Academy City's Weather Report! (Toaru)

Chapter 458: Academy City Weather Report! - 458

The day before the seasonal uniform change, a massive brawl erupted within Tokiwadai, with countless girls in thin sweaters and gray pleated skirts throwing themselves into the fray.

Though the exact cause of this extreme conflict remained unclear, the student body had sharply divided into three factions: the assailants, Shokuhou's clique and their allies, and the neutral bystanders.

A handful of Judgment members, marked by their green shield insignias, stood with Shokuhou's group, helping to hold back the numerically superior attackers.

But their numbers were far too few to turn the tide.

As for a certain teleporter, she was presumably on her way to write a letter of apology, having vanished the moment class ended.

Within Tokiwadai's grounds, dozens of different abilities clashed in rapid succession. It was unknown if the legendary 'Shadow Metal' had been produced, but one thing was certain: this situation, causing severe student conflict escalating to ability battles, was undoubtedly a major security incident.

This utterly unladylike, entirely un-ojousama-like behavior had spread across most of the school in a short time, embroiling nearly a third of all students still on campus.

"Kobayashi-san and the others still haven't made it back. Waiting for reinforcements at the clique building is no longer feasible; they've likely been intercepted by the attackers as well."

"But counting the Judgment members and our unconscious Queen, there are only seven of us inside the clique building. Breaking through this encirclement is impossible."

Hokaze Junko gritted her teeth, her mind racing to analyze the situation.

The bioelectricity coursing through her body made her purple ringlets float and sway as if in an unfelt breeze.

The number of assailants who had breached the clique building was more than double their own. No matter how skilled she was in a fight, she couldn't ignore the combined force of so many ability users.

Though a Level 4 and a Level 5 differed by only one rank, the gap between them was like heaven and earth. Even if her ability approached the realm of a Level 5, without official recognition from the city's General Board, it was a denial of her status in itself.

Coming back to her senses, Hokaze Junko still didn't understand what had sparked this, but an attack targeting the Queen right inside the school was unprecedented.

Caught off guard and completely unprepared, the vulnerability of Shokuhou's clique was laid bare. While numerous and well-organized, they lacked experience handling crises of this magnitude.

In other words, Shokuhou's clique had been protected too well by their Queen.

That senpai with the starry eyes seemed to hold an ambiguous sense of responsibility and a protective desire for these children who were nearly her own age.

'Their target is the Queen. They didn't hesitate to act within the school, so we absolutely cannot let them take her.'

'Our strength is too thin in this situation. Our only hope is to rely on Natsume-san. We just need to hold out until she arrives.'

She took deep breaths, ensuring her brain had ample oxygen. Hokaze Junko's cheeks gradually grew flushed from her accelerated breathing and dilated capillaries.

Her sympathetic nervous system kicked into gear, norepinephrine secretion increased, and her heart beat with growing power. But in response, the side effects of using her ability began to interfere with her performance.

Enduring the immense pressure building in her head, a faint, translucent barrier of electrical current shimmered around her body—a spillover effect from massively manipulating the electrical signals within her cells.

It looked rather like a splendid heavenly robe that could isolate her from the external environment.

This ability, dubbed 'Rampage Dress,' worked by manipulating the electrical signals of her body's cells, enhancing her physical capabilities, including the five senses.

It not only allowed her to easily adapt to various extreme combat environments but also influenced cell division to rapidly heal any injuries she sustained.

Even minor wounds, like a small cut from a knife, would heal before her body could even relay the pain signal to her brain.

But this superhuman regenerative power came with a major flaw. Prolonged forced cell division to heal injuries inflicted severe negative effects on her mind and body, manifesting as intense headaches.

This was precisely why she couldn't become a Level 5. These headaches were essentially the body's unconscious self-defense mechanism.

Just as a person might fall unconscious from excessive grief or exhaustion, it was an automatic physiological response.

After all, the number of times human cells can divide is limited, with the upper bound determined by telomeres within the cells.

Ability users merely wield powers; it doesn't mean their bodies undergo sudden genetic mutations granting them abnormal telomere division counts.

Hokaze Junko, specializing in this regenerative ability, would have an extremely short lifespan if her body didn't instinctively impose limits.

Even with Academy City's current technological level, life-extending tech that could break human limitations remained a largely unexplored field.

Considering the city's fervor for ability development, if she had successfully become a Level 5, this Hokaze-senpai might have reached her telomere division limit in ten years or even less.

Perhaps this limited ability was for the best for her.

It was also because of this great flaw, and the intense inferiority she felt compared to the Level 5s, that Hokaze Junko had tried to pair her Queen with that Railgun.

It slightly eased her mind that the Queen and the #8 Level 5 seemed to be on good terms, marginally reducing the urgency Hokaze Junko felt.

'A Level 5 could definitely handle this situation. A failure like me can only buy time at most.'

In her current state, the strain from prolonged ability use was already putting pressure on the blood vessels in her brain. Her body and mind were on the verge of collapse, and she had no idea how much longer she could last.

She glanced down at the unconscious Queen in her arms and sighed softly. Her Queen truly needed someone to protect her.

She only remembered the Queen using the clique's air conditioner remote, forcibly using her ability to read the memories of several sudden attackers, and then seemingly falling unconscious due to some kind of mental contamination.

For Shokuhou-senpai, reapplying a self-hypnosis to add another remote to her ability's output list wasn't difficult.

While Shokuhou-senpai consciously avoided reading deep memories to prevent personality confusion, if someone tampered with surface-level or recent memories, even a Level 5 could be caught off guard.

The flashbang technique pre-implanted in the attackers' minds, a killer move derived from the same source as Yumiya Iruka's, would replay intense light stimulation directly in the Mental Out user's brain upon memory reading.

This had nothing to do with personal light sensitivity; it was a killer move implanted directly into the brain.

"I can't reach Natsume-san. The signal seems to be blocked here."

One of the remaining members of Shokuhou's clique, a girl with a ponytail and a face full of anxiety, spoke up.

She frantically pressed buttons on her phone, trying to dial the number she'd finally managed to get from the #8.

There were no inherent signal jammers inside the clique building, so the attackers must have brought equipment to block communications.

While an incident of this scale couldn't stay hidden for long, even a little extra delay was beneficial for them.

'Junko-chan, we're in big trouble.'

The invisible ghost girl floated beside the frantic Hokaze Junko, her face mirroring the same anxious expression.

Only this ghost girl, currently possessing Hokaze Junko, could understand the immense computational pressure the purple-haired girl with the ringlets was under, how unstable her brain had become from overusing her ability.

But Hokaze-senpai, in her current state, clearly had no mind to respond to the ghost girl's words.

'That's right. Maybe I can help Junko-chan.'

The ghost girl flew in a few circles above Hokaze Junko, then suddenly seemed to have an epiphany.

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