Katsuo and Misaka were sitting facing each other, separated by a table. Misaka had a notebook in front of her, which she was flipping through.
"First, can you give me a detailed account of the events, Misaka-san?"
"Yes. It all started two weeks ago. Some of the girls in the school felt like someone was watching them, but they weren't sure until they noticed that some of their intimate personal belongings, which were at home disappeared during the night while they were asleep. If this was an isolated incident, few people would care, but this happened to several girls, the prettier ones of the school actually, so a lot of people, including the authorities, started looking into it but no one found any traces or leads. Then, one of the girls had a mental breakdown and said that she felt the stare from the mirror and several others, who didn't say anything before because they were too afraid of being called crazy, supported her claims, which created a rumor around it."
After listening to her, Katsuo was able to form a few assumptions that only could be proven by seeing the girls in person.
"Please, guide me to those girls, Misaka-san!"
"You said that you wouldn't talk to them!!"
Said Rina who felt tricked and betrayed.
"Calm down, I just want to look at them."
Rina looked at Katsuo with suspicion, but she knew that Katsuo could find them either way, so if she went with him, she could at least keep an eye on him.
She guided Katsuo to the place she knows where one of them hangs out with her friends and they watch them from afar.
He concentrated his senses on the girl in question and after careful and polite scrutiny he sensed a little brand of CE left on an object in her possession.
"Misaka-san, I will just approach her and won't talk to her so don't make a scene"
"Eh?"
Before she could react, Katsuo, with a quick gait, approaches the girl who was talking to her friends and when he is near, he swipes his hand with a speed unseen by the untrained eye and continues walking, but this time with a new object in his possession.
"A make-up mirror."
Katsuo comments on what he's holding. As he analyses the CE mark on it more closely, he notices that the mark is slightly tilting towards one direction and undulating as he moves the mirror around but still pointing in the same direction. Soon a hypothesis forms in Katsuo's mind.
'Maybe this is pointing towards something. Its origin maybe? Like a compass?'
Soon Rina joins him and Katsuo keeps the mirror in his pocket.
"Hey, what do you do?!"
"Nothing, but I need to see the others girls to check something."
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She continued suspicious of him, but because she didn't see anything, she had no reasons to refuse him, so she continued to guide him.
Katsuo checked the others girls and some of them were in the same situation, they had an object with mirror-like properties that a "brand" of CE, and they all pointed to the same place.
With them, he triangulated the position they were pointing at and returned all the objects to the girls, except the make-up mirror and a reflective keychain, which seemed the least valuable objects to him.
"Goodbye, Misaka-san and thank you for your help."
Said Katsuo as he started leaving.
"Hey! Won't you explain what's going on, Tetsuo-kun? You know something, right?"
He stopped, hesitated for a second, and choose to not say anything.
'Most young girls with a journalistic spirit like her think that they are untouchable so they are the most likely to put themselves in danger even after they are warned. So it's better to not say anything so that her curiosity isn't stroked.'
He ignored her words, accelerated his pace, and took a turn that put him out of everyone's view and allowed him to use his strength without reservations. So, with a few leaps, he was back on the rooftops and soon next to Panda.
"So, any leads, Katsuo?"
Katsuo recounted what he found to Panda.
"And you Panda, did you see someone?"
"Some suspicious fellas walked by the school and stopped for a minute. They didn't seem dangerous so I was about to capture them when they sprinted away."
While Katsuo found their behavior very suspicious, they had more important matters at hand.
"Ok, let's report what we found while we follow the "compass"."
"Hmm~, it seems the best course of action."
They started running while Katsuo used the mirror as a compass and told Maki over the phone the essential information that she needed to understand the situation and the position he triangulated before.
After a while of parkour through the rooftops, they stop near some residential buildings, which, by the compasses response, were the place where the origin of those brands was and soon they spotted six unknown sorcerers that seemed to be gathering, and by their familiarity with each other, they probably belonged to the same organization.
Panda and Katsuo slowly approach them while concealing their presence to hear their conversation when one of the guys, that, to Katsuo, looked similar to Shikamaru Nara, seemed to have spotted their positions and alerted the others, who immediately spread over and assumed a battle formation that obviously protected the Shikamaru guy and faced our direction. Their formation had two vanguards who possessed swords, two in the middle, and one of them probably had a gun judging by the way he had his hand positioned and the Shikamaru guy and a female sorcerer by his side at the back.
Panda and Katsuo immediately hypothesized that the guy had a kind of sensory ability that detected them and hesitated for a while because of the confidence their opponents had.
The impasse continued until a female sorcerer appeared and joined their vanguard, so they stopped hesitating and decided, while the situation didn't become worse, to fight them while being ready to escape anytime, after all, they were taught to never underestimate anyone because there were some crazy people with crazy innate techniques or cursed items that could prove themselves to very dangerous even if they don't seem like much.
Katsuo recognized that if the situation was really bad, he would break his Binding Vow, which would allow him to make short work of the ones in front of him but, most likely, would have consequences in the progress he had this past year, for example, make his CE manipulation regress to the standard he had last year, but to him, his and Panda's life would always be the most important.
Katsuo carefully sensed their CE fluctuations, took his knife in a reverse grip, and lunged at them with his speed matched with Panda, with the intent to hide his supernatural physique and Panda's status as an Abrupt Mutated Cursed Corpse, which they probably don't even know what it is, and catch them off guard.
Panda and Katsuo quickly approached them, and when Katsuo was at a certain-kill distance from the two vanguard guys, he suddenly felt an invisible restraint keeping his body in place.
'Trouble.'
Katsuo immediately identified the one who put the restraint on him as one of the sorcerers in the middle and, as proof of their experience, one of the vanguard drew his sword at him and the mid-ranger took his pistol and shot him while the two others vanguard jumped at Panda.