Chapter 14: Interlude Two
The car's engine could not keep up with the speed at which its driver was trying to get there. The man, who did not even bother to adjust his crooked glasses, had hurriedly escaped from the research center. Even his lab coat, which was stained with a few drops of his own blood, was disarranged and slightly torn.
But how could he expect anything else from someone who had betrayed and stolen from his superiors? His only objective at the moment was to arrive at the agreed place that very night.
His name was Mitsuo Kagurazaka. He had participated in what might be Academy City's biggest experiment to date. What was the project? It was easy to describe, though not so easy to accomplish.
After all, creating over twenty thousand Ability Users from the DNA of one of the most powerful Level 5s in Academy City was not only complicated but also tremendously expensive. And all for what? For a maniacal white-haired monster to kill them to become more powerful. It was like accumulating experience by killing low-level monsters to raise the hero's power.
Mitsuo considered it a tremendous waste of potential. If only the Radio Noise Project hadn't been considered a failure...
That same night of May 11th, one of the clones, Sister number 9982, was born. At that moment, he had in his pocket all the information that had made it possible to create the clones, carefully stored in a flash drive, as well as a test tube with samples that were still useful.
All he had to do was get to the abandoned factory where the other research team was. A team that planned to perfect the clones of the failed Radio Noise Project on their own. While he had his doubts that they could pull it off, for him it was preferable to take the risk (and the money) rather than let the clones go to waste on something that, in his eyes, was unnecessary.
Create the first Level 6... Ha! What for? Why give that maniac more power? Damn... So much money is being wasted on such a stupid project.
Now that I think about it... who is supposed to be investing money in this? From the advance paid they gave me, you can tell they really do have lots of funds to spare...
Who the hell, in all of Academy City, is investing money in research something that has already failed in the past?
"Bah... What am I worried about? At least I'll have enough money to live well for a long time. And, if all this really works out, there will be no reprisals against me for making the lab a resounding success—"
FSSSSHT! KABLAM!
A beam of green light, like a huge laser, had just cut his vehicle in two.
The car—or, rather, the two halves of the vehicle—went several more meters before finally coming to an abrupt halt. Countless orange sparks flew from the area where the metal of the car scraped against the pavement.
Mitsuo was holding tightly to the steering wheel, his forehead bleeding. The sudden attack, accompanied by the violent jolt of the vehicle, had caused him to hit his head against the wheel.
When his vision finally stopped blurring, he spotted a pair of figures in front of him, emerging from a giant smoking hole in the wall of a building.
The first, a rather tall girl with a curvaceous body, had her right hand pointed in his direction. From it came a faint greenish glow, the same shade as the laser that had cut his vehicle in two.
The second girl, with short black hair and a tired look, came out behind the first. She said absolutely nothing, but from the lack of flinch on her part, Mitsuo deduced that she was with who appeared to be her attacker.
"Well, well, well. So here we have the mouse that was trying to run away", said the first girl, looking at Mitsuo while giving him a smile he didn't like at all. "I think a couple of centimeters to the left would have been enough to cut you in two, don't you think?"
"W-who are you?! You could have killed me!" shouted Mitsuo, trying to loosen his seat belt. However, the sudden crash had caused the seat belt system to lock, holding him in place.
"Who are we? Hmm... How would you answer that, Takitsubo?"
Mitsuo deduced that she was addressing the short-haired girl, though she merely remained silent. However, a third, slightly higher-pitched voice made itself heard from the still-smoking hole in the wall, accompanied by the sound of low-heeled footsteps.
"I know the answer, Mugino! We are ITEM!"
The girl who had spoken was of short stature and slim build, with wavy blonde hair that fell elegantly over her shoulders. On her head she wore a navy blue beret, matching the rest of her clothes.
"I-ITEM?!" exclaimed Mitsuo, feeling his heart skip a beat and his guts twist. He had heard that name several times before. The laboratory where he worked had hired that organization on other occasions, mainly to stop potential dangers to their research.
Of course, stealing samples was listed among those potential hazards.
A slight click indicated that his belt had finally given way. Fondling the pocket of his lab coat, he breathed a slight sigh of relief after noticing the sample was still there.
However, behind his back, he felt a strong grip. Two arms, quite thin, held him with such force that he could almost hear his glenohumeral joints creaking under the pressure. Terrified and in pain, feeling cornered, he looked back, trying to see the face of the one who was pinning him down. The face was covered by the hood of an orange short-sleeved sweatshirt, although he could recognize quite feminine facial features.
S-seriously?! Are these girls the mighty ITEM organization?! But they're just brats!, he thought, struggling with the grip.
"Come on, come on, stop moving like that. This won't hurt if you give us that sample," said the girl with the beret. From her accent, she seemed to be a foreigner. European, maybe? Or American?
"We won't need to convince him, Frenda. This will be quick," said the tall girl, Mugino. "Kinuhata, let him go."
"Super-yes, Mugino," replied the girl in the sweatshirt, letting go of Mitsuo and jumping to the side, away from him. He sighed in relief, but...
His relief would be short-lived.
A greenish glow illuminated the night again, piercing him from side to side. From his left shoulder to his right side, Mugino's laser cut him in two.
By the time his body, now split into two bloody pieces, with fragments of organs hanging out, fell to the ground, all trace of life had left Mitsuo's face.
"Ah, wow. Looks like we...super-failed?" said Kinuhata, looking at the flash drive, which was partially scorched, and the broken test tube, the contents of which were spilling out onto the pavement. It seems that the pocket of Mitsuo's lab coat had been hit by Mugino's lethal power, destroying the samples.
"Well, at least it didn't fall into the wrong hands, don't you think? We accomplished our main objective, which was to stop the thief."
"Mugino!" Frenda, the girl with the beret, shouted. "You almost cut me in half too! Give me more time to get out of the way!"
"Hahahaha! Well, next time I'll consider letting you know."
"'You will consider'?!" Frenda shrieked, as they walked away from the scene, returning to the lab to report the outcome of their mission.
As the group of girls walked away, a silhouette stood hidden behind a wall. His long black hair was drenched in sweat, and his heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would give away his position at any moment.
G-G-God... now they're sending hitmen to wipe out anyone who betrays them? The scientists in this city are crazy..., he thought. Once the sound of sneakers and heels had stopped, he waited a few moments before peeking around the corner.
The dim moonlight illuminated Mitsuo Kagurazaka's divided body, reflecting off the blood splattered on the asphalt and the organs peeking out of the cavity that had been left when he was cut. Inevitably, the black-haired young man retched loudly, expelling the entire contents of his stomach onto the ground.
As best as he could, he approached the corpse, inspecting with unimaginable revulsion the pockets of the lab coat and pants.
Shit... it was all destroyed!, he thought again, remembering the conversation between the girls as they were leaving the scene.
Rising to his feet, he approached the wreckage of the vehicle. He inspected all the seats, the glove box, and even the cup holder. There was nothing. The only thing he found that was worth anything was a paper envelope, in which there were only some empty test tubes and a laminated card. It was all the money Mitsuo was paid for the samples... Well, given the results of the mission, it was only fair to recoup the investment. Pocketing the card in his pants, and with the test tubes still in his hand, a horrible noise sent a shiver down his spine.
A laugh. Long, icy, irregular, maniacal. It came from an alley, a couple of blocks from where he was standing. The laughter was followed by gunshots. Two... No, maybe four. Straining his ears, he tried to detect something else.
Nothing. As soon as that strange combination of noises had begun, the night returned to its usual calm.
What the hell was that?
There was nothing more he could retrieve from Mitsuo, so he moved away from there as fast as he could, in the direction from which the commotion had come. Besides, the steely stench of fresh blood was beginning to make him dizzy. It was fortunate that the streets were desolate thanks to the curfew.
He was quickly approaching the alley from where he was sure the shooting had occurred. He might not have any special skills or powers, but his sense of hearing was quite acute, as he constantly had to run from Judgment members, as well as the other Skill-Out gangs.
It was poorly lit, but he could recognize a figure leaning in a corner. Its slender limbs, twisted at odd angles, made him swallow saliva nervously. The lack of reaction from that figure, along with the steely stench that was intensifying again, indicated to him in a not-so-subtle way that he was facing a corpse... for the second time in one night.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, turned on its flashlight, and the light finally gave him a clearer view of the situation.
It was indeed a lifeless body. A girl, about fourteen years old. She was wearing the Tokiwadai uniform, stained with blood. On her face, she wore night vision goggles, with one of the lenses broken by what appeared to be a bullet hole.
Is this a... Sister?, he thought. For a millisecond he thought it would be Tokiwadai's Railgun, whose appearance was well-known to many. But it was inconceivable that she would wander the streets alone during curfew, let alone be killed with only four gunshots.
Normally, someone like him—no powers, no talent, and completely alienated from the scientific community since he was discarded for being a Level 0—shouldn't even know what the Sisters were. But then again, thanks to the alliance his Skill-Out gang had made with a group of scientists, they had access to lots of information. After all, even if they were just the pawns in a war of labs stealing from each other, they should have known the utmost importance of what they were to obtain.
And even with all that, he didn't fully understand the science behind cloning. He only knew that it required some DNA from the creature they wanted to clone, but now that Mitsuo had been destroyed along with the samples he had stolen, the entire alliance between the scientists and Skill-Out was in jeopardy.
All because of a DNA sample... A sample that had been lost... Lost?
Right... Maybe he could...
He brought his free hand close to the girl's limp head. It was still possible to feel some warmth. He wondered if doing that would be right, but it was not the time for cheap moralizing...
He plucked a lock of the girl's hair, making sure his bare hand touched nothing but the portion he had taken. His heart was pounding violently, though he didn't have time to wonder again if desecrating a corpse was okay. He heard footsteps, a group of about ten...no, twenty people. They didn't sound like Anti-Skill boots but like school loafers. However, he wasn't going to risk being seen at the scene of a crime, and not just any crime, but a murder.
He turned on his heel and ran in the opposite direction of the footsteps. Mitsuo had failed in his mission, but at least he had recovered a useful DNA sample.
Because clones are genetically identical to the original...right?
As he walked away from the scene, disappearing down an alley, the source of the footsteps came to where the Sister's body lay. Twenty girls, around fourteen years of age, stared at the corpse with expressions as lifeless as the blood-stained girl.
But that insensitivity was not the most striking thing about the group, but the fact that they all looked exactly alike. Moreover, they were the spitting image of the corpse, with their Tokiwadai uniforms, their short hair combed with no differences between them and their night vision goggles.
"It's time to perform the assigned cleanup, says MISAKA, requesting MISAKA to help her cover her sister's corpse with the bag."
She had a very peculiar way of speaking. Anyone listening to her would have a hard time knowing whether she was serious or not. After all, who would speak in the third person, narrating their own actions, and with such an impassive tone of voice?
"Affirmative, MISAKA replies, as he begins to open the body bag."
Another of the girls replied, in a voice identical to the first. She approached the corpse that looked so much like her, opening the zipper of a rather large black bag.
In a matter of minutes, there would be no trace left in the alley of what had happened.
Even the assassin must have been kilometers away from the area by now, advancing like a white, impassive shadow.
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