Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 2===

“Typhoon 11 is traveling north in the Pacific. Make sure you already have a plan before it makes landfall. Bring inside any bikes, potted plants, or anything else that could blow away in the wind. If you live in an expected flood zone, there are measures anyone can take, such as stacking sandbags around the building in advance.”

The warning news displayed on the side of the blimp was a bit more insistent than before.

But Mugino wasn’t interested in that as she walked along the sidewalk.

“Is that any good?” asked Mugino, sounding skeptical.

“In the end, it tastes just like a Starzucks iced café mocha with extra whipped cream. But it’s 0 Calories no matter how much you drink and it can also reproduce the seasonal drinks you can’t actually get anymore. Like the Christmas strawberry milk iced latte or the autumn maple quadruple mixed cream coffee.”

Frenda Seivelun removed her lips from the end of the virtual drink’s thick straw to speak.

“In the end, is defending ourselves our main motivation for this job?”

“That and the basic reward for defeating Honey Queen.”

“The basic one? I know you better than to think that’s enough for you to go to all this effort. In the end, there has to be reason you’re out in this sweltering heat with a typhoon approaching when you could just have our support organization do all the investigation. Out with it already!”

“Fine, there is another reason, but it only applies to me.”

Mugino pouted her lips while passing a drum-shaped cleaning robot that was struggling against the powerful wind.

“I don’t actually know how the adults are using Meltdowner or what other research it ties into. I would love to get a peek at that by pursuing this mission. But that doesn’t do the rest of you any good.”

“It doesn’t have to! You’re saying we’re approaching some kind of deep secrets about you, right? That’s great! I say that’s worth risking my life for!!”

Frenda was invading Mugino’s personal space a little too much, so Mugino grabbed her with a hand and pushed her away.

Thick, dark clouds covered the sky above.

The latest news said the typhoon was definitely headed this way. The trees alongside the road were rustling in a crosswind and it finally started to sprinkle.

“Mugino, Mugino. In the end, let’s stop by the convenience store.”

“He’s just some thug from the support organization. Are you seriously going to bring him a gift?”

“Yes, but I was more thinking about buying an umbrella.”

Frenda could make friends with anyone, so it was just like her to not deny her intentions.

She purchased a cheap plastic umbrella and a box of somewhat expensive-looking Belgian chocolates. Mugino didn’t normally pay much attention to it, but apparently some convenience stores sold a decent number of gift products.

“Really? It’s not Valentine’s.”

“I really don’t think many girls these days actually make their own heart-shaped chocolates in preparation for February 14. In the end, you have to remember that the support organization’s delinquents aren’t known for having brains. They’ll rejoice like a puppy if they receive candy from a lovely girl, no matter the time of year. But anyway, Mugino, let’s share this umbrella☆”

A powerful gust of wind turned the umbrella inside-out and carried it off into the heavens. The wind turbines were rapidly rotating and producing an unpleasant noise from the intense friction.

The solid blasts of wind continued to pummel them until they arrived at the hospital.

However, this was nothing like the general hospital that served District 3.

“In the end, I can’t believe Honey Queen let our driver live. They should know even a simple pawn will turn against them once he wakes up.”

“Either they seriously underestimate us, or it’s some kind of trap. Be on the lookout for anyone tailing us.”

That aside, knowing what was wrong with the driver was their first step toward striking back. Ainame Caroline had remotely done something to the delinquent’s brain, instantly knocking him out and causing the 4-wheel-drive truck to crash. They really did want to find out what that something was as soon as possible.

Mugino and Frenda entered a cheap short-term apartment building and took the elevator up to the roof. There they found a transport helicopter with two special coaxial rotors, one in the front and one in the rear. The main fuselage was more than 15m long and it was around 30m all the way out to the tips of the rotors. The helicopter was only a few meters wide, so its max capacity was around 50 people, meaning it contained about the same space as a classroom or two. It may have used the more complex structure of coaxial rotors because the design had borrowed from delivery drones.

However, most of the space inside was taken up by medical equipment, an air purifier to eliminate all dust from the air, and various scanning equipment, so it only had enough space left over for a single bed.

The “hospital” Mugino and Frenda were visiting was in fact a high-end medical helicopter created by modifying a transport helicopter. Simple procedures like stitching up wounds could be done in flight. When landed, it could provide plastic surgery to change one’s face or fingerprints or even delicate brain surgery. But a normal hospital would not need the ability to scatter chaff or flares to escape an attacker’s missiles.

“Every time I come here, this feels too nice for a black market doctor’s stronghold. When a villain is shot in the arm or leg, the most they should manage is to rush to a sketchy animal hospital or to a factory breakroom with a special first aid kit inside. In the end, why don’t the Six Wings attack helicopters rush in whenever this thing takes flight without permission?”

“Altering the air traffic control data is apparently part of the business model. Really, she swoops in to save the lives of anyone useful or with useful associates so she can earn their thanks and expand her network of valuable people. There’s always a catch.”

“Hm. In the end, that sounds too nice.”

“True, it isn’t a very dark side thing to do. We’re talking about a medical expert here, so it’s possible she was responsible for the injuries and illnesses she helped the airport workers with. No proof of that has surfaced, though.”’

This hospital provided all sorts of services – from anonymous consultations for fugitives on the dark web to life-saving surgeries performed in person. Since none of that could be charged to anyone’s insurance, the costs had to be astronomical.

Mugino and Frenda were guided in by some miniskirt nurses carrying full-auto shotguns that likely killed with a scattershot of poison needles measuring less than a millimeter long. After entering the rear cargo door and climbing a slope, they entered an airlock where they were disinfected. The damp-eyed nurses looked lewd and cute, but they were probably soldiers doped up on all sorts of military drugs to boost their physical abilities to the very limit. They would feel no exhaustion or limits as they nimbly evaded projectiles head on or grabbed and threw a 750cc motorcycle like it was a metal bat.

(Hm.)

Tachiuo Mary. It was uncertain if she used the same kind of tech as these combat nurses, but it was possible her superhuman strength was not the result of an esper power.

It was best to consider the possibility she had another trick up her sleeve.

“This is supposed to be where we do our surgeries before we stick them in one of the short-term apartment rooms below to recover.”

A frilly blouse, a tight miniskirt, a white coat, and glasses. She looked like she was cosplaying a lewd female doctor. Were the nurses’ outfits also the result of her tastes?

“But he’s in too delicate a situation to leave him in a random bed. Honestly, I really need to build some kind of ICU. He’s hogging the entire flying operating room. All I can do right now is the online consultations and social media counseling for criminals.”

“You don’t look all that upset about it. Are you the kind of doctor who can’t bear to abandon a patient?”

“Not another word. I left ''that man’s hospital'' because I’m in it for the money. Everything I’m doing here is a crime, so I’m not about to start preaching to you about being humane.”

This young doctor appeared to have a storied past, but that wasn’t why they were here.

Frenda frowned.

“In the end, what happened? All I know is our delinquent suddenly passed out while driving.”

The busty black market doctor gestured toward the wall with her shapely chin. A giant LCD screen displayed what Frenda assumed were images of the delinquent’s brain from MRI and ultrasound scans.

“Look here.”

“…”

“''Something was burned directly onto the surface of his cerebrum. That physically obstructed his brain’s pathways, so there’s no way he can stay conscious.''”

They saw something impossible there.

His brain was coated with black, like stubborn mildew in the bath.

It would have actually been more believable if it formed a mysterious face or some kind of occult symbol.

But it didn’t.

“What…the hell?”

Frenda enjoyed viewing gory and gruesome images, but even she gasped at the reality before her eyes.

“ ‘Don’t miss the Shop Marukawa 50%-off sale. Buy a dozen eggs and all profits will be donated to the local community.’ ”

“I don’t think the actual text matters. ''A random supermarket flier must have been burned into his brain''.”

That text was formed on the highly delicate brain inside his skull.

The doctor shrugged.

“If this was an esper power attack, it probably falls under the Thoughtography category. That power outputs or copies information the esper shouldn’t know onto an existing medium. That said, it’s supposed to be used to predict the future or read someone’s mind. I’ve never seen it used offensively.”

“So would that mean someone with Honey Queen – either Ainame Caroline or Tachiuo Mary – has that power?”

“I don’t know anything about who did it. …Meltdowner, that wasn’t information I would be better off not knowing, was it?”

Directly “burning” something inside a target’s body from a distance was enough of a threat on its own.

But if the esper actually had Thoughtography, there was a chance they could look into the future and plan accordingly.

“Tch. That explains how they kept predicting our actions during the attack. I don’t know what they got a photo of, but they did more than profile us based on our past actions.”

“In the end, will he recover?”

“If the text scrawled inside his skull is removed.” The doctor sighed when she saw the chocolates Frenda had brought. “But with the equipment I have here, removing a 1mm brain tumor is a major undertaking that lasts five hours. Based on the standards of brain surgery, safely and fully removing all of that without damaging the surrounding nerves and cells just isn’t possible. Our ability to focus long enough is one problem, but even without that, the patient wouldn’t survive having his skull open that long.”

“Those Honey Queen girls aren’t gods,” stated Mugino. “Ainame Caroline was the head researcher for developing Meltdowner, which means her Personal Reality will be electricity based. If she has Thoughtography, it should use electricity.”

“Oh, so you’re going to search out the esper? It is true this support organization boy, whose name I don’t remember, risked his life because he trusted you. This isn’t about right or wrong – even villains need to look out for those who work for them. Which is why you brought him to my luxurious hospital once you found he was still alive, right? Even if the cost isn’t worth it. If you want to heal him, defeating the source would be best. The ‘paint’ is probably iron. Did you know if you mix an iron clip with gelatin and let it solidify, you can make it jiggle around using a magnet? This did that at such a small scale even nanodevices would be shocked. The black powder paint was sent in through the pores on the skin and slipped past the filters provided by the organs to draw whatever the esper wanted inside the body.”

“In the end, is that also why the truck exploded out of nowhere?” asked Frenda, their explosives expert.

Thoughtography was not a fiery power, but that truck had suffered a serious crash. What if the iron ink used for the Thoughtography had filled in the cracks leading to the sparking electronics within the damaged engine and the leaking fuel had been ignited at the perfect moment by removing that ink?

The sexy doctor nodded.

“I haven’t actually checked with a transmission electron microscope, but this power sounds like something that would cause a panic among the young wives who are terrified of nanotech cosmetics. The iron art is magnetically held in place. If you can convince the esper to release their power on him, the brain graffiti should disappear. It will be carried by the blood and other bodily fluids and expelled from the body.”

“And if we can’t convince her?”

“You could try killing her? There’s at least a chance that would release him from her power’s hold.”

That didn’t sound like a very doctorly thing to say, but it did sound an awful lot like dark side advice.

“In the end, has the Honey Queen esper been concentrating on this the whole time? I don’t really know how it feels since I’m a Level 0, but wouldn’t she burst a blood vessel in her head?”

“The human body is constantly generating a small amount of electricity. Once the thoughtograph draws the pattern, the patients’ own bioelectricity will keep the deadly paint in place. For as long as he continues to struggle to live. So killing the esper should be plan B. Getting the esper to release her power is a lot more likely to work.”

It was fully storming once they left the flying operating room created from a transport helicopter.

The combat nurses, who had put on transparent raincoats at some point, smiled at Mugino and Frenda as the two of them boarded the short-term apartment building’s elevator.

“Ugh. In the end, I’m already soaked. Even my underwear is making wet sounds when I move. I hate it!”

Frenda grabbed the bottom of her miniskirt and wrung it out like a wet rag. Her dress had been white to begin with, so it was now even more see-through than usual. Mugino used a handkerchief to wipe the moisture out of her long hair.

“You could wear something more mature, you know?”

“Yeah, I know the striped bra seems kiddy, but these casual ones are just more comfortable for me. If only I wasn’t too old for the bras that use rubber straps instead of a hook. And I bet it’s even worse for you with that lacey adult bra. How can you stand all those support wires?”

“It’s never bothered me.”

“In the end, I didn’t expect pure white, milady☆”

At any rate, Mugino and Frenda discussed what they had learned while they rode the elevator down.

“I guess that was a worthwhile visit. We know generally what one of their powers is and we have that supermarket flier. That suggests they can burn in things they physically see, not just images of the future. Maybe they have to look at the flier again in a week’s time? Whatever the case, sales like that tend to be pretty localized even between different stores of the same chain.”

“In the end, I hope that’s enough…” Frenda sounded unusually grim as she removed her beret and dealt with her hair. “It’s not that I doubt you, Mugino, but in the end, there are other possibilities. I can’t keep those Honey Queen fish names straight<ref>Ainame and Tachiuo are both names of fish.</ref>, but the mini researcher one. ''If she also worked on developing the #6’s power,'' then electricity might not be enough to explain her power.”