Measure Heart

A girl in a showy dress came walking from around a corner behind Kakine.

(It’s that crane woman!!)

For a second, Hamazura couldn’t decide who to aim the gun at. But...

“You should stop that.”

With those words, Hamazura Shiage couldn’t move his body.

“It was necessary to kill you before, but now that we have the Tweezers, there’s no need
to kill someone from their subordinate organization.”

(...!?)

It wasn’t that his body had become paralyzed for some reason. There was no problem
with his body physically. It was just that a “sense” that he couldn’t shoot even if he
wanted to grew up unnaturally within him.

It was the same way he wouldn’t be able to crush a napping cat under his foot.

It was the same way he wouldn’t be able to kill a sick kid and steal everything the kid
had.

It was the same way he wouldn’t be able to turn his gun on Takitsubo Rikou.

“From the look on your face, you must be fairly kind on the inside. I should have just
used my power from the get-go.”

A broad smile appeared on the girl in the dress’s face.

“My Measure Heart can freely regulate the distance between people’s hearts. What do
you think will happen if I set it to the distance of the various people you know?”

“Kh...!!”

(What is this? An application of Telepathy!?)

“How about you stop. Currently I’m at a distance of 20. In other words, I’m keeping it at
the same heart distance as ‘Hamazura Shiage – Takitsubo Rikou’. You can’t shoot me
the same way you wouldn’t be able to shoot Takitsubo. If you were willing to come back
for her, you would never hurt her, right?”

His hand holding the gun was shaking.

He couldn’t shoot. He knew Takitsubo and the girl in the dress were two different people,
but he just couldn’t do it.

-Toaru Majutsu no Index Volume 15 Chapter 4 Part 5