"The last sighting on the security camera was around 8 a.m., right here in this alley."
Natsume Sonoko and Maeda-senpai arrived at the mouth of the alley captured by the surveillance footage. Sonoko stared down the relatively short passageway as she spoke.
Tall buildings rose on either side, but the area beyond the alley quickly turned desolate. A few abandoned structures came into view, former properties of several research institutes, separated by fences that ran between the buildings.
Many sections of the fencing were broken, allowing easy access to the derelict interiors.
"Maeda-senpai, any luck finding a clue?" Sonoko asked, watching the upperclassman who was intently observing through her camera.
"Almost, almost. I can see roughly around 9 a.m. now. Just a little further, and I should be able to see earlier."
Maeda-senpai leaned forward slightly, camera raised, her entire focus fixed on the scene visible through her lens.
Her ability—Scene Retrospection—allowed her to peer into the past through her camera's viewfinder. She could even press the shutter to capture a photo, letting others glimpse a fragment of what she saw.
"I'm counting on you." Feeling a bit useless, Sonoko sighed and began idly examining their surroundings.
'So desolate... Hard to believe a place like this exists in School District 7. I heard this used to be a heavily protected research facility.'
Having spent time in a research institute herself, Sonoko was well aware of how strict their security measures could be.
'This area must have housed four or five institutes at least. To cause this level of destruction and completely overwhelm their security, the perpetrator would need destructive power on par with a Level 5.'
Though it was unclear if the initial chaos was even caused by an esper.
Crunching over scattered concrete fragments, Sonoko crouched down and picked up a piece of debris. Moss clung thickly to the concrete, a clear sign no one had been here for a while.
"Special Mineral Research Agency? So this is where they studied that meteorite."
Sonoko read the faded lettering on a building and suddenly remembered something.
Back in elementary school, she'd heard a rumor: a meteorite the size of a washbasin had fallen in northern Japan.
Later, for some reason, it was shipped to Academy City for research, leading to the establishment of this very institute.
The most popular gossip claimed the meteorite was etched with mysterious patterns, possibly of alien origin.
Of course, Sonoko didn't put much stock in such tales. Besides, if this place had suffered devastation on the scale she was seeing, that meteorite was probably long destroyed.
"Natsume, come quick! I think I see something!" Maeda-senpai's voice called out, snapping Sonoko from her thoughts. She hastily dropped the debris and hurried over.
"Did you find my bicycle?" Sonoko asked immediately, her concern for the bike evident.
"Found it, found it! Both wheels are rolling, but the pedals aren't moving. That's strange, Natsume-chan," said Maeda Kana, her voice growing excited. Since the event was relatively recent, the images she saw were still quite clear.
'Using a camera to see the past... A time-related ability like that really is just cheating.'
Utterly unscientific, yet one of the scientific marvels born in Academy City.
To be honest, Sonoko was fascinated by how other espers' thought processes worked.
Different abilities led to vastly different Personal Realities. The gap in how people thought could be wider than the gap between humans and dogs.
Sonoko simply couldn't fathom what kind of calculation formula Maeda-senpai needed to develop to make a camera capture past images.
She also racked her brains trying to understand abilities like Shirai-san's, which involved moving through the eleventh dimension for teleportation.
'What even is the eleventh dimension? How do you go from the third dimension to the eleventh and back again?'
It was probably the same way espers from different disciplines couldn't understand how Sonoko controlled temperature with her mind.
Where did the heat go when she cooled things down?
Where did the heat come from when she warmed things up?
Were the laws of thermodynamics being broken?
How could pyrokinesis users just conjure fireballs out of thin air?
'Too confusing. If it's troublesome, don't think about it.'
Quietly shoving the pesky questions from her mind, Sonoko focused on her main task: finding the bicycle. Maeda-senpai was already quite far ahead.
Jogging a few steps to catch up, Sonoko stared curiously at the camera in the senior's hands. Even though she was right beside her, Sonoko couldn't shake the feeling she was just extra baggage.
"Maeda-senpai, how's it looking now?" Sonoko suddenly felt like she was tracking a bicycle that had gone rogue hours earlier.
The whole thing felt a bit like the proverb of marking the boat to find the lost sword.
"Still moving, but it's slowing down. Hurry up! It's heading inside one of the buildings." Still holding the camera to her face, Maeda-senpai stepped effortlessly over a protruding rock on the ground and entered the abandoned research institute, seemingly without needing to watch her step.
'Looks like the abandoned building at 8 a.m. isn't much different from now. If the path was this tricky back then, Senpai would've tripped already.'
Crushing a piece of rubble caked in mud, Sonoko hopped through a large gap in a wall into a very old, dilapidated hall.
"The bicycle stopped. Right here." As soon as Maeda-senpai spoke, she pointed to the spot directly at Sonoko's feet.
Even though it had happened six hours ago, a wave of unreasonable flustered panic hit Sonoko. She hurriedly scrambled back several steps.
Pulling a bit of moisture from the ground, she formed several icicles hanging from the ceiling and set up icy barriers over the broken windows. Only then did she feel slightly safer.
"What happened next?" Sonoko asked, her breath seeming a little tight.
"Then two people showed up. They looked your bicycle over carefully. Can't tell what they're saying, but their expressions look pretty pleased. Oh, they're checking their phones now, probably confirming the bike's price."
Maeda-senpai pressed the shutter, capturing a photo. Sometimes she thought about learning lip reading, but for now, it remained just a thought.
She handed the developed photo to Sonoko. It was a bit blurry, but the faces of the two individuals were still distinguishable.
"If you'd come to me tomorrow, I probably couldn't have made out their faces clearly. The longer the time gap, the fainter the images I see. I was hoping for something more mysterious, but it seems it's just a simple theft case."
Maeda-senpai spoke as she re-hung the camera around her neck, sounding a little disappointed that the 'mystery' was solved so quickly and mundanely.
Even though it was just a single, seemingly insignificant photo, Sonoko deployed her ultimate technique: she glared fiercely at the two figures in the picture.
"As for the case of the self-rolling bicycle, my guess is one of them has a magnetism-related ability. They could control the bicycle from a distance, maybe even release the wheel lock without a fingerprint scan. The other person is likely their accomplice, handling lookout and selling the stolen goods."
Maeda-senpai rested her chin on her hand thoughtfully. With her beret, she looked quite the part of a famous detective.
Sonoko found herself staring for a moment, almost seeing Sherlock Holmes himself.
Just finding the culprits behind her bicycle's mysterious joyride was enough to satisfy Sonoko.
Maeda-senpai had also expended considerable effort; this less-than-ten-minute investigation had used up nearly half her stamina.
"There are indeed quite a few small-time gangs and hoodlums around here. It's probably their handiwork. But... what's with the surroundings? Where did these icicles come from?" Maeda-senpai pointed somewhat bewilderedly at the icicles on the ceiling, addressing Sonoko.
"Don't worry about the details," Sonoko said dismissively.
After looking around the area near the abandoned research building and finding no trace of anyone, it seemed the bike thieves had long since left.
The idea of waiting here for them to return flitted through Sonoko's mind but was quickly dismissed. There was no guarantee their hideout was even nearby.
For now, the best course of action was to hand the photo over to the Judgment officers and the Anti-Skill teachers.
--+--
T/N: Increasing the # of chaps to 3 per day.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.