Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter4 (section)

===Part 7===

Shortly before that, 12-year-old Yugure Tsumebakei couldn’t focus on what she was saying.

The teachers across from her looked uncertain.

But not because she was saying anything weird.

Her responses to the interview had been perfect. They had been so painfully perfect they almost seemed robotic.

Mikoto’s group had contacted the adults, so the teachers would know about her situation. That meant they would be aware the young hopeful student was preoccupied. The School Garden was supposed to be unquestionably safe yet her sister had gone missing there. Anyone would have difficulty focusing on their entrance exam in those circumstances, so the Tokiwadai teachers’ opinions were split.

Some wanted to make an exception and push back her interview to a later date.

Some thought it would be unfair to the other hopeful students to allow any kind of exception.

Although none of them considered that their thoughtfulness actually put more pressure on her young heart. The interviewers, who were meant to place pressure on her, were all being unusually nice, which made her think something really bad had happened to her sister.

“Yugure-san, why don’t you take a break?” suggested the woman directly across from her. Akazame-sensei, was it? “Don’t worry. It will not affect the evaluation of your exam.”

The two factions of teachers had settled on that as a compromise.

All entrance exams were a coldhearted system used to select some people over others, but some kindness was allowed as well. The decisions made on those exams could literally influence the rest of someone’s life, after all. And the interviewers did not do this because they wanted to fail people. They wanted to find the most qualified people in the group.

Don’t worry.

That phrase made Tsumebakei look down at her right pinky finger.

An apparent friend of her sister had said the same thing while making a promise. She had nothing to prove that friend could make good on the promise, but she had to believe in it.

She thanked the teachers and left the exam room on unsteady legs, but what was she supposed to do now? If running around outside would find her sister, she was willing to run all the way around the planet, but she knew it wasn’t that simple.

After leaving the building, her own weight got the better of her and she collapsed onto the ground.

She was smart enough to know there was nothing she could do.

She understood that all too well in her own young way.

“Uhh.”

Why did this have to happen?

She had said all sorts of nice-sounding things to the teachers during the interview, but she didn’t actually have any grand dreams for her future. She only wanted to go to the same school as her sister. She only wanted to walk to school with her beloved sister every day. Had that been wrong of her? She didn’t know what had actually happened, but would her sister not have gotten into trouble today if she hadn’t tried to go to Tokiwadai?

Maybe she had been wrong to want that.

What if it was her fault her sister was in trouble?

But then why was it her sister who had to suffer and not her?

“No. I don’t care about Tokiwadai anymore. I don’t care about my future, so I’ll give up on all my dreams. Just give Onee-chan back…”

What was done was done, so this bargaining was meaningless.

She wasn’t even sure who or what she was bargaining with. Was she asking an invisible demon to alter fate to bring her sister back to her?

But she wasn’t even allowed that self-destructive wish. She was no more than a powerless observer.

And while she sat on the ground feeling so pitiful, things took a turn for her.

Yes…

“Oh? What are you doing out here?”

She heard a voice.

When she raised her lowered head, she saw a girl with long blonde hair.

“Who are you?”

“Hee hee. You must be Hoatzin-san☆ I’m Canary-san’s friend.”

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Her heart leapt in her chest.

And the older blonde girl had more to say.

“Did Misaka-san’s group not contact you because they wanted you to focus on your interviewing ability? Fortunately, I heard allll about what happened from them☆”

“…?”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

The sweet-smelling girl bent her knees to bring herself to Tsumebakei’s eye level.

“Misaka-san found Canary-chan just like she promised.”

“Ah.”

“The school is looking after her, so there really, truly is nothing to worry about. She’s receiving medical care now, but it’s nothing serious. You should be able to see her soon.”

“Ahh, wahhhhhhh!!”

Tsumebakei leaped into the older girl’s arms and bawled.

“I was scared!! So scared!!”

“Anyone would be.”

“Onee-chan, sob, Onee-chan. I thought this was my fault. I thought none of it would have happened if I hadn’t tried to go to Tokiwadai!!”

“You were overthinking it. That would never happen.”

The confidence in the blonde girl’s voice soaked into lonely Tsumebakei’s heart like nothing else.

“Now listen, Hoatzin-san. Your dreams aren’t going to hurt anyone. There’s no reason at all to stop yourself from wanting to walk to school with and go to school with your sister. So throw out all that worrying ability. Turn around, march back into that building, and do your very best at that interview. I’m sure Canary-san wants to go to school with you too☆”

“Okay!!” she cheerfully replied, still clinging to the older girl.

All the dark feelings had vanished from her heart.

“Huh? But wait a second.”

“Yes?”

“How did you know my dream was to go to school with my sister? I never even told her about-”



Shokuhou Misaki pressed the button on the TV remote pressed against the girl’s back.

Yugure Tsumebakei fainted like her power switch had been flipped.

This was Academy City’s #5 Level 5, Mental Out, the strongest of the psychological powers.

She gently patted the back of the girl who had fallen into sweet dreams, but the blonde queen also clicked her tongue at her own mistake.

“Well, I sure screwed that one up!! I went as far as ''digging up'' their pet names for each other and then ruin it all with a stupid mistake!? Knowing someone ''too well'' has its own problems. I really do mess up the details when I try to work my adlib ability. I was supposed to put her at ease even if it meant lying to her and then I end up knocking her out about as forcibly as possible.”

Yes.

Young Tsumebakei normally wouldn’t open up so much to a middle schooler she had never met. Even if that middle schooler had been wearing a Judgment armband and had mentioned someone she knew like Misaka, she would have been on her guard.

But none of that mattered to Mental Out.

Shokuhou Misaki had not in fact been in contact with Misaka Mikoto since the two of them did not get along at all.

She had been smiling with Yugure Tsumebakei and mechanically constructing a conversation by assessing the situation and choosing the best phrase to use next like she was choosing a chess move. Whenever she pulled one statement from Tsumebakei’s mouth, she obtained all the surrounding terms as well. Once she had drawn out the terms “Misaka-san”, “searching for” and “Yugure Kanaria”, it wasn’t hard to find the right things to say to soothe the crying child. But this time, Shokuhou had delved too deep into the target’s mind and it had all backfired.

(No one tells the people they truly love about their plans for the future. How could I forget something so basic? When did my sensibilities get so distorted?)

“Queen.”

“Hokaze, I order you to treat this girl like she is me and protect her life, her assets, and everything else she holds dear. Protect her with your life☆”

That ringlets girl was Shokuhou’s most trusted aide and bodyguard and she always faithfully carried out her queen’s commands. Thus, when she asked a question, it was only to confirm some information she felt was necessary to carry out that command.

Hokaze Junko expressed her concern.

“Is something about to happen that will require me to protect her with my life? But Tokiwadai is so peaceful.”

“The usual state of affairs isn’t going to apply much longer. We’re about to see a major panic brought on by some extreme Peter Pan Syndromes.”

Then Shokuhou Misaki looked away and grumbled under her breath.

Disaster warning app alerts were going off all around. The chain reaction was like ripples spreading throughout the School Garden and it would reach Shokuhou and Hokaze’s phones eventually.

The low rumbling below their feet was growing.

That rumbling came from a large number of enormous motors.

“What are you even doing, Misaka-san?”