After glancing at the building directory, Torahachi Toumi shrugged, immediately turned the wheelchair around, and rushed back to the elevator. The two of them rode it straight to the top floor.
"As expected, everyone involved in the Dark May Project was down in the basement just now," Kobayashi said as they walked through the empty corridor. "Looks like the next steps will go smoothly."
The server room was a restricted area, its doors tightly locked.
But with her rapier, Torahachi Toumi pierced the lock full of holes within seconds, then kicked the door open with a single blow.
The company's servers were all housed inside this room. Racks of equipment filled the space, each device blinking with small emerald-green indicator lights.
"So, what do we do next?" Torahachi Toumi asked, turning back.
"What do we do…" Kobayashi hesitated.
In his previous life, he had worked at legitimate companies, but as an ordinary computer user, he'd rarely ever seen a server room, let alone understood backend systems. He wasn't even certain whether this place truly stored the research data for the Dark May Project.
For that matter, if he were actually skilled in networking, he wouldn't have gone to all this trouble—he could've just destroyed the data remotely.
"In any case, let's just destroy everything here," Kobayashi said, activating his telekinesis and toppling a server rack.
"Got it." Torahachi Toumi made a light leap and entered the room.
Slash, slash, slash—
The pale-yellow ribbons forming her rapier blurred into afterimages as she thrust again and again. Without entering "bullet time," Kobayashi couldn't even tell how many strikes she made in a single second.
All he could see was that every machine in the room—anything remotely box-shaped—was pierced through multiple times.
Sparks flew. Electricity crackled. Small explosions sounded intermittently.
"Is this enough?" Toumi asked when she finished.
She moved with terrifying efficiency, like a machine designed solely for destruction. Before Kobayashi could even react, the main equipment in the room was already wrecked. As she spoke, she was still checking for any smaller devices she might have missed, finishing them off.
"That should be fine… probably," Kobayashi said. He wasn't entirely sure, but looking at the devastation, he couldn't see anything else worth nitpicking.
"There's an archive room next door. Should we destroy that, too?" she asked.
"Of course," Kobayashi replied without hesitation.
Thanks to their rampage, alarms throughout the building had already been triggered, shrieking loudly. But before the Security Department could arrive, no one would be stopping them.
Ignoring the alarms, the two headed to the nearby archive room.
After opening the door with familiar ease, they saw rows upon rows of movable shelves, like a library, packed with uniformly sized folders and document bags.
"Mostly paper documents," Torahachi Toumi said, pulling a few out. "These aren't something I can destroy just by poking holes."
"Then we'll have to burn them," Kobayashi said.
"I don't have matches or a lighter," she said, checking her pockets before glancing back. "Want to borrow some fire from the server room?"
Inside the server room, the short-circuited equipment was still throwing sparks, flames already growing.
"No need to make it complicated." Kobayashi shook his head, suddenly standing up and pushing his wheelchair into the archive room.
Then he flipped it over, exposing the underside.
"That's the lithium battery pack," he said to the girl beside him. "Pierce it—careful, and don't get close."
Torahachi snorted, pulled two steel needles from her belt, and flicked them forward.
Indeed, Kobayashi's wheelchair was electric—though he'd never actually used the motorized function. Operating it required finger control on the armrest panel and joystick, which wasn't exactly friendly for someone with both hands broken.
He could've used telekinesis to manipulate the controls, but honestly, it was far simpler to just push the wheelchair directly with his mind.
"Didn't expect it to come in handy like this," Kobayashi said, nodding in satisfaction as the pierced battery pack exploded into flames.
He used telekinesis to grab a stack of document bags and tossed them onto the fire, spreading it further. Once the blaze was established, he calmly retreated into the hallway.
"All done," Tora-hachi said, casually destroying a barrel-shaped firefighting robot that had arrived on the scene. "Shall we go?"
"You head back first," Kobayashi said, leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on the fire raging inside the archive room. "Be careful not to be seen by the Security Department."
"Kobayashi, what are you talking about?"
"It's nothing," he replied. "I need to stay here and watch the fire—make sure all the data is destroyed, and also make sure the flames don't spread and burn down the whole building…"
The archive room was equipped with an automatic fire suppression system, but Kobayashi had sealed every extinguisher nozzle with his telekinesis.
If he left, the fire might be put out very quickly.
Besides, throughout today's operation, Kobayashi had deliberately avoided exposing the name "Torahachi Toumi." Unless someone dug up surveillance footage, it would be difficult to prove she was his accomplice.
—Blonde girls weren't exactly rare in Academy City.
In the end, she'd only come to help. If someone had to take responsibility and be sent to a juvenile correction facility, having one "main culprit" was enough. There was no need to drag another person down.
"You don't even have a wheelchair anymore. What are you going to do if I'm not here?" Torahachi demanded, clearly unwilling to leave him behind.
Kobayashi thought for a moment, then said, "In that case, help me with one more thing. I really can't leave here right now—go downstairs and bring Yomikawa sensei here. Remember, keep it low-key. Don't alert any other guards. Only call her up."
This time, Torahachi didn't refuse. Instead, she nodded firmly. "I understand. Yomikawa sensei will definitely help us!"
Kobayashi smiled faintly. Based on what he knew of Yomikawa Aiho from the original story, she was someone who embodied the justice of the Security Department and would never compromise with criminal acts.
Given that he'd committed both murder and arson, it would be strange if he were forgiven or protected.
As for his own fate—
Kobayashi had already prepared himself long ago.
(End of Chapter)
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