Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 10===

With the storm raging, travel by car took longer than usual. The solid crosswinds occasionally caused the tires to slip and the view ahead was obscured by all the rain. It didn’t help that the hybrid Plinius didn’t have much weight and horsepower to begin with.

“It’s this bad and the typhoon hasn’t even made landfall yet? In the end, how bad is this storm going to be?”

“Do they super not have storms like this in Europe?”

“Hmm. In the end, the closest thing is the sirocco wind that’s warmer than the cold mistral wind and carries in a ton of rain, but that’s just powerful winds from a single direction. This feels different. Also, Europe’s too big a place to talk about it all at once.”

Frenda and Kinuhata discussed the weather while changing from the bunny suits to their ordinary outfits in the small car.

Their destination was the Stadium Dome in District 7.

“Game 5 has now entered extra innings. It’s fortunate the dome means we don’t have to worry about the weather or time of day, isn’t it? Now, will it be Matsunami or Seijun? Either school could still win this one.”

Takitsubo stared blankly at nothing while listening to the commentary coming from the car navigation screen.

“Sounds like the baseball tournament is still going.”

“Which means Honey Queen is planning to drag that tournament into their dark side business,” spat Mugino.

Of course, Anti-Skill wouldn’t be able to do much even if Item sent them an anonymous warning. This deal wasn’t over guns or drugs. It was over Shokuhou Misaki. There were no laws or regulations preventing any two people from working together, so Anti-Skill would have no justification for acting.

It was approaching 7 by the time Item arrived.

They had an hour until the deal began, which didn’t give them the luxury of taking their time looking over the area and working out an attack plan. They would be lucky if they could even find the person they wanted in the large stadium. Once they did, they would have to adlib a way to stop Honey Queen from contacting Shokuhou Misaki.

Even if that meant killing one or both sides of the deal.

“You don’t need to wait around for us, so go get to a safe distance.”

“Sure. I’ll park somewhere sufficiently far from here and you can call me on my phone if you need anything.”

“Also, super take this!”

“?”

“The data on the flash drive included a prioritized list of people they wanted to silence. An AI tamer like you is super good at internet stuff, right? Can you create an anonymous burner account and super leak this list? The casino is gone, but those people still need to watch their backs.”

Mugino sighed in exasperation and opened the Plinius’s door.

She was hit by a solid wind and the blowing rain.

The official gates would require a ticket to get in, so they couldn’t use that. Instead, they descended an employee-only slope to enter the space directly below the baseball field.

They only had to run a short distance to get there, but the blowing rain had been ruthless. Frenda looked disgusted as she wrung out her short skirt like a rag.

“In the end, the bunny suit might’ve repelled the rain better than this.”

“I am never fighting in a super perverted costume like that again.”

Kinuhata removed her soaked arm sleeves and wrung them out. Fortunately, her shoulderless top repelled the water well. She didn’t even want to think about that turning see-through.

They didn’t see any guards or employees around.

But Mugino didn’t consider that lucky. Something could be up.

Takitsubo looked down at herself.

“I’m soaked.”

“Wow, Takitsubo-san. Your clothes are super see-through. And what’s with that crazy underwear!?”

“Red? In the end, why choose that with that plain track suit?”

“Anyway, did you find a more specific location than just the Stadium Dome? This place holds 50 thousand people.”

They hadn’t, so they had to split up and search.

While it was called a baseball stadium, there was more to it than just the field and the surrounding stands. There were locker rooms and showers for the teams, indoor rooms for pitching and batting practice, and then the control room for the lighting, screens, and music. There also had to be the air conditioning and giant compressors to keep the dome inflated with the power of air. A lot of guards had apparently been assigned to the deal, but just finding the deal’s exact location would be a challenge.

(We have one hour. Can the four of us really look everywhere in that time? There are 3600 seconds in 60 minutes, but there are more than 50 thousand people here. In the worst case, they could shake hands to complete their deal and then escape before we even find them.)

All of that was on Mugino’s mind as she checked around the emergency power that would kick in during a blackout.

Her phone received a call.

“Mugino.” It was Takitsubo

“Did you find them?”

“Something isn’t right on the field.”

“?”

Unsure what that meant, Mugino clicked her tongue and started in that direction. As a dark side worker, she didn’t want to get near the field because of the live TV broadcast, but was the enemy recklessly hiding among the spectators to complete their deal?

However…

“What the-?”

Mugino also noticed something wrong as she walked down the passageway to the stands.

“I don’t hear anything. No cheers and no music from the brass band.”

She frowned as she passed through the spectator gate.

As soon as she emerged, she thought she felt a drop in the air temperature. A chill crawled across her skin.

She found a silent scene.

Someone held a baseball on the mound in the center of it all.

But she didn’t wear the uniform of either team. She had long blonde hair and a flat chest. The small girl wore the sleeveless gym clothes of Tokiwadai and she had one leg up in a poor attempt at mimicking a pitching stance.

“Now, all eyes are on the first pitch. The pitcher shows great confidence as she winds up.”

She clearly didn’t belong there.

Yet no one paid her any heed. There wasn’t even a stir in the stands.

''The 50 thousand spectators, the two teams, the TV staff, and…who else was there? Regardless, everyone in the stadium stood stock still and simply accepted the oddity before them.

Shokuhou Misaki.

The Level 5 said to have the strongest psychological power.

(That…bitch.)

“And there’s the pitch☆ …Oh, it fell too soon and didn’t reach the catcher. Not that it matters. I can just erase that embarrassment from everyone’s memory ability.”

It was like a magic trick. The blonde girl suddenly had a TV remote in her hand and she twirled it like a gunman in a Western.

The small girl reached out her other hand and accepted the mic a blank-eyed female reporter was holding out as if to interview the MVP. And she winked.

“Walking around in the storm in that frilly outfit couldn’t have been fun. Umbrellas are meaningless when it’s this windy and a raincoat would only leave you sweaty. Hee hee. Which is why I used my brain ability and chose these gym clothes since I don’t care if they get wet☆”

The monster pressed the tip of the remote against her lips and winked as she turned to face Mugino.

With one on the outside and one at the center, the two Level 5s’ gazes collided.

“By the way, who exactly are you people? I have photos of the Honey Queen pair and you definitely aren’t them.”

The space around Mugino seemed under a great strain. On the remote’s signal, over ten thousand gazes pierced Mugino Shizuri all at once.

She didn’t even have time to think “oh, no”.

[[Image:Item2_BW4.jpg|thumb]]

She instead organized her thoughts, focusing on anything that would give her an advantage, no matter how small.

(You ''people''. Does that mean she’s aware of at least one of the others? Takitsubo told me something was wrong first, so she must be somewhere around here. But that means that girl might still not know about Kinuhata and Frenda!!)

“If you’re just some bugs crawling around to get in the way of our deal, no one will mind if I squash you, will they?”

With the mystery remote aimed her way, Mugino made the first move.

She fired multiple Meltdowner blasts dead ahead and jumped over the railing in the stands to rush toward the mound.

The sound from all of the speakers combined to form a single voice.

“Screeeeech!! I’ve taken control of the broadcast equipment, so don’t worry about giving away your identity! In the end, nothing that happens here is getting out!!”

(You could’ve quietly informed me using my phone! Why would you flip over one of the cards we still had hidden!?)

All Shokuhou Misaki did was giggle.

Something felt wrong to Mugino, like an invisible hand was stirring up the inside of her head.

She had launched her beams of light.

She had fired several in quick succession, but the psychological Level 5 remained un-vaporized.

(Can she use her power to remove the mental limits on using her muscles? Or…)

“''Did you mess with my mind to throw off my aim''!?”

“What do you think?☆”

The scene around Mugino changed again.

A baseball girl rushed in from the side, so Mugino knocked her down with a flat hand and then took a step to the right to dodge the metal bat swung down at her by another player. The pitchers were lined up a short distance away and they all began pitching fastballs at Mugino, so she formed a round Meltdowner shield to slice through and blow them away.

“Oh? Hee hee. Are you the type to avoid killing the poor, unfortunate ordinary people?”

Little Shokuhou spread her arms in the bright stadium lighting.

“But can you afford to do that? Take a look around you. ''How many more pawns do you think I have''? If I sent all 50 thousand spectators at you at once, their sheer numbers would crush you beyond recognition☆”

“…”

“But I don’t even need to do that.”

She stopped twirling her remote and aimed it straight ahead.

Right at Mugino Shizuri.

“You’re standing in front of me on this open baseball diamond. How exactly do you hope to escape my Mental Out?”