Touma entered the apartment and found Shirai and Uiharu there along with Mikoto. The apartment was quite large, with the door opening to a large space with a few sofas surrounding a TV fixed to the wall on the immediate left. Underneath the TV was a variety of games consoles, and a few shelves holding games were put up next to the TV. They tended to play them on weekends, and frequently had game nights where they invited over friends to have a few games.
After the TV, the room opened even further into an open kitchen with a large counter separating it from the middle of the apartment. The kitchen was littered with odd looking appliances which were clearly experimental, and most people who visited had no idea what they were for. Saten had once tried to cook something using them but gave up after spending half an hour just reading the manual.
On the right were three doors, the closest one led to a large, spacious bathroom with a massive bath and a separate shower. The middle led to the spare bedroom that Index usually used when she was over and the third one led to Mikoto and Touma's bedroom.
The wall across from the door was made entirely out of glass giving the occupants an incredible view of the city from 30 stories up. In front of the wall was a table that the three girls were surrounding. Shirai and Mikoto had a map over it and Mikoto was pointing at something on it. Uiharu was at the end of the table with her laptop out and plugged into a socket on the floor. All three looked up when Touma opened the door.
"So, what's happening?" asked Touma as he walked over to the table.
"I got lucky and found someone looking at the walls once I got out. I followed them to this warehouse north of the city." she said, pointing at the map she had on the table. "There appears to be about a dozen of them there, but we don't know if they have any more people waiting in the wings or if they split up at some point and have multiple different teams. We know about a few entrances around that area, and I've already set up defences, but we just don't know what other entrances the Kiharas set up when they were at their peak. We have to assume they have a way of entering the city undetected. That's why we have Anti-skill and Judgement on high alert, as well as all cameras in the city active. Accelerator also gave us permission to release the UNDER_LINE nanomachines for some extra eyes."
"Taking no chances, huh?" Touma asked.
"This is a Kihara, Touma. If we do anything less, then we don't stand a chance."
"Will that be enough?"
"Honestly, I don't know, but I don't know what else to do. Accelerator and Mugino are busy with some Arctic business, and I can't get a hold of Kakine or Shokuhou, so I can't get help from them."
"And we're going to need help to win this fight… What about Luna?"
"We're not involving civilians. I know she's good in a fight and if she were part of Judgement or Anti-skill, then maybe, but I don't want to involve civilians, if possible, especially against a Kihara."
"Then what about her parents? They're Anti-skill and Luna said they were the ones who trained her and her siblings. If that's the case, I'm willing to bet their help would be invaluable."
Mikoto thought about it. She didn't want to involve people who could get hurt and they were up against a Kihara, meaning the number of people who could get hurt grew exponentially. The situation in Paris had been a little different, as by the time they knew they were in a fight, the entire group was knee deep in the situation. This time they could control who gets involved. And if Luna's parents were the ones who trained Luna and her siblings, then getting them involved would most likely increase their chances of success significantly.
Mikoto also knew the mother, who was a teacher at Tokiwidai, and was one of the scarier ones there. She was the only teacher who appeared to be immune to Shokuhou's ability, a fact discovered when the two level 5s were fighting in the hallway one day. The teacher had interjected and Shokuhou tried to use her ability but failed. The pair had to stay in school throughout the entire night writing essays on why they shouldn't use their abilities in school and why they should never attack teachers. A chill ran down her spine as she remembered the unpleasant memory. In terms of how scary the teachers were, Mikoto would probably rank Mrs Arikimo at number one. she was even scarier than the dorm manager, who Mikoto was still scared of despite not living in the dorms any more or having to respect curfew.
However,
"How do we know they won't just kill them?" asked Uiharu. She had been in Paris as well and had witnessed the older sister, Wendy, willing to execute a man who had already been defeated. For all she knew, the parents could be the same, despite Luna's testimony that they weren't.
"If they are as strong as we believe, they should be able to beat them without killing them. We just need to give them a good reason to keep them alive." suggested Touma.
"And that reason is?"
"Well, one, we've got the authority of board members, we can just order them not to. And two, Therestina has only been out of Academy City for a few months. How was she able to amass force large enough to be confidant in infiltrating Academy City in such a short time?"
Mikoto wasn't 100 percent convinced it would work, but she didn't have much choice at the moment.
"Fine. Do we have any reports on them? Or profiles or something? Anything to give us more information about them." Mikoto asked.
"They should have records in the data bank. I could check them if you like?" Uiharu suggested, already bringing up the data bank on her laptop.
"Yes, please. The name's Arikimo. Tell me when you get it."
Uiharu searched through the data bank and quickly found who she was looking for. There was a problem, however.
"Huh?" Uiharu exclaimed in surprise. "That's odd, what was the name again?"
"Arikimo, why?" Mikoto asked.
"There doesn't seem to be any information on them here."
Mikoto raised an eyebrow at that. There should be data on every resident of Academy City there, they had even spent a long time tracking those from the city's old 'dark side' to add to the bank.
Mikoto walked behind Uiharu and looked over her shoulder at the screen being displayed on the laptop. On the screen were three images. The first was one of Luna with her name, age and school underneath. There were a number of other fields, but they were all left blank. The other two didn't even have images. There were grey boxes saying, 'no image available' and underneath were their names; Kahaku Arikimo and Maria Arikimo, age and the schools they taught at, but once again, the other fields were left blank. Whoever this family was, they must have really valued their privacy or, more likely, they had something to hide.
Mikoto took out her phone and went to her contacts. She selected the contact named 'asshole' and called the number.
"Hey, it's me."
"What do you want, third-rate? I told you. I'm busy." Accelerator responded rudely.
"I'm looking for information on a 'Kahaku' and 'Maria' Arikimo. They have profiles in the data bank, but everything except their names, ages and schools are blank. There's not even an image of them. You're the chairperson, do you have any more info on them?"
"No, there was nothing when we were updating the bank the first time, and when we went to update that information, we were told they had an agreement with Aleister to keep their information out of the data bank. Aleister confirmed that as well."
"Damn. Okay, thanks. Any chance of you finishing in the next, I dunno, hour?" she asked almost sarcastically, knowing the answer.
"No." came the blunt reply.
"Useless asshole." she said, hanging up before he could retort. "Touma, you still have Luna's number, right?"
"Yep."
"Good. Can you contact her? See if you can find a way to meet up with her parents. Uiharu, Shirai, keep an eye on the cameras around the city and keep in contact with the sisters. They should be doing the same. I'm going to try Shokuhou again. We'll need her clique to evacuate any area this group shows up in quickly."
Mikoto went back to her contacts and tried to phone the fifth ranked level 5 again. After four or five rings, the call was answered by a female voice.
"Hello, this is Misaki Shokuhou's phone. How can I help you?"
"Hokaze? It's Misaka. Is Shokuhou there?"
"Oh, Misaka. Hello. Yes, our Queen has just got out the bath. Would you like to talk to her?"
Mikoto nearly crushed her phone.
"She what?" she asked in the voice of a demon.
"She just finished her bath." Hokaze answered innocently.
"Can you put her on please?" Mikoto requested through gritted teeth.
"Of course." Hokaze said in a cheery tone, completely oblivious to the demonic ball of rage that was about to explode on the other side of the call.
"Hello?" came the voice of the fifth ranked level 5 over the phone.
"THERE IS A DAMNED KIHARA WALTSING AROUND OUTSIDE THE CITY AND YOU'RE TAKING A FREAKING BATH?!" Mikoto screamed into the phone.
Touma, hearing his girlfriend scream at the other level 5, decided not to tell her that he had spent the last hour wandering aimlessly round the city and messing about with Luna and his friends whilst she was scouting out the enemy.
The phone went quiet for a few seconds and Mikoto looked at her scream. Shokuhou had hung up.
"That bitch!"
She phoned again and as soon as she answered,
"DON'T HANG UP ON ME MISS SHOUJO MANGA EY-! SHE HUNG UP AGAIN!"
Mikoto eventually managed to calm down enough so that Shokuhou didn't hang up immediately.
"Ah, Misaka. Finally stopped screaming?"
"Don't push it Shokuhou. I've already got enough to deal with." Mikoto warned. "With Therestina outside of the city, I need you to spread your clique to each district. Once we find them, we'll need you to evacuate that district as quickly as possible, can you do that?"
"You want a beautiful, defenceless girl like me to wander into a dangerous battlefield where she could get killed? How cold of you, Misakaaaa."
"Can you do it or not?"
"Very well. I'll send my people out right away."
"Thank you. Oh, and one more thing, if we're able to capture them, can you use your ability to find out if they're working for anyone? I don't like the fact that Therestina was able to find people this quickly."
"Oh my. Quite the slave driver, aren't you Misaka? And here I thought I was the board member here." Shokuhou teased. "But don't worry, if you manage to capture someone, I'll find out whatever information you need."
"Thank you." Mikoto replied before hanging up and sighing. She had a better relationship with the level 5 than before, but she still felt exhausted after talking to her.
She sent a quick message to her sisters before turning back to the group. Touma finished his phone call at about the same time.
"Luna said she'll get in touch with us once she's able to contact her parents, but she doesn't think they'll get involved. Apparently, they try to stay out of fights with too high a risk unless one of their children are in danger, but she wouldn't say why. She offered to help as well, but I told her to stay out of it. We can only hope she heeds that warning." explained Touma.
"Okay, well Shokuhou has agreed to help. She and her clique will keep people away from the battle, so hopefully no civilians will get hurt. If Luna does decide to get involved, hopefully they can deal with her." said Mikoto, updating the group with her information.
"We can hope."
"Big sister, a few of your sisters have already spread across the city so that they can reach the areas the intruders are spotted quickly. We should do the same. Kazari can keep us updated from here." suggested Shirai. When the group agreed, she passed out Judgement standard earpieces to everyone so they could stay in contact easily.
After making sure all the earpieces were working and after having to get a new one when Touma's short circuited in his ear, nearly taking his ear off, Mikoto, Shirai and Touma made their way outside after Mikoto made sure to fasten a small cylinder to her back. In it was a supply of iron sand that she took into battle with her to ensure she always had a weapon on her.
The trio managed to take about three steps outside the door before Uiharu's voice came over the earpieces.
"We've spotted Therestina in the middle of District 3."
The group looked at each other and Shirai grabbed on to Mikoto's arm.
"Sorry, Touma. We'll see you there." she said before teleporting through the air in the direction of District 3.
Touma looked up at the pair as they got further and further away. He could only repeat his mantra.
"Rotten Luck."
A/N Hello everyone, hope you all had a good week. Back to the serious stuff this week... mostly. I added a few more questions to Luna's parents this chapter and these will be answered, but not for quite a while. I want to build some mystery behind them, so this chapter helped with that, I think.
We've also got Shirai's first appearance in this story. I know people prefer her to use 'Onee-sama' but I want to try to keep the terminology as consistent as possible and since I started writing Toaru fanfics and this story with the official English translations of the LNs, that's what I've used here as well. She's a bit tame this chapter and will be for this arc, but that's mainly because she's in serious mode, there's no need to bring out her little character quirks right now.
Finally, Shokuhou also appeared for the first time. I'm not sure I've really got her character right this chapter, but I wanted a way to evacuate civilians from the battles quickly and with her on the board, I figured her clique would be quite a good option, so I tried to write her in.
Now, for the comments.
Stryper88: I've not really been writing much fluff so far mainly because I'm not confident in my ability to write that, but I do have an arc coming up that will be a lot more relaxed and I plan to try to write some fluff into that. I just hope it will be entertaining to read.
Blanklow: Unfortunately, I can't really answer any of that here. I do plan to explain both Touma's role and the reasons for the Formula AC, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little bit for that.
And there we have it. I hope you all have a good week and I'll be back next week with the next chapter. Bye.
Now, to listen to the OP of Tsukimichi for the 3000th time. I just can't get enough of it.