The complete absence of people was admittedly a bit awkward, but Natsume-san certainly didn't think she'd come all this way for nothing.
Anyone who spent even a little time with Shokuhou-senpai would quickly realize she had certain… peculiar stubbornnesses.
The fact that the Juvenile Correctional Facility now looked as welcoming as a neighborhood park for tourists was undoubtedly that senpai's doing.
So, by following Shokuhou-senpai's likely train of thought, she should find a clue to her whereabouts soon enough.
As it turned out, Natsume-san understood Shokuhou-senpai quite well.
A Mental Out ability user would definitely need to avoid the ever-present security and surveillance. That meant she must have found a foothold somewhere around here.
Yet, acting completely contrary to that logical thought, Natsume-san plunged headlong into the facility's interior, quickly becoming lost within its sprawling complex of buildings.
Looking for a mere 'foothold' seemed pointless now. The bun-girl decided her time was better spent figuring out what that senpai had done here to end up in a radio-silent state.
Wandering from Block F to Block D, the bun-girl had completely lost her sense of direction, relying solely on the thermal map in her mind to navigate the halls.
Passes branched out in all directions, rooms were countless. Though from the outside it just looked like rows of three-story buildings, the interior had underground levels, their total area even exceeding that of the surface.
Block F was the novice zone, for ordinary inmates with correction periods under three months, located above ground.
Block D, however, was different. It housed mostly student criminals with abilities of Level 3 'Strong' or higher, their caliber rivaling that of the elite school Tokiwadai, and it was situated one floor underground.
Most students sent here would end up spending their entire youth within these walls.
To be fair, the bar for getting sent here was pretty high, so Natsume-san didn't exactly feel sorry for them.
Academy City dealt with crime daily. The Anti-Skill would hand cases over to the juvenile court for public trial, with most sentences being community service or short-term confinement. Very few students ever made it to the Correctional Facility.
Even after Juufuku-san attacked Tokiwadai Middle School and left Kongou-senpai unconscious, the punishment was just a few weeks of off-campus labor. You only got sent here for serious stuff like intentional grievous bodily harm or acts of terrorism.
Looked at that way, Academy City's sentencing was pretty lenient. Vandalism or the occasional brawl barely even registered.
Then again, this was a city of espers. Overly harsh rules probably weren't conducive to ability development, or so they said.
Shokuhou-senpai remained elusive for now, so Natsume Sonoko found herself curiously exploring this new map.
Right, she'd subconsciously been ignoring thermal perception below ground level before.
Natsume-san's perception field was a perfect sphere, naturally including the earth and spaces beneath the surface.
While she could receive thermal feedback from underground, Natsume Sonoko usually avoided processing that information and feeding it back to her brain, at most using some algorithms for automated threat detection.
After her last dive into the microscopic world, she'd lost the ability to selectively receive and process information outside her control, but within her own ability's domain, it was still effortless.
The denser the material, the more computational power required to process the information. Subsurface consumption far exceeded that above ground, making it pointless unless she was specifically looking for underground facilities.
Besides, Natsume-san didn't always keep her 'radar map' expanded to its maximum range.
Maintaining both the radar map and the constant-temperature layer around her body kept her computational power expenditure and recovery in a steady balance.
'I stumble and rush towards you, but you can't just leave alone.'
Walking down a long underground corridor, Natsume-san came face-to-face with a powered suit. They passed each other by, like two strangers with no connection whatsoever.
The next second, a thick layer of ice encrusted the powered suit, before a powerful gust of wind sent it slamming into the wall.
A look of delight appeared on Natsume-san's face. Finally, ten minutes after leaving the 'game arena,' she had encountered her first person at the destination.
Natsume-san's plan was simple: use her 'Kirin Arm' to breach the cockpit and check if the person inside had starry pupils.
Raising both arms high, ice spread upwards from her elbows, forming white fists the size of small sandbags. A massive gust of wind provided immense propulsive force.
With a powerful punch, Natsume-san instantly dented the metal armor in front of the cockpit—seemingly tougher than she'd expected.
Not that she was worried about the pilot inside. Whatever the model, powered suits offered excellent protection for their occupants.
"Just as I thought, starry pupils."
As the cockpit was forced open, Natsume-san felt a flicker of… something. She blinked, staring curiously at the female driver inside.
The uniform she wore was probably a guard's. So, staff of this facility.
That settled it. Shokuhou-senpai had definitely taken this place over.
But Natsume Sonoko and the others' goal, from start to finish, was to find the mastermind behind it all.
In Natsume-san's opinion, stealthily controlling a few management personnel should have sufficed. Finding the person who forged the documents to release Kouzaku Mitori should have been easy. But the current situation seemed to be developing in some unknown direction.
As for why such a big incident hadn't drawn the attention of Anti-Skill or the suppression teams, that was likely also thanks to that senpai's influence.
"Hey, hey, Shokuhou-senpai, can you hear me? This is the Tokiwadai reinforcement team."
The bun-girl tried the simplest method to get the senpai's attention, reaching out to gently pinch the female guard's cheek. It elicited no response.
"Just an implanted 'command,' not under Shokuhou-senpai's direct control?"
Natsume Sonoko was momentarily taken aback, carefully recalling what she knew of that senpai's abilities.
She didn't know the full details of Shokuhou-senpai's capabilities, but she was familiar with the standard methods employed by mental-type ability users.
Until a specific command was fulfilled, people controlled by mental-type abilities would remain in a distracted state, as if their brains had been forcibly commandeered.
Such methods were ineffective against Natsume-san, of course. Beings like her required precise, direct control; implanted commands simply couldn't handle the brain of a Level 5.
"Still trying to move?"
A spark of curiosity lit up Natsume-san's face because the female guard she had pinned down was still struggling to get up, trying to carry out some task.
Block D had more people than she'd expected. Even further down, there were more still, most of them in some kind of coma.
Even this female guard seemed to have just woken up from unconsciousness before continuing to follow her orders.
After only a few seconds of hesitation, Natsume-san abandoned the idea of exploring deeper.
Better to find out what Shokuhou-senpai's command was first.
--+--
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.