Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 3===

A few sharp pains slashed at Mugino in quick succession.

Removing her wet cardigan and wrapping it around her right arm didn’t provide much defense against that sharp razor blade. While she did that, Ainame Caroline silently disappeared and continued to do solid damage.

And she disappeared again.

Not even Mugino’s most powerful Meltdowner blast could kill this sack of shit unless she solved the mystery of that brown researcher.

A few more beams missed their mark and the bunny ears razor blade sliced through the air in counterattack.

Red spray scattered in the air.

“Kee ha, ee ha ha!! Hee hee ha ha ha ha!! What happened to your precious Meltdowner? Are you even trying to hit me, you failure? If your power had developed better, I could’ve realized my dream a hell of a lot sooner. Lame. It’s all your fault!! You delayed and twisted my future, so the least you could do is prove that power was worth it by killing me with it!!!”

Even small wounds were a threat if there were enough of them.

And there were plenty of thick blood vessels visible on the surface of the body.

Plus…

“Kh.”

Mugino’s head wobbled heavily on her neck. Her vision blurred darkly. The extreme situation would have caused her to perspire and caused her blood vessels to expand and contract and then her wet body had been exposed to the chilly air conditioning this entire time. It wouldn’t reach the point of frostbite, but there was a risk of hypothermia.

But she refused to relinquish her consciousness.

She had to do something for Frenda Seivelun and Kinuhata Saiai. She also had to stand up to the insult against Tachiuo Mary, who was so delightfully deadly.

She would repay this debt in accordance to her own rules.

She would prove it was a bad idea to underestimate the Mugino family that had gained power by absorbing the Western gangs before anyone else.

(I more or less know how it works.)

“!!”

The 10-year-old brown gyaru vanished and the next attack arrived.

Soaked Mugino scattered water droplets from the end of her long hair as she climbed over a table and used it as a shield.

Nothing happened after that.

Ainame Caroline twirled her bunny ear phone from a short distance away.

“What’s wrong? Does that fancy teleportation of yours not work with an obstacle in the way?”

“…”

The wounds she had taken had not been for nothing.

She would let an enemy cut her flesh as much as they liked. As long as it gave her a chance to turn the tables on them.

Tachiuo Mary had made her tremble with excitement. Frenda and Kinuhata had trusted her with their lives.

She swore she would repay that debt.

She wouldn’t let this sack of shit live out a happy life.

“Of course it doesn’t.”

Mugino grinned and violently kicked away the table between them.

Her wounds wouldn’t heal. Her situation was only getting worse.

But the thought of her imminent victory pumped adrenaline into her blood and her fading field of vision instantly expanded.

“Each esper only gets one power. Even if you did develop your own power based on whatever you learned working with Meltdowner and the #6, you can’t give yourself two Level 5 powers at the same time. That means your esper power is electricity-based Thoughtography. ''Most likely, you use the invisible flow of electrons to simulate the future and draw it out using magnetism. That ability can be explained with just the one power.'' I could grab you by the ankles and shake everything out of your pockets, but I’d never find a completely different power that lets you instantly teleport objects.”

Mugino had been looking at it wrong.

That girl wasn’t hiding another unseen power.

“''That teleportation is a trick that only requires your Thoughtography.''”

That was the proper assumption when thinking about Academy City espers.

Ainame Caroline used the hand not holding her phone to pull a new chocolate snack stick from the box held in place by her short skirt and stuck it in her mouth.

“Oh? Such as?”

“Humans close their eyes automatically. So maybe you dash just one step forward while we’re blinking. The idea would sound silly if I was talking about a normal person, but ''your Thoughtography lets you see the future''. As long as you know when someone will blink, it isn’t all that difficult.”

As a result, it looked like she disappeared.

It was Mugino herself who had been abandoning her sight for brief periods.

She didn’t know how many times a human blinked during a minute, but it had to create a decent opening if you could utilize all of them.

Soaked Mugino brushed her wet bangs up.

“That’s also why you burn photos all over the floor and walls when you use your Thoughtography. Everyone can see your photos, so with just the one photo as a hint, they would realize what you were up to. So you have to scatter a ton of extra photos around as camouflage.”

“Lame. I can only give that 3 out of 5 stars. How borrrring☆’’

“What? Are you saying you aren’t predicting the coincidental timing of our blinking? Do you use light, sound, or electrical stimuli to ''make us blink when you want''?”

“Ha ha ha. Why else would all four members of Item blink at the exact same time? Obviously I’m influencing that. It’s pure sleight of hand, so I don’t even need my Thoughtography to do it.”

That would mean she didn’t even peek at the future when dodging Meltdowner.

She was only littering the floor and walls with wholly unnecessary futures.

By burning all those thoughtographs into the walls and floor, she changed the surrounding patterns and colors to create an optical illusion that accurately threw off Mugino’s aim.

Wasn’t that the same method used by Shokuhou Misaki – no, by Mitsuari Ayu in disguised?

''There was no rule requiring someone with a real supernatural power to base their attacks on that power.

“So you’re a goddamn researcher to the very core.”

“Hee ha ha. That’s right, esper. I’m a cool researcher who’s also an esper. I’m built different from a boring Level 5 who has nothing else going for her. It cracks me up, really.”

It had bothered Mugino that Ainame Caroline used a phone as a weapon.

What if it was more than the special razor blade and blast-resistant case? What if the entire phone itself was a weapon? That would let her produce all sorts of toys, like infrared and ultrasound. If light and vibrations too weak to notice applied minute stimuli to the surface of the eyeball, it might be possible to induce blinking at the precise moment you wanted. Maybe something similar to spectators obstructing baseball or soccer matches with a laser pointer.

Mugino saw a small and wicked smile before her.

Ainame Caroline remained confident even after her secret was revealed.

This was odd. The enemy wouldn’t go out of her way to give Mugino an answer that would help her.

If she really had developed her own power based on the Personal Reality so closely related to Mugino’s mentality, she had to understand that villain’s logic.

“Wowww, you actually got it right. But does knowing how it works mean you can avoid it? Can you avoid being dazzled by a bright light through willpower alone? Or can you hold back the tears while chopping an onion through sheer force of will?”

And.

Ainame Caroline hid her mouth behind her rectangular phone.

“Lame. Did you forget? My teleportation might only be a trick, ''but my Thoughtography can directly fry your brain''☆”

So she only needed enough of an opening for that attack.

She only needed to lure Mugino into a position where she couldn’t avoid it.

That was all she needed to win.

And to do that…

“''You intentionally let me reveal your teleportation trick''!?”

“Ha ha ha!! Were you relieved you’d solved the mystery? Lame! That’s the moment when people drop their guard, making it the perfect time to use my power in a surprise attack!!”

It happened suddenly.

They both held their palm out.

Was the bunny ear phone only camouflage and Ainame Caroline was actually taking aim with her palm?

Just like Ibotanokikouji Kaede had and, more importantly, just like Mugino Shizuri did.

“An expert photographer knows how to draw out the beauty of their subject. To photograph a wild bird, you blend into nature. To photograph food, you let it cool so the steam won’t get in the way. To photograph a human, you chat with and flatter them to make them smile!”

“You mean all of this was you’re a photographer’s conversational technique!? Am I a joke to you!?”

The beam launched from the one palm shot right past the brown girl’s cheek.

The color black danced wildly about.

Countless massive photographs were burned into the walls and floor around the little brown girl.

“Level 1 Thoughtography!!!”

Time slowed to a crawl as Mugino was faced by a threat rivalling a large truck barreling toward her.

Mugino did not consider that to be weak.

''At this point, it didn’t make sense.

''That girl had the ridiculous ability to accurately read the future and to objectively share it with anyone as a photograph, but she was still only Level 1?

Academy City’s level system was judged by the adults. It was possible her ability to burn graffiti into people’s brains was considered too horrific to warrant any further research, which had cost her points. The adults may have decided the risk outweighed the benefit of knowing the future.

This too was a dark side tactic. As a researcher who knew how powers were scored, she would be able to influence the result.

So how much higher would her level be if it were accurately judged!?

(If I screw up here, I can’t avenge Tachiuo. And I can’t **** Frenda and Kinuhata!!)

If a single Meltdowner blast hit, she would be safe without having her brain scrawled on. But Mugino grimaced. The optical illusions drawn out on the walls and floor by the Thoughtography messed with her aim. Her straight-line beams had been easily avoided. Trying the same thing again wouldn’t help. She would only be hit by a deadly counterattack! How would she handle that attack? She had no way of dodging it!

She had focused on the wrong thing.

Instead of trying to figure out the phony teleportation, she should have focused on finding a countermeasure for the weaponized Thoughtography. Instead, she had fallen for the breakwater placed in front of her and wasted her limited time thinking about something else. It was no surprise she had no plan now.

(How much of this did she predict!?)

“All of it.”

Ainame Caroline answered a question Mugino hadn’t even said out loud and then bit through her chocolate snack stick.

“My Thoughtography isn’t suited for combat because I can’t use it to essentially watch a livestream of the immediate future while I fight. But I’m second to none when it comes to taking my time thoroughly photographing the more distance future! Ah ha ha! It cracks me up!! I’d already photographed your boring defeat before I even showed up. Lame. Did you really expect such a valuable head researcher to set foot in this primitive place if I hadn’t!?”

There was nothing Mugino could do.

Ainame Caroline had bared her deadly fangs. There was no stopping it with Meltdowner!!

“''Did you really''?”

The third voice that interrupted from the side sounded far too ordinary.

Then Mugino noticed an odd smell.

(Time has sped back up to normal?)

Something had wafted over to her. Then pain raced through her like all her blood was boiling.

Ainame Caroline hadn’t done this.

This wasn’t that girl’s attack!

(Gah, bwah?)

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”

The beam gathering in her hand suddenly exploded.

Her power was running wild.

And this was no coincidence. Mugino knew of a substance that could artificially induce this state.

“It…can’t be…”

Ainame Caroline was just as dumbfounded.

Had her precious Thoughtography failed to show her this uncontrolled chaos?

For the brief moment Mugino’s deadly violence blossomed wildly, ''she clearly broke free of the world’s invisible rails.

“Body Crys-”

It pierced right through.

The thick beam caught the little girl at the hip, fully vaporizing her lower half.

It seemed to happen in a moment of absolute silence.

“You want to ''save'' Frenda and Kinuhata, don’t you? You just can’t bring yourself to say it.”

But a voice broke that silence.

“So I’ll say it for you. I am a member of Item and it’s my job to do what you can’t.”