Her arm, stung by the wasp drone, felt numb and slightly swollen.
Leaning against the elevator wall with one hand, Shokuhou Misaki took a moment to reassess her condition.
"So that was their plan. Fortunately, it's not too serious."
A relieved smile flickered across her face.
The muscles in her arm had tensed up the moment the wasp stung her, and combined with her already depleted stamina, it made her body difficult to control.
It seemed more like a physiological stress response than solely the effect of whatever had been injected.
Under her command, one of the powered suits behind her raised its stun gun and fired a powerful surge of electricity, instantly reducing the hovering wasp drone to a pile of scrap metal.
Staring at the now-defunct wasp, a thoughtful expression remained on Shokuhou Misaki's face.
She could clearly feel something incredibly tiny inside her body, hindering communication between her nerves, throwing the biological signals between her brain and body into disarray.
This weakened state had come on quickly, likely due to her poor physical constitution.
Her activity levels had increased recently because of this incident, but she still fell short of the average middle schooler's fitness.
Speaking of an average middle schooler, one was probably just finishing a picnic in the park around now, lazily basking in the sun.
What had been implanted in her was a specially designed nanomachine that blocked neural signals.
For an ordinary person, it might take minutes to show effect. For an electromaster with some mechanical resistance and a robust physique, it would take longer.
Of course, if the scale of nanomachines was increased to a terrifying quantity, even the pinnacle of electromasters—a certain Railgun—could be subdued instantly.
But a single, ordinary wasp drone certainly didn't have that kind of carrying capacity.
Yet a certain upperclassman had been affected in mere dozens of seconds, and that was with some of the nanomachines already destroyed.
'The diversion has failed.'
The thought arose.
'Did a satellite capture my movements? Did I slip up somewhere? Or perhaps it's a precognitive-type esper?'
Frowning, Shokuhou Misaki didn't attempt to purge the foreign objects inside her.
If her guess was correct, they were either nanomachines or some similar blocking agent. Either way, she had no means to quickly eliminate them.
Thankfully, the impact on her wasn't severe. The affected area was mostly concentrated in her stung arm, and it hadn't immediately spread throughout her body via her bloodstream. After a brief period of adjustment, she had a rough idea of the situation.
Even if these nanomachines—or whatever they were—did spread, the effect on her wouldn't be too significant, at least not enough to impair her mobility.
If she couldn't find a way to remove them, she'd have to rely on her body's metabolism to expel them naturally, a process that would take at least a month.
'I need to find the mastermind's information quickly and get out of here.'
'No, perhaps I can do more.'
A new idea sparked in her mind. Recalling every detail of the attack, a rare, slight curve touched her lips.
If the enemy used something that could deprive a person of bodily control, it meant there would likely be retrieval personnel dispatched afterward. If she feigned signs of unconsciousness—like her Mental Out failing—those people might show up immediately.
'But even if my body is immobilized, my mental control ability, rooted in my brain, would still be effective. If they've investigated me thoroughly and understand the drug well enough, they wouldn't fall for it so easily.'
Pursing her lips, Shokuhou Misaki dismissed her own idea.
'Then, this is the only way.'
Her stung arm still felt weak and limp, but her other hand was functional. Shokuhou frowned in thought. Before that metal puppet showed up, she intended to change locations.
After all, enough time had passed that the guards she'd sent had likely obtained the desired information.
Dozens of staff members filed out of the annex building. In their memories, due to the Daihaseisai, they had been granted a temporary short vacation.
Mingling with the staff, a certain blonde girl tied up her hair, making herself look plain and inconspicuous. For the short term, she had no plans to confront those people again.
Simultaneously, the operations within the juvenile correctional facility changed.
The guard carrying the copied hard drive successfully left the facility, shed the powered suit, and headed towards one of her bases.
The guard escorting the administrator who had received the mastermind that day also moved away from Shokuhou Misaki's location from another direction.
She was playing it safe, prioritizing securing the information on the mastermind.
But just then, a strange, inexplicable suppression descended around Shokuhou Misaki, causing her ability to stutter and lag.
Fortunately, the distance was considerable, and it seemed they hadn't pinpointed her exact location, so the suppression wasn't overwhelming.
'Is it the AIM Diffusers set up within the correctional facility? Have I been discovered?'
Shokuhou Misaki felt a pang of realization. Of course, so many people leaving without reason would alert those inside the facility not under her control.
The AIM Diffusers in the juvenile correctional facility were active all day, but usually, they covered the areas near the facility's walls. This time, they had redirected some of the diffusers.
Before she could react further, a second, much stronger wave of suppression came from an unknown direction, instantly severing Shokuhou Misaki's connection to the several individuals she was controlling with fine precision.
Her head instantly felt heavy and muddled. The first wave of interference had been tolerable, but the second intense wave immediately made it difficult for her ability to function normally.
This felt familiar—the self-hypnosis rooted in her brain was thrown into chaos, preventing her from refining her ability precisely via her remote.
Moreover, even as Shokuhou Misaki chose to move further away from the juvenile correctional facility, the second wave of sudden interference clung to her like a shadow.
She realized immediately—she had been located.
Aside from the ever-present satellites, the most likely culprit was the neural-blocking agents inside her body.
With a piercing shriek, several models of powered suits appeared not far away, followed by what seemed to be a few boys and girls of varying ages.
One of them, a Heat Damage powerful-level esper, condensed a combat-grade fireball and blasted one of the drive suits following its protection protocol into scrap metal from over ten meters away.
In an instant, Shokuhou understood what was happening. This wasn't a case of the enemy discovering her actions and intervening last minute; this was an organized, premeditated ambush.
'Beep.'
Her remote emitted a clear sound as Shokuhou Misaki attempted to use her ability again.
This AIM interference, whatever its source, was effective. But you couldn't judge a Level 5 by common sense. Beyond their abilities themselves, most Level 5s had either formed small groups through their influence or possessed their own unique resources.
Even a certain temperature controller mingling within the Railgun's group had, on the surface, received some ambiguous special support from Anti-Skill and Judgment.
Don't think that Natsume-san's efforts to build good relationships with Judgment and Anti-Skill were useless; it actually represented the backing of two significant public-facing forces within Academy City.
Well-behaved students were always welcome.
Space seemed to turn ashen grey. Everything around her froze as if time had stopped.
An unimaginably vast brainwave scanned the surrounding seven or eight kilometers, enveloping the minds of everyone in the vicinity.
Because Shokuhou Misaki's ability was heavily suppressed, she couldn't pinpoint specific areas accurately.
She could only increase the usage range of her Exterior, enveloping a larger area.
As for Exterior, that was Shokuhou's secret. Hidden within this city, it was an additional power only Shokuhou Misaki herself controlled, serving to intensely amplify and extend her ability, though it couldn't perform calculations for her.
'The suppression is increasing. More AIM Diffusers are being activated. My ability is becoming increasingly unstable.'
Grasping the situation immediately, Shokuhou didn't attempt precise control; even memory reading had become risky.
She worried her severely degraded precision might accidentally plunge her too deep into these people's memory oceans, causing irreversible contamination to her own psyche.
Mind-reading or memory reading always carried risks. Too many foreign memories could affect her; overly dark memories could distort one's spirit.
If she couldn't purge these harmful memories quickly, it could even change a person's character.
Furthermore, in this state, Shokuhou Misaki was also prone to causing serious, even devastating, damage to these people's brains—something she absolutely would not allow.
Only an esper who maintained their own moral bottom line could avoid completely sinking into the city's darkness.
For a mental-type esper, the most powerful attack was undoubtedly brainwashing, also the most feared skill.
The bottom line of brainwashing was that the victim retained normal cognitive abilities and could be restored to their pre-brainwashed state. Morality was something that varied from esper to esper.
But this bottom line was negotiable. For certain evil scientists, it was better they didn't recover immediately after being brainwashed.
Considering this, Shokuhou opted to use implanted commands. She just needed to insert pre-set actions; there was no need to deeply touch the brain or memories.
In an extremely short time, she improved her highly unfavorable situation.
As the attackers were implanted with sleep commands, the crisis facing Shokuhou subsided somewhat.
However, the staff from the annex building remained unaffected, continuing to return home as per their original orders.
She implanted commands in several guards to shut down the AIM Diffusers within the juvenile correctional facility and modify today's electronic records and surveillance footage. The personnel transporting the mastermind's information were all switched to command mode.
To prevent prison breaks once the AIM Diffusers were deactivated, all incarcerated espers were moved underground.
Simultaneously, all unrelated personnel within the juvenile correctional facility were implanted with sleep commands to avoid serious consequences.
She modified the routes of all the guards, having them follow predetermined paths to cover her withdrawal to a specific location.
--+--
In just a few seconds, she had roughly planned several escape routes. To deal with the fact that she was located, more arrangements were completed within this brief period.
Noticing that the attackers' powered suits had defenses against mental control, Shokuhou Misaki smoothly implanted commands in all the guards piloting drive suits to prioritize attacking the cockpits, preventing potential pursuers later.
Thinking of a certain bun-girl who might come to help, and considering the end time of the first match in the afternoon and her approximate movement speed, Shokuhou Misaki had the guards heading to disable the AIM Diffusers go dormant on the spot.
Then, at a specific time, they would follow a route to her extraction point, perhaps serving as guides.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Accompanied by a series of heavy sounds, the attackers around her fell to the ground one after another, unconscious.
Shokuhou Misaki herself also reached the brink of calculation power overload.
Using her ability on such a large scale under these conditions, combined with the consumption of Exterior, had drained the vast majority of her calculation power.
Meaning, in the short term, she had absolutely no capacity for a second counterattack.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.