[Part 1]
An average human brain was roughly 1300 grams, and had about 86 billion neurones, all arranged in a complex pattern that turned this chunk of flesh into a unique, one of a kind biocomputer. It had many fragile, yet important components, each responsible for very specific things, yet capable of compensating for each other to a limited degree. To truly be able to repair a human brain, or to change its functions in some capacity, one had to possess a very specialised set of knowledge.
Hiei had no such knowledge.
No, while she had the basics down, she could not be a neurosurgeon if she tried - this subject was just too far outside her area of interest, so she never studied it closely enough.
Still, she knew some very important things.
First, there was a stark structural difference between brains that were evolved to handle psychic energy, and those that were not. In species that have been psychic for thousands and millions of years, their neural pathways were specifically built to handle this kind of energy, allowing it to freely and harmlessly pass through the fragile flesh. Meanwhile, species that grew into psychic powers in the past few generations, as well as specimen that randomly obtained this ability, had an abnormality - usually in the frontal lobe - that could be considered a new region of the brain, since it was specifically responsible for handling psychic powers. Said mutation was both a blessing and a curse, since it pulled resources away from the rest of the brain, speeding up its deterioration and ageing.
In other words, unless a brain was built through thousands and millions of generations to specifically handle psychic powers, their energies were harmful to its health.
"WHAT'S THE MATTER, BUTCHER? YOU DON'T LOOK SO WELL"
Second, a brain that lacked an adaptation allowing it to process psychic powers did not pick up telepathic signals. Not voluntarily, that is. One could still project telepathic messages into said brain, but there was a catch - processing them required said brain to use all of its resources to do so. And no, not just the parts of it that were responsible for thoughts and sensory data processing. ALL of it. A single telepathic message was occupying every neural pathway in every part of the brain, including those responsible for the five senses, motor functions, and even subconscious parts of the nervous system.
Essentially, processing a single telepathic message shut down the entire body for a few moments, causing a clinical death, while overworking the braincells to the point of burnout. Depending on how healthy the recipient was, it could easily take just one or two telepathic messages to kill them, or a few dozens to fry their brain into a dead lump of matter.
Tomohito clearly belonged to the first group, as he suddenly went limp and unresponsive on the floor. Not that Hiei planned to let him off this easily. Narrowing her eyes, Gardevoir extended a clawed finger towards the body, shooting a spark of psychokinetic energy through his chest, the jolt jumpstarting his heart again.
"YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EXPIRE. NOT YET"
Third, if a brain lacked any sort of adaptations to process telepathic messages, it also lacked a basic filter to protect one's thoughts and memories. With the entirety of the brain too busy deciphering the horrible, aberrant signal to even bother with keeping the body alive, all of its memories were out in the open, regardless of how repressed they were. Of course, such memories were not the most reliable source of information - a flesh brain had this tendency to warp and simplify memories in order to store them better - but in some cases, it did not matter much.
Hiei could methodically rummage through everything stored in this quickly deteriorating chunk of flesh - but delving too far into the head of this butcher just felt too gross to consider. An easier option would've been to ask a question - the brain would've supplied the requested information as if its life depended on it.
"DO YOU KEEP RECORDS, BUTCHER?"
Of course, Tomohito did not reply verbally, too busy lying on the ground and voicelessly shouting into the void that was wrapping his entire pathetic existence. His brain, however, was already spilling every single detail he knew on the matter, and every tangental piece of information it could possibly offer.
He did keep records. Not physical records - those were too prone to being stolen. He did not trust the League, you see. They already tried to replace him once, and it took some serious blackmail to make them reconsider. No, he did not trust the League at all - which is why all his records were stored on an offline personal computer. And he did not just make due with it being offline either, of course he did not. It was hooked up to his own personal security server, and required Tomohito's biometrics to access. And he HAD to change said biometrics every two weeks, otherwise he'd lose access.
And oh, that number, two weeks, was very important. You see, that's also how often he HAD to access his personal computer, at the very least. Of course he used the thing daily, with maybe two or three days off when he was out carving Pokemon brains in places like Tedorigawa facility, but if he ever missed his home for two weeks or more? All the hell would've broken loose.
You see, he did not trust the League at all. He refused to train a student, and he refused to share his research. It would've been too easy to replace him then, and they'd do so in a heartbeat. Which is why, his security server was always counting down these two weeks. Once the timer reached zero, all the research specifics on his computer would've been wiped without a trace, while an abridged version - that is, the one stating all the horrible little things League had been up to, along with the info on 101s - would've been uploaded all over the Internet, for every single human in the world to see.
If he was ever going down, he'd made sure to take the League down with him - which is why they always made sure he was protected. Made sure he was safe.
Except… He was not?..
"LOOKS LIKE YOU MADE THE CLEANUP EASIER FOR ME. THAT WAS YOUR ONLY DOING TO TRULY BE APPRECIATED."
Once again, Tomohito flatlined under the strain. Once again, Hiei sent a psychokinetic jolt through his heart, forcing his fading, fracturing consciousness back into the land of the living.
"COME NOW. YOU FANCY YOURSELF A NEUROSCIENTIST, DON'T YOU?" she sneered, casually sitting in the air and looking down at the butcher, "I WANT TO VERIFY, JUST HOW MUCH OF A HUMAN BRAIN CAN BE FRIED BEFORE IT'S NO LONGER ABLE TO SUSTAIN LIFE."
Zeroed again.
One more jolt.
[Part 2]
"So, tell me if I missed anything," Taro sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, as his scheduled migraine settled in, "We confirmed that the THING that is walking through these halls matches with the depictions of Gardevoir, and with the Calamity wrecking the campus outside, it means it's most likely the Ghost"
"Yep!"
"And we've also lost contact with every single combatant and enforcer the moment they laid an eye on this 101. In some cases, even before that"
"Correct!"
"A minute ago, after some weird malfunction, we've completely lost Fujiwara Tomohito's signal, meaning he's likely dead"
"A shame, really."
"And you want to confront that horrible thing on its way OUT?"
"Exactly!"
The detective suppressed a deep sigh, looking at his boss plainly. They, meanwhile, looked rather excited.
"Okay, first of all, why now?"
"You were right, you know? It and Calamity did come here to kill Tomohito. The Ghost specifically made a beeline for him, even ignoring the 101 holding cells. But now, with its mission complete, what is it likely to do?"
"Either kill the rest of us, or escape into the wilderness"
"Out of these two, I'd bet it's the second one. But more importantly, the Ghost is likely to relax. Or maybe even slow down due to fatigue. Maybe visit the 101 holding cells on its way out"
"You… Were planning to wait for Ghost to relax or get weakened all along?"
"That I did, yeah."
"Okay, fine, but… Are you aware that it's been killing people the moment they get too close? Like, some of those were not even in the same room as it, and still went offline!"
"Well, then I just have to be sure I don't get too close, do I?" Kagetora smiled.
Whatever that meant, Taro had a very, very bad feeling about this…
[Part 3]
After cooking Tomohito's brain to cinders, tearing his body apart, and disposing of the remains via black hole, Hiei was finally satisfied with her handiwork. There was no way for this wretched being to come back to life from THIS. Of course, she could've gone straight to the black hole solution, but it felt necessary to imprint into her memory just HOW DEAD the butcher was.
Very, very dead.
Although there was an issue of energy. No, she did not spend much of it on Tomohito himself - telepathy was probably even easier than talking - although the road to him AND disposing of his body managed to physically tire her out. Luckily, all she needed to do was to go outside, and reconvene with her girlfriend, who no doubt would be happy to carry Hiei away from this pl-
Suddenly, Gardevoir stopped, as she saw six Pokemon in full battle gear blocking her path. No human anywhere close. There were some over a hundred meters away, but picking them out one by one…
In front of here were a roundish bipedal purple ghost with a wide grin, a hulking quadruped figure of blue steel with a cross on its enormous face, a sleek black and purple bipedal lizard, a short pink thing with a giant steel hammer. A Gallade. And a mechanical abomination like the one from the mountain.
"GREETINGS, GHOST OF MT. HIEI!" the six speakers on these Pokemon' battle armours spoke human in unison, "CAN WE TALK?"