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

===Part 6===

The honey girl and the pointy-haired boy left the food truck area.

They continued down a narrow walking path.

Did girls always want to move around some after eating something sweet?

“(I can’t believe how many people wander around outside on the weekend without any real goal in mind.)”

<You need to stop living the life of the Queen of Indoors Culture and go out in the sun from time to time. It’s good for your mental health and induces serotonin production in the body.>

“(Doesn’t serotonin make you feel pain? Just like histamines?)”

<It also provides a mental calming effect.>

A small slanted sign alongside the pondside walking path said not to feed the birds.

“The birds are still gathering here even though no one will just innocently feed them anymore,” said Kamijou Touma. “If only they could read that sign and realize they were wasting their time.”

“A giant AI will probably be able to decode the birds’ chirping ability eventually. I know I’ve heard about fish communicating using vibrations in the water.”

“You mean like those toys that tell you what a dog or cat is feeling?”

“I was thinking of something a little more precise than that☆”

Neither Shokuhou nor Kobayashi could communicate with fish, birds, or anything else nonhuman. If they could perfectly understand animals’ thoughts, they might find themselves eating a lot less meat.

A telepathic voice knocked on Shokuhou’s mind.

<Queen, Queen.>

“(What now? I was finally enjoying some peace and quiet.)”

<Are you sure you want to ignore this? I have detected Misaka Mikoto approaching again. To borrow your words, we will explode and die if she finds us. It seems like this was only the calm before the storm.>

“(Argh!! Kobayashi-san!)”

<Allow me to take control.>

“Whoa! What now? Wow, that’s soft!?”

The honey-blonde girl quickly grabbed Kamijou Touma’s arm and practically swung him around to change course.

Shokuhou even heard a rustling sound.

Coming from the bushes.

Shokuhou Misaki and Misaka Mikoto were less than 5m apart.

(Ugh.)

Shokuhou groaned inwardly.

And.

“Ah, eh, ih, uh, eh, oh, ah, oh!!”

She heard some weird noises.

No, that was a voice.

She gave a surreptitious glance in that direction to see Mikoto doing something next to the pond. She was holding a aluminum Gekota helium balloon between her hands and staring intently at it.

No…

“I am Fairy Queen Titania! The Fairy King you may be, but you have no right to make my decisions for me!!”

That was Titania.

Shokuhou didn’t think that line existed in the script worked on by the director, but Mikoto was probably saying whatever came to mind to help get into the part.

What was this?

Tokiwadai’s Ace was taking the play unexpectedly seriously.

A parent and child passing by gave her an amused look, girls her age aimed their horizontal-oriented phones her way, and a youth who looked to be from a theatre troupe gave her a look of newfound rivalry, but Mikoto shook her blushing head.

“Ugh…this is so embarrassing. But don’t let it get to you. The whole point is to practice doing this in front of people! You can’t take the easy way out just because you’re in her group!!”

Shokuhou Misaki froze in place for a moment.

And someone else seemed greatly amused.

Even over telepathy, it was obvious that the third year, who wasn’t part of the play, was grinning.

<My, my. Queen, do you see now that you’re doing something wrong here?>

“(You really do need to shut up, Kobayashi-san.)”

“Hee hee☆”

“(Are you trying to anger me?)”

But Shokuhou had decided on this plan, so she would stick to it. Even if she stalled out now, it wouldn’t matter how much she appealed to Mikoto’s emotions – being discovered here would still mean exploding and dying.

Shokuhou was doing this to ensure the joint drama class was a success.

Gaining a detailed understanding of the male mind was the quickest way to get into character as Oberon.

So the honey girl left the center of the storm with the pointy-haired boy’s arm still in her grasp.

“So you see…”

The pair strolled along the park’s walking path.

And they discussed the plot of the play.

“Fairy King Oberon cannot forgive arrogant Queen Titania for constantly making fun of him.”

“I see.”

“So he decides to get back at his wife.”

“Get back at her? But aren’t they family?”

“Specifically, he has his servant Puck use a love potion on Titania so she would fall in love with an ugly man. Then he would laugh at her until his sides split.”

“But wait, isn’t she the king’s wife!? Why would he want to have her fall in love with another man!?”

“I want to know what was going on in Oberon’s head through all this, so my question is simple: what line of thinking would lead a man to do something so outrageous?”

The honey girl was answered with silence.

It seemed like the pointy-haired boy had an answer but was hesitant to give it.

He spoke carefully, with the tension of someone disarming a bomb.

“As a high school boy, it’s really awkward to have to explain this to middle school girl.”

“?”

Eventually, Kamijou Touma asked an odd question while trembling.

“I-is it possible that king was, uh, really into NTR?”

“I’m not sure what that acronym is supposed to mean…no, don’t bother explaining. Please don’t, actually. Not when I can sense such a dark and wicked aura ability coming from you!”

The honey girl was giving him an icy glare, but Kamijou failed to notice.

He crossed his arms and tilted his head as he walked on.

“Also, how does that even get back at her? If someone calls you an idiot, I can understand arguing back that you aren’t an idiot, but if you instead decide to turn them into an even bigger idiot, aren’t you just accepting their claim that you’re an idiot?”

“Hm. Now that you mention it.”

“I could even understand working to improve yourself so they would rethink their opinion of you, but not this.”

“Hmm.”

That viewpoint hadn’t occurred to Shokuhou.

As the #5, she was made fun of so infrequently she didn’t know much about how to respond to it.

Oberon’s response was a poor one.

Even if he was completely successful, all he ended up doing was showing off his own vulnerabilities and ugliness.

(Hm, it isn’t a direct insight into Oberon’s thinking, but maybe it could help my performance.)

<My, my. But isn’t that how most of your arguments with Misaka-sama play out? You’re so busy bolstering your defenses out front that you’re wide open from the sides.>

(Do I need to kill you, Kobayashi Satori?)

<Such violent thoughts. Why do you get like this whenever it comes to Misaka-sama?>

Shokuhou visibly stewed for a bit while she worked to find something else to ask the pointy-haired boy about.

“Then what about this?” asked the honey-blonde girl. “After learning the love potion had been used on the wrong person, the fairy king harshly berated his servant Puck. Then he used his command ability to order Puck to pair the men and women up with their appropriate partners again.”

“So all he does is yell at people without actually doing anything to help?”