The way Baba told it, the experience of being possessed felt like something (might have been the demon lord, couldn’t tell) had been interfering with her thinking through the World Shadow, influencing her to do things with evil intent. But in light of how roundabout the method was, as well as how it didn’t actually cause any severe or permanent consequences, Boss conjectured that such methods really were contrary to the real nature of the World Shadows and thus consequently they were very bad at it.
If Baba’s mind had been completely taken over by the World Shadow, it could have made her stab Shouta when he had his guard down, or even made her commit suicide. The fact that it had instead led her to adopt such roundabout methods like smuggling out PSI drives and replacing them with red-colored fish was proof that she had not been under complete mind control, and that the effect of the mini-World Shadow was merely on the level of directing her thought pattern toward an evil tendency.
Another way of putting it would be like a fish that tried to run on land and failed. World Shadows were innately incapable of properly carrying out this kind of mind game.
Lastly, according to the psychometry analysis performed on the mini-World Shadow remains, Boss determined that it was in an extremely unstable state, which meant that it would have died naturally in a few days even if Touka didn’t incinerate it. The final conclusion that Boss arrived at was that it was actually so weak that it couldn’t leech onto espers, those with a Seed of a superpower, or even those aware of and on guard against it.
In other words, those aware of this new form of World Shadow wouldn’t get possessed by it, whereas espers (i.e. all Amaterasu members) don’t even have to do anything and would still be immune against them. The whole psychometry thing was a lie to give more credence to this backstory.
Thing was, if I didn’t issue an official declaration like this, the two students might fall into the mire of constantly doubting whether the other members were possessed or not. Maintaining their mental health was also a very important part of our duties as those in the setup team.
......That said, it was great that I could brew up whatever cover story I wanted to justify Baba’s betrayal and explain the identity of the mini-World Shadow, but it was also a worry that things might get out of hand if I went overboard. Gotta be more careful about this kind of thing, I suppose.
For the sake of recuperating from the mental strain of having been possessed, Baba was going to take a break from commuting to Kaneyama Tech and stay at the Takahashi residence for some much-needed rest. During that time, we were going to (pretend to) work hard at retrieving all the PSI drives that had made their way onto the streets. The plan was to lay most of the credit for the retrievals at the feet of Kaburagi-san’s money and connections.
When Baba recovered fully and returned to us, everything would be back to normal. Having overcome this trial by learning suspicion as well as faith in their comrades in spite of that suspicion, the two students were going to open the chapter on their high school life with a new heart and a fresh mindset————
⚔
Nighttime on the same day found Lonalia Linalia Baba-Nyan in the changing area right outside the bathroom of the Takahashi residence. She took off all her clothes, transferred the branch in her hair to a vase, then softly stepped into the bathroom, within which was only a shower and a bathtub. She locked the door to the room, then stood still, listening carefully. The extraordinary sense of hearing unique to the Alvu confirmed that none of the residents of the house were anywhere near the bathroom, and that none of them were paying any attention to her.
Without even giving a glance toward the bathtub, Baba-Nyan turned on the showerhead and pointed it at a corner of the room to create the sound of running water as a camouflage.
Next, she placed a finger on one of the tiles depressed into the wall, then moved in the order of right, up, down, push, right. Immediately, the click of a lock being disengaged could be heard. The tile fell out into her hand, revealing a space barely large enough to fit an attaché case. Packed inside that space were several platinum plates processed to varying degrees, as well as various tools, blueprints, and parts of a frame.
After confirming that everything was present and untouched since she’d last seen them, Baba heaved a sigh of relief. It had taken her six whole months to create just this small of a space. It was a secret that nobody knew about. This was true of not only the members of the Takahashi family, but Sago as well. Due to his promise with Shiori Kaburagi, the nearly omniscient Kinemitsu Sago, most likely first and last of his kind, had a policy of never peeking at females in the bathroom. Consequently, Baba had been bringing in tiny bits and pieces hidden in her underwear and hair and using her one hour in the bathroom—the only place she could know for sure that Sago’s otherwise undetectable telekinetic monitoring would not be watching—to slowly work on this day by day.
Baba-Nyan took the metal plates and tools out from the space, then began working on them with incredible speed and precision. Her movements were even more mechanical than actual machines, and her eyes were filled with concentration.
What she was making was, of course, a PSI drive. And it wasn’t any run-of-the mill PSI drive. No, it was to be the most powerful one that she had made to date, one that was guaranteed to penetrate through Sago’s resistance. It was to be the ultimate anti-demon lord weapon.
Another platinum part just got finished.
Through Baba-Nyan’s research at Kaneyama Tech, she had already figured out the optimum design that would be the most effective against the superpowers that existed on Earth. The blueprints were already finalized. All that was left was to work according to them.
All of a sudden, the memory of the time when Sago revealed the truth regarding the secret organization arose unbidden in Baba-Nyan’s mind. She abruptly clapped a hand over her mouth, barely preventing herself from vomiting at the red-hot anger that pulsed through her veins. The greatest rage that Baba had felt throughout her long, long life was not so easily forgotten. Even now, it continued smoldering inside her chest. She was only barely suppressing the urge to scream and wail and go on a rampage.
This was a secret project, after all. No one must be allowed to catch on.
Detective Yasui, whose help Baba had enlisted, had not been informed of the overall plan. The way Baba was handling him was by repeatedly sending him on trifling fetch quests while making them sound mysterious and important while paying him handsomely each time. By the time he got accustomed to this and started to trust her, that was when she would inveigle him into doing one last job for her.
“...I’m running out of time,” murmured Baba while resuming her work.
At around the 50 minute mark, she wrapped up what she was doing and carefully put everything back into the hole in the wall. With the five minutes she had remaining, she then gave her body a quick wash before stepping out nonchalantly.
When Shouta offered a popsicle for her to enjoy as a snack to cool down with after her supposedly warm bath, she accepted it with a bright smile while saying thanks. It was a pure and innocent smile, free from even the tiniest taint of maliciousness.