[SS] Curfew Carnival

SS: Curfew Carnival

«Last night an ambulance was attacked on its way back to Mizushima University Hospital located in District 5. Reports say that the ambulance has been flipped upside down by the means of a military prototype air bag that has been placed inside of a manhole. The driver was hospitalised as a result of the accident. The group responsible for the crime is still being pursued by Anti-Skill. Their name is ‹MissFits› and they are considered to be highly dangerous.»



«In the night from August 13th to August 14th a group of masked men have attacked both an illegally run establishment and an ambulance. In both cases violence with little respect for human lives has been exerted. Be advised to not step out at night until Anti-Skill has brought the situation under control. They culprits are armed and dangerous.»


It was all over the media. The news coverage wouldn’t let off and neither would comments from various sources. Documentaries were provided, articles posted on blogs and politicians would pick on it in their great agenda of making the city a better place by their own images.

A single night could accomplish this kind of outrageous phenomenon, spreading all across the city. Anyone would participate in the discourse for whatever reasons. There were those simply tagging along with the news, those annoyed by wrong depictions of the happenings, those worried for their own safety that was no longer provided, those pretending to be eye-witnesses to the scene and those simply curious about who those MissFits really were.

In summary, a viral topic had been born from a single night’s incident.

If it would last just a few days or become a big epic the media would keep exploiting for the following weeks, months and years, was as of yet unknown.

Still, the storm had only just begun.

August 14th, 03:00 P.M.

Summer vacation was still ongoing and Academy City with 80% of its population being students was naturally buzzing with life, even against the odds imposed by the merciless Japanese summer heat. The days had been beautiful until now and they would stay that way for much longer. Students were out on the streets, conquering the popular and fashionable Districts with their demand to experience the life style presented to them by television and social media. Against this raging desire for life’s joys no bad news would stand any chance, not even the worrisome implications offered by the previous night’s incidents.

And yet some would be robbed of exactly that peace of mind.

After all it was already too late for nothing at all to happen.


District 19

Away from the prospering youth and their enjoyment of the unending lifestyle offerings presented by the modern Japan, there was a part of the city that had nothing at all to offer. District 19 had been in decline for long enough to be considered a No-Go-Zone by the majority of Academy City’s inhabitants. Gangs were everywhere, the sights were shit and nothing worthwhile was anywhere close-by to find.

There was an unpopular parking lot located quite close to the border to District 6. For most it would have been just another shitty location in some truly shit area, but the sudden spark of rumours had given it some odd and undeserved relevance. According to some – dubious as hell – sources a group called ‹MissFits› has been seen hanging out there at some point. While word alone didn’t serve to be convincing, the site’s proximity to District 6’s amusement parks did add some credibility to the story.

Still, while stories could make anything sound fantastic, reality was utterly disheartening.

All there was, was a shitty empty parking lot bearing only three un-noteworthy cars.

However, as though to add at least a hint of romanticism, their windows were shattered and their bodies ornamented by dents. Further there were some faint traces of dried out blood in combination with all kinds of wreckage spread about. A fight had happened not too long ago, but now that it was over, all there was, was crap. Or wasn’t it?

Bump!

A sound.

Bump! Bump!

Twice, this time.

It was as though something was knocking against the inside of something. And it wouldn’t cease. The pattern was irregular, the impacts soft and strong in weird succession. Anyone with at least minimal deductive skills could easily arrive at the conclusion that the source was not mechanic in any way. An animal or a human even?

Bump! Bump! Bump!

It came from one of those three cars. The one in the farthest end of the perimeter. Less damaged and still as ordinary as the other two. With how broken the vehicle was, however, the source could only be found in one section: The trunk. It was inside. Something. What was it? What could it possibly be? A lost child forgotten there crying for its run-away teenage delinquent parents? An unseen wild carnivorous animal ready to jump at whatever poor soul would be dumb enough to set if free? Or a lovely sexy and butt-naked maiden in distress?

Well, reality was cruelly disheartening.

All those curious enough to pry would find was a certain battered and beaten up spiky haired idiot with arms and legs constrained by pink spandex pants and mouth gagged by means of a pair of dirty tennis socks. Simply miserable.

Such misfortune, indeed.


District 1

To anyone familiar with the way Academy City was and the nature of its inhabitants, the sight of District 1 was just a let-down. A city ruled by a majority of students would naturally strike the imagination of any young revolutionary, invoking images of a paradise for the arts, crafts and the wild…and yet its administrative sector basically exceeded any school principle’s office in boredom. The buildings were plainer than anywhere else in the city, grey and without character entirely. Technically even places like District 19 did boast more urban flair, but then reminder of District 2 or 23 would shift the impression yet again. There was definitely a better, but also a worse.

Among the many administrative facilities found within the district there was also one meant for keeping and managing vehicles involved with all kinds of crimes. Starting at the low tier ones like parking in prohibited areas, over application of illegal modifications up to usage as an escape craft in the act of committing other illegal activities, the reasons for why the vehicles had found their way onto the grounds of the facility were countless.

While the majority of confiscated vehicles would be stored in areas akin to a large-scale parking garage, the facility also offered a section meant for those that were still subject of ongoing investigations. Unlike the mass storage area, the layout of this particular section was more reminiscent of a combination between museum and a tuning garage, like the ones seen in movies, than a car park.

Some of the corridors were illuminated by lights while others weren’t. However, that was only natural weren’t all compartments needed equally, thus not raising the need to light them appropriately. With occasional patches of light and a majority rule of dark areas, Academy City’s central vehicle impound seemed more dead than alive. In fact, most of its sparse employees were busy elsewhere taking care of even more newcomers caused by last night’s events.

Still, it was a little strange to find one particular area to be entirely deserted even under these circumstances.

Even stranger, however, was the fact that three young girls were currently crossing the darkness of these supposedly abandoned corridors.

Given their young age they were neither vehicle owners nor part of the qualified personnel.

Their names were Hujisaka Natsumi, Aoki Aiko and Kisaragi Anko.

All three of them were part of an underground organisation called TASK.

And currently they were here to pay one specific guest a visit.

Vehicle A6-8140133.

An ambulance that had come in over the course of the previous night, having become the major topic of plenty of news. However, even after the hours of investigation and analysis that had gone into it reflected by the countless files held by the nearby terminal, there was still supposedly something of interest about it. Promising enough for them to search it out.

From the looks of it alone, however, it was a pile of crap. The roof was crushed, the axes ruined, the front window shattered and one of the back doors removed by force. Fortunately, defying expectations, most of the equipment was still there, even though clearly not untouched.

August 14th, 03:12 P.M.

District 19

Tetsuya released the doorknob from his hand and listened to the familiar sound of the facility's heavy steel door slamming shut behind him for one of the last times he'd be able to hear it. Even the seven locks that were on the other side, he could tell which ones were being engaged and in which order.

The facility was a steam engine research lab, where the boy who looked like a delinquent had worked for over a third of his sixteen-year-old lifetime. District 19 might be a broken-down wasteland to an observer from the normal side of Academy City, but if you knew where to look, there was a strong undercurrent of scientific development rushing beneath the surface of brick warehouses and cracked asphalt. Granted, most of it was on obsolete technologies, but the district was far from an intellectual desert.

Not that Tetsuya knew much about that.

His involvement with the intellectual side of the district was limited to conversations like "Raise the temperature of the inside boiler to 115 degrees" or "Concentrate the heat towards the front end of the firebox, if you can."

That wasn't to say Tetsyua and the people who had seen him daily for the past six years weren't on more casual terms than that. There was definitely a good deal of banter sent back and forth while the experiments were running. However, Tetsuya didn't quite understand the mechanics of what the team was actually trying to accomplish as well as they did. Thus, as a human version of an ideal power source, his interactions with the experiment tended to be rather basic.

Of course, now they were soon to come to an almost total halt.
At the end of the summer, the boy who looked like a delinquent was scheduled to be sent halfway across the city to a new high school, far away from the district where he had once run a gang. Unfortunately, his work with the research team would be limited to weekends from that point forward.

The last deadbolt clicked into place from the inside, and Tetsuya stood looking at the door for a few more seconds before shouldering the strap of his bookbag and continuing down the street towards his current apartment.

August 14th, 03:18 P.M.

At a nearby intersection, still in the same district, Tetsuya's eyebrow raised at the sight across the street. Three cars, newly parked in the parking lot that everyone who was actually from the area knew to never use. And more importantly, newly smashed up.

In some aspects, not being the leader of a gang was incredibly inconvenient. Three months ago, he'd already have known about this, and probably known who'd done it as well due to the network of information he'd had access to. Today, he'd have to do that sort of legwork himself.

The boy who fit perfectly into these shitty surroundings crossed the street with a cell phone in hand, ready to call in a report to the proper authorities when a loud noise erupted from somewhere on the scene. Some sort of metal banging filled the air.

Tetsuya reached down to the ground and picked up the biggest piece of metal he could find, which was part of one of the cars' window frames. Whoever had wrecked these had done a bang-up job. Now, however, the only banging around here seemed like it was coming from inside one of the trunks of the cars. 

Was it a trap? It seemed like a coincidence that it had happened while he had been passing by, but he didn't want to take any chances. If the cars were broken anyway, though...

The boy who looked like a delinquent took a step back from the car whose trunk had been thumping from the inside, set his bag on the ground, hopped twice on one foot to check his balance, and let fly with a strong roundhouse kick to the area of the hood where the latch must have been. He then hopped back as the trunk popped open, wary of anyone who might come jumping out.

After a few seconds passed with no murderous gang member set on getting revenge for a past slight, Tetsuya tentatively stepped forward. Inside the trunk was a spiky-haired girl whom he'd never seen before, wearing the uniform of a certain school that Tetsuya didn't recognize as any from District 19. Someone who had been passing by and gotten wrapped up in the wrong sort of thing, then, almost definitely. She looked like she'd been roughed up by someone, at least. Maybe she could explain the situation herself.

Tetsuya pushed the lid of the trunk up as high as it could go while looking down at the girl. "'Sup. Don't worry, I'm gonna get those socks outta your mouth. Just try not to bite me or anything while I'm helping out." He reached down with one hand and, with only a bit of hesitation (it was a girl's mouth, after all), set to work to pull out the dirty things and free up her jaw.

August 14th, 03:07 P.M.

District 1

Three girls moved silently through the unlit halls of Academy City's central vehicle impound. For a normal person, making it this far into the facility without detection would take considerable skill or a really lucky day, however these three weren't you average people. In addition to the personnel walking the floor of the facility there were also cameras scanning for both visual and infrared confirmation of intruders. For this group of three however such measures were trivial. The three girls continued their infiltration, heading towards section 'A' of the facility, the area where vehicles still under investigation were kept. As the girls walked a wall mounted camera swiveled in place sweeping the area, and as with every other camera in the facility it detected nothing, its combination of sensors being thoroughly fooled by the abilities of two of girls.

Hujisaka Natsumi, a brown haired Tokiwadai girl who's ability allowed her to increase the temperature of things, was currently using her ability to fool the thermal sensors of all the cameras. To them, the three girls seems to blend into the rest of the area as the whole area was much warmer than it should have been. Aoki Aiko, another Tokiwadai girl, was handling the visual sensors on the camera. Her ability allowed her to make an area encased in electrons that intercepted different times of electromagnetic radiation trying to pass through it. In this case, she was preventing any light from leaving the electron shell. Anyone trying to look at the area from the outside would see just darkness, while from the inside everything looked perfectly normal. In an area that was dark already, it was almost like being invisible.

"I really should have worn lighter clothes for this," Aiko whined, keeping her voice to a whisper. For an unacquainted observer, Aiko's choice of clothing, namely the large black hoodie with sleeves extending past the ends of her arms, would seem rather strange for summer attire. However the other members of TASK since becoming acquainted with Aiko knew she normally used her ability to keep the area around her nice and cool, allowing for comfort wearing such heavy clothes in the summer. But since her ability was currently being used for another task, Aiko's face was covered in sweat. "When we get out of here I'm not leaving AC for at least a day."

After a bit more walking they girls arrived at their destination with no alarms sounded, Section A area 6 of Academy City's vehicle impound lot, and in front of them stood a vehicle that had seen much better days. Vehicle A6-8140133, the ambulance that a certain gang had trashed just recently stood before them. "So what were we here for again...?" Aiko mused, although she remembered just fine why they were here...

There was a certain degree of absurdity to this entire situation. Not that that made it any special in the end.

Kamijou Touko had been up and running for the major part of the previous night. The details were currently a bit blurry in her mind, but it was clear to her that when something had brutally hit the back of her head the entire world had turned dark. The next thing she remembered was waking up in this dark and confined space, her arms and legs restrained behind her back like she was some kind of rodeo pig or hostage.

Panicking as would be normal in this kind of situation she tried rolling left and right, straining her muscles to break the makeshift ropes and shouting like crazy. The latter to absolutely no effect outside of getting a good taste of the disgusting thing they had used to gag her.

Oh, the taste of another’s sweaty feet.

She’d lost it there and then, if not for the fact that a shock ran through that tiny prison of hers followed by the overwhelming sensation of bright light tearing apart the darkness she had already grown used to.

Who would it be, her knight in shining armour? A tall and handsome dorm manager about to carry her off into the sunset?

Such misfortune.

All of a sudden that dorm manager in shining armour transformed into the sight of what was more than obviously a delinquent. Just another one of these!

Hold on. She had been restrained, gagged and put into what was obviously the trunk of a car. Now with someone like this – who obviously seemed to be on the right side of the law and moral equilibrium for this kind of actions – releasing the lock there was only one possible conclusion to come to…the abductor had come for his prey!!!

Again, she’d panic, but with how little space there was in this car trunk, all she could do was wiggle right and left as though she was a use- and defenceless caterpillar, leaving her wide open for his arm to approach. She’d try to shout, only to taste the smelly dirty socks again.

«AAAAAAAAAAAH! DON’T HURT ME!! DON’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!! I MEAN DON’T YOU SEE I’M CLEARLY NOT THAT GOOD LOOKING!! IT’S LIKE HAVING YOUR WAY WITH A BOY!!! I MEAN IT’S NOT LIKE I’M A BOY!!! I’M CLEARLY A REFINED LADY BUT STILL!!! I’VE BEEN SAVING MYSELF MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THE RIGHT ONE!!!!!! AT LEAST COVER MY EYES SO THAT I CAN PRETEND YOU’RE A HANDSOME DORM MANAGER!!!!!!!!»

Without even realising she had been relieved of the smelly sock gag, she went directly into a shouting parade, mindlessly showing off her stupidity to the world.

August 12th, 19:00. District 7

“Thank you, go well.”

The cashier’s well-practiced, and almost robotic line followed Hirashi out of the convenience store. In the nondescript looking student’s hands were two large plastic bags filled with a bizarre combination of items: Energy drinks, masking tape, heavy-duty aluminum foil, two-minute noodles, and one-inch nails were just a few of the random assortment of goods which Hirashi was carrying.

Saito Hirashi had been busy.

Hirashi’s usual hurried gait pounded a steady rhythm against the pavement as the familiar shape of his dormitory came into view. He entered the apartment-like building, jogged up the stairs, and opened the door to his room. Hirashi then proceeded to change his shoes, flick on the light switch by the entrance, and dropped his haul on the coffee table in the center of his living room.

Hirashi’s room was special, it could even be said that Hirashi’s room was currently the most special room in the building. Hirashi’s living room, which also doubled as a bedroom, was composed of three walls and a sliding glass door leading to a small balcony. It was nothing special structurally, but the pictures and writing plastered all over these walls were what made this room one of a kind.

Saito Hirashi had been busy.

It was the summer break, a time for the many students in Academy City to take refuge from the oppressing summer heat in air-conditioned arcades or by the public pools. It was a time to hang out with friends, forget about the summer homework together, and receive desperate 11:59 phone calls from those same friends asking for maths solutions the night before school starts.

But for Hirashi, his friends and classmates would have to wait. For a certain looting and pillaging fish bearing the name of MissFits had just reared its ugly head. Hirashi smiled as he swept his gaze slowly across the tangle of copy paper, dry-erase marker, and masking tape which surrounded him. This net was the product of weeks of hard work, and it was made of countless threads of espionage and data gathering brought together by knots of logical deductions; this was a net which its purpose was to capture and reveal the inner workings of this slippery fish. It was still a work in progress, chucks of crucial information were still missing, but Hirashi was slowly but surely drawing closer to his answer, for a new lead had been found -

-and Saito Hirashi was about to get busy.



August 14th, 14:55. District 1

Hirashi hated driving.

Hirashi hated the idea of being shoved into a cramped metal box speeding along at break-neck (and break-spine, and break-skull) speeds alongside other similar metal boxes piloted by people of a highly questionable level of competency with only a flimsy nylon rope and a bag of air for protection should something go wrong.

Being in an impoundment lot was not helpful towards changing Hirashi’s negative attitude towards automobiles.

For the past two hours, Hirashi had been slowly sneaking his way through District 1’s vehicle impoundment lot by hiding underneath the vehicles. The patrols were frequent and cameras were everywhere, but with the cover of darkness as well as the knowledge of the patrol routes, Hirashi was able to make it deep into the building and was currently hiding behind the carcass of a SUV. The various tricks and gimmicks which Hirashi had taped to his body pressed uncomfortably into his stomach as he shifted his body forward and extracted a package from one of his pockets, it was a mixture of powdered aluminum, iron rust, and a magnesium ribbon wrapped up in oil paper then strapped to a cigarette lighter. Hirashi lifted the home-made device with his telekinesis and placed it on one of the numerous trusses on the ceiling. This was the fifth and final package which made up his plan B.

The camera coverage was not as big as a problem as it first appeared to be - hundreds of cameras covered every inch of the facility, but that was also its weakness, there were simply too many to monitor in real-time. Hirashi dodged what he could had taped up a few unavoidable cameras with masking tape and his telekinesis. Hirashi reckoned he should have at least a few hours before the security office noticed something was amiss.

The real challenge however, were the infrared sensors scattered throughout the building like the one two meters in front of him right now. The IR sensors were configured to automatically detect objects which are “hotter” than its surroundings and track its motion. It was theoretically possible to scramble the readings by slowly heating up the ambient temperature around the area, but Hirashi reckoned lighting a fire in this darkness would not fare well for the longevity of his trespassing. However, Hirashi had expected such security measures, and did his homework on infrared sensors: There were two main types of infrared radiation, shortwave and longwave. Short wave infrared would usually be in the form of light and long wave infrared would come in the form of heat. Infrared sensors were usually built to detect only long wavelength infrared, which would be emitted by Hirashi in the form of body heat. Glass allows the passage of shortwave IR, whilst blocking long wave IR, which was how greenhouses worked. So Hirashi reasoned that if he was to place a glass cube in front of the sensor’s lens, he should be able to fool the programming, which was not coded to track cold objects due to the presence of metallic security robots.

Hirashi slid three small sheets of glass from one of his numerous pockets and pressed them against the floor to cool them down, he then slowly slid them in front of the sensor with his telekinesis. Satisfied with his work, Hirashi paused and double checked that there were no cameras he missed before rolling out from under the SUV and made his way underneath the sensor, where he dropped and retrieved his glass.

Hirashi’s objective was parking lot “A”, where the wreckage of a very special ambulance waited for him. He quickly ducked behind a dark green sedan and peeked around its tail light, and as expected, he saw a narrow passageway guarded by a single security robot. According to his intel, the shift change should be soon and a human guard was to arrive at 15:00.

Hirashi waited patiently in the darkness as his watch slowly ticked down to 15:00, the security bot was scheduled to arrive at another post near the entrance at 15:02. This meant it must leave this post immediately, regardless of if its relief had arrived, and thanks to some laxatives dropped into a security guard’s store-bought lunch box, Hirashi should have an opening to get past this last sentinel. Regular patrols did not continue past this point of the impoundment lot, so this was the final challenge before easy town. Hirashi grimaced as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, despite this place never seeing sunlight, it was getting quite warm.

15:00 had arrived, and like clockwork, the drum-like robot rolled past Hirashi, who had crawled back under the sedan, and made its way towards the outer perimeters of the building. As according to plan, the entrance was wide open, Hirashi grinned as he slid himself out from under the car and was about to finally straighten his aching back when suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching him from behind. Hirashi mentally cursed as he threw himself back under the leaking sedan. The footsteps drew closer, but Hirashi could not see any thing from underneath the vehicle. The footsteps are even closer now, and it felt like their owners should be right in front of him, but Hirashi’s eyes still refused to pick up anything.

“I really should have worn lighter clothes for this,”

The sound of a whiny girl cut through the silence of the dark parking lot, and despite the now-unbearable heat, Hirashi’s blood froze in his veins. Just as he thought, there were other people, and they were right in front of him. The sounds grew fainter and fainter as these mysterious people made their way past the green sedan, Hirashi’s mind raced.

“Who were they? No, it cannot be normal security, there were no patrols scheduled here, besides they were cleary espers. The invisibility indicated they were not supposed to be here either, so they must be after the ambulance as well!” Hirashi frowned, this was his first solid lead in ages. He’s be damned if someone else took the prize before he did.

Hirashi followed the voices into the darkness.

The slowest of the three girls was none like the other two. In fact, while those two held at least some sort of charisma in their attires and general presence, the best word to describe her was «average». Her long typical Japanese hair was black and so was that pair of eyes decorating an entirely unremarkable face. Instead of choosing to wear any fancy clothing she had settled on a simple Bordeaux coloured tracksuit with detachable sleeves and lower leg portions, matched with simple trainers. The sole thing possibly sticking out about her was the black truly unfashionable collar she chose to wear around her neck.

«You people really are too spoiled. Professionals aren’t supposed to act like little cry-babies.»

Her name was Kisaragi Anko and – as her annoyance over that completely normal complaint had made clear – she was the odd one out.

Originally, she had been a Kunoichi raised by the infamous historical Fuuma clan. Having learned the great teachings of her ancestors the girl had been transformed into the perfect infiltrator, as well as an unstoppable killing machine. Or so it had been supposed to be, but when she and her comrades had made their way into Academy City two months ago everything had gone south. Unexpected individuals had crossed their path and before they knew it they met the wrath of the capital of science in its full force. The others were all killed, leaving only her as the sole survivor.

She had been stripped of everything, her family, her comrades, her life, her calling, even her clothes. Butt-naked they had chained her up in an isolated cell that was monitored through reinforced glass and additionally by countless of cameras. It had been nightmarish, humiliating, just cruel. They would keep asking the same questions. Ask them over and over and over again. Every week. Every day. Every hour. Perfectly timed. Monotone.

But she wouldn’t break, no matter what. That was her skill as a true professional. No torture on this world would be able to break her. Never would she betray her friends and allies.

Or so she would have thought.

That collar around her neck had been her greatest tragedy. The sign of her absolute defeat. They had found a way to get to her. Something she would care for more than anything. Something she had to protect at all cost.

Touching the item with the tip of her index finger she remembered all she knew about it. It was crafted from a special fabric that to most people would appear like ordinary cloth. It was certainly slightly elastic, yet hard and difficult to break at the same time. There was something embedded into it. A mechanism that would both track each and any movement she would make, as well as one that would punish her the moment she would stray from the rules that had been imposed onto her. Clearly that punishment was her death, but in what way it was supposed to arrive was entirely unknown. She wasn’t told anything about how it functioned. That way she would not be able to find a counter measure. And even if she tried finding out the truth, they would be able to dispose of her before she could even get anywhere. Truly, the perfect collar.

But what did it matter? Right now, she was with TASK, or rather two of the other three members. Hujisaka Natsumi and Aoki Aiko. Girls who had been granted the lives of spoiled princesses yet somehow having ended up in the very same business she had been forced into. Were they here for their own interests? Or had they been forced into it just like her? The first would disgust her to no end, while the latter would allow for at least some faint hint of sympathies to be held.

«That strawberry girl said something about this being about finding anything we would consider fishy. I think it was something along the lines of ‹the less you know the more creative your approach will be, raising your chances of finding it›.»

Her reply was formal with a hint of spite. She clearly did not enjoy the idea of even having to deal with the job, but her reasons were laid out before them either way, had the others been provided her dossier for their own safety. So, what worth was there hiding any of her feelings?

«This means whatever it is we are looking for, it was hidden with care. Enough care to warrant us experts coming in, in the first place.»

It was that simple a solution to arrive at. Something must have been hidden in that ambulance and it certainly had to be done in a way that would allow for it to slip past the official investigators. Maybe their files left on the terminal would provide an insight? Or possibly a thorough search of less obvious sections of the ambulance would turn up something?

At least for now she had felt like she had already contributed more than enough, had she been the one to lead the infiltration in the first place, easily guiding them on their path of outmanoeuvring the guards and remaining security, without relying on anything as disgustingly convenient as a flashy ability.

The boy who looked like a delinquent braced himself against the open trunk as he watched the girl scream her head off. Should've left the socks in. He sighed. Even in a place like District 19, this was hardly a usual occurrence. If you opened a car trunk like that, you might expect to see some central-city student with a few black eyes and missing a wallet, sure, but... this one was loud. And a girl, to boot. This was going to be his responsibility now, wasn't it?

Tetsuya leaned in closer, casting a shadow over the bound-but-no-longer-gagged girl. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, HEY!" His voice started off in a mutter but grew into a shout loud enough to be heard over her panicking. "The hell do you take me for, girl, some kind of delinquent?" One foot came up and landed on the rim of the trunk so he could rest on its knee. He held up the pair of dirty, smelly gym socks in front of the strange, spiky-haired. "You think if I was gonna have my way with you, I'd have taken these things out? I can tell ya, it's a hell of a lot easier to do that sort of thing when your target can't speak."

Besides, what would Shizuka say if I did something like that with another girl?
...Never mind that they weren't actually dating yet. Or that taking advantage of a tied-up girl was a crime no matter whether or not you were already in a relationship.

The boy who gave up a gang for a girl stepped away from the open trunk to give Touko a bit more room to compose herself, if she needed it. He scraped the toe of his sneaker against the asphalt before speaking up again. It was a real pain, having to deal with this sort of thing when he was trying to go legitimate. Maybe he could foist her off on the city's law enforcement at some point to deal with.
"Let's get those ties off you. If there's someone watching around here, I don't wanna get their attention. Once we're out of this hotspot, you can give me the rundown on what happened and how you got like that."

If the people who had smashed up these cars and beat up this girl were sticking around here for some reason instead of making their break like smart people would, he wasn't exactly keen on running into them. Especially since he could no longer rely on any sort of backup. The long arm of the law didn't reach far around here, and the gang protection he'd enjoyed in the past had been eliminated.

«What is this?! A making-the-girl-taste-the-smelly-socks-fetish?! You’re some disgusting creep!»

Hostage situations did the weirdest things to people. The most famous was probably the Stockholm Syndrome where the poor hostage would form some odd kind of bond with the culprits, but there were also instances like this one, where for some reason they would feel all high and mighty…or just succumb to their own stupidity in the face of danger.

Kamijou Touko clearly had lost the ball at some point.

Yet, in the end even she seemed to have understood the reality of the circumstances, leading to a surprising readiness at cooperation. Untied limbs were any hostage’s – no matter how stupid – dream.

«Uuuh…thanks.»

Rubbing her aching wrists, she felt somewhere between grateful, nervous and entirely embarrassed.

«Please, forget about everything that just happened. PLEASE!!»

The most important matters should always come first and this was beyond a simple life and death situation. And to make sure they would be, she bowed like an office worker having done the biggest screw-up in company history.

Still, only moments later she would realise just how more miserable all of this had made her look, switching topics to finally arrive at the actually important that delinquent-like boy had attempted to shove in.

«…uuuhm…yeah. Can we go somewhere where there is food…and maybe a new clothes…?»

Kamijou was neither in the position to ask this, nor did she feel comfortable becoming the freeloader in this relationship diagram all of a sudden. However, after having spent at least half a day inside this car’s trunk, a number of basic everyday needs were crying to be stilled.

Actually…

«What time is it? JUST HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN IN THERE?!?! IZUMII YOU BASTARD!!!!»

Again, not minding who or what she would attract in this no-go-area of no-go-areas, she would mindlessly break into just another shouting tirade. At this point she was asking for trouble, wasn’t she?

It seemed that the week would not be restful at all, as far as Natsumi was concerned.

Almost immediately after the secret club incident had she been requested to join a specially formed group named TASK. For what purpose? She’d probably been told some remote amount of details, and it was likely related to the pink-haired bitch from a couple weeks ago, but it wasn’t like she’d paid attention. Her motto was to know the least she could and just follow out orders, and that was the easiest way to go about finishing a mission rapidly.

Accompanied by two other girls, whose name she didn’t even bother to try and remember, either, they walked through a vehicle impound where light seemed to be a particularly rare occurrence.

"I really should have worn lighter clothes for this. When we get out of here, I’m not leaving AC for at least a day. So what were we here for, again?”

A sigh escaped Natsumi at this question, though she was at least reassured that she wasn't the only one who hadn't paid attention during their... "briefing". Though she felt confused as to why she’d ask at all. Last she remembered, missions weren’t exactly popular teenage hangout spots, so it was a nasty idea to start discussing confidential matters in a potentially public place.

Thankfully, it seemed that the other girl comprising the makeshift group that had been brought together would intervene. But much to Natsumi’s despair, she seemed to also be a talkative person.

“I’m not sure “strawberry girl” is a reliable source of information, so let’s not base ourselves off what she says too much.” She simply warned, with a certain degree of expertise on the topic; the last time she had tried to look into any given situation were the times where she had been the closest to death. Not to mention her peculiar interaction with this “strawberry girl” had given her a particularly bad impression.

After a short walk, they finally reached the destination of their investigation: the famed ambulance that had been the source of countless analysis by legal forces. It was time for the lesser legal ones to begin, though.

“Aoki, Kisaragi, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye out while you take a look at this nice pile of metallic shit.”

"Nothing doing. I make it a policy to not forget things, girl."

It would take a bit more than a steep bow to convince a hardened ex-delinquent like Adachi Tetsuya, a boy who had never spent a day of his life in an office.

Besides, it was kind of funny. Not that he'd admit that he was laughing at her inside, though.

"...New clothes? Better not be using me as a free shopping trip for a weekend outfit or something like that. You're still in your uniform, you know."

It was mostly a joke - this girl didn't seem quite like the sort who would be trying to scam him out of anything. Actually, she seemed a bit too scatterbrained to be able to pull something like that off. And Tetsuya still had enough faith in humanity to not suspect her of pretending to be scatterbrained for money.

"Here, we'll make a deal. You let me remember all this, and I'll get you a full meal and some new clothes. Just try to go easy on the wallet. I'm not one of those Tokiwadai ojou-samas or anything. I'm in this district for a reason."

Granted, at the moment, he was almost definitely the rich one in the relationship. It would be almost unprecedented for this girl to come out of a car trunk trussed up like that and still have her wallet intact.

He'd know, because those wallets had been a staple way of getting gang funds back in the day.

"As for the time..." His job had let out at about 3, and he'd had to walk over here, so... "It's gonna be about 3:30 in the afternoon, or about then. Saturday, if that means anything."

The boy who looked like a delinquent dropped the piece of metal he was holding and pointed with a thumb down one of the streets.

"We're not far from District 6. There's gonna be malls there. While we're walking, you can tell me who this Izumii guy is, and how you ended up stuck in that trunk. How's that for a plan?"

After all, it wasn't like he had much else he was planning to do today. He could spare a trip to help out some girl who'd ended up on the wrong side of town. He turned towards the street, but looked back at her.

"By the way, the name's Adachi. Adachi Tetsuya. Just in case you're still worried about following a stranger and want something to report to Judgement if I don't hold up my word."

With that, Tetsuya started walking slowly, listening for any telltale footsteps that would indicate the girl was following.

Now that the situation had calmed a little, Kamijou found the opportunity to relax a little. Actually, only after the final world shattering realisation about the disappearance of her wallet and phone. Given everything that had happened it wasn’t that abnormal anymore. Yet, no matter the countless of iterations of this gone by, she still couldn’t help herself from letting her head hang.

«Don’t worry…this Kamijou-san is none of the greedy kind!»

She smiled bowing in gratitude.

«I’ll go as soft on your wallet as a nun on the church funds!»

Had she even thought about what she just said?

There was no denying that if it wasn’t for him she would have been stuck in there for the longest while. And even if someone had found her, chances were low it would have been another kindred spirit. No, knowing her luck, definitely not.

With a nod she would accept his plan, allowing the two of them to set into motion right away. Hell, given the bad state she was rather greedy to make a return to some kind of normalcy.

«Oh right. I’m Kamijou Touko. Thank you again Adachi-san.»

Smiling like that she still felt rather uncomfortable, especially given her high conscience for people in the situation of helping others. Taking help herself for once, wasn’t really something she was entirely used to. Especially, once it went beyond simply helping someone out. Therefore, it was only natural for her to make a note about repaying him eventually in the back of her head.

«Izumii. That guy is trouble. There is this group called the ‹Midgets› or something. Apparently, he is their leader. I don’t know if it’s true, though. There were also some other guys who were after him, I think? Everything was just hectic and before I knew it there was this owl person…the pompadour guys and that Izumii. He was after that girl, Akirin. Probably a stage name. I think everyone there was. We weren’t able to protect her. He kicked my ass and the others’ too. I tried chasing him, but then…ugh…what happened then? The ambulance…right…the ambulance. How did that go?»

All she could give was a rushed summary with no proper beginning or end-point. It wasn’t that she wasn’t trying her best, things were simply that blurry in her head, taking the steady company of a minor head-ache. The only certain thing right now was that disheartening taste of defeat. A strong one to endure…

The people Aiko was with didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. Although, given their circumstances that was understandable.

“Aoki, Kisaragi, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye out while you take a look at this nice pile of metallic shit.”[/quote]

"Alrighty," Aiko said, letting out a small sigh. The prospect of tearing this trashed ambulance apart looking for 'Something' didn't seems like a grand time, so instead she made her way over to the computer terminal next to the vehicle. Of course a facility like this wouldn't just leave it's computers unprotected, but that didn't mean that TASK didn't have a way into the system. Aiko wasn't a skilled hacker or an expert in breaking through cyber defenses, but she did have one special tool specifically designed to get her into this terminal... The username and password of an employee. Whoever the organizer of TASK was, Aiko had no idea, had managed to secure for them the login credentials of an employee at this facility, which Aiko then used to log in.

"Hmmmm... Kisaragi - Senpai, could you look at this. I have no idea what I'm doing here." When Aiko had logged into the system what had come up wasn't a normal computer interface, and why would it be? This was not a normal computer. Instead, displayed on the screen were a series menus, numbered lists, and complicated terms relating to vehicles that a 15 year old with no driving experience, or any vehicle experience for that matter,  could understand. Mathematical computations she could handle but she had no idea what an APP system or caliper configurations were.

After calling the older girl over to have a look, Aiko decided to actually have a go at searching the vehicle. Expanding her shell to cover its maximum range to make sure she kept her allies hidden, Aiko moved over to the ambulance. Stepping inside she could see that the inside was in no better shape than the outside. She wormed her way around the interior of the ambulance trying to avoid jagged pieces of metal and broken glass while looking about. The vehicle had all its lights off so it was dark inside. Aiko pulled out her pocket flashlight and set about searching the inside for something. She didn't spare a thought for the light giving them away because it was impossible for light to leave her field anyway.

After several minutes of searching Aiko decided that the manual approach wasn't working well enough and decided to try something different. She closed her eyes and concentrated on feeling the movement of the electrons within her shell, trying to see if there was anything unusual. At this point a small bundle of electrons clumped together in a tight space piqued her interest. What was it? A battery of some kind maybe? Aiko cleared away some of the debris that was between her and the strange electrons and came across a small latch. Opening the latch, Aiko could tell the source of the the electrons was right inside. She reach her arms in and pulled out the contents.

"What do we have here." A small grin crept onto Aiko's face.

Aoki, Kisaragi, go ahead. I’ll keep an eye out while you take a look at this nice pile of metallic shit.

“Death is an inevitable and ugly thing. Not for the ones who die, mind you. The real wounds which death inflicts find their marks on those who are left behind. Afterall, only the living hurt, only the living feels pain. Death is all consuming, but through the efforts of man, the living ones who are left behind to hurt and to grieve, man has begun to stall death and fight death. We give many names to those noble miracle-workers who take up this seemingly impossible task: Nurses, Medics, Doctors, we sometimes even call them angels. Oh how noble is their work, and how it had saved countless lives and would have saved many more. But in the end, those who tried so hard to save others could not save themselves.”

Amused, Hirashi rolled these thoughts around in his head as he hid behind what felt like a concrete pillar. The three voices, whose owner Hirashi was still unable to see, were quite lively during their trip down to this “nice pile of metallic shit”. It had turned out that Hirashi’s previous assumption of an invisibility field was incorrect. Instead of bending or projecting light, it merely blocked any light from reflecting off the surface, thus creating a sphere of darkness with a radius of about 10 meters .

Judging from their verbal exchange, it seemed at least one out of the three voices was going to be keeping a lookout. Hirashi was uncomfortable with the idea of engaging with an enemy who he had not prepared for, additionally, although there were three voices, it did not necessarily mean there would be three people. The nature, number, and even exact location of his adversary are all unknown. Hirashi frowned again, if he continues doing nothing, he would lose his prey, but any hostilities between him and his competition at this point would spell for Hirashi an obvious and speedy defeat.

Hirashi’s only option was to engage indirectly with the owner of the voices, either by distracting them or as a last resort, triggering an alarm and force them to evacuate. They were in a vehicle impoundment lot, so there were plenty of glass and steel sheets near the darkness bubble which would make a noise sufficient to catch the attention of the sentinel, but not loud enough to alert any patrols.

Very slowly, Hirashi extracted a surgical mask and a tightly wrapped bundle of nails from his backpack. The mask was slipped onto his face, and the nails, save for three, were stuffed into a more accessible pouch just under Hirashi’s stomach. Hirashi brought the three nails onto his palm and the now loose nails clinked softly in his pouch as he leaned forward. Since Hirashi was thoroughly familiar with the dimensions of his nails, he could simply recall the shape from his memory rather than defining them from scratch. After a brief moment during which Hirashi mentally plotted his targets, the 0.1 kg nails experienced 9 newtons of force for an eighth of a second, accelerating them to a speed of just over 40 kilometers per hour, and soon found themselves speeding towards the rear view mirrors and windows of nearby cars. There was a slight delay between the shots, planned in a way so the three nails would strike their respective targets simultaneously.

The silence of the impoundment lot shattered with the sounds of breaking glass.

The tasks were evenly split. Aoki to investigate the ambulance, Hujisaka to do the guard duty and Kisaragi to dig into the data. Perfect? Or rather not. While everyone would cheerfully head towards their personal destinations, average girl Kisaragi Anko was the one to stay behind, biting her lower lip, repressing that nervous sweat. How should she put it? She, who was the proudest of them all, always bragging how much more experienced she was than them. How should she put it?! Just how should she explain to them that she was absolutely incapable of doing the duty imposed on her!?

Trying to keep whatever there was of her façade up, she would slowly and reluctantly step towards the data terminal previously unlocked by helpful Aoki Aiko. Like a student at their piece of paper in an exam blackout situation she would stare at that high-tech interface currently broadcasting a menu that looked perfectly foreign to her.

«Uuuuuu…»

She’d gulp, as her shivering hand would slowly close in on the terminal.

Shouldn’t she speak up? Screwing up here would not simply lead to a bad grade, it could basically break their very necks. Mission failure was imminent!

But she couldn’t afford falling below these other two either. She was the true professional and they the amateurs! A proud warrior of the Fuuma clan could do anything!

Thus, relying on the secret art of aimlessly pressing any of the buttons before her she would engage that unknown enemy! And do so…with actual…success!?

Suddenly numerous windows (probably tabs someone had forgotten to close previously) would open before here, unleashing all kinds of important information. The majority could be dismissed as rather unimportant, were they only straight forward summaries of an unsuccessful amateur investigation. However, in the depths of all that there was one rather detailed report on everything.

«Interesting. The reports speak of the ambulance returning to the hospital it was originally dispatched from. Going by the analysis of the investigators it was running at above average speeds, implying that it was indeed transporting someone. But, while there is a lot of description on the driver, a man called Nishijima Takahiro, his personal details and the injuries he sustained, there is absolutely no mention of a passenger on any occasion. It’s as tough that was removed entirely from the reports except for one thing: The ambulance was marked as ‹occupied› around the time of the incident.»

As far as she was concerned the area was certainly clear. Somewhere in the far distance there had been a single figure working on the repair or set-up of some machine, but given their work uniform and the dozens of metres they were away, they appeared to be no source of concern as long as she wouldn’t start shouting like a madwoman. Besides, providing both her companions with helpful information in their own ongoing investigation felt like the best bet.

«Strange. They keep reporting that this incident had the typical signs of a robbery: The doors were broken open and the interior appeared like someone had actually searched it thoroughly. Yet at the same time, they confirm that even after checking carefully there was not a single piece of missing inventory. What were the attackers after, then?»


And yet, while she was sharing these bits of newly found information, Aoki would also make some sort of progress in recovering something that was hidden in a latch integrated into the side of the knocked-down cardiac monitor. No, this wasn’t the only strange finding the would detect by means of her ability. Secret compartments were spread here and there all across the ambulance’s interior and exterior. Yet, while some would contain similar structures to the one she had just uncovered, a few were actually empty.

The object at her attention, however, would reveal even more. It was a small metal box the size of a chocolate bar. There was no actual difficulty hindering one from opening seal on it, likely because there was no need for any of that with how well it was hidden. Prying inside it would reveal a collection of evenly sized aluminium packs containing oddly coloured pills. Medication? Or something else? There was no actual inscription or print decorating any of them, leaving that question unanswered. Yet, good intuition would probably lead to the right solution either way.


However, with the sound of shattering glass those threads were left to remain loose, as sudden tension would invade an otherwise relaxed investigation. And as the professional she was, that average looking girl would be sure to switch gears instantaneously.

Soft as a nun on the church funds? Tetsuya's eyebrow raised - he didn't quite understand the analogy. Were churches supposed to have a lot of money or something?
Someone thoroughly educated by Academy City like Adachi Tetsuya wasn't the most familiar with things like that.

"Kamijou, huh? Heh. You don't look like you're from around here, Kamijou-san. Don't mention it."

If the boy who gave up his gang for a girl was ever going to become righteous enough to join Judgement, he might as well get his start by helping out some poor girl who'd probably run afoul of one of the many gangs in the area. Actually, probably one of the gangs that had taken up from where his had left off, and tried to fill the power vacuum. He might actually have been the indirect cause of her predicament.
Whoops.

Regardless, he kept walking alongside her, listening to her explanation of what exactly she'd gotten herself into.

"Never heard of any gang called the Midgets, and I know some good stuff on that front. Must be something new or something from across the city. Maybe that Akirin pissed 'em off or something, huh? Can't really think of any other reason if they were targeting her specifically."

Tetsuya, for better or for worse, didn't really think outside of the box on these things. The Lost Party had chosen its targets mostly based on people they didn't like, and they hadn't really had ulterior motives about that. Things like kidnapping for a ransom, or stealing someone so they could be experimented on, or any of the more sinister reason why someone might be gone after...

Adachi Tetsuya, who had only barely scratched the surface of Academy City's underbelly with his gang, didn't realize such things could even happen here.

"I guess there might've been something about an ambulance this morning... Can't remember what it was, only really saw a bit of the headline back then. Must be one important ambulance to make the morning news, though."

He shrugged. "That's if it's the same one you're thinking about." There were a lot of ambulances inside Academy City, after all. Frankly, the idea that there was a major gang battle somewhere in the city last night was what was more interesting to Tetsuya. Especially one that would've happened over a girl, of all things. Now he wished he'd actually read the newspaper sitting underneath that steam engine researcher's coffee cup this morning. He'd just have to get his own.

"Once we're in the mall, I can ste-" He cleared his throat. Relapsing into old habits wouldn't be good. He hadn't paid for news in years, but there was a first time for everything. "Once we're in the mall, we can look up what's going on. There's gotta a TV store showing the news for free."

Kamijou only nodded slightly at the topic of the ambulance. She found herself unable to pronounce any theory at this point. That was how hectic things had been and how blurry they appeared in her mind right now.

«All I know is that she is in big trouble right now. I don’t know what they did to her and I can’t even imagine. Those guys were just crazy.»

Adachi certainly couldn’t know that the spiky haired girl had had multiple run-ins with all kinds of street thugs and gangs over the course of her life in the city. She had picked up fights against the most out-there kinds of people and yet Izumii and his friends were on an entirely different league. Even with how blurry her mind was, or actually because it was like that, it simply appeared to be on an entirely different level of absurdity.

She couldn’t pronounce it, though.

«Yeah, let’s look it up as soon as we–»

Before she could even finish her sentence, she stopped right in her tracks, coming to a standstill entirely. Then she’d look left and right, scanning the area with a confused look on her face.

«This is the place.»

They had just been about to cross a large intersection, connecting multiple broader roads that had originally been intended to handle heavier batches of traffic. Given the time of the day and the decline of District 19, however, the street was comparably empty, allowing a full glance at its utter normalcy.

«This is where they were waiting for the ambulance. That’s where they set up the trap!»

Like an overwhelming storm, the memories came over her. Scenes from last night were finally emerging in her mind, brushing away a portion of the blur that had blocked them out before.

«This is where I chased them to! I know! The ambulance, they had just knocked it upside-down somehow…! Then I went for Izumii. There were some other guys as well. Fighting. It was chaotic. I couldn’t stop them. That bastard was just too strong…»

The ambulance had been knocked over by some means. A fight had broken out. And yet this street looked completely out of the ordinary. Entirely unscathed. Entirely unharmed. Not even brand new, but simply as though nothing had ever happened. No tire tracks. No collateral damage to buildings or street lanterns. Nothing indicating anything extraordinary had ever happened in here.

Had her mind played her a trick with all that blurriness still reigning over it? No, seeing the intersection, the site of the incident and her defeat like this just felt out of place entirely. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong about this.

It was the easy job that she had taken, in theory. Kisaragi had to deal with sorting through the information and determining what was and wasn't useful, while Aoki needed to carefully scan the entire vehicle for the slightest of clues. But not her; all she needed to do was stand there menacingly until the other two's jobs were over. Easy game.

"If the passenger wasn't recorded properly, then the inventory may not have been either. Or rather, since we're here in the first place, I highly doubt that this was just some random ambulance in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She responded idly to the information that Kisaragi had uncovered as she performed the minimum diligence surveying the area. Like she'd said, just the fact that they were there meant there was dirt to this situation—that there were unsavory elements other than themselves involved.

But even so, she doubted there would be any fanfare at this stage. They had entered easily enough that it seemed safe to not expect any trouble from the facility itself, and if someone had wanted to dispose of further evidence, then had been plenty of time between the impoundment the previous night and their arrival now for that to be done.

But idle hands were the devil's playthings, and speaking of him caused him to appear. In the midst of that calm, the sound of shattering glass resounded throughout the building. Immediately she backed up towards the side of the ambulance and slightly crouched, reducing the number of angles she had to watch out for.

"Gather up whatever you've found."

The enemy's motivations were unknown. If they were trying to eliminate them, then wasting that precious first shot of theirs made no sense. So barring some strange power, that was unlikely to be their goal. So what did it accomplish, in the end?

It made them need to leave.

No matter how easy it had been to break in, in the end it was a fact that they weren't supposed to be there. If this ruckus of theirs were to activate the security systems there would be trouble, and all the more so if they were actually caught. For now, it was simply a fact that they needed to play it safe and retreat for the moment.

"And where are they?"

This and her previous comment had both been uttered at a volume notably lower than her usual, though still suffused with her trademark standoffishness. She didn't know how close or far the other party was, but the goal was to allow the other two to hear without cluing their mysterious attacker in.

Despite recognizing the necessity of retreat, Natsumi wasn't the sort to obediently listen when told to sit, stay, and go. Ultimately, there had never been any doubt that she would do more than just retreat.

If at all possible, she would take out the trash along the way.

Aiko knelt in the center of the ambulance puzzling over her find. The small metal box contained numerous pills, of what she didn't know. There was no writing of any kind on the box or the pills. Whatever these were they were't medication. If these were normal medicine they would be covered in medical jargon, usage instructions, dosage information and an other important facts. Aiko was about to ponder what the lack of writing could imply but her focus was snapped back to her current situation by the sensation of a very small object moving very quickly through the edge of her electron shell immediately followed by the sound of shattering glass.

"Gather up whatever you've found."

Aiko stood up inside the Ambulance, closing the small metal box and slipping it inside one of the pockets on her hoodie. In the same motion she pulled one of her laser pointers out of the pocket. She had no idea what that small object had been, but she knew what direction it had come from. Aiko stepped out of the ambulance and right next to Natsumi.

"The projectile came from that direction." Aiko whispered in hushed tones as she pointed in the direction the shot had come from. Aiko crouched down to make herself into a smaller target, should more projectiles start flying her way. Aiko poked her head around the edge of the ambulance. Not seeing anything she began slowly moving forward towards where she felt the projectile come from. Aiko had never been in a situation quite so tense or dangerous as this. There was definitely some kind of enemy somewhere, projectiles like that don't come flying from no where. All things considered though, as Aiko moved quietly through the darkness, she was calmer and more composed than she expected she would be. Maybe it was because she wasn't alone here. That calmness wouldn't last however, as Aiko moved closer to one of the concrete support beams in the direction the projectile had come from she suddenly felt something. At the edge of her field, behind the pillar, something that was vaguely human shaped. Thoughts began racing through her mind.

Was this them? The enemy? What should I do? Should I call the others? But that could alert the enemy. It was at that point that Aiko realized that it might be too late to not alert them already, as the very fact that she could detect them meant they were inside her field. Them being inside her field meant that they would have potentially felt the slight tingling they came with the electrical buildup at the edge of her field. But more than that, they would no longer be blinded by the field now that they were inside it. Aiko may have given the enemy a slight advantage. They would now be able to see her and her allies and only Aiko currently knew where the enemy was. For a moment Aiko considered reducing the radius of her field to once again exclude the enemy, but she couldn't chance reducing it too much and her team getting caught on the outside of it and being seen by the cameras. Aiko held up her laser pointer and pointed it at the mirror of the ambulance. She didn't want to call out to her allies and alert the enemy, but maybe she could give them a message like this. She started flicking the laser on and off. In a pattern. Morse Code. Aiko didn't actually know the whole alphabet in Morse Code but she did know how to say SOS. Hopefully her team mates would see the reflection and get the message.

Silence.

The sound of someone rummaging through something and the casual, relaxed chatter died immediately. There were no yelps of surprise, hurried footsteps, nor pointless interrogatives like “Who’s there”. It was almost as if Hirashi’s fellow trespassers had dropped off the face of the planet.

It was very bad.

Hirashi had planned to break his competition’s composure and force them to retreat. But judging by the dead silent reaction, they were very likely highly organised or battle hardened or both. Hirashi cursed, he had assumed the mysterious intruders were not too well trained due to their careless banter. It was obvious he had underestimated his adversary. At this rate, Hirashi reckoned he did not have much time before he was caught in a counter attack which was inevitably coming.

Hirashi peeked out from behind the pillar, the sphere of darkness still covered the area immediately in front of him. He had no way of telling if the sphere blocked light in both directions or only one but he was not too eager to find out by getting shot after he had exposed himself. Suddenly, as Hirahi was weighing his options, a tingling sensation enveloped him.

This, this is static. Hirashi’s eyes widened, this means… I am inside the bubble?

Hirashi peeked out yet again from behind the pillar, and as expected, the ambulance, as well as the silhouette of a girl crouched against the ambulance came into his view. Hirashi glanced behind him, So the bubble is one way, glad I did not try to make a run for it right away. The fact that the other esper had headed his way so quickly after the attack suggested to Hirashi that they most likely had some way of tracking objects through the bubble.

This means now that I am in the bubble, they can track me too. Hirashi’s frown returned to his face, I am out of time, I have to get out of here.

Hirashi extracted a package from his backpack, it was slightly smaller than the thermite packs he had scattered around the building on his way in and was similarly wrapped in brown oil paper. It contained magnesium powder and a plastic cigarette lighter. As he dropped the package into his waiting left palm, Hirashi grabbed a fistful of nails from his pouch with his right.

Alright then, plan B.

Pulling his arm back, Hirashi threw the handful of nails towards the ambulance. The moment the nails had left his hand, Hirashi had began defining the location of all the nails in three dimensional space and accelerated them in random directions in groups of two’s and three’s. The result was small explosions which scattered projectiles all over the inside of the dark sphere. The low maximum output of Hirashi’s Kinetic Flux, combined with the numerous number of objects he was controlling at once, meant that the sharpened nails barely had enough power to penetrate clothing. But his target did not necessarily know that, Hirashi did not do this with the intent to injure anyone. However, hearing metal darts buzzing past one’s ear and ricocheting off steel was quite nerve-wracking for anyone. It bought time for Hirashi to prepare the second item. A moment later, the brown package followed the barrage of metal and plopped on the floor, with all the metal bits flying around the air, Hirashi hoped his adversary was too busy ducking and diving to spot where the package was thrown from. Hirashi then applied shearing force with his telekinesis across the surface of the paper bag before scattering its contents into the air.

Then again with his telekinesis, Hirashi depressed the button on the lighter and the fine magnesium dust ignited with intense heat and more importantly, a bright flash of light.

Praying that his stunt had bought him enough time to get out, Hirashi turned his back on the ambulance and slipped away into the darkness.

Three windows were shattered. The cause very likely having been a kind of projectile. Then nothing happened. Kisaragi took a deep, yet silent breath, cleansing her mind and building up strong focus. She was behind one of the pillars building the borderline of the section dedicated to Vehicle A6-8140133, the cover she had taken immediately after the attack had been launched.

From where she sat the view of her surroundings was limited. She could see into the depths of the impound, make out the position of a number of security cameras and keep track of her two allies who were equally agitated. The layout of the facility was simple, allowing for the birth of numerous blind spots to have from any position taken anywhere. Each vehicle section was surrounded by four pillars and one wall in the back. There were also terminals, some electronic appliances and gadget boxes here and there. Depending on the vehicles their state would differ gravely. Some were perfectly intact while others had been picked apart entirely.

Each of these sections would span about 10 times 10 metres, assuming the size of a larger one room apartment. The corridors were endlessly long, reaching into the very far distance. Somewhere someone seemed to have been working on something, but they were still too far away to notice them just yet. Even if, she had already noticed them and was therefore confident enough to deal with the situation in case it would bear problems. First of all, however, she had to deal with what was up ahead.

It was upon an act of careful scanning of the area that the average looking girl would notice the light reflected by the ambulance’s mirror. The signal had been read, interpreted and made use of immediately after.

Not wasting another moment, Kisaragi would immediately switch covers. Having memorised the positions of all cameras and all kinds of possible blank spots on her way in, she acted entirely based on what she had known, escaping any and all notion of both the facility’s tight surveillance and the possible attacker by nothing else than her own skill at slipping through the tiniest cracks in anyone’s or anything’s attention. She knew exactly where she was headed, had she been just informed about their location.

That was when the next attack came. With the suddenness of a grenade on a battlefield, numerous projectiles would rain into any direction. However, it was to none of her concern had she already escaped the epicentre of the explosion when leaving behind both the electron sphere and the section revolving around the ambulance. Even if some of those tiny things would hit her, all they would do was bounce off of her track suit’s special material.

It was exactly that change of position that enabled her to see the unknown hostile presence’s follow up attack, not only tracing the intention but also tracking the target down just perfectly in the process. She had recognised the smell, the powder and easily deduced the intention by means of her experience. Intuitively shutting her eyes, she would escape the all too classic trick, only to immediately proceed into the counter attack.

Having evaded all notion by dodging their sight, keeping her every movement silent, slowing her heartbeat and catching her breath, she would close in to him from his wide open blind spot, right as he had retreated from within the dome. Her intention was to throw a perfectly aimed punch at the back of his head that would most certainly suffice to throw his head into disarray whilst paralysing him momentarily. A quick and perfect end to everything.

If it wasn’t for another strange turn of events.

Right at the pinnacle of executing her stealth attack, she picked up on something. With her eyes widening in shock, she would immediately cancel the strike and throw herself to the ground or rather onto her primary target to both use the pouncing force of her body weight to knock the assailant over whilst fixating him right there and by hair’s breadth avoid what came right after, as just a split second later the roof of the car right before them was sliced through like a piece of butter. Perfectly clean and with great precision.

Then another followed, easily tearing through one of the pillars of the section they had just landed within. Then another. And another. Divided only by a 2.5 second interval.

Those were projectiles. Fired from the far distance, somewhere way behind in the shadows.

An unknown fifth intruder?

No.

Someone had been there with them all along.

And the fire was coming from exactly where they had been just a moment ago.

“Ugh…”

A groan escaped Hirashi’s lips. Everything hurt and his head felt like it was going to explode. Blurry-eyed, Hirashi twisted his neck, trying to get a grasp on what had just happened.

One second I was turning around to make a run for it, and the next second, I am now on the floor feeling like I’ve just been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

Hirashi’s sight cleared just in time to see a beam of some kind smash into the pillar near him and turned a large section of it into powder and debris. The noise was incredible, instinctively, Hirashi brought up his arm to stop the fragments from hitting him, but to his surprise, Hirashi found he could not move his arms. Hirashi’s mental haze was quickly cleared a brief moment later by concrete bits striking his face. His sight returned, Hirashi now attempted to look around and was immediately greeted by the sight of an older girl pinning him to the ground.

Ah, right. So this explains why I could not seem to move.

The implications of his observations hit him only a second later.

Oh, dammit. I am compromised! My captor is a girl but she not only seem insanely strong but her eyes are stabbing into my very soul!

Hirashi’s body trembled against his will as his plans were picked apart one by one. At this rate, I am likely to be either murdered by this woman or murdered by her friends or murdered by whoever just made that pillar into a pile of pillar dust. This is worse than anything I had envisioned!

Then things got even worse.

Before Hirashi could think of a way to get out of this terrible situation, the scary looking girl suddenly grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into one of the walls. The space they were lying in was consumed by a dark beam a split second later.

The beam left a sizable crater in the concrete floor, it was obvious to Hirashi that whoever was firing those was not looking to take prisoners. Hirashi knew that he could not hope to match any professionals physically or in terms of his powers, but it was easy to tell that the girl (whose hands were rather tightly gripped on to his collar) and source of the beams were not allied. If he was to get out of this one intact, he would need to befriend a side. Since the girl was closer (as in, literally breathing down his neck) and seemed more reasonable (as in, not trying to murder him and anything five meters behind him) Hirashi composed himself and set his silver tongue to work.

“Hi, I am Hirashi. I apologize for attacking you earlier, but as you can see, we now have a big mutual problem.” Hirashi kept his words brief and concise whilst being as polite as possible, there was simply no time for waffling and he could not risk ticking off his only hope of getting out of here.

“I do not know what you can do, or why you might be here. But I have a way to cut off the beam person’s pursuit if we can get out of this corridor. I am sure you are more than capable of doing this by yourself, but more allies never hurt right?”

"Here? What're you talking about? Nobody comes here. Not even ambulances."

Especially not ambulances.

Tetsuya looked over the intersection with a disbelieving look on his face. Sure, it was a wide-open area. Pretty much exactly the sort of place you'd want for flipping a vehicle that big, but... that would be an involved operation, for sure. One that definitely would've left a mark on the area here.

Right now, there was nothing of the sort. Of course, any gang worth its salt would have cleaned up most of the stuff they left behind, like whatever sort of device they'd used to turn over that ambulance. Academy City's authorities would have cleaned up the wreck itself by now, too. Unlike those smashed cars, an ambulance was too important to not care about. However, you'd still expect to see something. Tire marks on the asphalt from the vehicle trying to stop, or small crumbles of automobile safety glass that a street-sweeping machine had missed.

Instead, there was nothing to indicate that anything like that had happened here.
The boy who looked like a delinquent turned to Touko, a brief shadow of suspicion falling across his face.

"I ain't seeing anything like that over here. Either you've got your stuff all mixed up, Kamijou-san, or-"

The area was wide-open, so it wasn't quite the ideal spot for an ambush on one person. The District was deserted enough, though, that any sort of operation here could easily pass under the eye of both the minimal law enforcement that actually existed here as well as the normal citizens. Tetsuya was still a relatively big name in District 19 affairs, and a good number of individuals might want him for their own purposes. He'd just ran into one of those people a few weeks ago, and had somehow gotten out without a fight.

This girl... Her uniform wasn't from here, sure. But there were ways of getting uniforms. And with the story she'd given him, it was probably pretty predictable that he'd offer to help her out for anyone that knew him previously. And if he had to go buy clothes for someone, there was pretty much only one place he'd be going - and only a small number of routes he'd be taking there.

Was Adachi Tetsuya being set up?

As Touko was looking over the scene with puzzlement, he leaned very close into her ear and muttered a few words.

"You ain't planning anything funny, are you? If you got any pals waiting around here while you distract me, better call 'em out now."

He glanced around the intersection. It was mid-afternoon in August, and slight heat waves shimmered off the asphalt, adding to the uneasy feeling he had about this place. Dammit, she'd put him on edge now. Scanning around the two with his eyes, he spoke a few more words at low volume.

"If you've got no idea what I'm talking about... then I think we better make a break for that mall. Double-time. If you're speakin' the truth, then something really ain't right around here."

The biggest tip-off was that it was a bit too good of a clean-up job for this place. An accident like an overturned ambulance might be repaired to this level, this fast, if it had happened in one of the more central districts. No problem. Academy City could do that.
The fact that it happened in District 19, the place which by all other metrics had been totally forgotten by the Board of Directors and their administration, was what was unusual.
Maybe if they got to the mall, he could contact Shizuka or something. She might know what to do. At the very least, when he could get around other people again, he wouldn't have to worry about being jumped by some Midget gang, an Izumii, or whoever else might want his neck on their side or out of their way.

"You've got ten seconds to say stuff and suggest a plan before I start running for that mall on my own. At that point, follow me if you want. We can come back here later."
With an armed guard, hopefully.

"The projectile came from that direction."

As Aoki moved towards the location of the enemy after those words, she didn't move alone. Now that their search had ended, there was no longer any value in remaining near the ambulance. And more than that, judging from the direction Aoki was leading her, it seemed that they were standing in their path of retreat. Was that because they had been being followed, or was the enemy simply another interested party who had arrived at the scene a step too late?

Regardless of reason, however, in the end this was simply convenient. No pointless detours would be necessary. Once Aoki signaled that she had located the enemy—presumably refraining from words due to them being close enough to possibly hear—Natsumi would immediately begin moving with the other girl in tow. Concealing themselves using much the same methods as they had entered by, she would have Aoki guide her to the enemy's precise location, whereupon they would disable and retrieve him for questioning in a place more suitable than this. Whatever their intentions might be, she would ensure they got more than they bargained for.

However, a certain misjudgment of hers would end that plan before it began. Not of her enemy, but of her ally. With a swiftness and certainty of purpose she was forced to admit to herself she likely couldn't replicate, Kisaragi vanished from view, having easily passed them over and retreated into the cover of darkness. It was clear the girl had some sort of specific destination in mind, and in this circumstance she could only think of one thing it might be. Overtaken like they had been, Kisaragi would certainly reach the enemy first, and perhaps end it all by herself, even. The girl had annoyingly gone on about how she was the professional, but seeing this it didn't appear to be mere talk.

Abandoning Aoki's guidance (though motioning for her to follow), Natsumi made to follow Kisaragi's footsteps. There was no need to create a path of your own if one had already been created for you. Consequently, like Kisaragi, she had been far enough out of the way of the area of the ambulance to avoid the rain of nails. But it was with the thrown package that things grew troublesome.

Knowing what the package was wasn't necessary to understand that if it had been thrown, it was bad news. As such, she immediately hid behind the nearest cover—a vehicle—and managed to avoid the flash of light. But at the same time, she also avoided the sight of Kisaragi subduing their enemy, Hirashi—and subsequently of the two of them being assaulted by a completely different assailant.

All she would see in the end was the destruction of the aftermath and not the bodies of the two of them, already low and under cover.

What was that?! If they used their esper ability to fire the nails, then is that a weapon? Or is the other way around...? I need to know where it was fired from. If it's manned, then Aoki should be able to sense the user, and if it's remote, then there should be some electronic component. What matters is knowing the source of that attack!

Hoping that Aoki had indeed followed her as requested, Natsumi would turn to her to inquire. In a situation like this where the locations of both enemy and ally were unknown, the information her ability could provide was more crucial than anything.

"Where are Kisaragi and the enemy now? And is there any out of place machinery in the area?"

Her answers would be crucial to their success.

For someone with experience this kind of deductions may have appeared plausible. For someone, however, who had absolutely no idea of the matter it was impossible to follow in the first place. As such Kamijou Touko tilted her head in confusion when the boy leaned over to whisper into her ear, mumbling some really strange things directly taken from a cheap detective TV show.

And before she knew it, he had broken off into a sprint like a madman.

«Hey! Wait! What the hell is going on!?!?!?»

Directly followed by her who had been infected with his unpredicted panic without even understanding anything at all anymore.

…

In the end, when they had finally made it through the main entrance of said mall, Kamijou Touko was barely able to stand on her legs. She had been roughed up in the first place, not really been granted a chance to rest and had been forced to sprint like a crazy woman with zero preparation or the chance of warming herself up. Her muscles hurt, her limbs felt sore. She was entirely out of breath, urgently in need of a break.

But given her natural misfortune, asking for anything like that felt like utter lunacy.

Looking around the area that premonition seemed to be closer than she could even hope.

The mall was a strange place to say the least – somehow even for Academy City’s standards.

Its name was Mandara Mall and it was a place created with the purpose of District 6’s nature in mind. Amusement was the very core concept everything in the area followed, creating a stage for any kind of experimental facility on exactly that level. There were the weirdest kinds of facilities and this mall was one of them. Having been built on the foundation of an experiment that was aiming to see just how closely one could tie entertainment and amusement into everyday life concepts, the entire average shopping mall was crossed with the conception of an amusement park. Therefore, entertainment was everywhere. All shops had some sort of entertaining value, either through the infusion of a popular joy ride, a weird structure or some carefully embedded stimulus places within the normal. Even a normal look around would already show sights that were hardly amusing. Everything on the inside had some colourful designs, elevators were made to simulate the experience freefall towers would usually offer, escalators had become white-water rides and at the very centre of everything stood a gigantic Ferris wheel posing as an additional link between the building’s colosseum like internal structure. To round it all up, the entire exterior had been designed after a classic mandala pattern, colourful, beautiful and confusing. It was crazy to say the least.

Yes, upon her first look around the area Kamijou felt entirely exasperated. Everything was simply overwhelming to her drowsy mind.

«So…where do we go now…?»

Clearly, without a tour guide she would have been way too lost. Fortunately, there was one to cling to right by her side!