Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Mental Out SS (section)

===Part 11===

The explosion was invisible.

Because it happened on a mental level.

Kobayashi Satori screamed, clawed at her chest, and dropped straight to the ground. Otonari Hibiku had seen this same scene many times. She had found it odd that people always held their chest rather than their head when it happened. People thought with their brains, but did this mean their mind was located elsewhere?

Mind Anaphylaxis.

As her esper name suggested, Otonari managed her power by envisioning it as an allergic reaction. What if, theoretically, you could implant a completely fictional allergy inside a target and then expose the poor victim to the matching allergen? Pollen allergies could not be prevented by hard work or willpower. If someone with a severe allergy was forced to eat their forbidden food, it could kill them.

This did the same thing but in the realm of the mind.

It was an inner death brought about by the self, not external violence.

So no matter what Kobayashi did, she could never avoid the resultant damage.

“Now, then.”

Otonari Hibiku turned around.

She had met an unexpected delay in linking with Shokuhou Misaki, the original person she ''wanted to help'', but that just meant she had to repeat the three steps. As a health committee member, she could not just let the Queen of the largest clique continue to suffer under all that stress.

She would provide a sort of pleasure from painless psychogenic internal bleeding.

That would provide a break and mental liberation.

It would be brief and it would be forced against her will, but her soul would be cut free from the weight of reality.

But then the health committee member’s feet stopped.

Otonari had noticed something.

Kobayashi Satori was supposed to be in a state of mental confusion and collapse, but the telepathic link from her was still connected to Otonari’s mind.

The girl was still alive.

<This…isn’t over.>

<If you had severed the link and played dead, I would have left you alone.>

Otonari turned back around.

Toward the girl who had collapsed but refused to give up and was digging her nails into the ground.

Otonari’s top priority was Shokuhou Misaki.

She had eliminated Kobayashi because the girl was in the way, but she felt no real need to fully ''obliterate'' her mind. Whether her plans worked or not, a strategist hidden backstage could not actually harm her. So it hadn’t mattered if Kobayashi was alive or dead as long as she could not intervene.

And yet.

Did she want the pleasure of blood loss that badly?

<Even if you are a member of the largest clique, you usually do your work in the background. Why have you come out to the vanguard now? There is no good reason to die for a clique. Belonging to the largest one probably does come with its benefits, but those benefits are meaningless if you are not alive to enjoy them.>

“I…”

This was not telepathy.

It was a real voice spilling from the unsteady girl’s mouth.

“I thought I knew all of the Queen’s vulnerabilities… Her soft spots and her warm aspects.”

Kobayashi’s skin was pale and her lips blue, like she had ice water dumped over her head.

Cyanosis had set in.

She was trembling and her eyes could not focus on a single point.

Otonari Hibiku knew that physical damage caused by the mind could not be suppressed by sheer force of will. Just like people could not will away an allergic reaction, the damage of an internal explosion caused by outside stimuli was even more frightening than an attack with a knife or a bullet.

And yet.

And yet.

“But the Queen showed me a new side of herself today… She hid and grew flustered, she became jealous when things did not go the way she wanted, and she seemed happy even as I toyed with her. I do not know who ''he'' is. The Queen will probably erase this memory so none of this will remain in my mind. But I still have one thought: ''How can you call this a great pressure? Don’t barge in, pretend you understand, and mess with her mind''.”

<…>

“You say there is no good reason to die for a clique? Don’t make me laugh. I am happy having seen this side of the Queen just once, even if the memory is erased and even if it ends up killing me.”

<Oh, really?>

Otonari continued using telepathy.

<Even if you do miraculously acclimate to and conquer your gynophobia, I can give you so many other phobias. Sharp objects, metal, open spaces, air – I can cause phobias for any condition, real or imagined. Now, how long can your blood vessels survive the reaction to each of those hitting you one after another?>

Kobayashi Satori consciously calmed her breathing.

She furrowed her brow in concentration.

The next exchange would likely be the last.

Prepared for exactly that, Otonari Hibiku gave a snort of laughter.

<Are you going to play a loud noise in my mind at max volume? Or are you going to search your memory for sounds like a dentist’s drill or fingernails on glass and combine them? That’s the limit of the damage you can create on your own. I can take that much. I can easily crush you and then save Shokuhou Misaki.>

Maybe so.

Otonari Hibiku clearly had the upper hand as a telepath.

However.

Kobayashi Satori hadn’t even considered using her own inadequate skills.

<Wide-band indiscriminate link at recon ship level.>

<?>

<Forcibly intercept thoughts of all targets in telepathy range. Initial scan has detected 3811 targets. Relay all verbalized surface-level thoughts through my brain and transmit them all to linked target Otonari Hibiku!!!>

Otonari didn’t even have time to gasp.



<This sunshine is so warm…> <If I can’t leave a mark this time, I’m done for!>

::::<nowiki><I</nowiki> need to sell all of this ice cream by the evening!>

:::<Why do I have to accompany this brat around? Hey, are you listening!?>

::<How am I supposed to enjoy this when I have work again tomorrow?>

<No, Misaka doesn’t want to go home!! Misaka wants to play with this ball! says Misaka as Misaka keeps just out of your reach!!>

<nowiki><I</nowiki>-it popped!? My partner…my Gekota ballooooon!!> <Wow, I’ve got so many new viewers! But why?>

:<Mama, I want ice cream.> <Nooo! The vending machine ate my money!>

<Maybe it’s time to move on form the guitar.> <hynwkdgpn-beep!>

::<Hey, I found 100 yen.> <I’m sooooo bored.> <Papa’s lost his home, so what’s he going to do on Monday?>

::::<Choropin! No, that’s no good. Yakky!☆ Yeah, that’s a good greeting. Next, I need to decide what to call my fans.>

<Oh, no. I dropped the attaché case! Where did it go!?> <Ugh, this public voice practice is embarrassing.> <Uuuiharuuun☆> <Gyahh! M-my skirt!?> <If anyone lays a hand on my girl, mama will show them why she used to be feared as a demon.>

:::<Kinuhata, I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.> <Super what kind of signal did you pick up this time?>

:<Where’d my frisbee go? Huh, what’s this bag?> <nowiki><I</nowiki> saw a kitty.>

<Eh?>

::<If only this nap could never end.> <Oh, no… Our company’s charismatic president is starting into the pond and muttering to himself.>

:::<Is this the park where a Level 5 was seen at the edge of someone’s livestream?> <Done! In the first place, I’ve finished all my drawing homework!! Nyah, time to go home!>

:::<Now I’m hungry.>

:<Seeing her practicing so hard makes it really hard to tell her the acting troupe broke up…> <nowiki><I</nowiki> already know that, idiot! The point is to start it back up again!!>

::<!!> <!?>

:::<??>



A torrent of information rushed into Otonari Hibiku’s mind all at once.

What did it matter that Kobayashi couldn’t do it on her own? A telepath’s true value was found when they linked to other minds.

“The extreme rejection of an invented phobia is one thing.” Kobayashi smiled thinly. “But different people’s differing feelings of love are something very real that our own minds cannot understand. Forcing other people’s philias onto a mind is much more difficult for the structure of the brain to handle.”

The sound of her target’s brain cells frying seemed to sneak into Kobayashi’s hearing through the telepathic link.

Otonari Hibiku’s shoulders slumped to one side.

“Bh.”

She tried to say something.

But she crumpled to the ground before getting a single word out.