Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Biohacker Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

Shorts Girl Mitsuari Ayu softly exhaled.

If she hurried onward, she would get sliced by the poisonous wires, but if she was too slow, the Gatling gun girl would catch up from behind. So what was she to do? The fluffy-haired girl used her experience with life-risking catfights to reach the following conclusion:

She had to find some way to stop the Gatling gun girl. 

Then she could carefully search out the way ahead without losing her life.

“…”

The most nerve-racking moment had been when she threw the stick to heighten the illusion for the other girl. She had known the girl would fire wildly, so she could have been hit by pure chance. That would have torn off an entire limb.

Once it was over and she could relax some, tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

It was too soon to collapse quite yet. She had to remain focused.

“Phew.”

Only after wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her hand did she realize how improper that was.

(But breaking the school rules pays off sometimes. I’m so glad I had that ice cream in my bag.)

Her gym clothes left her shoulders bare, so she only had to hold that drinkable ice cream pack in her armpit to quickly melt it. By squeezing the sticky sweetness on the end of the stick and on various leaves, the difference from the poison would be too subtle to detect with the naked eye.

It also helped that the other girl was already feeling itchy from the bug bites.

She was caught in a horrible situation, but she could only count herself lucky today. Otherwise, she felt like her spirit would break and she would come to a stop.

“Agh, itchy, itchy, itchy.”

She had also fallen victim to the bugs targeting soft maiden skin.

Her bra’s hook had apparently shifted a bit out of place and her shoulder blade had been bitten through the thin fabric of her gym shirt. She arched her back and reached back with both hands, but she could not quite reach the itchy spot. She realized just how bad an idea it was to run through the midsummer woods with your shoulders and thighs bared.

But she had to remember that the tiny army of bugs had helped bring the Gatling gun girl to a stop. That girl was panicking and throwing a noisy, tearful fit, so now was the time. Mitsuari quietly left that area and aimed her phone’s enhanced camera around to check for wires as she made her way out of the woods.

The Gatling gun was certainly frightening, but so were the drones.

Not only were the wires and poison dangerous, but the drones themselves had cameras. If her location was discovered, the Gatling gun girl might regain her cool.

The Gatling gun could easily destroy a target from a straight-line distance of 2 or 3 kilometers.

That was too far to escape on foot, so the best course of action was to get as far away as possible without being discovered.

“Ah.”

She managed to break free of the bushes.

She found herself in what looked like a faculty parking lot.

She pulled some chilled tea from her refrigerated bag, took a sip, and sighed.

She had noticed some difficulty in walking, so she looked down and removed the pebbles caught in the grooves of her indoor slippers’ rubber soles while she thought.

This space was surprisingly peaceful given the deafening roar of the Gatling gun from earlier. That may have been a downside to being a prestigious esper powers development school. People would assume those destructive sounds were part of some Curriculum or another. The assumption that intruders were not possible did not help matters.

She was still in her indoor slippers and she had left her school bag, textbooks, and uniform back at the school.

Now that the chaos had temporarily passed, she felt a little embarrassed. Still, heading back now would be beyond suicide. She had to consider herself as fortunate for having the bag containing her credit card and her phone which could handle e-transactions.

(Ugh. My face is…fine. At least I don’t see any bug bites there.)

She viewed her face in the side mirror of a nearby parked car and performed a quick once-over of her appearance. Now that she had avoided the worst possibility, she had time to think about the smaller problems. It was a stereotypical technique used in business deals to guide people’s thoughts.

Just as she breathed a sigh of relief, she heard a dry gunshot and the window of the car door shattered right next to her.

She shrieked and crouched down as another gunshot rang out. This did not seem to be the Gatling gun. The entire car would have blown up if it was. This sound was as light as the starting pistol for a race, so she guessed it was some kind of handgun.

Not that that was any reason to relax.

Bullets were bullets and she was not wearing those tough bulletproof jackets that Anti-Skill wore. She would be killed instantly in those thin gym clothes.

When she pressed her back against the car door, she felt the soft pressure on the bug bite to her shoulder blade. An odd “hahoo!” of air escaped her mouth. It may have been an instinctual response to preserve her mental stability by forcing her to focus on that slight pleasure signal.

It could not accomplish much, however.

Her heart had been jackhammering in her chest for a while.

(Wh-what?)

“There’s more than just the Gatling gun and the drones!?”

Riku Onee-chan.

She belatedly recalled how the one girl had included a qualifying name to the “Onee-chan” title. That meant she had to have more than just the one older sister.

Someone was approaching from the other side of the parked car.

That person was intermittently firing while walking straight toward her. She could not raise her head, but if she stayed put, this assailant would circle around the car.

But she was in luck: this enemy had made a physical appearance.

They were firing a handgun, but that was far weaker than the Gatling gun from before.

“…”

Mitsuari Ayu gripped her phone tight.

Mental Stinger.

She did not know who this was or what kind of power they had, but if she could take control of them before they used that power, she could overcome this threat.

As long as they stood here themselves, her power could work on them.

She remained crouched with her back pressed against the car while she slid to the side. Her gym shirt was caught between her body and the metal door, so it pulled up to reveal her navel. She moved forward, toward the hood. She got down on all fours, pressed her soft cheek against the ground, and nearly jerked her head back up from the heat, but once she did peek down below the car, she saw bare legs and feet in expensive-looking sandals.

She had never tried using her power when she could only see the target’s legs, so she did not know if it would work.

She would much prefer to aim the external camera lens at their face or head.

That would make it a sure thing.

“Phew…”

She slowly let out a breath and held the phone to her chest.

She waited until the time was right.

This was just the one opponent. They had no allies to cover for them while they swapped magazines, so there would be a slight opening there.

Now was her only chance.

“!!”

She gathered strength in her legs and hips to spring up. She leaned out over the hood and held out her phone’s enhanced camera.

A blonde head showed a look of slight surprise while its owner froze in the middle of loading the first bullet.

“Die, bitch!! Mental Stinger!!”

''Gweeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!???

An odd sound filled the air.

No, it may not have actually been a vibration of the air picked up by her eardrums.

“Wha-?”

Her power had been deflected?

No, that was not it. She found it hard to believe, but could it be?

“Oh, my.”

The attacker was a girl with long and obviously bleached blonde hair worn up in the back. She may have been Mitsuari’s age or a little older. Regardless, there was a thin smile on the lips of that ''girl in a dress'' that shined gaudily with spangles.

“Hm, that was unexpected. I knew it was theorized that similar powers would interfere with each other, but we may just have proven it.”

“No way…”

Come to think of it, the Gatling gun girl had hidden in the bushes as soon as the phone was aimed her way. And the drone pilot had chosen not to make a physical appearance at all.

They had both taken different countermeasures against Mental Stinger.

So this girl in a dress, whose blonde hair was worn up to accentuate her bright nape, never would have walked right up to her without any sort of plan.

“On the other hand, I doubt even my Measure Heart would have stood a chance against the rumored Mental Out.”

“…”

“It’s lucky we had a more manageable target like you. It’s important to know your limits.”

With a metallic gashunk, the handgun’s slide returned to its proper position and the initial bullet was loaded.

“Crap!!”

Mitsuari let off several camera flashes before the gun could be aimed her way. A few dry gunshots rang out in response, but they were poorly aimed thanks to the bright flashes. Or had the other girl fired while rushing behind cover because she was afraid of having a photo taken in the middle of a crime? Either way, Mitsuari Ayu used that chance to climb the faculty parking lot’s fence and drop down on the other side while ignoring the tug on her shorts when they caught on a piece sticking out from the fence.

This was not over yet.

The nightmare produced by this trio of hunters was far from over!!