bound to the school ever since. I know it’s weird, but I never have managed to truly ‘graduate’.”

“…”

“And I’m still single at my age.”

She was not sure how to respond to that confession.

But he had started this conversation himself, so she could not silence him now.

“Nothing went anywhere when I tried marriage interviews and dating apps. It just keep searching for a true love that may not even exist. Ha ha. It’s like I’m still a kid in school deep down. Maybe things would have gone differently if I’d been hired by a company.”

He had never worked for a company and he doubted he had ever put any real effort into getting married.

He had less than fifty thousand yen in savings and he had never moved out of his childhood home.

The internet was connected to every part of the world, but he was connected to fewer than 10 people on social media.

“Ha ha.” He laughed after explaining all that. “But I still wish I could be someone my mother and sister are proud of. Which is why I’m here in Anti-Skill instead of just a teacher. That’s a pretty impure reason to be out here fighting, isn’t it?”

“Not really.”

Shirai Kuroko sighed softly.

The combover and glasses man looked surprised by her response, so she explained.

She waved her phone to show she was willing to friend him on social media. It was not like it would hurt anything.

“Whatever your reasons are, you still chose to make your way into the outside world and try to help people, right? That’s enough to qualify as a public service if you ask me. Besides, it’s not like Uiharu and I had some grand reason for joining Judgment.”

Yomikawa and the other Anti-Skill officer in the passenger seat were smiling back at them through the rearview mirror.

They were not great heroes or powerful warriors.

They could not hope to solve everything on their own, so they preserved the peace by gathering together as an organization capable of handling powers much greater than their own.

But.

Even so.

Shirai was not going to let them be crushed by the dark side where everyone was convinced they were something special.

“I really can’t thank you enough. It’s been months since my tiny account has gotten a new friend. …Hm? No, wait a second!”

Just as the middle-aged man remembered something, Shirai tapped the link full of numbers he had sent her. “Will you be my friend?” That message popped up on the multifunctional phone’s small screen and it was followed by the screenname.

Defiant School Swimsuit Ascension Teacher @ Sending All Shitty Games and Dramas to the Graveyard

Shirai Kuroko placed the motion sickness bag over his head and beat him with her fist.

“You filth!!!!!! Give it back!! Give back the emotions I was just feeling!!”

“Bgh, gh, gwah! Stop, I’ll die!”

“Coin of Nicholas, please give me another partner!!”

“Wait! What is this!? Some mysterious ritual!? If that really activated some supernatural power, I’d be erased! I’d be transported to a world filled with elves, dancers, and elf dancers! No, I’m not ready! Is it finally my turn!? If so, I want to be reincarnated as a Demon Lord who successfully destroyed the Hero, so he masters the more boring skills to live a peaceful life in a rural village where he finds a poor unfortunate girl he can help out! Give me my new life as an overpowered self-inserrrrrrrt!!”

Nothing happened.

Shirai breathed a disappointed sigh, but she had not really expected anything from a sketchy good luck charm. Nothing could do the impossible. Being first in line for one of those trendy new donuts was pointless if the shop was closed.

“Sob, sob. I should have known the gate to another world wouldn’t open for me.”

The middle-aged man muttered darkly to himself with the plastic bag still over his (drooping) head.

After revealing his tastes and having them thoroughly rejected, he began to yell (inside the bag).

“It’s not fairrrrrrrrrr! Even unpopular guys like me have a right to enjoy a strong drink late at night while writing harsh reviews of those shitty Western game and streaming dramas that the Hollywood elites pour so much money into!!”

“This is for writing reviews!? Then why the horrifying screenname!?”

“You need something to grab people’s attention! And why can’t I cut loose when I’m online anyway!?”

Part 4

Academy City’s District 6 was a special area where the entire district had been made into a giant amusement park. That was used for research and experiments into the service industry and the field of amusement and it had all the necessary facilities: the amusement park itself, pools, hotels, and theaters. There was no end to the suspicious rumors about the place: there was a secret casino hidden below it, seeing an unfamiliar mascot meant a kidnapper was lurking, and more.

Today was December 25, Christmas Day.

Night had already fallen by 6:30 PM. Given the crowds, Hamazura assumed the line might stretch all the way outside the district (so he was considering finding some way to sneak inside), but once they arrived, he found there was not much of a line at the ticket counter across from the ticket gate.

The hardcore fans would buy their tickets online or have a full year pass, so very few customers actually approached the counter on the 25th. Unlike a restaurant or café, there were no services at the counter that required the customer’s physical presence, so things moved quickly.

“Welcome. We have a couple’s discount, so you get 20% off the standard rate. Make some lovely memories, you two.”

The receptionist smiled from behind the thick plastic barrier and Hamazura blushed a little. It felt different when someone else said it.

“By the way.” Takitsubo held his jacket so he would not get lost while they passed through the silver revolving door. “This is the land of miracles where dreams come true, isn’t it? Why would a counterfeiter be hiding here?”

“That might be exactly why one would be here. You expect delinquents in the back alleys, so the investigators would never think to look for someone hiding here.”

The world changed once they were through the gate.

The sun had set, but the amusement park was aflood with all sorts of lights: lightbulbs, LEDs, glow-in-the-dark paint, fireworks, etc. The lit-up merry-go-round and coffee cups were like something directly out of a child’s dreams. The large Ferris wheel and roller coaster track seemed to be directly overhead. The entire district must have qualified as private property because children were cutting across the large spaces with electric scooters and carts that were not allowed on public roads. There were far too many attractions to see them all on foot.

Clearing the snow from this place could not be easy.

But that snow was piled up where it would be out of the way and children were playing in it. They were building snowmen and igloos. The people running the place knew how to turn a spontaneous weather accident into another attraction.

“It’s Christmas,” said Takitsubo with her breaths visible. She was holding onto his jacket and pouting her lips. “So I really wish we could have come here just for fun.”

Some weird gentleman frog mascot and an alien-looking rabbit mascot had gotten into a fight, but when a clown tried to stop them, they both ganged up on him and sent him tumbling across the ground. An overeager child then tackled the frog after the spirit of justice awoke inside him. The frog doubled over and groaned.

“(Ugh!? S-stupid kids. Show them a moment’s weakness and they attack.)”

“(Just bear with it, sister. We can survive tonight if we stay in these world’s smallest hideouts, remember?)”

“?”

Takitsubo gave the mascots a puzzled look before asking a question.

“Hamazura, where is this person?”

“This way.”

A brass band arrangement of standard Christmas songs was playing while several parade floats moved slowly down the main street. A bear with horns was waving from one of those. Hamazura slipped past the crowd holding balloons coated with glow-in-the-dark paint and stepped into the shadows with his girlfriend at his side. They were on their way to an area different from the resort hotels.

These were known as the secret residences.

Obsessive fans would often ask to stay long term in one of the park’s luxury hotels, but this was an even more extreme version of that. The fans who did not want to let the magic die could rent a villa or residence in the park along with their full year pass. And after seeing the prices on the drink vending machines, you could guess just how inflated the price of a house here was.

Hamazura and Takitsubo walked to the address they had found using the contact information recorded in that borrowed phone. As large as the park was, very few buildings were clearly designated as residences.

So they walked to the ultra-luxury residential area illuminated with indirect lighting. The residences came in various styles from around the world, but they were probably each based on the setting of a fairy tale movie. They were interested in a gawdy Western mansion made of red brick.

Or more accurately, the few tents set up alongside the metal fence surrounding its yard.

“This is a surprise. I thought craftsmen like this were really picky about temperature and humidity.”

"It might be so they can pack up and make a run for it at a moment’s notice.”

“Living out here can’t be easy even if they’re using tents and sleeping bags meant for snowy mountains. What if the snow didn’t let up all night?”

“Humans can endure anything…as long as they can imagine something even more frightening.”

One tent was a living space, one was a lab, and then there were a few others. They all belonged to the counterfeiter known as Perfect Film. He could be contacted through the metal box next to the large residence’s grounds that had been tampered with to get access to the fiber optic network. If the signal was traced, they could escape while suspicions were still on the scapegoat. And the pursuers would have a hard time making their move when the decoy was a giant amusement park or one of their VIP guests.

However, this defense was the same as for neuroptera and uropyia meticulodina.

They remained undamaged because no one could find them, but damage was unavoidable if even a single person did find them. There were no solid defenses when using a synthetic tent as a hideout. If Perfect Film refused to cooperate and holed up inside, they could always break down the tent from the outside.

That was lucky.

Hamazura forced himself to see it that way. Not everyone on the dark side was an embodiment of murder like those twins in the Anti-Skill station. If their negotiations did not work out and they ran into trouble, they would at least not cause any trouble for the other guests.

“Let’s go, Takitsubo.” He looked ahead to their destination. “We both need a passport.”

She did not respond.

Puzzled, he looked over to find the track suit girl had collapsed onto the snow-wet ground.

He did not even have time to shout her name.

With a dull thud, the world flipped around more than once.

“…!?”

He had no idea what had happened.

Something inexplicable was happening, but his breath was knocked from him and he could not even get his voice out.

Once the bizarre weightlessness left him, he slammed down onto the hard ground. A hand covered his mouth before he could unclog his throat. Someone had climbed on top of him. He understood now what had happened and his fear had caught up with reality, but this person’s weight had him fully pinned down. She was a young woman and he was bigger than her, but he could not even budge. He had a bad feeling about this. His experience in the back alleys told him she knew what she was doing.

She was a sexy woman in her early twenties. She wore her black hair in a bob cut that fit around her head like a helmet and she wore a gawdy cowboy hat over that, but below that she wore a red China dress with the stomach replaced by a lace material that let her navel show through. She had Japanese, Western, and Chinese elements all in one outfit. A duralumin case containing who-knows-what hung from a belt she wore diagonally across her body.

The boots woman casually spoke to the boy whose hips she was straddling with no sign of shame about the large slits in her skirt.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there. Don’t give me that. I can’t have someone intruding on my hunting ground while I stake the place out. I turned down all my wonderful Christmas plans for this, so let the birdwatching club have this one, okay?”

Hunting ground. Stake the place out.

Those short terms sent a very bad feeling down Hamazura’s spine.

“Wh-what!? Are you Anti-Skill? Or the dark side!?”

“Huh? Don’t give me that. All Anti-Skill ever does is put up wanted posters and then find every little nitpicky excuse they can to not pay up. To be blunt, that’s not a stable business. And the dark side is even worse. Once they have the information they want, they come back to silence you!”

She grinned and accurately adjusted the position of her hips to render his resistance useless. And she continued speaking while squirming in a way that would like highly questionable to anyone who happened across them in the darkness.

“What you need are some old-fashioned connections. Weekly Mind’s Eye, Emanating Light, and that sort of thing. Selling your best shot to a magazine like that is the most surefire method. Even if that just gets it used in some gruesome show for housewives.”

“…?”

Something abou