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Saten Ruiko turned at the voice behind her, only to find the brown-haired girl staring at the parchment in her hand with sparkling eyes.
"Um... Misaka-senpai..."
"Ah, I'm sorry. It's just that this slime is incredibly cute."
Saten Ruiko nodded in wholehearted agreement. She looked at the little drawing and smiled brightly. "Well, since you've said so, I'll shamelessly accept it. And as thanks, I'll treat you to crepes! Oh, by the way, I'm Saten Ruiko! Nice to meet you!"
Kaito smiled at the introduction. "Alright. I'm Kaito, nice to meet you. And this is my companion, Shinobu Kocho." He glanced to his side. "Shinobu, say hello."
Shinobu Kocho, who had been listening closely, turned and smiled at Saten Ruiko. "I'm Shinobu Kocho. Hello, Saten."
Saten Ruiko blinked at the beautiful girl in front of her. "Huh? Oh, oh... hello, Shinobu-san."
"Hehe, Shinobu-neechan is fine."
"Then just call me Ruiko, Shinobu-neechan."
"Mm, Ruiko."
Kaito watched the two of them fall into easy conversation and couldn't help but let out a quiet sigh. The speed at which women could become friends was truly something else.
"Here you are, this is the last one."
The stall owner placed the final Gekota charm in Kaito's hand. A split second later, a thud came from somewhere behind him. Kaito looked down at the charm, then registered the sound, and a mischievous smile spread across his face - very much in the spirit of Jashin-chan.
He walked over to the brown-haired girl, who had dropped to all fours, and crouched down to dangle the charm right in front of her eyes. Her head swayed in perfect sync with it.
"Hehe, if you like it that much, I'll give it to you. You should just..."
"Can I? Really, can I?"
Before he could finish, she had already seized his hand with both of hers, staring up at him with wide, glittering eyes.
"Uh... yes."
"Thank you so much! You're such a good person!"
She snatched the charm and cradled it against her chest with a blissful expression. Then, after a moment, she noticed the three of them watching her. Her face went red.
"I - I didn't take it because I liked it. It's just that you didn't seem to want it, so I thought, I might as well... after all, frogs, who would even like amphibians..."
Kaito, fighting back laughter, pointed silently at the Gekota charm already hanging from her backpack.
"That..."
"Hahahaha!"
"Hahahaha!"
After the laughter died down, the brown-haired girl - now looking rather pleased with herself despite everything - took the lead, crepes in hand, and brought Kaito and the other two over to where Shirai Kuroko and Kazari Uiharu were waiting.
"Onee-sama? Who are these two?"
Shirai Kuroko looked at Kaito and Shinobu Kocho with a puzzled expression.
"Oh, they're new friends of Saten-san's. Super good people."
"Super good people?"
The moment those words left the brown-haired girl's mouth, Shirai Kuroko's eyes sharpened considerably, especially when they landed on Kaito.
"Hehe, hello, everyone. I'm Kaito, and this is Shinobu Kocho."
"Shirai Kuroko."
"Kazari Uiharu."
"Nice to meet you!"
Kaito caught Shirai Kuroko's look and felt a playful smile tug at his lips. Shirai Kuroko - Academy City Level 4 esper, ability: Teleportation, one of the rarer types. Her family owned Shirai Holdings, which covered convenience stores and imported supermarkets. A genuine young lady by any measure.
And yet. Written as Kuroko, read as a complete pervert.
She was absolutely devoted to her Onee-sama and had a long history of doing deeply alarming things about it. The famous internet meme [computer parts] was her doing. And yet, for all that, she had an iron-clad sense of justice and responsibility - a genuine belief she lived by. It was exactly that contradiction that made the perversion almost charming. Among the female cast of A Certain Magical Index, she was easily one of the more popular characters.
"Hehe, any friend of Ruiko's is a friend of mine."
Shinobu Kocho smiled lightly at the two girls.
"Alright! Shinobu-neechan! *2"
"..."
Time passed pleasantly enough until Kazari Uiharu glanced over her shoulder with a puzzled look. "Hm? That bank over there, it's the middle of the day, why are the security shutters down?"
The words had barely left her mouth when a violent explosion tore through the bank front.
"Boom!"
The shutters blew apart and three masked robbers came sprinting out through the wreckage.
"Oh. It's starting."
Kaito watched Shirai Kuroko, who had just inhaled two crepes in rapid succession, go racing toward the scene. He flicked his right wrist and the familiar camera materialized in his hand.
"A bank robbery in progress in front of the crepe shop in District 7. Requesting Anti-Move deployment!" Kazari Uiharu crouched beside a chair, pressing her hand to her earpiece and rattling off the details as fast as she could.
"Hurry up! If we don't move..."
Before the lead robber could finish his sentence, Shirai Kuroko was already standing in front of all three of them.
"Stop right there. I am a Judgment member. I am placing you under arrest on charges of [destruction of property and robbery in progress]!"
The three robbers stared at the girl in front of them. Then they burst out laughing. Shirai Kuroko's expression darkened.
"Listen up, little girl. If you don't get out of the way, you're going to get hurt..."
He lunged at her.
"Shinobu, what did I tell you? The biggest joke in Academy City is 'safety'!"
Shinobu Kocho had been a little skeptical when Kaito first said it. But between the traffic incident earlier and now a bank robbery, all in a single afternoon, she found herself nodding along without a word.
While the two of them chatted, Kuroko methodically put down robber after robber - all but one, who broke off and bolted sideways. That one happened to run straight past a small boy who had come along on the sightseeing trip, and grabbed him immediately.
"Perfect, come with me!"
Saten Ruiko, who had been looking around for the child, noticed that no one else was paying attention to that corner of the street. She took a breath, squared herself, and charged straight at the robber.
"Even I can definitely..."
"What do you think you're doing? Let go!"
The robber turned on her furiously as she grabbed the boy and pulled.
"No!"
He raised his foot to kick her. Then the parchment tucked in Saten Ruiko's pocket began to glow - a sudden burst of golden light - and the robber was thrown sideways by a force he couldn't see or explain.
"Wha - ah, ah, ah!"
He hit the ground hard. Scrambled up. 'Must've been some kind of superpower.' His expression hardened. "Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you."
He sprinted to a nearby car, got it running, drove a short distance, and then started to turn it around.
Saten Ruiko, who had just started breathing again, watched the car come around and felt her expression go flat.
The brown-haired girl, who had just watched the whole exchange, looked at the turning car and her face shifted into something much more serious.
"Kuroko!"
"Huh?"
"This part's mine. Sorry - I'm making my move."
Tiny electric arcs flickered and danced across her body.
One of the robbers that Shirai Kuroko had already pinned down suddenly seemed to remember something. His face went white. "Wait - I remember now. The rumor about getting arrested by Judgment - it's not the end of it. There's someone even worse, completely dark..."
While that robber was busy panicking to himself, the car in the distance had already accelerated straight toward the brown-haired girl standing in the middle of the road.
"I'll take care of all of you!"
Kaito raised his camera from the sidelines and said to Shinobu Kocho, "That girl is one of seven espers who stand at the absolute top of Academy City's 2.3 million people."
"Ranked third. [Railgun]. Misaka Mikoto - also known as Bilibili."
"Huh?"