Academy City's Weather Report! (Toaru)

Chapter 456: Academy City Weather Report! - 456

Trying to consider others' feelings and using gentler methods to end the fight would inevitably increase the difficulty on Natsume-san's side.

Even for someone like Natsume-san, having so many restraints made her take things more seriously.

After all, a Level 5's dominance often lies in their high destructive power and unstoppable nature.

Fortunately, Natsume-san had a decent advantage.

She knew the types and activation methods of her fellow first-year girls' abilities, which allowed her to restrict or hinder their power usage through relatively simple means.

However, when it came to the older students, the senpais she barely knew due to lower intel gathering, even gentle methods were bound to lead to some accidents.

A Level 4 whose capabilities she didn't fully understand could very well break through her restraints, so she had to consider more extreme measures.

If these senpais used abilities that could threaten her or others, Natsume-san would inevitably change her attitude, suppressing them immediately to prevent their powers from running wild or them hurting someone in an emotional outburst.

In other words, Natsume-san's gentleness was a flexible kind of gentleness, not absolute soft-heartedness.

She reserved the possibility of a heavy-handed response for senpais with high threat levels, while adopting a lenient attitude towards classmates who posed no threat to her.

The 'menacing' Level 5, Natsume-san, had roughly formulated her combat tactics.

As for that self-proclaimed Hunter, the archery team captain wielding a dangerous 'Hunt Bow', Natsume-san considered her a target that needed rapid containment and handling.

"When facing prey with a significant size difference, a single hunter becomes powerless. The simplest method then is to set traps and call for companions."

"Even with so many fellow ability users backing her up, that suffocating, immense pressure was inescapable. I knew it—if I couldn't handle a Level 5 instantly, even the slightest bit of remaining resistance could crush all my preparations."

"But none of that matters now. Oh, sacred, unattainable existence of this city, are you prepared to be hunted?"

Snapping her head up, Yumiya Iruka's arm holding the 'Hunt Bow' still trembled slightly, her tone laced with excitement. The blood within her seemed to begin boiling.

She and her sister were ultimately the same kind of people—this had nothing to do with power levels.

Even facing a vast gap, she had no thought of retreat or escape, instead choosing to confront this situation gradually spiraling out of control head-on.

This wasn't the obsession influenced by the Indian Poker; it was the hunting instinct deeply buried in her blood, finally erupting under immense pressure.

"I told you, villains should be sparing with their words, Senpai. Have you really never read manga?"

"You know, this is the perfect moment for the heroes of justice to land a one-hit kill. And Senpai, I'm still angry right now, so please stop spouting baffling infuriating nonsense."

A certain bun-haired girl, eager to get to the infirmary, shot back quickly. She didn't want to waste any more precious treatment time here.

Her eyes were hurting more and more, tears constantly streaming, and Natsume-san worried that delaying any longer might affect her eyesight.

This somewhat conflicted with her tactical plan of being as gentle as possible with her classmates, but a perfect solution that satisfied both requirements hadn't appeared yet.

As soon as the words fell, battle seemed imminent.

Natsume-san had already registered the movements of the Tokiwadai girls around her and knew something was about to happen in the next second.

In an instant, multiple abilities, coordinated chaotically but activated nearly simultaneously, manifested, and the surroundings immediately descended into chaos.

A telekineticist, whose power had already reached practical utility, violently wrenched a desk in front of Natsume-san, sending the stuff a certain bun-head had stashed inside into disarray.

At the same time, a muscle-bound girl from a body enhancement lineage, her skirt fluttering, skin flushed with power, charged forward directly at the stationary bun-head, only to block the telekineticist's line of control.

This chaotic use of abilities left Natsume-san momentarily speechless. It looked completely like a disorganized mob with no coordination.

It seemed she'd given an incorrect assessment based on Yumiya Iruka-senpai's excellent performance; the time needed to end this fight might actually be less than she'd thought.

The Hunter and her companions were really just a bunch of greenhouse-raised ojousama, their coordination skills utterly terrible. Her mind somewhat muddled, Natsume-san still spared a thought to critique her fellow ojousama classmates.

They couldn't even manage to sequence their ability usage properly.

What was the use of this kind of all-out assault? This wasn't missile saturation bombing.

She wasn't some large, hulking type; there were only a few suitable points of attack per volley at most.

And they didn't even know to spread out and maneuver during a fight. Didn't they know their opponent was an extremely powerful Level 5?

Looking at it this way, being small and skinny seemed to have some combat advantages, at least passively reducing the target area. But Natsume-san couldn't feel happy about it; she'd rather not have this kind of 'advantage'.

Her previous 'coordination' with Accelerator had been better than this, though in Natsume-san's understanding, coordination just meant each doing their own thing and successfully achieving the objective.

Well, she could afford to worry less now. Picking them off one by one was the most effective method.

A materialized fist instantly struck Natsume-san's body, accompanied by a laser beam fired from the archery senpai not far away. But upon impact, only an illusory, shattering play of light remained, through which Natsume-san's cute face could faintly be seen.

In truth, Natsume-san hadn't moved; she'd just created a fake image of herself using light, trying to set a trap to capture the ability users.

Yumiya Iruka-senpai said she wanted to hunt her, but Natsume-san felt it should be the other way around. If she hadn't been blindsided and visually impaired, leaving her in poor condition, Natsume-san felt she wouldn't need to go to all this trouble.

And just this one move of large-scale light refraction was enough to handle most ability users.

However, it surprised Natsume-san that she had thought this archery senpai might be able to see through the light trick, as she suspected the senpai's ability might involve controlling light.

But it seemed the other party hadn't developed the ability to refract or reflect light, or perhaps she couldn't control light in natural space and needed a specific medium.

Meanwhile, the ability user who had struck Natsume-san's 'body' immediately ran into trouble.

At the point of impact, a rapidly swirling mass of air appeared, firmly stopping her entire arm. In moments, she was lifted into the air, dangling from this air current.

As long as a body enhancement system ability user couldn't touch the ground, they had nowhere to leverage their strength.

Many factors decide victory, but possessing overwhelming power is undoubtedly a crucial one.

Maintaining a near-crushing momentum, Natsume-san, hidden within the light, began systematically dealing with the Tokiwadai girls caught in abnormal states.

After deciding on her tactics, Natsume-san's actions became exceptionally decisive. Her strong execution ability flared up, even allowing her to handle multiple points of conflict simultaneously.

Taking a slight step forward, the agile Natsume-san evaded the telekinetically hurled desk right in front of her.

For a telekineticist who couldn't even locate her position, it was basically a meaningless decoration. Or perhaps, to put it bluntly, none of the girls present possessed an ability that could truly oppose Natsume-san.

Even so, Natsume-san maintained a certain distance from everyone, just in case something unexpected happened.

Having just suffered a severe shock, regarding her personal safety, Natsume-san had become more cautious and unsparing in her efforts.

A pale arm subconsciously rose, pointing directly at several girls in front of Natsume-san.

Immediately, the moisture in the air began rapidly changing form, and a noticeable drop in temperature spread throughout the area.

In the blink of an eye, a thin layer of solid ice formed beneath the feet of several girls. A piercing cold relentlessly climbed up their calves, swiftly sealing off most of the floor in the classroom and even the hallway.

"I'm stuck to the ice!"

A Tokiwadai girl noticed the change underfoot and immediately tried to pull her feet free.

But her actions were clearly a step too slow. The solid ice firmly gripping her shoes was difficult to break free from instantly; it had even encased her ankles, a wave of icy cold instantly shooting through her body.

"Get back, quick!"

Reacting immediately, another girl with twin tails grabbed her teammate, who hadn't been affected yet, and both hurriedly retreated further away.

However, as she retreated, she suddenly found her footing gone. The two of them tumbled down the stairwell one after the other, only to be enveloped by a cushion of soft air. Their bodies immediately became immobilized.

Gradually managing the situation, Natsume-san finally gained rough control over the chaotic scene. She was using the gentlest means possible to handle this student brawl and friction.

And she wouldn't choose to tank the ability users' attacks head-on—that was Accelerator's specialty. By leveraging her own unique advantages, she could quickly achieve her goal of quelling the incident.

With her vast area of ability influence, it seemed like Natsume-san was surrounded, but in reality, she was the one surrounding everyone.

"Senpai."

"I'm very curious, what exactly are you trying to do? If you just wanted to attack me, you already succeeded when you set that trap earlier."

Having successfully dragged Yumiya Iruka-senpai into a low-oxygen environment, a certain bun-head's voice sounded again, watching the senpai who was gradually gasping for air.

"But Senpai, you're probably being controlled, forced to act against your will, right?"

"I can relate to that quite a bit myself."

Shaking her head, the bun-head who answered her own question muttered softly. She still trusted her own judgment.

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T/N: If you want advance chapters, you can find it at [email protected]/AspenTL